When to reduce rate of weight loss?

If you're only eating 1250 calories/day, I don't actually think you'll have to intentionally "slow down" the weight loss because your daily calorie burn drops as you lose weight (assuming you don't add more physical activity). Since you don't really have any room to lower calories in order to maintain the same deficit, your deficit will naturally shrink and your weightloss will naturally slow as you get closer to goal weight.

e.g. At your start weight, you would have been burning about 2377 calories/day (according to scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/ with the setting of 1-3 hours of light exercise per week). Currently, you are burning 2174 calories/day assuming the same activity level. When you get to 180 pounds, you'll be burning 2059 calories/day.

So, you can see that if you eat the same amount of calories, your calorie burn and therefore your deficit drops by about 320 calories/day (with the loss of ~50 pounds), and your weightloss automatically slows by just over 0.5 pounds/week.

That said, if you increase your activity level, you may need to increase calories slightly to compensate for the extra calorie burn given that your deficit is on the high end of reasonable. Or if you find yourself hungry all the time and are therefore having a hard time sticking to your calories. (I could never stick to 1250 calories!)

I think if you find it sustainable then you shouldn't worry about it. I slowed my rate of loss down when I was having trouble eating at my calorie goal for my lower weight. So I changed my rate of loss from 1 lb a week to .5 lb a week. I think just do what works for you. I lso think you'll naturally start to slow down as you have less weight to lose.

I have about 20 more pounds to lose. I had almost 100 lbs to lose in the beggining. At first, 2 lb loss a week was easy. Now, I burn less that half the calories I used to doing the same activity and I would have to eat under 1200 to lose that amount of weight a week. That is not sustainable to me, so I eat 1400 calories a day and usually eat back half my exercise calories a day to lose 1 lb per week. As a get closer (about 10lb away from my goal), I will probably adjust to 0.5 lb loss a week.

I lost at a rate of just under1 kg/week (2 lbs/week) for my first 16 weeks. At that point I had hit my first goal. I was comfortably within my normal BMI range and could stay there if I wanted ... or I could continue and aim for the bottom half of my normal BMI range.

Then a diet break.

Then 0.69 kg/week (1.5 lbs/week) for the next 16 weeks until I hit my next goal.

I had 60 lbs to lose, but decided that a 2-lb weekly goal at 1200 calories a day felt too much like a "diet" and a "temporary" way of eating rather than the lifestyle change that I really needed in order to both lose and maintain at a healthy weight.

So I decided to drop my goal to 1 lb per week, which upped my calories to 1500. Yes, it was slower (7 months for 60 lbs) but since what's in my head plays such a big part in what goes in my mouth, I think the slower pace and the calorie goal closer to my target maintenance of 1800 was the right thing for me to do.

I've been on maintenance for the past 9 months, and many of the habits I developed while losing have stayed with me through maintenance. And I have actually lost about 6 lbs since I upped my calories to 1800!

If you are in a routine that is working, and you feel healthy , engaged with it, and not starving hungry, I wouldn't change it.

If it stops working for you, you get jaded or feel rubbish, that's the time to consider tweaking it.