Need some help with calories.

TheBigLife14

I started 8 weeks ago yesterday and I have lost 29lbs. I started at 336 now down to 307lbs. I know I need to eat better (I really do) since I started I was eating 1200 calories and my first week went great lost 7lbs right off the bat. Now I find myself only eating 800-950 calories a day. Still losing weight but some weeks are -2 to -4lbs. I do get at least 30 mins of exercise 6 days a week. MFP gives me like 1600 to eat. So I was wondering if I started eating 1300 - 1600 would I start gaining the weight I lost back? If so would it even out in a few weeks? Or am I stuck at the low calories from now on?

*Please there is no need to be mean to me. I am still learning what to do and what not to do. Anything you give me I will take and use it the best I can. Thank you

Nice2BFitAgain

Congratulations on your success to date!

How tall are you? What is your daily activity like? Do you have a desk job, are you standing all day, chasing kids around?

The more weight you have to take off the fast it comes off in the beginning, it tapers off gradually. A 2 - 4 pound weight loss per week is still outstanding! Don't be alarmed if the loss sticks to around 2# per week, this is still a great weight loss rate.

You are right to be concerned about starting out too low on calories. As the weight loss starts to go down so does your calorie needs. If you start at 1200 where are you going to go from there?

TheBigLife14

I am 5'4 and thank you I stay at home and take care of the house and my family. I do go to the gym 3 days a week and a work out video 3 days a week. Other then that not much moving around.

MinnieInMaine

Some of this may come off as tough love

Eat the 1600 calories and eat back at least half of earned calories. Your body needs a minimum # of calories just to support basic function (as if you were in a coma) aka BMR - and for you, that's about 2100 calories. Then let's say you're sedentary - that brings your daily calorie needs up to about 2500 cal per day. So with a NET 1600 cal/day intake (that's eating 1600+ half of earned calories), you've got a deficit of at least 900 cal per day which should allow you to lose close to 2 pounds per week.

1200 is the minimum for an average woman to support basic nutrition, definitely not enough calories for you, especially on the days you exercise. Given that you're obese, sure you can handle a bit more of a deficit but you really shouldn't do so without doctor's supervision. Trust the MFP calculations. The deficit is already included based on your personal stats, your daily activity level (sedentary, lightly active, etc) and the # of pounds you said you wanted to lose per week.

Undereating may speed up the loss a bit but as the above poster pointed out - what are you going to do when you get closer to goal? At some point you need to let it even out and worry more about your health and meeting your bodies nutritional needs than what the scale says.

lemurcat12

Congrats on your loss so far!

Why were you eating below the recommended calories? Because you weren't hungry/were nervous about what to eat? (I think this is common.) Or are you not trusting the recommendation/think you need to do it a harder/faster way?

As you know, you need to raise your calories. You should not gain weight back or stop losing if you increase your calories. If you'd been low for a while it might require an adjustment period to bring up your metabolism, but that's unlikely when you still have a lot to lose, it's only been a few weeks, and your own results show that you are losing more than the 2 lb max that MFP is based on average, which means that if you follow the recommendation you can probably still lose 2 lbs/week (until you get closer to goal) in a much more sustainable fashion. If you raise the calories to the recommendation, you should be fine and keep losing steadily. Also remember that you can eat back exercise calories (but be skeptical of the counts from MFP, they are usually too high) and that you can get blips from week to week and should not panic (I usually lose 2 lbs, but on occasion, especially at that time of the month, don't, and it usually gets made up the next week).