Should I up my calories?
 

I'm asking this for a couple of reasons. Currently I'm eating 1300-1500 calories a day. I've been calorie counting since March 1st.

1) My weight loss has slowed down. I tried to to try get this going again by cycling my calories. However, there was issues with that. On the "low" days I did great but on the "high" days I was unable to eat all those calories in the day. So technically, even though I cycled, at the end of the week I ate fewer calories than a normal week. From last Monday to this Monday I only lost .4 lbs. Do you think that eating the fewer calories made my metabolism slow down?

2) I'm going on vacation this Thursday for 9 days. Most likely, this will include a lot of eating out and ordering in. I don't want to shock my body by eating a surplus of calories all at once. So, starting today, should I increase my calories by about 100 each day to kind of transition my body into eating more? I don't know if this goes against all the Laws of Calorie Counting but it made sense in my head lol. Also, I'm not too worried about gaining weight with the excess calories because we plan on doing A LOT of walking while we're there because we would be spending a lot of time in the downtown core.

Also, if it makes any difference the LoseIt app suggests i eat 1407 calories a day to lose 2 lbs/week. I want to weigh 130 lbs this NYE so the 2lbs/week is just what I need with 4 weeks to spare to account for any plateaus.

I've been doing a lot of research and reading in regards to "starvation mode" and will likely continue to do so because the issue is complex. So far what I can tell though is that from research your body's metabolism does not typically slow down until you are eating about less than 50% of your total calorie burn. This includes your BMR and activity level.

At your height and weight your approx. burn for a sedentary lifestyle would be around 1,900 and with exercising 3 times a week it would be around 2150. (There are plenty of maintenance calorie or BMR calculators out there. You should do the math yourself.) So effectively according to research you would need to drop your calories lower than 1,000 per day to see a metabolic slow down and even if you did it wouldn't halt progress all together but decrease the amount you were burning. Effectively your caloric deficits would have less of an impact but you would still be losing weight.

Personally? If I were in your situation I would make sure I was correctly recording my calories. (Are you using a scale or measuring almost everything?) Then I would either keep on the same track and see if it is just a glitch or a true plateau or I would lower my calories and/or increase my activity for a while.

If you decide to lower your calories the important thing is that you are more mindful of your nutrition. The lower your calories the more mindful you need to be of eating really healthy food so you get the nutrients your body needs. That is the true reason it is not recommended for a woman to eat less than 1,200 calories a day because below that it is near impossible for most women to get the nutrition they need from their food. (It isn't the magic "starvation mode" number.)

Good luck! I'm sorry you are stalling right now.

(FYI, Two weeks ago I only lost a pound but last week I lost 3.5 pounds and I didn't change any of my habits just stayed to course.)

I count calories but don't cycle. What I have noticed is that it does slow down every two weeks, so what I try to do is have one meal that I splurge on each week. For example, yesterday I ate Mexican at a local restaurant for lunch. I'm not exactly sure how many calories were in it, but it definitely was more than I usually eat. I woke up this morning and actually weighed less than I did yesterday morning. Calorie cycling sounds like it is effective from what I've seen from a friend, and I probably should start doing that but I like my little splurges too.

I do something similar to squishysquirrel. I recently upped my calories (from 1,200 to 1,400) and had a really successful week doing that (minus 3.6!!!!). But because I don't want my body to get used to the number again, every week I give myself one meal out with my friends where I get something healthy but I eat more calories than I usually would. I probably go over my daily limit by about 300-400. And it is no big deal. I have the splurge meal the day of my weigh-in so that by the time I step back on the scale, everything I ate is long gone.

Upping calories is kind of scary, but can work really well. As for the trip, I'd say be as mindful as possible, just because you're on vacation and eating out doesn't mean that you have to eat poorly or a lot more than you usually do. Enjoy what you eat, and if you want and feel comfortable doing it, up your calories some