I've been trying to count calories for a couple of years now, and I go through phases where I can do it and lose some weight but then give in to the cravings and gain it back. Last week, though, I started a medication that, as a side-effect, leaves me with no appetite. I have to remind myself to eat, and I don't have any desire to overeat. It's such a bizarre feeling because I've spent my entire life wanting more food. So far, the result has been that I'm making an effort to get to 1200-1300 calories.

What I'm wondering is should I try to get more calories for now so I have somewhere to go? Or is it ok to stay in that range? I have so much to lose, and I could lose while taking in quite a few more calories, but if it's safe and not setting myself up for disappointment later, I'd rather eat less and lose faster.

Any insight?

I definitely think you should eat more, even if you aren't exercising. 1,200-1,300 sounds like it might leave you feeling incredibly exhausted/fatigued for days on end. You might end up sleeping/napping far more times than necessary and not feel up to doing much of anything. Even if your body isn't hungry it still needs fuel!

I've been living on between 1200 to 1400 for over a month now and I feel fine so far. I'm not really strict with it, I just want to stay beneath 1400, and I honestly haven't had any problems.

As for whether you will plateau, I've heard of people hitting that point who are eating 1500 calories a day. I don't think there is anything you can do to really prevent that, it just happens and when it does you shift things until you find the right combo that gets your body going again.

Until yesterday so have I, but you and I are rather close in terms of weight and height. ParadiseFalls is a few inches taller and still in the beginning half of her weight loss journey.

Plugging in your stats ParasideFalls (I don't know how old you are but assuming you're 26 simply cause that's my age) I see that your RMR is about 2,525 and your BMR is about 2,569 if you are sedentary. Subtract 500 and its ~2,000. That's the bare minimum of calories you should eat in my opinion.

Heck, if you want to do it so that you are eating at your goal weight's maintenance levels (as some people tend to lose that way - this is a lifestyle after all) then your RMR is 1,872 and your BMR is 1,945 if you're living a sedentary lifestyle.

Either way you really have no reason to go below 1,800, much less below 1,500 at the moment!

This is all my opinion of course. XD

Good point, I didn't even see her stats.

Either way, I wouldn't worry about a plateau, personally. As I said in my first post, I've seen people hit it multiple times despite eating a good number of calories and exercising. I don't think you can predict that or prevent it, you just deal with it if and when it happens.

I think calorie level is only part of the metabolism equation. Some people do experience a metabolism drop when they drop calories. It may be as simple as eating too little causing fatigue (and if you're fatigued you may move less without even noticing it.) It may be as complex as the body spending less energy (calories) on "nonessential" processes - much like a business cutting their office furniture budget during hard times, the body may "cut the funding" to the immune system. For example there has been research that has found that calorie-cutting even moderately does make person more susceptible to illness and healing is slower. That doesn't mean you shouldn't lose weight, but it may mean that you should be a little more aware of injury and illness prevention. You might be more susceptible to cold and flu, for example while dieting, so handwashing and other illness prevention strategies may be more important.

But just as there are ways to slow metabolism, there are also ways to increase it. Exercise and building muscle is said to increase metabolism.

I think the thing to take away is that cutting calories isn't the only part of the equation (I find that I lose more weight on 1800 calories of low-carb than on 1800 calories of higher carb).

That means there isn't necessarily a benefit to cutting calories as low as possible, but there is no magic number for any of us. We can only determine "too few" calories and "too many" by experimenting.

There's also evidence that the more often a person yoyo diets, the more likelly it is and the more their metabolism may be adversely affected, which means that it's probably important to learn to lose and maintain a health weight in as few attempts as possible. You can't do anything about the times you've tried and failed, but do whatever you can to make "this time" the last time.

That being said, weight maintenance is always going to be a life-long process. You won't ever be able to maintain a perfect weight, rather you'll lose and gain for the rest of your life, you just want to make it losing and gaining the same couple pounds, not losing and gaining the same 50 or 100.

<<There's also evidence that the more often a person yoyo diets, the more likelly it is and the more their metabolism may be adversely affected, which means that it's probably important to learn to lose and maintain a health weight in as few attempts as possible. >>

The research on this is inconsistent at best; many studies have NOT found that serial yo-yoing causes a permanent metabolic impairment, and my personal experience aligns with these studies. I've yo-yoed (30+ pounds) 6 or 7 times in my life, the first time at 16 and the last in my 50s, but I've never had any trouble losing weight when I put my mind to it. I lost weight on 1,500 calories/day at 16 and lost weight on 1,500 calories/day last year (granted, at a slightly slower pace, but nothing beyond the expected effect of age). YMMV, of course.

Freelance

Thanks for the responses, ladies!

DesertTabby, I'm 23, so those numbers should be perfect. That's a great idea about eating at maintenance for my goal weight. It would be great if I could get all the way there on that number and not have to worry about gaining when increasing to maintenance. Also thanks for being delicate when pointing out my eating should be different since I'm twice your size

kaplods, thanks for mentioning the illness factor. I've read that the meds I'm on can screw with your immune system. Also, in regard to yo-yoing, now that I think about it it's probably best that I don't overdo it with the calorie cutting just because I can, because I've yo-yo'd enough to know that if the side effects wear off, my willpower will likely not be strong enough to maintain such a low caloric intake.

