suggestions?

Question
QUESTION: Hello,
So I am a college athelete, and have always struggled actually losing weight because I have to go to great extremes to lose weight seeing as my body is use to high intensity exercise already.  I recently lost about 5lbs in a month, and am looking to lose about 5lbs more.  I am finding I hit a plateau and I am thinking it has much to do with nutrition...when I started losing weight I changed my eating quite a bit...now I feel my body is use to the new meal plan and doesn't wanna change.
I eat around 1200 calories a day, a lot of fruit, veggies, and proteing...little carbs but i do have them!  Lots of water! Any suggestions?

ANSWER: Dear Amy,

Five pounds is a lot to lose in a month, actually, for a female, so you may have just slowed down a bit.  If the weight comes off two pounds a month, that's good too!

The best way to lose weight is to cut out sweets, soda and empty-calorie snacks and desserts and replace them with nutritious, low-calorie foods like fruits and maybe a plain cookie like a graham cracker when you crave something sweet.

1200 calories is VERY low unless you are under 5'2" and weigh less than 110 pounds--in which case you shouldn't be trying to lose weight anyway!

If you are taller, weigh more, and are still active in athletics you should go up to about 1500 calories at least.  Eating a very-low calorie diet can cause your body to slow its metabolism, thinking there is too little food available.  Try relaxing your diet a bit and eating a little bit more and see if you don't start losing a pound a week again.
The best thing you can do for yourself is stay close to your ideal weight and practice healthy eating habits so you don't struggle with trying to diet through your 30's, 40's and beyond!

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: So even though I don't feel tired or like I am not eating enough, 1200 is too little? I am tall, not participating in sports right now, just exercising about 5x a week.  
I am worried if I increase my calories I will gain what I lost back.  
I agree that I can lose the weight slower, I just want to be leaner and in better health for september when our season starts up again...so I don't want to make bad choices now that will effect that.
On a kind of un-related subject...is there anything that can aid in coming back from an injury? I had a shoulder injury that I am currently still trying to get better and am wondering how my diet can effect the healing...thanks!

Answer
Yes!  1200 calories is the absolute lowest number that anyone can eat and still get the barest amount of nutrition they need--even a tiny little old lady who doesn't move around at all!!

Your body probably needs 2500 calories while you are young, tall, and active.  See www.mypyramid.gov to confirm this... it will tell you exactly how many calories you need for your age, height, weight, and activity level and show you how to plan a healthy diet :)

There isn't anything you can eat to help heal, but do make sure you get enough calories and protein--your body uses more when you're building new tissue.  I promise you won't gain weight eating 1800 calories, but you do have to make sure you know how much you are eating if you're counting calories--I know someone who 'thought' she was eating 1000 calories a day but everything she ate had twice as many calories as she thought they did!  Check out one of the websites that lets you enter what you eat and counts your calories for you, like Sparkpeople.com or Caloriecount.com or TheDailyPlate.com or one of a dozen others--they're not always completely accurate because it's just people at their computers entering the data, but it'll average out to give you a great estimate.

Let me hear how you're doing in a few weeks time!

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