Am I eating too little to lose weight?

[Pearofwisdom]

Diet started 3 weeks ago with 5-6 stone to lose.
Using my fitness pal, eating 1200 calories a day (not getting caught out by oil in cooking or any sneaky calories)

Week 1 - 5.5lb lost
Week 2 - 4.5lb lost
Week 3 - 2.5lb lost

I know the speed of weight loss slows but I wasn't expecting it to happen so soon! Am I just killing my metabolism with 1200 cals? My fitness pal says I should eat 1700 to lose 2lbs but that seems too high.

I am also only eating between 10.30am and 7.30pm (can't quite manage 16:8) eating 400 cals during day and 800 cals as evening meal. Is this a terrible strategy?

Should I make any changes? Are metabolism boosters like apple cider vinegar capsules effective?

Thank you so much for any help.

Weight loss is generally accelerated in the first couple of weeks because you're mostly losing water, not fat. 2.5 lbs lost in a week is a good amount and I don't know why you'd want to aim for any more than that.

Scientifically, there's no such thing as eating too little to lose weight. So if you're not losing then it's because you're eating too much... except you are losing, so that doesn't even apply!

1lb in weight is roughly equivalent to 3500 calories, so to consistently lose 2lbs a week you'd be cutting 7000 calories from your diet. I'd suggest going with the MFP suggestion of 1700 calories rather than trying to live on 1200 and see how you go. If you have as much to lose as you say you do then you can afford those extra calories at this early stage, though you may need to adjust them as your weight reduces.

Ultimately it's calories in versus calories out. So I'd try to focus on creating a routine and way of eating which is healthy and sustainable for you, not fads and techniques which you associate with dieting/losing weight but can't maintain in the long term.

Good luck

Hmm
1200 is way too low for your weight (assuming you're actually 5-6 stone overweight) - it's a huge caloric deficit and will make you too exhausted To exercise and hungry all the time. You'd do much better by working out your TDEE and subtracting 1000 calories and eating to that. Don't add any extra for exercise but do plenty.
Secondly your weight loss so far is a LOT. 12.5lbs in 3 weeks is loads - way too much to be sustainable. That's why you shouldn't go 1000 under TDEE. That will give you an average 2lb per week loss which is what you should be aiming for.
You really mustn't expect huge losses, it's not realistic or healthy.

It's a diet myth that you need to eat more to lose weight. I personally think it's to make people buy slimming clubs junk food. You need to stick at the diet long term for it to make a difference. I think calorie counting is the only way. I have done research on this. Balanced diet, not excluding any food groups, strict calorie counting, weigh everything is the only way. Exercise is good for you, but if you are unfit you may lose inches rather than weight as muscle does weigh more. I have about four stone to lose.

I need to lose the same amount of weight and using MFP to calorie count.

If I'm lucky lose 1lb a week on average...this is on 1200 calories a day.

Don't go lower, if anything with those loses I'd up the calories and slow down your weight loss a bit otherwise you have no tweaks to make when you start getting to the last stages.

Best of luck with it all. Sustained calorie deficit needs determination and a serious amount of resilience but it's not impossible. Here's to 2020 being healthier for us

Thank you so much everyone. I think I have just read too much and scared myself that I could go into 'starvation mode' and start storing fat.
MFP is working really well as I am making choices based on volume of food I can eat vs. calories which has totally changed the foods I am choosing. Also had no idea how many calories I was adding to my day by frying things in olive oil, I am feeling fine on 1200 so far, probably because I have so many fat stores to keep me going .

Starvation mode is a bizarre myth. You can’t go into starvation mode when you’re remotely overweight. It’s for people who are genuinely starving and retain calories. Not chubby dieters haha

As others said starvation mode is a myth.

Effectively the studies done were on people fasting for up to seven days, so proper starving. The results show when you starve a person then the metabolism slows to preserve energy,

But what they do not show is this impacts weight loss. These people continued to loose weight at the expected rate. Simply when the human body is starved then it slows itself down.

Your metabolism can be fucked from a life time of yo yo dieting though.

But you are not literally starving yourself, so will not go into starvation mode. And even if you did, then it simply wouldn't impact your weight loss.

You've lost WAY too much in 3 weeks.

Don't look at the 2.5 (still enormous amounts) but look overall.

I eat more so that I'm satisfied - about 1600 and I lose about half a pound a week.

I think you need to re assess your attitude. Healthy weight loss should not exceed 2lbs per week. It’s not a quick fix, it takes time. Give yourself time!

Thank you that makes so much sense about starvation mode! Yes I think I will increase the calories a bit so I have something to reduce if I need too. Thanks all