Ep. 11 - Why you can't lose weight on a 1200 calorie diet?

“I‘m on a low-calorie diet with 1200 calories. Why can’t I lose weight?”

What a lot of people try to do is to start their weight loss journey by doing a bunch of cardio, plus going on a very low-calorie deficit (low calories diet). The easiest way to achieve a low-calorie diet is by cutting out the macro-nutrient carbohydrate – that’s at least what’s recommended the most on the internet… and it works, right?

What happens if I cut out carbohydrates?

So the thing is, within the first month, you probably lose a bunch of weight.

You cut out the carbs and your body starts burning fat (because of the calorie deficit that you created by eating less) and releasing all the excess water that was held in your body by eating carbs (water weight). So you end up losing a kilo, maybe 3kgs, 4kgs, sometimes even 5kgs within a month.

“Awesome, this is amazing, it’s working!”, you might think now.

Then your weight suddenly stagnates… for weeks, months and although it might have worked perfectly out for you when you started this low carb / low-calorie diet.

Here is the problem with Low-Calorie Diets:

The problem is that if you are on a low-calorie diet, and you additionally do a bunch of cardio… What happens is that your body reduces your metabolism by decreasing your overall muscle mass – You will lose muscle.

Your body will slow down which makes overall weight loss a little bit harder, a little bit slower, but not impossible.