About a decade ago I was at my fittest and this was through a good diet and good exercise. I learned a lot about healthy eating and exercise via a very good personal trainer.
She taught me that the best way to lose weight was through exercise and eating at least your BMR (mine was something like 2000). At the time it felt very counterintuitive but she told me to trust the process. She said one's metabolism is like a fire that needs to be stoked (with calories) and depriving it would make fat burning less than optimal. She also said how you would plateau at some point with weight loss if you ate say 1200 calories and then what? To what end would you keep reducing it. And ultimately you would eventually start eating a normal amount of calories and that would definitely cause weight gain.
Once I saw that through exercise (at the time it was 30min HIIT/circuits 4 times a week) and eating my BMR was going well (I used to have abs can ye believe!) I continued eating my BMR and never less. And it was great as I was never hungry.
Unfortunately life happened. After my DC a year and a half ago I became increasingly sedentary (mostly depression, quit my job, LOTS of aches and pains after childbirth etc) and really piled it on. I am now 16stones at 5ft3in.
I am hoping to take Mounjaro soon and appreciate how a part of how it works is through appetite suppression. I've been reading posts about how some people struggle to get their calories in.
My question really is, does one eat their BMR or is one in a calorie deficit? And if MJ means losing weight through calorie deficit then wouldn't you be:
- destroying the "ferocity" of your metabolism (or it's ability to burn fat well)
- gaining weight back as soon as you eat a healthy and normal amount of calories once you come off it
Would love some advice (and sorry for the very long post!)