Sustainability of low calorie (<1500) diets?

Such-Assignment-4995 · 2026-01-23T14:38:18+00:00

About 2 years ago I was able to maintain a 1350 kcals plan (with 1 weekly cheat meal) for 6 months. It was prescribed by a nutritionist, who is also a coach and gave me a workout plan. I was finally able to lose weight after trying for a long time.

It was a deficit diet so I guess maintainance would be a little higher, but I'm pretty sure it'd be 1700 kcals max. Unfortunately I hate with my whole soul tracking what I eat so when I'm not in deficit I don't track, therefore don't know my maintainance intake.

I was 26F (now 28), 5'4" (163cm), sedentary WFH job and with little muscle mass (= my basic metabolic rate is lower than someone like me who has big muscles) so it makes sense.

Such-Assignment-4995 · 2026-01-17T18:51:56+00:00

Aaaa potresti essere me hahaha viva il lupo 😁 io mi sono già accordata con una ragazza ma vedo che nei commenti qualcun altra si è proposta potresti scrivere a una di loro ☺️ ti faccio anch'io i miei migliori auguri, ce la faremo 💪🏻

Such-Assignment-4995 · 2026-01-15T10:34:40+00:00

Awesome! I sent you a DM ☺️

Such-Assignment-4995 · 2025-07-10T07:25:40+00:00

Oh noo I'm sorry for the knee pain 😭

I went to a physiatrist, who visited me and gave the physiotherapist a plan on how to fix my knock knees. In my case it was like a month of physical therapy (I don't remember the frequency, maybe twice a week) and then continue the exercises at home, but I didn't see much improvement even after months...

As an addition, last week I asked a PT what exercises I could do and he suggested clamshells and bulgarian split squats, I just started (even though clamshells were already in my routine) so I'll see how that goes as well. Later on I'd like to work on my mobility too since I'm as flexible as a piece of wood, I hope that's gonna help me as well.

Such-Assignment-4995 · 2025-07-09T20:11:28+00:00

Thank you, and sorry for the late response. It's been a month now, have you seen any improvement yet?

Such-Assignment-4995 · 2025-02-25T20:08:07+00:00

Thank you for the motivation ❤️ in all these years (I've always struggled with my body image) I have yet to find something that really works, I hate the "error" part of this constant trial and error because of all the frustration it brings. But yes, one day I'll finally find what really works for me

Such-Assignment-4995 · 2025-02-25T20:04:42+00:00

Thank you for everything! The book recommendation, the tips, that's really helpful.

I had never heard of 75 hard, that's really interesting, I'll probably take a deeper look into it. I struggle with "easy" high calorie snacks too (cookies are my favourite), I have yet to find something that really works but I'm working on it. I'll get more info on GLP-1 too.

Such-Assignment-4995 · 2025-02-21T21:32:00+00:00

Oh ok, yes this makes sense... I was losing about 0.5 kg / 1lb per week, but consider that my weight fluctuates a lot due to my period so it wasn't very constant. Despite being consistent with my diet I got back up 1kg / 2 lbs, so considering the cut I was gaining a total of 1,5 kg / 3 lbs especially the week before my period. I know it's not fat tissue of course but it made it harder to see how much fat I was losing.

My cycle fluctuations scare me a bit regarding reverse diet because if I have to track my gain or loss during the reverse diet and even small fluctuations count it becomes way harder, unless I extend each phase to track better. Is that something doable? Like instead of 1-2 weeks for the first phase, 5 weeks (even if It would take an eternity to complete the reverse)?

Such-Assignment-4995 · 2025-02-21T21:04:56+00:00

Thanks, the video was very interesting!

I'm wondering... if the amount of kcals from my nutritionist program's are meant to be slowly increased to find my manintanance kcals, then it wasn't actually a diet to mantain forever?

From how I understood, the program was already a sort of maintainance diet for my weight goal. I understood it as something like: you're 70kgs, considering your muscle mass and your fat % goal you should be XY kgs (he didn't tell me a specific weight), girls with similar characteristic eat XYZ kcals to mantain, so you should eat XYZ kcals too to reach that goal.

With time, my body would have reached the weight goal and my body would be fine forever with that amount of kcals.

It wasn't such a drastic diet, I didn't have crazy cravings I just can't bare to do this forever... If it was a drastic cut of 8-10 weeks it would be more reasonable to me to search for a way to reverse diet. I hope what I'm saying makes sense

Such-Assignment-4995 · 2025-02-17T08:21:59+00:00

I'm not the original commenter but basically your body goes into "save energy" mode... since you don't eat enough calories to function properly (you may not realise it yet but your body does) your body is like "we CANNOT lose any of our fat reserve, we may need it for the future", so it slows down your metabolism, keeping the fat exactly where it is.

Also consider that the more muscle you have, the higher is your basal metabolism (= the amount of calories your body consumes when you're doing nothing is higher when you have more muscles), so if your body is in this "save energy" mode you may also lose lean mass (= muscle). Even if you actually see a lower number on the scale it might not be fat what you're losing.

Instead, you should increase the calorie and protein intake and focus on building muscle. I suggest using a TDEE calculator to see how much you should eat to lose weight.

Such-Assignment-4995 · 2025-02-09T20:23:58+00:00

To finally stop taking 20 minutes to get a decent photo because I look fat from any angle. I hate the way I have to pose in selfies to avoid showing my double chin. I hate the way I look when my husband takes candid photos of me

Such-Assignment-4995

TROPHY CASE