Hi Joe, It has been a while since I posted a question as I have tried to learn through practical application of what I am learning. I was hoping to ask a question around adjusting my calories as I lean down. My goal is to maintain muscle, while cutting the fat. When I started this journey, I was 317lbs and 45% body fat. Fast forward 11 months, I am now 194lbs and and around 20% body fat. I used your diet planner as a starting point and consistently follow your program builder, creating a new program every 6 weeks. With your information and programs, you have helped change my life.
When adjusting my diet, I have used various indicators, including sleep, stress, water consumption and salt intake. For consistency purposes, I have chosen foods that I enjoy and can prepare easily. There is a a good balance of everything and is based on meeting my macro needs. When looking at changing my calories, I have read many things on when they are low and put you at risk of going catabolic. At present, I am loosing around 1.5 pounds a week. When I started this journey, my deficit had me loosing 2 plus pounds a week. Through trail and error, I adjusted to 1.5 once I was getting close to 220lbs.
If I continue to consistently loose 1.5 a week, I should be ok until I reach 15-16% body fat? This is uncharted territory for me and I am unsure of next steps. I should never go below 1800 calories? After I reached 1800 and started to plateau, I took a diet break and ate at maintenance for 2 weeks, before diving back in at a reduced deficit. I am missing anything? This seems to have worked for me overall, but I was hoping for any suggestions you could provide
All the best and stay safe
Robert Snair
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