How many calories do you actually need to consume to lose weight?
I'm sure you have been through the scenario of having a scare from the scales leading to a sudden motivation to lose weight
You want to do it as fast as possible so you cut out carbs, and reduce your calories intake to salads, protein shakes, and fruit/veg
Then after a few weeks, you're starving, angry, and losing the motivation to live, leading to binge eating over the weekend which leads to putting all of the weight back on you've lost
... we've all been there
The problem with reducing your calories too much when wanting to lose weight is that, as I just mentioned, you will feel hungry, angry, and will lose motivation fast
It's not sustainable
I remember a year or so after I started my fitness journey I was loving the progress I was making. I had put on a bit of muscle, built up my fitness levels, and felt like I had come a long way
After the first year, I decided I wanted to drop body fat therefore meaning I'd need to lose just under a stone so I could see my abs for the first time in a while
Because I had a goal in mind of wanting to see abs, I really did feel motivated to get the results and put in the work
The problem was, I didn't really know where to start. I knew that I had to eat less, but the questions still remained...
- "How many calories should I be eating to lose weight?"
- "Do I need to eat only salads and cut out all carbs to get abs?"
- "What diet should I be following?"
This then led to reducing my calories to approximately 1500 per day (not that I knew this at the time because I wasn't tracking)
I cut out most carbs such as pasta, rice, potatoes only leaving oats in my diet as the carb source
The rest of my calories came from protein shakes, chicken, and veg
The initial week or so wasn't too bad. I was able to handle the reduced calories as the motivation from losing weight spurred me on
Although after the second week, I began to feel all of the downsides of overly reduced calories such as
- Hunger
- Loss of motivation
- Poor performance
- Thinking about food constantly
The reason I reduced my calories so much was that I thought that was the way to lose weight fast and efficiently
Once the third week came by, I ended up have a week-long binge of takeaways leading to putting a stone back on due to the deprivation of all of the foods in the initial couple of weeks
Why did this happen?
Well, the diet I was following wasn't sustainable and didn't work for me and my lifestyle
After intensive research, I learned that reducing calories too much isn't ideal for losing weight/dropping body-fat
I learned that an achievable 300-500 calorie deficit was all that I need to get the result I wanted
After these findings, my new calories target was 2300 with a mix of protein, carbs, and fats all included
After 8 weeks of following these calories, I successfully dropped the weight/fat and felt fitter than ever!
- No cravings
- No binges
- No loss of motivation
Eating smarter not harder 
