CXVIII: Will Eating Only 1500 Calories A Day Actually Help You Lose Weight?
The answer, simply put, is YES!
Now, athletes (like, actual athletes) be wary with this post because it’s not for you! But, eating anywhere between a 1200 to 1500 calories a day has been proven time and time again to quickly shed unwanted pounds in people across the world.
IT IS EASILY THE QUICKEST AND MOST EFFICIENT WAY TO DROP WEIGHT.
Let’s start with the bad and the good before I get to the testimonial.
CONS:
Not for everyone. This is not a method that everyone is able to live by. For one, many don’t have to the self-control enough to cut themselves off, and two, it’s just not easy.
Eating out is super appealing. Once you start counting calories, you’ll learn that one meal at a restaurant could easily cost you a days worth of calories! Cutting yourself off for the duration of the day could be super difficult.
The overly obsessed — now, there are some people who get into calorie counting and become overly obsessed. You can’t have a conversation with them about food without hearing how many calories are in whatever you’re eating. I’ve found, however, that these are also usually the people who aren’t actually losing the pounds but like to talk about calories and weight loss just for funsies.
PROS:
Accessible — this is not one of those things that you have to leave the house much to obtain. You don’t have to buy a certain food in bulk, etc. You can use the foods that are already at your house and go from there.
Not product specific. You don’t have to eat certain foods in order to lose weight with this method, you simply count the calories of the foods that you choose.
It comes with a water challenge. Why eat right without further strengthening your digestion? I’ve found that eating 1,496 calories a day has largely increased my water intake. This could be due to the fact that I sometimes just need something to fill my stomach, or because it gives me something to do besides snacking. No clue, but it’s a good add-on, I think!
LET’S TALK NUMBERS:
I use an app called YAZIO to track my diet and exercise for each day. So, let’s go over what’s shown in the photographs above:
DATE:
As you can see, the screen of the app that I chose to show is basically my month-to-month progress. At the top, you can see what month we are actually in. For example, in the first picture we are in January 2020 and I started using the app on January 9th as evidenced by the green, circled check mark.
MARKING:
The app, in this view, shows progress for the month. The trophy on the bottom left portion of the screen shows the number of ‘active days’ that I’ve had. This is simply tracking the number of days that I logged a workout of any sort.
The icon to the right of the trophy is a rigid circled check mark and that shows the number of ‘green days’. This is basically showing the days out of each month where I stayed within my calorie intake goal (which we’ll discuss in a bit).
Finally, the icon next to the check mark should be a scale. This shows the number of pounds that you’ve lost since starting the app. So, you can see in the top left , by the time that I checked my month in review, I had lost 3 pounds. And looking at the bottom right: since I’ve started to use the app, I’ve lost a total of 13.4 pounds.
Red, circled check marks signify the days that I went over my daily calorie intake goals. Also note, I took about two weeks off from tracking calories during bar prep (while I stress ate), so there is no check mark for that period of time. That is also a part of the reason that my weight loss from February to March was not as big as it was from January to February.
HOW DO I USE THE APP?
I started using the app because I noticed towards the end of last year that my weight was just too high and my body was changing in ways that I truly did not like. I was much fluffier than what I was used to being and, what annoyed me the most, I wasn’t as strong as I once was.
So, after battling a nasty bout of the flu, I decided to take back control of my body! 💪🏾
I started with the app by Googling calorie counting apps and I already had it in my mind that I did not wish to use My Fitness Pal. Once I was on the app, I liked the set-up and the easy-to-use layout, so I stuck with it.
I set a weight goal that was about 20 pounds lighter than where I was when I started using the app (I started at 160 pounds). I put in my activity level at ‘moderate’ because, let’s face it, I’m simply not as active as I once was. And finally, I put in my current weight, my height, and my age. That gave me a daily calorie intake of 1,490 calories per day.
Throughout the journey, I was mostly motivated by the fact that even on days where I go over my calorie intake goals, I can just work out and earn those calories back. Trust me, maintaining that calorie goal gets hard!
Once I started to see big gains, however, I was sold!
I will eventually lower my daily calorie intake once I notice that I’ve platueaed. But, for now, this is the quickest, most efficient, and easiest way to shed a couple of lbs!
Give it a try and let me know what you think!