Calories

[Johnbengtson]

I am consuming well below calories a day for my activity level and now have hit a wall and have stuck there, floating between the same weight within 1-2lbs. For about 2 weeks is staying below suggested daily calorie intake bad? I don't feel hungry and my water intake is between 66-99 oz. a day. Any ideas?

[Dominique]

When did you start your weight loss journey, what was your starting weight and how much have you lost since? What are your other personal data (age, height)? What is your average daily step count?

"Reaching a plateau", "hitting a wall", or more generally ceasing to lose weight after a while is something to be expected. How soon it will occur depends on a number of parameters, hence the above questions.

[SunsetRunner]

It depends on how low you go. If you’re doing 250-500 calories below maintenance then you should be fine. If you’re talking something like 1000 calories below maintenance you will plateau faster. It’s not that you won’t lose weight it’s your body is trying to fight against you to hold on to that fat. You could end up hurting yourself losing muscle instead of fat doing a very low-calorie diet. If you are doing a very low-calorie diet what you could do is take a break for a while. Eat at maintenance and then go back to a small calorie deficit. There will be a point where your calorie deficit will become your maintenance calories which means you would need to lower your calories even further but don’t do that unless you know for sure that you are now at maintenance.