nhlanhla_maphanga's Journal, 14 Jul 20

I can give you my 10cents. I think it’s a good start if you are sedentary at the moment. 1200cals is recommended, lower than that you will lose, but your body will adapt eventually and you could have a hard time losing weight in future. If you have insulin resistance, pre-diabetic/ diabetes or have a thyroid problem, you can keep your carbs to 20-50g. If not you can go low carb 50-100g. When you start to exercise you can up your calories a bit and your carbs. 

Thank you for your response. So, can I still loose weight with 50_100g carbs, 1200 calories and No exercise.!? When I start to exercise eg: 1 hour walk or jog , should I still deduct 400 calories from the RDI?  

Your RDI will go up when you are more active. So whatever your RDI works out to. If you eat 400 or 500 cals below RDI. You should drop weight. The more active you are the higher your RDI will be. The other factors are, how tall you are and weight. You have to keep re-evaluating your RDI as you drop weight.  

Don’t be in a hurry to drop weight fast. You might just burn yourself out and binge later on. Gaining everything back. Enjoy the food you eat, and drop at a reasonable pace. In the beginning you might loss 1-2kgs per week. Then it slows down to 200-500g per week. It will all add up in the end. I’ve been in a hurry in the past, just to gain everything back again and more. So take my advice. Take your time :) 

My RDI is 2500, I eat an average of 2000cals per day. That’s because I’m very active. Always on my feet. So calculate your RDI correctly so you don’t feel starved. Trust me, as a person with a fast metabolism. 1200 cals per day will leave me feeling drained 😨 but if your metabolism is slow. You will feel full on little. 

I will loose weight on 1200cal per day, quite quickly in fast but it is very restrictive and I have felt tired and had lots of cravings on this low intake 

Technically if your RDI is 1600 and you eat 1200 calories just in sugar you'll lose weight since there's a deficit. It won't be healthy and you won't feel satiated, I'm just demonstrating a point. I started tracking calories, weighing food portions etc in September last year. I ate pretty much the same food I always ate, just counted calories making sure there was a deficit of around 500 kcal a day, and i lost weight. Main thing that helped me was "don't drink your calories", so I cut out coke and other sugary drinks. Only started exercising in the last few months. If you're honest with yourself by tracking calories nd making sure there's a deficit you'll be fine. 

Thank you all for your responsees. Much appreciated.  

too many variables. weight is one. current metabolism is one. your metabolism will mmost probably take over and cause a rebound effect. id recommend RDI at your "easy to comply to diet" and then just exercise. whether it be walk etc. then take steps such as eating more fibre and replacing that with carbs etc etc.