Is this healthy?

Yasmine91

Ok I'm 19 years old and I am 5ft 8inch weighing at 182lbs. At the moment I am sedentary but I will start going to the gym next week. Ok this site says that my calorie intake should be no less than 1200 calories, but I really struggle to go up any higher than 1000. Biggest I've been up to is 1100.

Anyways, I was wondering about my goal date, I want to get to 10 stone (140lbs) by the end of January 2011, that would mean I would have to lose 10lbs every 5 weeks, is this healthy or unrealistic?

tmcowan

I think that your goal is realistic. You do need to be at 1200 calories a day especially once you start getting active, you'll need to eat those exercise calories. Sometimes at the end of the night I'll have a couple of tablespoons of peanut butter to so I don't have as many extra calories (since I can't always eat always eat all of my exercise calories).

BOGmama2010

2 lbs a week is pretty realistic. Some weeks it might be more and some less though. You do need to eat though. Check out this blog post by Chalene Johnson (Turbo Jam, Chalene Extreme, Turbo Kick creator): http://www.turbokick.com/wblog/?p=136

I think she breaks it down pretty well.

lutzsher

You will need to bring up your calories to reach that goal however . . . Im only 5'4" and have about 45 pounds to go and I must get in about 1300 calories per day if I don't exercise or just go for a leisurly walk . . . If I work out hard I have to increase up to 1400 to 1450.
Unless you can get a few more calories into your day you likely won't see the scale move as much as you want to. It is hard to wrap your head around it . . . but you MUST eat MORE to lose more (healthy food that is . . . and don't forget to drink that water too).

Try adding in a bit of avacado to your salad or sandwich, some saltless nuts, and lots of lean protein. These are all healthy items that will help pad up those daily calories.

jameskirkbride

It really depends on if you intend to keep weight off long term?

you can easily lose 2lb per week BUT it is more likely that this weight will be re-gained once 'normal' service is resumed. If you are only eating 1000 cals per day though? is this your normal intake? or are you trying to cut back more than the site says? because on 1000 per day I would say weight should be flying off (in an unhealthy way) ... you need to make sure you are logging food accurately.

Personally I would say that a healthy rate of weight loss that won't screw up your metabolic rate would be between 0.5 - 1 lb a week. 2lb is realistic, but will lead to some serious plateaus in a couple of months & then rapid gain if you eat too much say on vacation.

Mepheston

The thing to remember here and the reason everyone one telling you to eat what MFP tells you to eat calorie wise is that if you don't your metabolism will completely tank and you won't lose anything. Your body will go into starvation mode and you will start holding onto every single calorie you eat because your body thinks you're going hungry and it needs to store fat to live off of. So do yourself a HUGE favor and eat the calories it suggests, it may seem counterintitive but you'll thank yourself in the end.

rose1617

Remember: starvation mode is eating under half of your BMR calories for a prolonged period of time.
If you're not doing that, your body won't enter "starvation mode".
MFP and any diet or lifetime change program will require some give and take. Try something (your current weight loss plan). If it isn't working, you don't have enough energy, you are too hungry, etc. then change it. Do this until you find what works for your body and stick with it.

I agree somewhat with the above posters in stating the first thing you should do is find out what your BMR is and remember that in order to lose weight, you'll need to be under it.
For example, my BMR is 1445 calories/day. If I were to do no exercise (sedentary), I would need to eat around 945 cals/day to lose a pound a week (considering a pound of fat = 3500 cals). At that level, people would swear I'm starving myself, but in actuality I'd still be eating over half of my BMR calories and would not be in "starvation mode".
My actual BMR (including exercise) is 1878. In order to lose a pound per week, I'd need to eat 1378 cals/day. As it happens, I'm usually somewhere between 1100 and 1400/day and am losing around a pound/week (sometimes more, sometimes less).
MFP is very general. Figure out what works for you and stick with it. You'll see lasting change in no time.

Yasmine91

I see, so it's best that I just eat my calories then. Ok, kewl. Kinda annoying though when they say at the bottom, oh it's unhealthy even though I only have 9 calories left to it. What can I eat that's 9 caloires? LOL