When to Reduce Calories

Nutrition Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hello Jordan,

I’ve currently been dieting for 4 weeks. At the start of my diet I was 233lbs, 35 inch waist at 6ft3. As of today I am 222.5lbs.

I started my cut eating 3300 calories and 2 weeks ago decided to reduce it to 3000. Since then, I went from 226 on average to a low of 221.5 within a week, but for the last 7 days have been averaging 222.5 with my weekly average only down by 0.2lbs from the previous weeks.

Generally speaking, I’m not experiencing any hunger or other typical feelings you would expect to see on a cut, which in conjunction with the small, albeit short-term, weekly weight loss makes me think I could drop lower.

What do you think I should do? I don’t want to prematurely cut calories more and potentially ruin my gym performance, but also don’t want to sit around when the signs a drop is needed are clear.

Thanks for your insight.

2

I usually wait 2-3 weeks of no drop (with good adherence) before considering a reduction. It can certainly take longer to start or restart losing weight from a given deficit, but I favor 2-3 weeks for practical purposes.

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