Do I Need To Keep Reducing My Calories As I Lose Weight?
Article Round-Up: 11.26.23
Enjoy this week’s curated round-up of articles, podcasts, and more from the web to help you live a healthier, happier life.
Published This Week:
5 Scripts For Food Pushers [Podcast]
Takeaway: The holidays are here. Anyone who has ever attempted to improve their lifestyle habits as experienced certain friends and family pushing unwanted food onto their plate.
In this episode, we’re going to arm you with the strategies to avoid feeling pressured into consuming food you don’t want.
Takeaway: On May 20th, 2022, Ryan Russell was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. The day he received his official diagnosis, he wrote a letter to his three young boys. You can read that letter above.
“Approach life with passion and joy and laughter.”
Just For Fun:
Why Do Warmer Climates Have Spicier Food?
Takeaway: There are a number of hypotheses about why spicier foods are found in warmer climate regions of the world. Some make total sense, like the type of climate needed to grow these spices.
Others are harder to prove, like the hypothesis that spices helped keep food more sanitary and reduce the risk of food-borne illness.
Turns out, counterintuitively, it may simply be because spicy food helps keep people cool in warmer temps.
Reader Question:
Do I need to keep reducing my calories as I lose weight?
To fully answer this question, it’s important to first understand why your metabolism slows down during and after weight loss.
Weight loss occurs when you eat less food than you burn on a daily basis.
That seems simple enough: Go on a diet, eat less, and successfully lose weight.
Here’s where it gets nuanced.
After spending enough time in a calorie deficit, your body will adapt to the new intake of energy. When this happens, your body becomes more efficient at using less calories.
For example, if you once consumed 2,000 calories to maintain your body weight, but now consume 1,400 calories to lose weight, your maintenance calorie level will begin to creep toward 1,400 calories.
How and why does this metabolic adaptation occur?
For two reasons: as a result of weight loss and a reduction in movement.
When you carry extra body fat, your body has to work harder to accomplish everyday tasks. When you weigh more, you burn more. As this weight melts away, your natural calorie needs change.
It takes less calories to fuel a lighter body.
But this isn’t the only reason your metabolism will change.
Let’s not forget that the accumulation of body fat is a survival mechanism of our early ancestors, when food was scarce. Weight loss opposes this process as controlled starvation.
In an effort to keep you alive during times of starvation, your body will adapt to try and meet the new calories available. When on a low calorie diet, this means you become more lethargic, less fidgety, and less motivated to move.
You’ll sit on the couch longer and get up less.
All of these mundane daily behaviors actually account for a large portion of our calorie needs.
It’s called NEAT—Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis.
NEAT can vary from person to person, and accounts for anywhere between 15-50% of daily calories burned.
To help conceptualize this, imagine the following:
It takes 2,000 calorie to maintain your current weight. Based on your lifestyle, your NEAT equals 20% of total calories. This accounts of 400 calories burned through non-exercise daily movement.
You decide to cut 500 calories from this maintenance level to drive weight loss. Your new goal is 1,500 calories per day.
As you follow this new plan, your feel more tired. You move less during the day. Your NEAT levels are cut in half, only burning 200 calories from this activity.
Instead of creating a deficit of 500 calories per day, you only have a deficit of 300 calories per day. Even though you’re eating less you’re also moving less and canceling out some of the changes.
Will you eventually need to reduce your calories (again) while on a weight loss plan?
Most likely, but this depends on the length of your diet, as well as your overall activity level.
And occasionally, as strange as it sounds, you may also need to eat a little more on a weight loss diet.
Metabolisms are nuanced and dynamic—always adapting.
This is one reason why working with a coach can be so helpful.
They can help you monitor these changes to point you in the right direction for the most effective results.
If you’re just beginning a weight loss plan here is my practical advice:
Determine your weight loss calorie goal. You can click here to access a calculator to help determine a starting number.
Follow this goal for a couple weeks and observe what happens.
Losing weight and don’t feel like quitting? Keep going. It’s working. (Don’t fix what isn’t broken.)
Is it not working? Double check you’re eating as much as you think you are. Then consider a small reduction.
Rinse and repeat until you meet your desired goal.
P.S. If this talk of calories and metabolism got your head spinning, then click below to book a complimentary strategy call with me or a member of my team to help you make sense of it all to start seeing better results with your weight loss plan.