Diet Community

Maybe don't approach it from how many lbs you have to lose in a short period, but rather to lose it slowly but surely, without shocking or punishing your body. And to lose it while eating healthy.

If you eat 1200 cal and exercise moderately most days of the week, the weight will come off at the rate your body will determine. 1lb a week is also quite acceptable and healthy, and will get you to your goal eventually, maybe 3 months.

You should NEVER go below 1200! Even that is too little for most people... I'm doing about 1435 and trying to exercise 3x/wk and lost 3# the 1st week... use the diet planner on webmd and determine your goals, safely!!! You don't want to damage your health or get too weak etc... or lose it only to gain it all back because you lowered your metabolism too much! Good luck!

Yes you can hit that goal on 1200 a day, if you don't cheat. Depending on how heavy you are and what your "pre diet" calorie intake was you may actually lose more than 2 lbs the first week or two. Then it gets tougher. If you aren't making the 2 lbs you may need to step up the exercise. Short goals like this are ok to get you motivated, but in the long run I hope you know you need to look at a healthy lifestyle not just a 2 week blitz. The 14 lbs. will be back in the same time it took to take it off if you go back to your previous calorie intake. To sustain you weight gain over the 7 weeks be sure you are getting the most nutrition bang for the buck with your calories. Lots of veggies and whole grains.

I'm female, 5'9". I have been logging my daily calories and moderately exercising 3 times a week for 14 weeks, and I've lost 33 pounds now. So that's averaging a little over 2 lbs/week. That's even counting the three days in the middle when I lost focus and quickly put on 3 pounds in those three days (emotional crisis eating) before I went back to my healthy eating focus again.

I used to reward myself with food. I don't do that anymore. I reward myself with a new nail polish or a smaller size article of clothing that will look great when I lose ten more pounds.

I don't call it a diet, but rather a healthy lifestyle change that I hope to continue for the rest of my life. I do log my calories on the WebMD Food & Fitness Planner daily, which has been a huge help. The first two weeks I kept it below 1300 daily. Since then I have kept it below 1200 daily, some times dipping down to 1050 for a day and then back up in the high 1100s.

I eat as many superfoods as I can get into that calorie limit a day (each day different superfoods), because I do want to eat mainly nutrient packed foods, and a lot of those are raw (veggies & fruits). So far that has kept me satisfied. Sugar had previously been my biggest nemesis, and that was hard to resist at first. Now that I've cut most (some days all) added sugar (no desserts, no bakery empty calories), after 14 weeks it rarely even tempts me. So it's getting easier as the weeks go by to eat 100 percent healthy. I do still crave bread, mainly in the form of a sandwich. So once a week I'll have a single meal with 100 percent whole grain bread, and that seems to satisfy me. Love the 12-inch Subway Veggie Delight (9-grain bread, all fresh veggies, no cheese, no dressing - 460 calories). I have 4 oz of salmon twice a week, 4 oz grilled or baked skinless chicken breast once a week (no red meat), lots of no-salt-added beans, 4 eggs a week, daily multi-vitamin, 64 oz of filtered cold water daily.

Anyhow, you get the idea. Consistency is the key. You can do it. If you make a mistake, quickly forgive yourself and immediately get back on track. No food makes me happier than being down half a pound on the scale. I do weigh myself most mornings.

Good luck. Let us know how you're doing.

JKHealth....Your so called 'healthy lifestyle change' is going to come back to bite you in the butt. Going below 1200 calories a day, no matter how healthy the calories are, will soon put you into 'starvation mode'. Your body will slow down it's metabolism because it will think that there's a food shortage and it has to conserve energy. You'll continue to lose for a while but then you will find that every time you eat just a little extra the pounds will start to come back. Your body is going to attempt to store any extra calorie is gets to prepare for the next starvation period when you are eating under the amount it needs. Once you lower your metabolism it's terribly hard to raise it again, so it will be very hard to keep the weight off.

Please educate yourself on the amount of calories you really need according to your BMI....You have made some great changes in your food choices, don't hurt yourself now that you're off to such a good start.

weight loss is relative to your gain/loss point, untill you know where that is you cannot know how many calories to eat of healthy foods? Reduce till you lose a few pounds in a week, then increase till you gain one pound in a week, this will give you a gain/loss point of calories per day/week. By reducing 3500 calories you will lose 1 lb in a week, 7000 calories/2 lbs., 10,500/3 lbs. etc. Exercize increases your calorie burn, but don'tchange your calorie intake. Don't ratioalize that I worked out, so I can eat more, also break up your calorie intake into 5 or more meals, drink unsalted water and get ample sleep.

