Confused on how many calories

sambo155

How do I find out what I really need to have my calorie goals at to lose? About 6 weeks ago, I started my calorie goal at 1200 / day and after 4 weeks, I hadn't lost any weight. I first want to say that I wasn't *perfect* by any stretch, I've learned more since then and still learning, so I'm not looking for advice on what I could've done differently or answers to why I didn't lose weight. However, in those threads, I received some conflcting advice, such as 1200 calories being too few. Many folks have said that when they plateaued, they increased their calories and started losing again. That's so hard to wrap my brain around! I mean, a caloric deficit = losing weight, right? Oh, yeah... the whole "starvation mode" thing. So, I thought I would try a small increase (and smarter choices!) but I don't know what I should increase it to. I did the online calculators for the BMR and calculated what I should be at to lose weight. It said 1200. But on here, some folks said that 1200 is too few for *anyone* and not healthy. I'm confused!

kaydensmom12

1200 can be too low and cause the body into the starvation mode. If you do not know what the starvation mode is, it is when your are confusing the body into thinking that there is a famine so it saves all of the nutrients that it can and slows down your metabolism to save energy. So if you are not getting enough calories for your body, which it sounds like you are not considering you have not lost any weight, then your metabolism is slow and you are not going to be able to lose weight. Yes you do need a deficit to loose weight but as long as you are eating under your bmr then you are getting the deficit. My fitness pal suggests 1200 calories for me as well but I go with 1300-1350 because with 1200 I plateaued every 2-5 pounds. You need to find what works for you so I would increase you caloric goal to 1300-1350. Be aware that if your body is in the starvation mode you may gain weight when increase your calories for a while until your body sees that there is enough nutrients and until your metabolism speeds back up. By the way what is your BMR?