Question from a newbie

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JonEdwards1975
JonEdwards1975 Posts: 6
in Introduce Yourself
Hi,

I stumbled across this website and it looks great to help me lose some weight.

I'm about 10kg (22lbs) over weight, nearly all of which sits on my gut like a spare tire. The weight didn't bother me for years when it was slowly creaping up but now it has got to the stage where it is the first thing most people notice about me.

So finally I have the motivation to lose the weight and do it quite quickly. The hardest parts for me will be alcohol. It's unrealistic for me to say i'm going to quit completely, so i'm going to try an cut it out during the week and limit to a few glasses of wine at the weekend (not so confident this will happen...). Secondly I live in Shanghai so a lot of the food I will eat in restaurants (I have to take clients out about 3 times a week) is difficult to judge accurately; my plan for this is to order what I think looks healthy-ish and then only eat half as much as I did before.

I'm on the 3rd day and i've got a question..i'm under the calorie limit for each day so far and don't feel hungry, just need a bit of will power not to have a beer or snacks...so far so good...but if I am too far under the 1200 limit, will this stop me losing weight? If I am at 900 or so for the day, should I eat some fruit or something to get me up to nearer 1200?

This community looks great, thanks for reading.

Jon.

p.s. I made my diary public so feel free to have a look.

Replies

  • pennelope515
    pennelope515 Posts: 369
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    Yes. Eat 1200 calories. You may lose weight at first but then your body will think you are starving and store fat! Eat 1200!

    Peanut Butter is high in calories have a serving of that.
    Also... How do you know you are under when you are going to restaurants all the time? Are you estimating calories?
    And any liquid(s) you drink have to count toward your calories so be really careful when it comes to alcohol. The problem with that is if you have a limit of 1200 calories and you spend 400 of it on alcohol and only consume 800 calories you are losing out on major nutrition!

    Good Luck!
  • ALLENFLO
    ALLENFLO Posts: 61 Member
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    We would need to know your stats.

    Height
    Weight
    Age
    Hobbies
    Pets

    1200 calories sounds very low for a male, even during weight loss.
  • JonEdwards1975
    JonEdwards1975 Posts: 6
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    Thanks for the reply :)

    I'm only in day 3 so haven't been to restaurants yet...but you are right it will be difficult to calculate when I do. One thing that real Chinese restaurants do well is lots of steamed vegetables so I plan to try to stick to those as much as I can and avoid anything in a sauce where it will be impossible to tell what exactly is in it.

    I've been counting very carefully so far and included drinks and even oils in my diary. It's easy to say after only 3 days but so far so good.

    Thanks for the advice, i'll stick to as close to 1200 from now on :)
  • JonEdwards1975
    JonEdwards1975 Posts: 6
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    Thanks Allenflo....to answer....

    Height: 1m 81
    Weight: 88kg
    Age: 38
    Hobbies: I walk and cycle. Main hobbies are pub/ friends/ beer related and this will be my biggest problem
    Pets: er.....none!
  • JudyBrackney
    JudyBrackney Posts: 8 Member
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    Hi there Jon,

    In Weight Watchers they always said that if you don't eat your quota your body will go into a starvation mode and everything you put into your mouth will go to fat. So eat all your food and exercise. Exercise is very important and will help you to loose quicker. Don't starve yourself, eat what they say you can have. You will be shock to see that you are eating more and loosing more. Your picking out the right foods and not the bad foods like alcohol, deserts. Men are so lucky because they can quit one thing in their eating and loose the belly, lol. So do your best and eat and exercise ok. Judy Brackney, age 66
  • JonEdwards1975
    JonEdwards1975 Posts: 6
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    Thank you Judy :)

    I will follow your advice :)

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