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Anonymous
Count calories.
too many: you get fatter.
just enough: you break even, i.e. you burn what you take in. Look around online to estimate your basal metabolic rate.
a little under: you lose weight. probably best to get into this area by eating 'just enough' calories and burning extra with aerobic exercise.
a lot under: your body goes into starvation mode, where it hangs on to every scrap of nutrient it can. this is a bad place to be because you are hungry all the time but you don't lose weight. worse, to support itself, your body first eliminates the most costly tissues: muscles. That includes your heart. when you try to work out, you'll feel weak and enervated.
WAY under: a calorie-restricted diet. be careful, because if you don't do a CR diet right, you could hurt or kill yourself (eg. Matt Damon losing too much weight too fast for that movie with Meg Ryan, damaged his endocrine system). You'll lose muscle here, too, but you won't necessarily feel weak because your body goes into survival mode (*this is a topic of some debate, as there is evidence both FOR and AGAINST the 'survival' or 'longevity' mode). Try to stay active with walking, chin ups, push ups, etc. just don't overdo it.
Last year, I went on a calorie-restricted regimen, eating only 1200 calories per day. Made good choices about food, with some snacks. Kind of sucks, your dinner being a can of soup and a single square of chocolate, but oh well. I lost 25 lbs in three months. Now I do intermittent fasting, and I'm still an all-around athletic and healthy guy.
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