Getting in Shape

Calorie Reduction Question

Hi All, 

I normally lurk around on E and NEY but I had a question I thought you nice ladies might be able to help me with. I have decided I need to lose about a million pounds and signed up for My fitness Pal to track calories. So far so good. 

BUT the system is telling me that my calorie intake should be around 1400 per day which seems reasonable according to the books. Unfortunately, my "normal" intake is easily double that (yeah, my diet SUCKS...) If I begin to pay more attention to what I'm putting in my mouth, will my body think it's being starved and begin to slow my metabolism? 
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Re: Calorie Reduction Question

  • There is a great MFP post that someone had shared not too long ago that discusses exactly this (anyone have the link?). If you are accustomed to eating twice that amount, then yes, I would say your body will react poorly to that drastic reduction...it will also probably not be sustainable for you to just jump in with that kind of deficit.

    What settings did you put MFP at? You should do the recommended 500 calorie deficit per day, and make sure you input all activity you do (which will earn you more calories you get to eat back).

    If you've really been consuming 2800 calories per day on a regular basis, I would seriously not consider dropping below 2000 per day. Any deficit for you will likely trigger a decent amount of weight loss initially - you can adjust once you get the hang of it.
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  • If you are eating 2800 currently, I would suggest you start by just making some healthier choices and/or snacking less throughout the day. Dropping to 1400 would be very hard and miserable, and while your body might drop a lot of weight at first it could potentially slow your metabolism over time. I would suggest sticking to around 2200 or so for now and see how your body reacts to that. You will want this to be a lifestyle change so that you don't gain the weight back and then best way to do that is make reasonable changes to your current lifestyle. To literally cut your food intake in half is not reasonable for this point of your weight loss journey and probably not sustainable.
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  • @entropic Are you talking about the MFP post by a trainer who had his client eating higher calories instead of jumping straight to 1200 a day so that she would be able to room to adjust her intake when she plateaued?  I don't remember if that was something that was posted here or something that I stumbled upon on MFP...
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  • @Heather - Yes, that is exactly what I'm talking about. I think it would be a good read for OP. It was definitely linked to somewhere here on GIS, but I'm really bad at tracking down old posts.
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  • Definitely track and see what your normal diet is - is it really 2800 calories or 2000? If it's 2800 try eliminating 500 calories to begin with. So, for example, cut out the soda and some snacks. It shouldn't be too miserable if you take it slow. I wouldn't suggest cutting your calories in half.
  • Thanks for all the suggestions, 

    What I think I'm going to do is eat my normal food and track it for a few days to get a baseline. Then drop it by 500 or so calories to start as work my way down calorie-wise and work my way up exercise wise
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