You will lose weight if you eat at a caloric deficit. Period.
Basic laws of thermodynamics and the universe say in a closed system,
Your body spends energy by existing -- breathing, walking, talking, getting up to go to the bathroom, chewing on your food, pumping blood to your organs. Every single action requires energy (calories)!
There's something called TDEE, or total daily energy expenditure. It's a calculation of how much energy it requires for you to function and stay at the same weight. Obviously, it matters what heigh and weight you are -- the taller and heavier you are, the more calories you require to simply exist. You can find TDEE calculators all over the internet simply by googling.
5'4" female @140lb: 1668 calories
5'0" female @110lb: 1429 calories
In order for you to lose weight, you just need to eat less than your TDEE.
This is basic physics. The laws of the universe do not change. If you eat less than TDEE, you will lose weight, no buts or ifs. If you "binge" eat 1600 calories, but your TDEE is 1660, you will not gain weight (permanently). It's just not possible (see my notes on water weight below if you have doubts).
1lb of fat is approximately 3500 calories of deficit. In other words, that's a 500 cal deficit per day, for one week, to lose one pound.
So if your TDEE is 1600, if you eat 1100 calories everyday, you lose one pound in a week.
"But I ate at 1000cal/day and I gained .5lb this morning!!!!"
Weight is so dependent on your sodium intake, hormonal levels, what food you've eaten that day that one single scale reading means NOTHING.
Here's a picture of the scale readings over the past two months for me.
See how it fluctuates like crazy? What's important is the general trend-- although one day I may "gain" 2lbs, one week later I'll be 3lbs below that "heavy" weight. I actually recommend stepping on the scale every day, at the same time. It helps move away from "omg I gained 3lbs!!!!" and let's you accurately identify if you are actually losing weight.
So for all you people who are stressed out about eating too much, just do some basic math. Chances are, you can eat a reasonable amount and LOSE WEIGHT. For me, if I try to eat 500cal a day, I do it for one day, then binge eat the next day and ruin my progress. One pound per week may seem slow, but consider how long you e hated your weight, compared to how quickly it'll drop off.
I've hated my weight for almost 8 years now, and in just two months I've dropped 1/3 of the weight I wanted to, while eating at 1200calories a day. In that context, 6 more months of this? Easy!
1200 calories: That's a lot of food! You can eat properly with that! For example one day:
Coffee with condensed milk (60)
1cup chicken teriyaki (150)
1/2 carton halo top (140)
In conclusion: you can eat a reasonable amount of food and still lose weight (faster than restricting, bc there's wayyy less binges). Your caloric intake will depend on your height and weight-- a 5'0 woman and a 5'6" woman should not be eating the same amount.
Good luck losing weight lovelies âď¸
