I've usually read about this with people who have problems when they've plateaued or hit a wall with their weight loss. Is it true that after a certain point your metabolism slows down to a point that it adjusts to calories your taking in where originally it was a deficit but now it isn't? Okay that sounds really confusing so I'll explain with my example.

Male
19
5'9
170 lbs

When I first started my caloric intake was around 2200. After I lost about 5 or 10 lbs I noticed my weight stopped dropping. This was after 2 months of working out. I dropped my caloric intake to 1800 and began losing weight again but again I hit a wall after a month or so after losing 3-4 pounds.

So I calculated everything on fitday and I'm supposedly at a caloric deficit of almost 1000 a day! Has my metabolism slowed down to a point that I need to eat more to speed it back up? And if so how long would I need to do this for?

First thing to ensure is that you are hitting your calorie intake goals and reaching your calories expended goals. Next, a deficient of 1,000 calories a day is far to large for someone your size. that's roughly 7,000calorie deficient a week! The general deficient goals for the general person and size should equate to around 500 calories a day off an estimation that factors in activity, not solely BMR. That cut should then be made between both diet and exercise.

To answer your question, yes.... your metabolism will down-regulate as you diet down. This is due to a number of factors. Obviously daily caloric expenditure is dependent on body size. As you lose weight, your metabolism will slow in turn.

More complex, but equally important and impacting is the physiological adaptations that occur during a diet. Many of these adaptations are associated with shifts in hormone levels that regulate metabolism and hunger. Diet hard and/or long enough and things start to change.

Yah I thought 1000 was a little extreme too but I'm far from starving myself. I still have a lot of energy at night time and at times still full from my last meal so that's why I felt the need to cut even more calories, I didn't want to go to bed on a full stomach.

So this brings me back to my other question, has my metabolism adapted to my new lifestyle and lower amount of caloric intake to a point that this is "normal" and not a "caloric deficit" anymore? If so, how do you suggest fixing this? Like I said, according to fitday I'm already at almost a 1000 calorie deficit and I don't know if it's safe to go any more extreme than that...

I'd slowly and systematically ramp cals back up towards your maintenance intake, each week or two. Maintenance, estimated, is around 14 cals per pound of body weight.

Stay there for a few weeks and then start dieting again with sane caloric restrictions.

Ok thanks a lot Steve, once again

Realize that gaining some weight is a possibility as you ramp up your cals. But if you can't lose weight on such a low intake now... your sitting between a rock and a hard place.

Rock = down regulated metabolism and eating less than you are now would be very tough and I wouldn't suggest it

Hard place = resetting your metabolism, so to speak, by ramping up cals to make your body *happy* again

I'd pick the path which involves the hard place. It's the one with a light at the end.

It will be important for you to track your weight and measurements throughout this period. Weekly.

Yah I'm going to choose the hard place path. I'll just go back to eating normal "non diet" stuff and just to get my metabolism back in check. I'll be very careful and not to eat anything that's super junky and high in fat, I've been super paranoid reading the nutrition facts of EVERY single thing (no kidding ) I eat that offers it since losing the weight. I'll probably still be doing your weight lifting plan, just no cardio so I can hopefully maintain some of the muscle mass during this stretch and just to get some exercise in.