this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2023
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Assuming you are in good health other than wanting to lose weight the best thing you can do is buy a food scale and portion out your food and eat 1500 calories a day and no more. Eat what you want when you want just no more than 1500 and you will lose weight like crazy. That's how I did it and I lost a full person's worth of weight, like a full 50% of my body weight.
This is basically the only thing that's been successful for me. I track my calorie intake with an app and shoot for net 1500 (with exercise).
Eating back exercise calories is not recommended.
I’ve never heard a compelling reason for this.
Look. I really hate to be harsh here, but this is terrible advice.
Yes you'll lose weight because eating only 1500 calories a day is definitional malnutrition. Any "diet" which claims that is healthy is very literally encouraging people to develop eating disorders. You absurdly absolutely can't do it by "eating anything you want."
Unless you are doing this under strict super vision from a dietician and your doctor, for a specific medical reason, it is extremely dangerous and more likely to cause other problems with your overall health in the long run. You will almost certainly not get the nutrie ta your body needs to function correctly if you are not carefully monitoring what you are eating with professional help. You're also significantly more likely to end up with an eating disorder. These diets are extremely harmful, I hate seeing them literally everywhere.
You may have seen results in losing weight in such a "diet" because you were very literally starving your body of the calories it needs to function. That just isn't a healthy way to lose weight.
If your doctor is telling you that you are in good health and the only reason you want to lose weight is cosmetic, don't do it. Unless it is directly impacting your health and your doctor is recommending it and supervising it, forcing yourself to eat significantly less than what you need to function is not safe.
I did what my doctor told me to do. So idk wtf you are talking about but ok I guess you know more than my doctor does. I'll make sure to let them know I'm canceling my next appointment and I'll be going to you from now on. So im gonna need your office hours and a good address and phone number I can reach you at. Please hit me up with all those details asap.
Literally in my post I said "to do this safely you need to work with your doctor"
This was less directed and you, and more at the large number of people who will read a post like yours and go "I can totally do that!" and just cold turkey start eating only 1500 calories a day, without any consultation with doctors or nutritionists.
Thats extremely common. Literally googling "1500 calorie diet" comes up with pages of unsafe recommendation, most of which do not begin with "consult with your doctor and don't take advice from strangers on the internet about your diet."
Er, having calorie deficit is, by definition, the only way to lose weight. I agree that 1500 specifically as a flat target regardless of starting weight, gender, and height, though, could be outright dangerously low, not to mention unrealistic. Fortunately, calorie counting apps are good at setting target intakes given the above parameters.