Am I cutting my calories too low?

How much are you losing per week?

1. Why not pick a reasonable calorie target that falls somewhere in between 1900 and 4000?
2. How long can you realistically stay at that intake? The #1 thing that matters for weight loss is how long you can stay in the deficit, because weight loss always takes longer than you think it will.
3. If you manage to lose all the weight and stick to your plan, what happens next? Is this plan going to prepare you for maintenance?

Your BMR is about 2100 per day based on the Miflin St Jeor equation.

If you feel satisfied, energetic and are able to meet your nutrient needs: then you should be fine at the current level. If not, then increase.

Eating 4000 and not losing: not surprising. Were you maintaining or gaining at that level? If you were maintaining, and you're working out more now you could stand to increase your intake and still lose weight. If you were gaining, then its not really a valid comparison to now.

notoriousgib1 wrote: »

I am 41 yrs old, 255 lbs, 6 ft tall. My BMR is about 2300 calories, and I am cutting out a lot of carbs. I average about 1900 calories a day and that is with a daily meal of 1. Idealshake w/chia seeds 2. Quest bar 3. Pure protein shake, chia, and PB fit 4. Light and fit Greek yogurt 5. Low carb bread turkey provolone, and 6. chicken and veggies. I don't feel hungry, but I also work out 5 times a week and am worried I am starving my body. Does anyone have any input on if this is healthy, and can I sustain weight loss like this? Am I sacrificing muscle mass? I used to work out 2x a day and eat closer to 4K calories and saw no change in weight. Thanks for any help!

When you say you work out, how much and what are you doing? Do you have a calorie burn estimate?

I'm 51 (almost 52). 6" and ~260 lbs. My Neat is 2600, so MFP is giving me 1600 with a 2 lb per week loss.

I'm on the treadmill 5-6 days a week for 30 mins (finishing the C25K) and do very light 25 mins weightlifting 2-3 time a week. I burn ~ 400 on the treadmill and maybe 150 with the weights.

I am eating 2000 cals and it seems to be working for me. I've lost maybe a bit too fast in the past but am slowed down to about the 2 lb per week.

How much weight are you losing?

Well, everyone is different. I started MFP at 254 lbs, 5'3", 44 years. MFP gave me a calorie budget of 1720. (45 lbs later, I'm down to 1520). I guess the two big questions are how much you want to lose and how much weight you're currently losing in a week. The most you should be losing in 2 lbs/week and that's if you have 75 or more lbs to go before your goal. It's not unusual to lose more than that in your first week or two, but then it should level off.

If you continue to lose more than 2 lbs a week, you probably are cutting calories too low and that's not healthy. Same if you have less to lose. This guideline keeps popping up in posts of this nature a lot (I just Googled and found it an older thread on this forum!):

75+ lbs set to lose 2 lb range
Between 40 - 75 lbs set to lose 1.5 lb range
Between 25-40 lbs set to lose 1 lb range
Between 15-25 lbs set to lose 1 -.50 lb range
Less than 15 lbs set to lose 0.5 lbs range

Also, what did you set your activity level to? MFP calculates your daily calories without factoring exercise in; it then adds back your exercise burns. I've seen other people post that these burns can be inflated and it's probably wise to eat back 25-50% of your exercise calories on top of your daily allotment.

Full disclosure: I usually don't, but I also don't do a lot of heavy exercise. I generally either take leisurely walks for 1-2 hours total/day (if I have to run an errand and walk 10 minutes each way to the store, I log a 20-minute walk. Then later, I might go walk another 40 minutes, etc.) or I do 35 minutes on a Nordic skier. I'm also using a fit band to tone biceps, triceps, and lats (2 sets of 15-10-15 reps, every 2nd day), with an aim to gradually increase. So my calorie burn from exercise is generally 300-400 calories a day and my net calories usually come in around 12-1300. I sort of use my exercise calories as a cushion against underestimating my food. I can weigh everything I eat at home, but, for example, I had a piece of birthday cake at my nephew's party. My sister baked it. It wasn't one of those super-moist, rich-and-fudgy, 1/8th of a bakery layer cake... but it had frosting. I didn't whip out a kitchen scale and weigh my piece. I went home, tried to find something similar in the data base, and decided that it was close to "yellow cake with frosting — 290 calories". Could it have been 250? Maybe. 450? Maybe. But I'd gone for a 105-minute walk that morning before the party and could be confident that even if that piece was 450, I'd burned off the 160 calories I hadn't included.

I'm going out to a restaurant for supper on Thursday night. I've checked their online menu. I've got a good idea of what to have. But I'm also going in with unused exercise calories, so if I severely underestimate the portion size/amount of oil used in the dish/can't quite pass up the bread basket, I'm covered and I'm not going to stress or beat myself up over it.

Good luck!