I agree with you completely and only add that, knowing where to start is a benifit. Keep doing what you are doing and eat healthy. Start a healthy lifestyle diet now!

You've gotten some great advice - best of luck to you and please keep checking in here for support!

Haylen

Just wanted to make a comment about starvation mode and those that use it every 10 minutes, here...

"...Oh, you're not losing because your in starvation mode..."



In a Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, your stomach is, literally, shrunk to the size of an "egg" (approx, 90% reduction)...in other words, two bites an din-din is done. Its common these patients can lose 100 lbs in one year. That's the equivalent to walking 10-11 miles every day, with no caloric compensations for exercise. They're losing, on average, one pound every 3-4 days...


What do you call the "mode" they're in?

Personally, I call it starvation or Nutritional Depletion. Since they are also required to take handfuls of vitamins and suppliments every day to make up for what their bodys need and their severly condensed intake lacks.
The problem is that these surgeries were originally meant to be done ONLY in extreme circumstances where people who didn't get it, would die. Now its a money making machine and every doctor has jumped on the bandwagon to help these people who cannot seem to help themselves by just reducing calories. Now , literally ANYONE who can afford the process can have it done, that doesn't make it necessary or safe for their health by any means. And by the look of the amount of people who regain, it doesn't teach them anything about nutrition or eating healthy for the long run. It is still only what it was originally for, A QUICK FIX to a lifelong food dependancy problem that isn't going to go away just because you have paid for a $30,000 stomach reduction.

Thanks twiggy for your comment...

One of the things that most puzzles me about this board?

...People do not view being overweight or obesity as a disease.

The cure for weight loss is to reduce calories. So, it makes perfect sense that orange juice, Smart Ones (or Lean Cuisine, Healthy Choice) pasta dinners, diet soda & frozen low fat yogurt is perfect for losing weight.

Whereas, a registered dietician advising a recovering patient with Type 2 Diabetes or breast cancer or someone who just had quadruple bypass surgery would never suggest or recommend you eat or drink that stuff.

One of the great discoveries in contemporary medicine is the discovery that most modern lifestyle diseases are not only avoidable; they're reversible, too. And, one of the great tragedies or misconceptions is how, again and again, both doctors and patients consistently underestimate the healing powers of lifestyle change to repair the human body.

If you look at diets of patients looking to "reverse" their disease (not just control their symptoms through medications)...cancer, T2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, arthritis and liver disease...they're, essentially, all the same. In other words, eating a healthy, whole food diet with emphasis on antioxidants and phytonutrients (plant based diet) is key to fighting and, eventually, curing most modern, lifestyle diseases.

So, the question is this: If reversing all other avoidable disease requires eating the same diet, why the hell is the recipe for fighting obesity about reducing calories...

Simple. It's because obesity is not a disease.

This is a big mistake, since too much belly fat is the launching pad for most all the diseases I've described, above. All of them have been strongly linked to excessive body fat from poor diet.



...A young lady lectured me the other day, that after all her research of diet soda, its perfectly safe to drink and I shouldn't be spreading misinformation about its safety..."...at worst, they are ineffective at producing weight loss..."

"Ineffective at producing weight loss"..."Obesity aint a disease."...

See, what I mean? Its all about "low cal", here...

I do agree that obesity, or at least for me, food addiction, is a disease. And while I also agree that eating a healthy diet is the key to maintaining weight loss, if I thought that simply eating what I want of healthy foods would work for me to get to my goal weight - yowser! I'd be one happy lady! During the last year of removing weight (averaging 2 lbs. a week over a year), I have learned so much about nutrition and was truly shocked when I first started tracking my food. My fats, protein and carbs were all out of whack, not to mention my nutrients. I have learned so much. Yes, Brunosbud, with the changing in food choices I have made I would lose weight anyway, BUT restricting and counting calories is what has removed the weight. I have done the calorie restriction in the past and lost weight, but now I know that not changing WHAT I eat is why I always put it back on.