am i doing enough?

[xnatsx]

I'm 20, 5'2, and around 146 pounds.

Every day i've been eating between 1200 and 1400 calories.

I've also been doing a dance excercise video, which lasts about an hour, combined with streches and sit-ups. I walk quite a lot in my job, and 2day i did my video twice, yesterday i combined it with another video.

Should i be losing weight this way? i have only lost about a pound, and i know it's only three days but my normal weight is about 141 pounds and the extra 5 pounds usually falls away very quickly when i try to diet, i think it's more often water retension.

 

[KissMyHuman]

Well for someone with your stats, I would stay closer to 1400-1500 calories a day. This will basically match your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) without starving yourself, but still creates a calorie deficit of close to 400 calories a day if you're a moderately active person; we're not even counting exercise yet.

A pound of body fat is roughly 3500 calories. To lose 2 pounds a week (the healthy recommended pace), you'd want a caloric deficit of 1000 calories a day and the easiest way to do that is 500 calories less from food, and 500 calories burned from exercise or moderate to heavy effort activity. is a decent place to start getting an idea of how many calories exercises and daily activity use up.

What is your diet like? When you're eating less calories, its essential that you consume better calories. Fruits, veggies, legumes (beans), nuts, seeds, lean meats, whole grains and so on. When in doubt ask yourself "would my grandparents recognize this as real food?" Refined carbs like white flour products and sugar-added products should be avoided as much as possible.

Chances are if you're losing 5 pounds very quickly, it's mostly water weight. Keeping properly hydrated, 8-10 eight oz cups a day, will actually reduce your tendency to hold body water and it also comes with some amazing physiological effects because it frees up the liver to process and burn body fat.

If you're a yo-yo dieter, I suggest focusing on weight training. You won't bulk up but it'll help you keep your muscle mass as you diet which is probably lower than it should be because of previous diet attempts.

May I ask why sit-ups are part of your routine? Granted working your abs are fine as strengthening your core helps with balance and posture, but theres no reason to train that area specifically since you can't get rid of belly fat any faster. Basically there's no such thing as spot fat reduction. If you want to work on bodyweight exercises then add some squats, box jumps, pushups (modified if you can't perform a standard pushup very well), etc. etc.

Hope that gives you a better idea of what you're doing.