My head hurts.....

khaldrogo

..…trying to make sense of this.

If my maintenence calories are 2800 and I go into a deficit consuming 1700 but I stop losing weight while in the deficit and begin to maintain my weight for days and days on the 1700 calories.

Does 1700 calories now become my maintenence? And if not, how in God's name will I not pile the weight back on if I returned to the 2800 calories???

I am confused

igCorcaigh

Would maintenance calories be by definition the calorie intake level that allows you to maintain your current weight?

the_amazing_raisin

DISCLAIMER: I am not a nutritionist or personal trainer, seek expert advice before embarking on a diet or exercise plan

To maintain weight, calories eaten must equal calories consumed by your body

Excess calories will be stored as fat, increasing weight

To lose weight, you need to either lower your calorie intake or increase demand by exercising

Sounds like you've fairly heavily lowered your intake, I'm not sure that'll be sustainable long term as you'll just feel miserable and start eating more again

Try to focus on the big picture. Eat healthier meals before eating less. Adding fruit and veg to your diet gives you a lot of essential nutrients and also tends to give the feeling of being full at a much lower calorie density than processed foods, carbs or meat

I heard that when your calorie intake drops suddenly your body responds by going into high efficiency mode. Not sure if there's much scientific evidence behind it but it may be why your weight loss is slowing

There's also a general law of diminishing returns when losing weight, it tends to be easier to lose the first few kilos than the next few

Regular exercise will help here as well as with a bunch of other health issues. The general advice is to start with 30 mins of moderate intensity exercise 3 days a week and work up from there

What you do is up to you, walk, run, swim, do aerobics, whatever. It's good to vary up different exercises and not focus on one alone. As well as being better for general fitness it stops you getting bored

In terms of intensity, the right pace is what works for you and not what other people are doing. By the end of a session you should be sweating a bit, feeling warm, a bit tired and maybe a bit achy

You should NOT be feeling so out of breath you're about to vomit or like your muscles are jelly. That's overexercising and is very counter productive

If moderate intensity for you feels like a snails pace then just stick with it. Better to be productive than feel so awful you stop exercising, and you'll improve pretty quickly at first

Its a long road to get fit, and unfortunately one with a lot of frustrations and temptations to quit. Try to stick with it even on the days you don't want to, and if you do have a slip just cut yourself some slack and pick it up again the next day

igCorcaigh

Keep tracking your weight. Your rate of weight loss will naturally decrease. Up your protein intake to prevent muscle loss.

Escapees

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058415490/my-head-hurts

Firstly, body weight can fluctuate from day to day due to a number of factors like hydration level, constipation, etc. and should really only be monitored no more frequently than on a weekly basis. Secondly, 2800 calories is generous enough and probably not something to be thinking about returning to, especially if it was required for maintenance when you were more overweight than you are now.

CPTM

Days and days isn't a great timeframe. Try weeks and weeks. You should be aiming to lose 300 to 500 grams a week depending on how big you are. What are your macros? I mean how many/much carbs/protein/fat are you ingesting per day?