How many calories should I eat to lose the last 10- 15lbs?
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Remember to have patience! The last 10 is so slow, but it's worth it.
I've lost 8lbs since new years, 5 more to go. Make sure you are using a food scale to weigh your foods. If you're not, the extra 100-250 calories you're eating by estimating will pretty much eliminate your deficit!
Congratulations on losing! I do use a food scale as well as measure. I find that measuring 1 tbs of peanut butter seems easier than putting it on a plate? How do you measure pb? It's worked so far for me with my weight loss of 21 lbs. I do always measure the 100-250 calories if I eat them. I don't estimate. What do you mean by "Make sure you are using a food scale to weigh your foods. If you're not, the extra 100-250 calories you're eating by estimating will pretty much eliminate your deficit!"
I appreciate your tips! Thanks
So, if your goal is to lose 0.50lb a week, that's a 250 calorie a day deficit (250 cals x 7 days = 3500 cals in a lb of fat)
Say I'm having some cheese every day, and the package says "1/4 (50g) per serving" is 150 calories. If I use a measuring cup, I could probably shove 100g of cheese in that cup if I really wanted to. Now, I've eaten 300 calories of cheese, but only logged 150. Now my daily deficit is only 100 calories, and I'll only lose 0.20 lbs this week instead of 0.50.
The food scale takes away all that over/underestimation. Peanut butter: Set jar on scale, hit tare, spoon out the serving in grams, make sure to lick spoon!
This is great. Thanks for all of this info! How do you figure out the calorie per day deficit? I'm a bit slow when it comes to all of this science, lol! I wasn't sure exactly how I would place the jar of pb on the scale and tare it and how that would work out. I didn't know if I would need to do the math (subtracting what I want from the kg of what is in the jar) but it has a -15,-30, ...which makes it nice! Thanks! Just did it. Yay, so proud of myself lol!! I was wondering if as I'm scooping it out if that jarring hurts the calculations at all? Sorry for all my ?'s!
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Remember to have patience! The last 10 is so slow, but it's worth it.
I've lost 8lbs since new years, 5 more to go. Make sure you are using a food scale to weigh your foods. If you're not, the extra 100-250 calories you're eating by estimating will pretty much eliminate your deficit!
Congratulations on losing! I do use a food scale as well as measure. I find that measuring 1 tbs of peanut butter seems easier than putting it on a plate? How do you measure pb? It's worked so far for me with my weight loss of 21 lbs. I do always measure the 100-250 calories if I eat them. I don't estimate. What do you mean by "Make sure you are using a food scale to weigh your foods. If you're not, the extra 100-250 calories you're eating by estimating will pretty much eliminate your deficit!"
I appreciate your tips! Thanks
Put the jar on the scale, tare it to zero. Scoop out pb until the scale says -32grams or whatever serving you are going for.
When you use volume measure like cups or spoons, it is not as accurate. When you have more weight to lose, you have more wiggle room for inaccurate logging, but when you are down to the last few, every calorie counts. I thought I was eating 1500 cals, but when I got a food scale I found I was actually eating more like 1700-1800 cals per day, and that was why I wasn't losing.
Wow this is all so good to know. I had no idea I could do this! As I asked the person who also commented, does the jarring either lifting the container to scoop or whatever, affect the measurements and weight or would it already be programmed since its been tared? Do you know what I mean? Say I get to the bottom of pb jar and I need to scrape sides. Will that mess up the results of the weight I need?
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californiagirl2012 wrote: »This is the hardest part. You can't eat as low as when you have more body fat because you don't have as much stored energy to draw from on a deficit. It's more like a lab experiment so the advice above to measure all food is critical. It's a narrow tightrope walk, too low and you will feel like crap, to high and you won't lose fat. The body weight scale isn't much use, the food scale is what you need to focus on. Consistency wins along with an even keel of calories, not too low, not too high, and give it a couple of months at least without constantly looking at the body weight scale.
Great advice. Thank you! So do you feel personally that as you reach goal, more calories are needed? What would you recommend I set my calories at? I've had them at 1200 but so sometimes play around with that number depending on how hungry I am and do exercise daily. I don't eat back my exercise calories but only half if I do. Would you set daily calories to a different number? I was 168 lbs when I started and now 145.6.
Thanks
0 -
Remember to have patience! The last 10 is so slow, but it's worth it.
I've lost 8lbs since new years, 5 more to go. Make sure you are using a food scale to weigh your foods. If you're not, the extra 100-250 calories you're eating by estimating will pretty much eliminate your deficit!
Congratulations on losing! I do use a food scale as well as measure. I find that measuring 1 tbs of peanut butter seems easier than putting it on a plate? How do you measure pb? It's worked so far for me with my weight loss of 21 lbs. I do always measure the 100-250 calories if I eat them. I don't estimate. What do you mean by "Make sure you are using a food scale to weigh your foods. If you're not, the extra 100-250 calories you're eating by estimating will pretty much eliminate your deficit!"
I appreciate your tips! Thanks
So, if your goal is to lose 0.50lb a week, that's a 250 calorie a day deficit (250 cals x 7 days = 3500 cals in a lb of fat)
Say I'm having some cheese every day, and the package says "1/4 (50g) per serving" is 150 calories. If I use a measuring cup, I could probably shove 100g of cheese in that cup if I really wanted to. Now, I've eaten 300 calories of cheese, but only logged 150. Now my daily deficit is only 100 calories, and I'll only lose 0.20 lbs this week instead of 0.50.
The food scale takes away all that over/underestimation. Peanut butter: Set jar on scale, hit tare, spoon out the serving in grams, make sure to lick spoon!
This is great. Thanks for all of this info! How do you figure out the calorie per day deficit? I'm a bit slow when it comes to all of this science, lol! I wasn't sure exactly how I would place the jar of pb on the scale and tare it and how that would work out. I didn't know if I would need to do the math (subtracting what I want from the kg of what is in the jar) but it has a -15,-30, ...which makes it nice! Thanks! Just did it. Yay, so proud of myself lol!! I was wondering if as I'm scooping it out if that jarring hurts the calculations at all? Sorry for all my ?'s!
So MyFitnessPal automatically calculates it for you, depending on your goal (lose .5, 1, 2lbs a week, etc.). This is already built in to your daily calorie goal so you don't have to worry about that.
Scooping/jarring the scale won't change anything.2
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