change my calories?

vanessaseewhy
vanessaseewhy Posts: 1 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Hi all, just a quick one, once you start losing weight, should your calorie intake reflect the weight loss, or should it stay the same from day 1 of your weight loss journey?

Answers

  • tomcustombuilder
    tomcustombuilder Posts: 2,221 Member
    You want to reduce calories as you lose, that way Fatloss will continue. You have less mass to move around all day. The exception would be if that loss caused you to be more active during the day.
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,824 Member
    Your calorie goal should evolve as you lose weight. But for many people MFP doesn't update the goal automatically: if you go through the guided goal set-up again, you should receive an updated goal. You don't need to do that every day or week, updating after every 10lbs lost is fine.
  • DFW_Tom
    DFW_Tom Posts: 220 Member
    ^^^ What they have said.
    Looking at other threads in the forum, you will see suggestions to look at 4-6 week averages of weight loss and calories consumed. Adjust as needed to keep good nutrition, meet your energy needs, and maintain desired fat loss rate.

    If you have a lot of fat to lose, a greater percentage of your body's energy needs are stored on board already and you might find that you need to increase energy intake as your fat stores are depleted. Making sure you are getting enough protein and micro nutrients, while always important, are even more important in this case. Hopefully, at some point along the weight loss journey the rate of fat loss decreases because you have leaned out to the point current weight is maintained. To lose more, calorie intake needs to be reduced, or activity levels need to increase. Paying attention to that 4-6 week average is very useful.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,199 Member
    I'm going to say that there's no one answer.

    I think it's a good idea to lose more slowly (fewer pounds/kg per week) as goal weight approaches. Researchers think that we can only metabolize a certain amount of stored body fat per day per pound of fat we still have. To me, the implication is that losing more slowly when lighter will improve odds of keeping as much lean tissue as possible (such as muscle tissue) alongside losing mostly body fat.

    For some people, sticking with the same calorie goal can accomplish that, because in theory a lighter body requires fewer calories. But that's only true if all other factors are equal. As others have said, sometimes people become more active as they get lighter, so need more calories in order to lose at the same or a slower rate, oddly enough.

    To me, the right answer is to pay attention to weight loss rate (as averaged over several weeks) more than to calorie level as such, and keep that loss rate to something in the range of 0.5%-1% of current body weight per week, with a bias toward the lower end of that range unless severely obese and under close medical supervision for deficiencies or complications.

    That's pretty much what I did while losing: Faster loss when still obese or near to, quite slow weight loss when in a healthy weight range but still wanting to lose a bit more.

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