Why You Should Never Go Below 1500 Calories to Lose Weight

How Many Calories Should You Eat a Day? 

When you start looking into the best ways to lose weight one thing that comes up often is to cut your calories back to 1200 per day. Yes, that will cause you to lose weight however, that is definitely not the best way to lose weight and keep it off permanently.

When you cause your body to go into that much of a deficit, it will adapt quickly to save energy and at that point that is the number of calories your body will come to expect. When you return to eating more calories, which you will need to do at some point, your body will still be running just fine on 1200 calories so all the extra calories you eat will turn to fat and cause you to gain all the weight back plus more.

 Your body will also start eating away at your muscle for fuel causing you to lose the lean muscle mass that gives your body form. Plus, lean muscle is metabolically active which means it burns fat so you will burn less calories per day when you lose muscle. 

All bad things. You will have damaged your metabolism.

Best Weight Loss Plan

So what is a better plan than cutting your calories back and damaging your metabolism?

First, let's talk about what a calorie is and how many do we need each day?

A calorie is basically a measurement of energy in food and drinks. To lose one pound of fat you need to create a calorie deficit of 3500 calories by cutting calories, exercise or a combination of both.

A healthy weight loss is between 1 and 2 pounds per week. I know that does not sound like a lot and when you start a low carb diet chances are you will lose more than that at first. However, what you really want is lasting weight loss that you can sustain not another roller coaster of losing and gaining. 

Lose weight safely and in a way that your body can maintain so you don’t ever have to worry about diets again.

How Many Calories to Lose Weight?

An average woman needs to eat around 2000 calories per day to maintain current weight. This number varies a little according to your age, height, current weight, activity level. The more you currently weigh the more calories you will burn on average. These 2000 calories are the number of average calories needed for your body to perform its basic functions along with the amount of calories you use during the day for your normal activities.

Your Plan to  Easily and Safely Lose 2 pounds Per Week 

A 2-pound weight loss in one week means you need to create a 1000 calories daily deficit.  What is the plan to safely create this gap without damaging your metabolism and starving?

First, a low carb diet automatically sends your body into fat burning mode because your body uses fat instead of carbs for energy. A recent study showed that participants on a low carb diet burned 250 more calories per day than people on traditional high carb diet.

Next, adding more protein as in a low carb way of eating can reduce appetite, cut cravings and increase the number of calories your burn by up to 100 calories per day. Protein is filling and helps keep you full which will help you keep your calories in check.

Drinking your recommended 8 glasses of water can burn up to 96 additional calories. Each time you drink a glass of water you increase the calories your body burns for up to 90 minutes. Another good reason to drink 8oz before each meal.

A little movement added into your day will help with your mood and increase lean muscle mass which will burn even more calories. Tomorrow we will talk about some easy ways to burn 100 calories in a short amount of time. Lets plan for burning at least 200 calories per day with a little exercise.

If you are eating 1500 calories per day along with everything above, you will be running on a daily deficit of around 1000 calories which will safely help you lose 2 pounds per week without going into starvation mode. 

Calorie Deficit Breakdown:

1500 daily calories eaten minus 250 low carb diet extra calorie burn minus 100 calorie protein burn minus  96 calorie water burn minus 200 exercise burn= 854 calories used by your body each day.

 You need 2000 calories on average so you have created more than the 1000 calorie deficit needed to lose 2 pounds per week. That isn't too difficult right?

In the beginning your weight loss will be faster than when you get closer to your goal. That’s just natural because the less you weigh the less calories it takes your body to function.  During your journey you will need to change things up a little every few weeks to get over a weight loss plateau. Just keep learning and moving forward and you will achieve your weight loss goal and have a healthy way of living for the rest of your life!

So please do starve yourself and make weight loss miserable. Try this plan first and you can always adjust if you find you are not getting any results but I bet you will find it is not necessary.