New to all this - Is 1000 calories a day too much / little?

[mrssapphirebright]

Hello all. I am a bit of a weight loss virgin and looking for some advice on where to start. Knew I’d been putting on weight for the last year or so (got married a few years ago and its crept on since then – happiness and all that crap). Weighing in at 10 stone 11. I am 5ft 5 ins tall and my usual weight all my life (I’m 42) has been a consistent 9st 7, although I have been nice and slim and ‘ideal’ at 9 stone.

I really want to get down to 9st 7 again – help it seems so hard! The only time I have had to lose weight before has been baby weight after I had my dc, but this came off quite easily / naturally after about 6 months post partum, and was 13 years ago so I was a lot younger then!

I have joined a gym, which I am hating! But only have time to goo 2/3 times a week due to work and DC commitments. On the days I don’t go to the gym I have been doing fitness dvd’s at home for half an hour or so.

For the last 3 weeks I have been trying to reduce my calorie intake to 1000 a day and burn 500 calories a day more than usual.

Please advise if this will work? Am I doing the right things etc? I haven’t re-weighed myself yet and don’t feel much difference – apart from sore muscles after exercising!

I'm no expert but that sounds too low, if you don't eat enough your body goes into starvation mode and will cling to the fat! Have you worked out your BMR? MyFitnessPal is a really good app for tracking calories and will work out how many you should be eating for a steady loss.

Good luck!

I would recommend reading the info on the NHS website about calorie intake and nutrition - I refer to this page quite a lot myself because it's really useful: www.nhs.uk/Livewell/goodfood/Pages/the-eatwell-guide.aspx

Its important to make sure you take note of how many calories you eat and how many you burn, because you could end up not eating enough and having no energy for your workouts in the first place.

Try apps like fitbit & myfitnesspal to track your food and activity. There's loads of info online and there's so much to get your head around when it comes to weight loss!! Have you asked any staff at your gym for some tips?

I do 1200 on mfp and it's just about doable. Mfp won't let you do less I don't think.

I thought the starvation thing was proven to be a myth.

If you make it too hard then you'll be miserable and you won't stick to it. It's 80% diet 20% exercise. But yes, if you don't eat much you'll lose weight very quickly.

It's far too little.

I'm 47 and 5'4 and at around your weight, MFP allocated me 1310 calories a day to lose a pound a week before any exercise over and above a lazy day doing a bit of housework and shopping. Now at 10st2, with a target of 9st7 and I've knocked my loss rate down to half a pound a week (recommended by MFP when you're a healthy BMI already) and I'm getting 1520 calories per day, which feels like loads!

With only a stone and a quarter to lose and only just being on the cusp of overweight, your goal needs to be to lose that weight fairly steadily, without losing muscle mass as well. You also need to find a healty, sustainable way of eating that won't cause you to just pile that weight on as soon as you stop because you shouldn't be aiming to stop.

Thanks for all your replies.

I have one of those app things and it has estimated that I burn 1700 calories a day and that i should be eating between 1200 - 1300 to lose weight - a lb a week.

That seemed quite a slow pace, hence why i upped the exercise and lowered my calorie intake. But i don't feel like i've lost anything! surely after 3 weeks i'd feel a few lbs off?

To be honest, i'm not really finding 1000 calories tough in the week, but weekends is making me miserable!!!

Sounds so cliche but slow and steady weight loss really is better, if you eat so little (and 1000 calories really is tiny especially if you're exercising too) that you're wanting to eat more, eventually it'll catch up with you and you may end up binging or being unable to stick to the calorie restrictions anymore and putting all the weight back on iyswim?

Or you could just eat more at the weekends if you're finding it easy to stick to 1000 in the week (though still wouldnt recommend as it is pretty unhealthy to undereat). That might prevent binges in the week.

You don't need to lose much I lost a stone in 2 weeks by cutting out all caffeine, and alcohol , have plenty of water and herbal teas, instead. I didn't do extra exercise or count calories I ate fruit on an EMPTY stomach and didn't mix carbs and protein at the same meal. Simple

I don't drink caffeine anyway, and only drink at weekends - although didn't last weekend as i wanted to see if it made a difference. It hasn't seemed too!

Yeah, there's not much left for alcohol . Or anything extra really!

If you do ok with a low food input, occasionally, why not try intermittent fasting?

A pound a week really isn't slow. That weight took you a lot more than 4 months to put on, so it's a perfectly sensible time frame for losing it again. You need to be thinking long term.

Certain things happen with rapid weight loss which almost guarantee that someone with relatively little to lose will gain it again.

-An initial depletion of glycogen stores in the liver and the water associated with it. So called water weight. That's not fat.

-Faster than optimum depletion of muscle mass, which is also not fat and reduces your metabolic rate more than you want

-You are almost definitely eating a diet that you cannot maintain long term.

This stuff, plus various hormonal stuff, makes it pretty certain that the day you stop counting calories to the tune of 1000 per day, you'll start to gain weight again pretty quickly. You'll have done nothing to break the habits which lead to that slow weight gain, in the first place.

Misssaphire That not mixing carbs and high protein (like cheese sandwiches or burgers) works well . You just have the protein with veg and or salad. And a salad sandwich or mushrooms on toast . Easy. Oh and it's good to eat when you're hungry (mindfully). But stop when you're full