How do I change how I eat?

AliciaV30

I stay under my 1200 cal goal every day I lost weight every week when I first started working out but I eat whatever I want just stay under my calorie goal. But now it seems like I'm loosing weight a lot slower then before so I know I need to change how I eat I just don't know how to do it lol I mean I know but its hard. Any advice would be great!!

Also any friends that wanna help me out send me a friend request that would be great too :flowerforyou:

Alicia

PoochPottery

May I suggest you read Food Rules by Michael Pollan? From there you can then get into the Clean Eating books. Just my thoughts.

durhamity

oxygen magazine and anything by Tosca Reno have a lot of good tips as well.

tigersword

Staying under 1200 calories is most likely the culprit, eating at too low of a calorie level for an extended period of time drastically slows your metabolism, which causes weight loss to slow down, as your metabolism slows down to match what you eat. You probably aren't eating enough.

lmelangley

For most people, 1200 cals is the minimum a person should eat. If you're working out, you should be eating back at least some of your exercise calories, as well.

It may sound odd, but I go into long plateaus if I eat 1200 calories- I changed my goal to losing half a pound a week and eat around 1300 cals instead, and that beats the plateaus every time. So, my advice to you is, try eating a small amount more and see what happens.

ajbeans

Without making your food diary public it's hard to help you. But if you're eating significantly under your calorie goal on a daily basis, your metabolism might be slowing, which would lead to slower weight loss. That will be made worse if you're also exercising. Also, you don't say how long you've been at this and what your rate of loss has been. It's normal in the first couple of weeks to see a dramatic weight loss as you shed water weight, but then it slows down.

_GlaDOS_

While I think Michael Pollan is a great author, I think it's probably more about how much you eat and your deficit. What do you have your weight loss goal set at? I recommend setting it at a 1 lb loss if it's not already. When you exercise, you should also eat back as many of the calories your burn as possible.

JacksMom12

The less weight you have to lose, and the closer to goal you are... The slower it will come off. You should not being eating less than 1200 a day though, that opens up a whole topic of why you aren't losing that I'm sure people will come on and explain as I don't feel like being redundant. Also, slow weight loss is healthy. I lose about a half pound a week but it has added up to over 30 pounds. If you are interested in very quick unsustainable loss, perhaps try HCG? Kidding, don't do that. At all.

mfrench728

It shows on the site that eating under 1200 calories a day will slow your weight loss since your metabolism doesnt have to work as hard to burn, especially if you are working out it is important to make sure you reach your food goal, if you find yourself under have a protein based supplement to make up for those missing calories and help you to reach your success! I lost around 30 lbs 6 years a go and have kept it off and use this site to maintain my weight, i made the same mistake when i first started out and would get so aggervated-- make sure you watch the quality of what you eat and reach those calorie goals daily (unlike myself sometimes this time of year !)

Lizzy_Sunflower

I will admit I didn't read the thread, but the answer to the title of this thread is Baby Steps! It is amazing how little changes add up in the end.

Not to self promote, but I learned a lot about how to rethink weight loss doing a weight loss study. My blog contains all the notes they gave me so far on the process of teaching yourself how to change how we eat, exercise and cope with you the inevitable speed bumps along the way.

check it out here:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/Lizzy_Sunflower

Good luck ! :drinker: