About
Hi! My name is Lori Pirog and I am a professional Nutritionist and self-taught artist. I am happily married with one daughter. At 57, I am enjoying the privilege of good health and the time for creative pursuits including my online business and art. I have a wonderful but ornery black cat named Mona.
I am committed to living a healthy lifestyle. My mission is to encourage women to eat healthy, exercise, and enjoy life now! By making appropriate diet and lifestyle choices you can lose weight and succeed in maintaining that loss, increase your energy, feel better, look better, and multiply your enthusiasm for life! Check back often to learn more about healthy portion-wise diets, low calorie nutritious food, and the benefits and fun of exercise.
In addition, to help guide you in your journey to better health and wellness I share reviews of worthwhile products and services. I wish you the very best!
Have a question or comment? I would love to hear from you!
Lori
Dam to Dam Half-Marathon Run 2009
Dam to Dam Half-Marathon Run in 2010. What a day for a race! Ran nearly the entire first half in the rain. This photo was taken near the finish line when I was hot, wet, and very tired. But I made it for a second time!
{ 57 comments… read them below or add one }
← Previous Comments
Yes! That does help a lot! Thank you so much. Actually, I was fidling about online and looking at other sources too. I found information that correlates with what you said about 1800 calories. I just thought it felt too high, but with excercise it makes sense. I think I will stick to 1800 on the days I exercise and those days that I can’t exercise, it will drop to about 1500. I really appreciate your help, I felt close to tears yesterday. Thank you for being so generous with us all and taking your personal time to help people in need. You are giving us all a great gift and are a wonderful person for that!
Thanks for your kind words.
I believe you are making a good decision about how to handle your caloric intake. I genuinely wish you the best!
Lori
Hi lori, I’m 46, 5ft6 weighing 162 lb . Iv always followed various diet clubs before! I lost 88 lb on WW but had a very bad car crash last June – iv gained 11lb since due to inactivity! Iv decided that i don’t want to o down the diet club route again and want to count calories ! I am able to exercise again and train with kettle bells x 3 per week & interval train x 3 per week , following 1,200 cal But iv lost NO weight in the 4 weeks ? Am I eating too little? I have a problem with sugar as iv got very sweet tooth! I’m trying to chose healthier foods and stay away from the rubbish! Iv also purchased a fitbit & try to do 10,000 steps a day! Any advise on what cal I should be on would be most grateful! From sunny uk Marie x
Hi Marie,
Thanks for your patience in getting a response. We just moved in to a new house over the weekend and we’re finally beginning to have some semblance of order back in our lives!
I’m sorry to hear of the car accident you were involved in last June. Sounds awful! I can understand putting on a some weight given your circumstances. I think I’ve put on a pound or two just in the last few weeks with all the stress of moving.
Good for you doing a kettle bells workout and interval training! I need to get back on track with this kind of exercise myself.
As for not losing weight in the past few weeks it is possible you are not getting enough calories. My quick estimate suggests you may have a BMR of about 1450. Given all the exercise you are doing I would think 1500-1600 calories might be better for you.
My guess is that you will see the plateau break once you increase your caloric intake. Increasing your caloric intake also increases the odds of being able to maintain your loss once the weight begins to come off.
[Although it seems to me that increasing your caloric intake would be your best bet, you could stay with what you are doing a bit longer and see what happens. I've know people who go several weeks with no weight loss and then for whatever reason the scales begin to move.]
Good luck eating as healthy and balanced a diet as possible. It DOES make a difference!
Hope this helps,
Lori
Hi Lori, thank you so much for all the useful information! I am 5’3″ female weighing 244 pounds at age 33 & am looking to be at least 150-160 lbs. I currently have been trying to keep at 1200 calories (but with my food diary I’ve noticed that I’ve been lower than that on most days for the past couple of weeks); thanks to the information you provided, I realize I’m not taking in enough calories. I use a website calculation tool and found that my BMR is 1857.4; therefore, I found that I am most certainly eating too few calories and am setting myself up for failure in the long run by eating too few calories in the beginning of my weight loss/getting healthier journey. Unfortunately, I don’t have an active lifestyle; mostly I just get exercise from working out in the yard or from walking at work. How many calories would you recommend I eat to begin my path of getting to a healthier me on a health weight loss plan?
Hi Shannon,
Yes, I would agree that you may be better off with a higher caloric intake for the time being. As you lose weight you can re-evaluate and adjust the calories down. Because you are not doing a lot of exercise, you might consider 1800-1900 calories depending on your activity level. Although you’ve successfully followed a 1200 calorie intake or less for a couple of weeks, I believe you will find an 1800 calorie intake to be much easier to follow.
You haven’t mentioned if you’ve been losing weight on 1200 calories. If so, the rate of loss may slow down a bit but you will hopefully be losing a higher percentage of fat and less lean body mass when you switch to 1800 calories. And you will be more likely to keep your metabolism running smoothly.
Any exercise you can get helps. Gardening can be an excellent form of exercise and walking anytime/anywhere is always good. You might want to get yourself a pedometer to see how many steps you take each day. You might be surprised at how motivating it is to keep track of your steps. I used to think I walked quite a lot but then when I found out it was only 2-3,000 steps a day and not the 10,000 that is recommended it got me motivated to do more.
Eating a well-rounded and balanced diet is also important. Be sure to get plenty of protein and dietary fiber from whole foods.
I genuinely hope you do well!
Lori
Lori,
I am a 33 year old female I am 5 ft tall and 190 pounds I have three children and work full time in health care. I would like to lose 50 to 60 pounds and need help to know I need to do to do this. Any help would be great. Thank you
Hi Amy,
Sounds like you have a lot of responsibilities. So I would imagine you must be quite tired at the end of each day. Even so, I need to ask you a question. Do you cook? And if not, are you willing to do a little cooking? (What I am suggesting is avoiding the commercially prepared food of the heat and eat variety or eating out more than once a week.) If you know how to do simple basic cooking and you are willing to cook as little as 2-3 times a week I can show you how to eat delicious, low calorie food all week that’s quick and easy to prepare. Most importantly it’s nutritious and will give your body what it needs to help you reach your goal weight.
Your best bet for losing weight and keeping it off is preparing your own healthy, low calorie meals. This will give you control over your diet that is difficult to achieve any other way. You want to have meals you don’t mind making and that you enjoy eating. I can get you started if you are interested.
Otherwise, I would suggest you begin with a diet of 1600 calories. Going with less than that may work against you by tiring you out and slowing your metabolism. Take a look at my 1500 calorie diet plan to see hour your meals and snacks might balance out.
Let me know if you want more help.
Lori
Lori,
I have weighed this weight 179 since I was about 19 years old – fluctuated of course, during pregnancy – and stress -but overall stayed the same. I lost 28 pounds a couple of years ago – yogurt and salads and had a couple of adventures that included more walking – however, mostly inactive now and gained 30 pounds back. I was thinking of doing the 1200 calorie diet – it’s hard for me to stick to a diet – I have such a craving for sweets. And I found that I’m a stress eater. Can you help me?
I forgot to mention – I’m 54 years old.
Hi Sheila,
I find your story to be very interesting because unlike most adults who seem to put on about a pound a year, you seem to have held steady (most of the time). The concept of having a “set point” around which a body attempts to maintain weight is controversial but I think there’s some truth to the idea. It may be more true for some individuals than others.
In any case, it would seem that changing your weight and maintaining weight loss may prove to be challenging but I believe it is possible. I guess a lot would depend on how much you want to achieve a particular goal.
I believe that most of the struggle results from the need to completely revamp your way of eating. Although I know nothing about your current diet other than your cravings for sweets, I can tell you that you are much more likely to achieve and maintain a healthy lower weight if you are willing to eat a well-balanced lower calorie diet and exercise for the rest of your life. You can and SHOULD be eating far more than yogurt and salads for both weight loss and maintenance. I provide LOTS of information on this website about healthy low calorie eating.
You’ll find that this way of eating is the first step you can take to minimize your cravings. By balancing your food intake with plenty of protein and dietary fiber you will minimize blood sugar swings that can lead to cravings. Having a high protein breakfast is particularly helpful to keep you from being overly hungry and having cravings. Something else that helps is to reduce your overall sugar intake from any source. I don’t know about you but if I get started on sweet food (cookies, cake, pie, etc.) I find it to be very hard to stop!
Yes, I believe I can help you. I hope to have an email list soon to provide weekly updates with respect to what is new on my website and to direct people to articles I’ve already published. I also have a couple of groups on Facebook. One for the 1200 calorie diet plan and the other for the 1500 calorie diet plan. My quick estimate suggest you might do best with 1500 calories.
Hope all of this helps. Don’t hesitate to ask more questions or to have me direct you to specific articles.
Lori
← Previous Comments