Should I be adjusting my calorie intake as I lose weight?

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He1loKitty
He1loKitty Posts: 212 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I started at 1600 calories a day, have lost some weight, and just came off a month long plateau. I'm trying to anticipate my next plateau (haha) and I'm wondering if I'm supposed to decrease my calorie intake as I lose weight. It makes sense right? As you lose weight you need less. Just wondering when I should do this, by how much, how often, etc. Thanks!

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  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    Are you logging your weigh in into MFP? Maybe it's changed but when I was doing MFP, you would get a calorie adjustment every 5 or 10 Lbs...can't remember exactly. If not, yeah...you'd want to adjust down every 10 lbs or so; unfortunately, the smaller you are the less calories you need.
  • He1loKitty
    He1loKitty Posts: 212 Member
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    Are you kidding? I'm definitely logging what I weigh as I lose weight! That's the time I enjoy mfp the most! :laugh:

    I haven't noticed my app adjusting my allotted calories downward as I lose so I suppose I'll do it manually. How much should I decrease by? 50? 100?
  • mommyrunning
    mommyrunning Posts: 495 Member
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    I just tested it out. You have to actually click goals and update it after you log your new weight. I went through the guided goals and it adjusted the calories.
  • He1loKitty
    He1loKitty Posts: 212 Member
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    Thanks! I will try manually adjusting. I really enjoyed eating 1600 calories a day, I guess it's time to face reality, lol.
  • kaseyr1505
    kaseyr1505 Posts: 624 Member
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    I have increased my calories as I've lost weight, because I need to be losing at a slower pace.
  • GillianMcK
    GillianMcK Posts: 401 Member
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    Up your exercise so you can continue to eat 1600 or more, it can take a bit of playing about with calories to get it right, drop it 50 cals for a couple of weeks, if nothing is happening, drop another 50 cals, it can take a couple of weeks to actually kick in.
    Maybe also figure out what your maintenance calories will be so that you don't go below that and put on a few pounds when you move from losing to maintenance!!
  • hill8570
    hill8570 Posts: 1,466 Member
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    I manually adjust down every time I log a new low (I eat at my BMR, which is easy to calculate) -- adjusting in 5 or 10 calorie decrements just seems easier for me than 50 or 100 at a time.
  • pipertargaryen
    pipertargaryen Posts: 303 Member
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    For me, personally, I was obese and started at 1200. I didn't eat back exercise calories (not that there were many to eat then!) then, nor do I now. Now that I'm nearly 50lbs lighter and MUCH more active, I eat 1400-1500 calories per day. And I'm still losing at about 1,9lbs per week (not necessarily every week; some weeks I lose 0, other weeks 3-4. It averages out to 1.9lb per week however). I don't know if that's normal? But yeah, after another 10lbs, I'm going to bump to 1600. Closer to goal, closer to maintenance.

    TL;DR - I've been eating MORE as I've lost weight!

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