Deborahg382's Journal, 11 April 2014

Your doing great but I advise going back to the higher calories because other wise your body will think there's a famine and will start to conserve the energy you get from food rather than using it. All your organs need a certain amout to run on and if they don't get it you will store fat. xx  

don't mess with a good thing. good luck  

You can absolutely increase your calories, especially if you're a little more on the active side. Unfortunately there is no fool-proof way to know specifically where you need to be without some trial and error. I have better results with my intake up around 1500, otherwise my deficits are too high and my body fights me every step of the way. Sometimes though, my body likes to wait and then *poof* drop three pounds over night lol. Try to have fun with it, otherwise it will make you crazy 

If you've been cutting your calories for around 8-12 weeks already, your metabolism may have slowed down and become accustomed to the lower calorie requirement. You'll want to slowly increase your calories to your basal metabolic rate for a few weeks before cutting again. I like this guide for an explanation on figuring out how many calories you need: http://www.muscleforlife.com/how-to-lose-weight-fast/, and I would also read this article about metabolism for an explanation for why you can't eat too few calories for too long: http://www.muscleforlife.com/how-to-speed-up-metabolism/ 

Links didn't go through, sorry. I read the articles at "muscle for life." One is called "How to speed up metabolism" (on metabolism) and the other is "How to safely and healthily lose weight fast" (on calculating how many calories to ingest) 

It's your lab. If you were losing before at higher calories, then get back to it. If that doesn't work, you may want to find your maintenance calories and give yourself a break. A lot of people don't believe in the 'starvation' response. I'm not sure I do either, but I do believe your body will adjust to function at a lower metabolic rate. I've seen it in myself. As I am prone to say 'There is no failure - only feedback." 

Thanks for all your posts. Its has been recently I changed to lower calories. I will up them to 1500 and see what happens. Tomorrow is feast, and FEAST I shall! Thanks so much.. Deborah 

I Found a journal entry on my Atkins account marked March 28. I say I've lost 10.8 lbs in a month and my calories are average 1640. SO I am going to up my calories to 1600 and see if i can resume my weight loss as before. I don't know why I changed it to begin with.. ugh.. 

From what I know, the lower the calories, the more you lose weight, even despite your metabolism. There is the theory that if you make sporadic exceptions (like once in a week eating more than usual but only once), that you will boost your metabolism without those extra calories having a significant impact on your calorie burning but, over all, eating calories is the opposed process of burning them so never lose sight of that dynamic. That being said, it is much easier to eat less calories by eating less caloric foods than doing it by not eating as much or even fasting. When you skip meals or fast, your brain increases the food-value of high caloric foods. In other words, you begin seriously craving foods of the worst kind (junk food etc). It is much easier to turn to foods that will sate your hunger while having few calories such as lots of veggies, etc :). Another great help (not alternative, but help) is exercise. The lightest of exercises such as walking or doing home work etc, can burn lots of calories, depending on what time you spend doing them. :)