Am I eating enough calories?

jicole75 wrote: »

In 15 weeks I lost 52 pounds. Went from 276 to 224.
I basically stopped eating carbs, junk food, and anything I really loved.
I am starting to get discouraged

A few things I’m noting from your post - you’ve lost, on average, 3.5 lbs/week. That’s higher than the recommended rate of weight loss for someone of your size. That alone is not too concerning, but you’ve sustained that rate of loss for nearly 4 months, and you’ve done so by eating so few calories that it’s highly unlikely that you have been getting the necessary nutrients to maintain muscle mass among other baseline biological processes. And you have also done so by eliminating any food you “really love”.

Your question was “am I eating enough calories”, but I think you would benefit from asking yourself “what is my goal”. If your goal is to lose weight as quickly as possible, then an argument could be made that you are eating too many calories. If your goal is to have sustained weight loss and maintain muscle mass and develop a healthier relationship with food while building a healthier body then you are not eating enough. The 1200 calorie minimum used by MFP (and numerous other programs) is there for a reason. It is very difficult to get sufficient nutrition to maintain a healthy body with fewer than 1200 calories. Drastically limiting your calories for fast weight loss also deprives you of the opportunity to learn SUSTAINABLE changes that will be necessary to prevent regaining the weight.

My recommendation would be to take the win of losing a big amount of weight in such a short time but refocus your efforts on learning how to fuel your body in a sustainable way. That should include eating enough calories to include foods you love and want to eat (even if less frequently) after you have reached your weight loss goal. It should also include finding activities that build your strength, agility, flexibility, and cardiovascular health that you enjoy enough to continue doing (even if less frequently or for shorter periods of time) after you have reached your weight loss goal. And it should include learning where your relationship with food and your body are unhealthy and developing new thought patterns and coping techniques that you will use even after you meet your weight loss goal. The great thing is that weight loss can happen all through these learning processes. It will happen a bit more slowly, but you are less likely to be back here in another 10 years asking if you’re eating enough.

Where to start with that? I suggest setting your calories at a level that has you losing no more than 1% of your body weight per week. You may even want to take the approach of setting your calories at the level it would take you to maintain your target weight. Find the things you like about the way you’ve been eating for the past 15 weeks enough that you can see yourself eating that way for the rest of your life and keep those. Then look at how you were eating previously and reintroduce the things you miss and plan to resume when you hit your target weight. Reintroduce those things now, but within your lower calorie level. This generally means you’ll need to adjust your portion size and/or the frequency of having those foods. Then do a similar analysis on the time and type of exercise.

This process is a process. You will have periods of discouragement. Things will pop up that derail your plans. Life will happen. And you will learn how to maintain or build new healthy habits when life happens.

Let me know if you’d like more details on any of the suggestions I’ve made. I’m 7 months in and 56 lbs down and have learned a lot about what it will take to lose the next 25-30 lbs and keep it off.