The 20 kg challenge - Eating 1200 calories per day
I started a challenge to lose 20 kg of weight in 2 years on March 2017 with a body weight of 96 kg. Now I have 80 kg and my goal is to achieve 76 kg. You might ask how I did this. So here is my story...
It all starts with the right calculation. I found out for myself that with all my office work I do not burn more than 1600 calories per day if I do no sports. Also if you want to lose 20 kg you have to be careful not to lose a lot of muscles. Muscles burn calories - the more muscles you have the higher your daily calorie consumption is - even when resting. Therefore it is a good idea to do some fitness training. So I started on March 2017 with a one year plan in my fitness center and went to this fitness center at least twice a week. I concentrated my training on building up muscles and not on building up stamina. The days I rested I reduced my food to 1200 calories per day. About 7000 calories make 1kg of fat. So a deficit of 400 calories per day helps me to lose 0,4 kg of fat per week. However that is the calculation and life does not always follow your calculations. I found out that dramatically reducing food to 1200 calories per day puts your body in a mode where the body tries to conserve as much energy as possible. Therefore I broke my 1200 calories the days I made sports at the fitness center as I calculated that I burn about 800 calories more on those days. That means that I can eat 2000 calories the days I go to the fitness center. That way I avoid getting to deep in that saving mode.
Eating 1200 calories a day is not that easy. You should focus on eating a lot of protein and vitamins because you need protein to build up muscles. However even with that focus on proteins with a diet at 1200 calories a day I lost some muscles in the first year although I did muscles training at the fitness center but it is not that much. Your food could look like the following for a day.
You start your day with 2 eggs. That is about 155 calories. At lunch I eat a salat with feta cheese with only vinegar but without oil. That salad has about 258 calories. For dinner I eat half a chicken with about 704 calories and a bun with 179 calories. This example results in 1296 calories for the day having 70,39 gram fat, 43,05 gram carbs and 112,42 gram protein. You should at least be above 80 gram protein a day when building up muscles so you don't lose a lot of them. Also keep in mind that drinks often contain a lot of sugar. Therefore I drink only water and coffee as well as tea without sugar. Even if you drink something like some apple juice you should check how much calories you drink and add it to your daily calories calculation.
Within 4 months I achieved a reduction of my weight of 10 kg to 86 kg. I was satisfied and I could not see any salat any more. Also summer time was over and it is not the best idea to live with only salat in winter time. You should exchange the salat with a warm soup in winter times. So I took a break and continued to eat normal for about 8 months. Then I decided to continue my challenge this spring and again reduce my food to 1200 calories. However my one year plan in the fitness center ended and I decided to change my training from building up muscles to some stamina training at a weight of 80 kg now. Therefore I ride about 4 hours on my bike every weekend which results in additional 2400 burnt calories and on these days I eat more than the 1200 calories of my diet plan to break the mode of my body so that my body does not reduce the calories it burns when resting.
This is my story about my 20 kg challenge. The last 4 kg to 76 kg are the hardest to achieve. However I am optimistic that I will achieve my goal of 76 kg until March 2019 because I already lost 6 kg this spring. If you want to achieve similar results I strongly suggest that you start to write a log about your daily calories in your food. You can find a good smartphone app for this at http://www.fatsecret.de/. I personally use this app daily for my motivation and discipline. It helps a lot!
You can also find more inspiration about my 20 kg challenge on my YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQS43V5UTuQ2woEH5TOVxNw. I also write a german facebook page about the 1200 calories diet and fitness with sports at https://www.facebook.com/Berni1979.
I wish you the best and lots of motivation for your own challenge if you start one.
Bernhard