Health and Weight Loss

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evangsyjohnson
evangsyjohnson Posts: 1 Member
in Health and Weight Loss

I've been on a 1200 calorie deficit for a while now and have lost 30lbs, am beginning to plateau, would it help if I went up to 1400/1500 and add more protein to my diet?

Answers

  • age_is_just_a_number
    age_is_just_a_number Posts: 1,074 Member

    sorry … do you mean you’ve been eating 1200 calories or your deficit is 1200?
    a 1200 deficit is huge and you may have slowed your metabolism down. Check out this video https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTelDpsMPARWfYbl2_wbXroECOPfXhHt7&si=ZrDGI6jsqOROLkqa

  • age_is_just_a_number
    age_is_just_a_number Posts: 1,074 Member

    And this one.

    https://youtu.be/f9rvLrG-2nQ?si=jYANdxdxSOGi-1h6
  • age_is_just_a_number
    age_is_just_a_number Posts: 1,074 Member

    And this one.

    https://youtu.be/bGCYKfFlDSA?si=yROICMqlxNmkEkEN
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 37,064 Member

    30 pounds loss is great: Congratulations!

    How close are you getting to goal weight? How fast did you lose that 30 pounds? It's more health promoting to slow loss rate as we get close to goal: That's why I'm asking.

    When you say "beginning to plateau", what exactly does that mean? No loss? If so, for how long? Slow loss? If so, how much lost over the past 4 weeks? 2 weeks?

    Has anything else changed in your life as you've begun to plateau, such as changes in your exercise routine, job, daily life movement, eating style, overall health scenario?

    Scale stalls can happen for a variety of reasons, and some of them aren't about slower fat loss.

    When you say "1200 calorie deficit", I'm going to interpret that as eating 1200, since you say "would it help if I went up to 1400/1500".

    Would you lose weight faster at more calories? Probably no. Almost certainly no. There are possibly a very narrow range of cases where increasing calories leads to better results, but they aren't common. Usually increasing calories slows or stops weight loss.

    Would you lose weight faster if you ate more protein? Well, if you're not getting enough protein, it would certainly be good for you to fix that. Something in the range of 0.6-0.8 grams per day per pound of goal body weight would be good, or possibly more than that if athletically active.

    But lose weight faster? Directly, not by much. Protein requires a few more calories to be digested/metabolized than carbs or fats, but not enough so to make much difference in weight loss in an overall balanced diet. Indirectly, though? Many people find protein filling. If you've had trouble sticking to your 1200 calories, and the added protein helped you feel more full more often so stick with your calorie goal more often, that might be helpful.

    Honestly, 1200 is quite a low calorie level for a lot of women, the lowest level MFP will ever assign to a woman. You don't say anything about your demographics - age, height, starting and current weight, activity routines, etc. We could give you better guidance if we knew some of those things, and knew answers to some of the other questions I mentioned above.

    I'm sure you can chart a good course to your goal weight, whatever that is. It's possible that people here in the Community can help, given more information.

    Best wishes!

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