Caloric Intake Question

How long have you been on a 1800 calorie diet? You should be losing weight at that level. How much cardio are you doing? 20 lbs in three months is doable, it will just take a strict diet. Go with 1500. Skip breakfast and limit yourself to just lunch and dinner. It might be tough, but there is no downside to it. You're not going to destroy your metabolism or harm your body.

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Skip breakfast and limit yourself to just lunch and dinner.

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I had to go the other direction to finally start losing weight. Big breakfast and then a bunch of small meals during the day. I'll eat 5-6 times a day.

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Go with 1500.

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That's probably too low. 2,000 calories should be fine. Track what you eat, everything. Don't eat junk or drink calories. Losing 20 lbs in months should be easy at your weight. You should lose a lot more than that though, like 50+

I will probably get shite for this but my advice would be to strictly limit your carb intake.

In two and a half months, I am down 18lbs. Lift 4 days a week, and do some light cardio on the weekends (elliptical mostly). Here is what I have been eating:

Breakfast: two scrambled eggs with some breakfast sausage mixed in, topped with shredded cheese and diced pickled jalapenos.

Lunch: typically something with ground meat, i.e. chilli or spaghetti. My chilli is made from scratch and the only real carbs are in the tomato sauce. I add a 1 carb hotdog, top with cheese and diced pickled jalapenos. The spaghetti is made with sauce that has 5 carbs per serving, and those are basically the only carbs in the meal. I top with parmesan cheese and add premade zoodles.

Dinner: Usually meat (chicken, deer, or beef) smothered with smoked pork sausage over cauliflower rice.

Snacks: sunflower seeds or mixed nuts.

I've had three cheat days where I said frick it and ate fast food, but went right back to my prepped meals the next day.

This has gotten me down 18lbs in two and a half months.

Every once in a while I'll buy the $4 premade salads from Kroger and a rotisserie chicken, shred it, and put the chicken over the salad (usually about three salads to finish a chicken) and eat with extremely low calorie dressing. I have buffalo ranch, Asian Miso, and a Honey Dijon (I don't care for the Honey Dijon).

I plan to lose another 8-10lbs by the end of March. That will be about as much weight as I can lose without losing too much muscle.

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What would your 1500 calorie meal plan look like?

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Meat and veggies. Little to no carbs. Absolutely no soda/beer. Don't over think it.

edit: Downvoters please explain yourself. Dude isn't going to lose 20lbs in three months by stuffing his face with pasta and bread.

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I will probably get shite for this but my advice would be to strictly limit your carb intake.

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actually in his case, you are prolly right, not that the others are wrong.

In fact Mingo hit it on the head in a round about way. At his weight, he is carrying a lot of water, an unhealthy amount.

but he needs to make sure he is 100% in a deficeit. 1200 is too low. 1800 is about right even though 2000 would be fine.

But this is a short term event he is getting ready for, so normal slow weight loss is not what we are looking for, we are looking for total body change.

He needs to be hitting low carbs, around 40-50g max.

Eat clean as possible

Keep protein very high

track every single thing that goes in his mouth

needs to lift heavy(honestly because this is a short term event, he really needs to lift 5 to 6 days a week if possible.

if not, 3 days a week. walking as much as possible and hard conditioning 2 times a week.


normally i would recommend a much slower pace, but this is a special event, he needs to hit it hard as frick for 3 months, drop water weight and make drastic changes in that 3 months.

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What’s the benefit of low carb if not in ketosis? Do y’all count total carbs or net carbs?

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no benifit from a fat loss perspective of either. But you are more than likely holding a shite ton of water and getting that off will help.

You're not eating enough. Your body is used to you eating low calories, so your metabolism has slowed to be more efficient with the fuel it's being given.

In the short term, I don't know if you can really fix this. You probably will want to up the exercise and keep calories the same and slowly add calories in once you see weight dropping. Build some more muscle too and your body will consume more calories at rest.

In the long term, you should consider ramping up the calories for a while to get your metabolism back to work.

If you are looking for a quick fix, go low carb.

After that, take in less calories than you exert. But be very cautious of the type of calories you are taking in.

Tracking will be good info, and maybe you have been eating a lot more (I imagine this is true) than you thought, but the point still stands. Your height/weight maintenance calories should be around 2400 calories at least, and I would imagine that if you actually go to a TDEE calculator and put in your metrics that it would agree. If you go to 1800 calories for an extended period of time, you will 100% slow down your metabolism and be miserable while doing it.

You will be much better off long-term to take the approach of a total lifestyle change and not just try to lose a bunch of weight for one date 3 months away. But, that's just my opinion and everyone has one.

Whatever you decide to do, do it smart so that you don't cause problems for yourself down the line.