I think I'll experiment with using my goal-weight maintenance calories as a guideline for a few weeks and see what happens. If I can lose around 2 lbs per week that way, there's no reason to risk the potential effects of taking it all the way down.

One thing you can do is make sure you eat a good breakfast before you take that medicine.

Yes the research is inconsistent, suggesting individual differences, which is the main point I tried to convey in my post. My personal experience aligns with the studies that have found dieting-related metabolic decline. I've been dieting since kindergarten, and while I noticed no substantial yoyo-associated decline until my early to mid-twenties, and the most dramatic changes in my 30's and 40's. In my 20's the metabolic calculators available were fairly accurate to my experience. Now, the calculators (even those that take activity level and age into account) grossly overestimate my calorie needs.


One of the reasons much of the research may have found little or no metabolic decline, is that the study participants weren in the age group least likely to experience the decline. Research at universities does tend to use university students (who tend to be in their 20's), so whenever I've seen studies that found "no difference" I go to the original research article to see the age of the participants involved (and usually it has been folks under 30).

Also, many of the studies finding no declline also excluded folks with metabolic problems such as diabetes, insulin resistance and thyroid issues (which some other studies have associated with yoyo dieting.)

If yoyo dieting causes both metabolic suppression AND diabetes, insulin resistance and thyroid issues and if younger folks are less likely to experience these effects - then research that uses younger subjects and/or excludes subjects with those metabolic issues, one wouldn't expect them to find any evidence of the metabolic declines.

The science unfortunately cannot predict who will and will not experience metabolic effects from dieting and to what degree. Or how many or how extreme a "yoyoing" it takes to trigger the effects. Or whether the effects are permanent.

Until the evidence is more clear, that puts most of us in the position of having to be both scientist and lab rat. Not good science, but it's all we've got at this point.

For what it is worth, I ate at 1200 calories a day for most days of my weightloss and I never had a plateau, and I never had any physical problems because of it. I started out at 333 pounds and age 44. I since then reached my goal, maintained it for 2.5 years while enjoying more calories per day. Talk to your doctor, and if he/she is clueless about nutrition, asked to be referred to a nutritionist. They can help you better than any of us rookies throwing numbers at you.

Many people suffer plateaus not because of fewer calories but because they sneak in more and refuse to admit it.

<<If yoyo dieting causes both metabolic suppression AND diabetes, insulin resistance and thyroid issues and if younger folks are less likely to experience these effects - then research that uses younger subjects and/or excludes subjects with those metabolic issues, one wouldn't expect them to find any evidence of the metabolic declines.>>

Good points.

F.

<<Many people suffer plateaus not because of fewer calories but because they sneak in more and refuse to admit it.>>

I have to agree with this, though I'm sure there are exceptions.

I admit that my personal experience may be biasing me here. I've gone on major diets several times in my life and have never experienced a plateau. My default assumption is that other healthy people function the same way that I do, so I always have trouble believing someone who claims she's been eating 1,000 calories a day and exercising regularly for the past 6 weeks -- and hasn't lost a pound. I suppose this might be possible if someone has a medical condition such as insulin resistance, but my initial reaction is always skepticism. (Just being candid here, not trying to discount anyone's experience.)

F.

I think it's natural to assume one's own experiences are typical (whether they are or not).

I didn't believe in plateau's until I experienced one. I didn't believe in a lot of things until I experienced them.

I didn't understand or sympathise with mother or grandmother's difficulties weith weight loss (or for that matter their arthritis pain) until I experienced both myself.


Most of my life, I never believed the overweight folks who said "I don't eat any more than my thin friends/relatives."because that wasn't true for me. I knew that I was fat because I at outrageous amounts of food, and I thought that because that was my experience, it must be everyone's experience.

The calorie level it now takes to just maintain my weight is the same calorie level that for many years I would consistently lose 5-8 lbs per week on (and I don't mean "first week" losses - my first week losses were 9-11 lbs).

I also didn't believe any of the low-carb rhetoric - because except for the first two to three weeks, I lost just as well on 1800 calories of high-carb as I did on low-carb. Now, I lose less than one pound a month on 1800 calories of high-carb, but lose fairly well on 1800 calories of low-carb.

I always thought that "everyone" lost the most weight their first month, because that's how I always lost. That's not true anymore. I'm actually able to lose more now, than at the beginning (probably because I am able to exercise much more now than when I started).

I also never experienced true "plateau's" before, or the phenomenon of losing in "whooshes." Except for my TOM weight gain, I always lost about the same amount of weight every week throughout my weight loss - and if I didn't lose it was always easily explained either with the TOM, my food intake or my sodium levels.

Now, I don't lose on the same predictable, gradual schedule. On two months of a consistent calorie level, I will lose nothing for several weeks and then will lose a big chunk. As a result, I no longer consider two weeks without a weight loss a plateau.

I do think that people (includng me) can easily underestimate their calorie intake and other behavior, but I'm much more open-minded about the range of experiences, because I've experienced a much wider range of them in the last 15 years especially. Before that, I thought everyone overweight person was just like me - hungry all of the time, eating relatively healthy food but way too much of it, and fairly active (which I was until the last 15 years).

I now know people are overweight for a lot of different reasons, and the ways they lose best are often also very different.

Thanks for sharing your experience, Kaplods. Definitely food for thought.

F.