Why do I lose weight so fast?

zaynesmommy2015
zaynesmommy2015 Posts: 20 Member
edited November 17 in Health and Weight Loss
Yes I'm trying to lose weight, the problem is I lose weight so fast. I am about 155 lbs at the moment, I'm trying to get to 130. Well I started eating about 1200 calories a day and exercising daily and now I'm losing about 1-2 lbs a day. I know that's not healthy and I don't want to lose it that fast. A couple months back I did the same thing, was at 155 lbs and lost 20 lbs in about a month. The reason why I don't want to lose weight fast is because I gain it back so fast and I don't want that to happen again. Why does that happen? What do I do?
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Replies

  • LessCookiess
    LessCookiess Posts: 538 Member
    If I were you I would slow down you're not eating back the calories you burned off. You're most likely losing muscle, and will be more prone to having a less tight figure when you're done. Loose skin may be something you deal with at the end but possibly not just thinking with the fast rate it may be possible.
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    Eat more?
    1200 calorie is the minimum calorie goal for women for weight loss. It's not a suitable goal for all women.
    I have never had to resort to eating that little for weight loss. Why? Because I'm an active person and eating that low would make it hard for me to stay active. It would also essentially be crash dieting for me.
  • zaynesmommy2015
    zaynesmommy2015 Posts: 20 Member
    But even if I do eat more wouldn't I still gain the weight I lose back really fast?
  • deannalfisher
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
    no - you'll just slow down the rate of loss

    you look to be close to a healthy weight (obviously based on the photo) and with a goal of 25lbs to lose - you should probably adjust your MFP to .5-1lb weight loss a week and take in more food
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    But even if I do eat more wouldn't I still gain the weight I lose back really fast?

    Only if you eat more than you burn in will you gain.

    What you seem to be describing is you cras diet to lose and then eat at a surplus once at goal (probably without realising because of the crash diet).

    Try this calculator to get a rough idea of what you need calorie wise

    https://www.iifym.com/iifym-calculator/
  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,179 Member
    But even if I do eat more wouldn't I still gain the weight I lose back really fast?

    I've spent a year being just as skeptical of eating back exercise calories. I finally decided to try it. It works. At least, it works for me most of the time if I carefully log my exercise accurately, carefully and accurately log my food, make sure I eat no more than 50% of my exercise calories earned, try hard to get my protein numbers to my higher target, and drink lots and lots of water.
  • __TMac__
    __TMac__ Posts: 1,669 Member
    Put your information into MFP and let it set you up with the right amount of calories, then log your exercise. I typically eat 75% of my exercise calories and am losing almost exactly at the rate I've selected (1.5 lbs/wk).
  • ruqayyahsmum
    ruqayyahsmum Posts: 1,513 Member
    edited March 2017
    The reason many regain is once theyve lost the weight they go back to eating how they were when they gained the weight in the first place

    You need to look at this as a long term lifestyle change

    Make changes you can live with

    Set mfp to 0.5lb loss a week and eat back at least half to 75% of your exercise calories.

    When you get to goal you change your settings to maintenance and eat at that level
  • RoxieDawn
    RoxieDawn Posts: 15,488 Member
    Since this happened a few months back, it should have told you that 1200 calories is way too little for you to be eating to lose weight along with exercise too.

    Slow your rate of loss down. Reset MFP to lose .5 pound per week and eat back some of your exercise calories. Once you get down to the last 5-10 pounds start planning for maintenance. The lose gain, lose gain is just a yo yoing effect and you can avoid this by planning for your move into maintenance.
  • cerise_noir
    cerise_noir Posts: 5,468 Member
    Yes I'm trying to lose weight, the problem is I lose weight so fast. I am about 155 lbs at the moment, I'm trying to get to 130. Well I started eating about 1200 calories a day and exercising daily and now I'm losing about 1-2 lbs a day. I know that's not healthy and I don't want to lose it that fast. A couple months back I did the same thing, was at 155 lbs and lost 20 lbs in about a month. The reason why I don't want to lose weight fast is because I gain it back so fast and I don't want that to happen again. Why does that happen? What do I do?

    Before you take the advice to eat more; how long have you been doing this? If it is 2 weeks or under them leave your calories where they are. You're losing water weight, especially if you have reduced carbs and sodium as well as calories.

    If it has been a month and you're still losing fast (and using food scale as well as logging accurately), increase your calories.
  • mikkey
    mikkey Posts: 24 Member
    Losing weight slow or fast doesn't affect your long term success. You seem to be yo-yo dieting. This is a lifestyle change, not just a diet. If you lose the weight and go right back to what you were doing before, the pounds will pack on again.
  • LAT1963
    LAT1963 Posts: 1,375 Member
    edited March 2017
    It's normal to lose up to 20 lbs in the first month or two, and as others have said, its mostly water-weight. This is why there are so many diet scams "lose up to 14 lbs in the first month"--they know that's not too difficult for most people.

    If you are meeting your calorie targets, be happy about what you lost in the first month but don't take it as an indication of how fast you will continue to lose. If the rate doesn't slow down thereafter, then consider increasing your calorie target.

    I was off mfp for a year and gained about 40 lbs because of foot injuries that made it a challenge even to walk around the house. But here's a graph of my first 40-odd days back on MFP. Notice how steep the loss curve is at first and how (for the last 4 or 5 entries on this graph but now for a couple weeks beyond the segment shown) the slope is now settling down at a modest rate of about 0.3 lbs/day. The horizontal lines are 10 lb increments.

    918665x55vuo.png
  • LAT1963
    LAT1963 Posts: 1,375 Member
    one caveat about exercise calories--if you are using an activity monitor, some brands report the total calories you burned during exercise, whereas others report the calories above baseline that you burned with exercise. So, for example, I could do an 700 calorie hike on runkeeper (basal metabolism + exercise), whereas my polar might report it as 700 calories - 400 'negative adjustment' because 400 of those calories were burned just because I was alive and breathing for those 2 hours (or however long). The exercise bought me only 300 "extra" calories, not 700.

    MFP has already included basal metabolic calories when determining daily targets. So if I'm going to eat back my exercise calories, I need to make sure I'm only eating back the portion that is *above* my basal needs.
  • try2again
    try2again Posts: 3,562 Member
    Yes I'm trying to lose weight, the problem is I lose weight so fast. I am about 155 lbs at the moment, I'm trying to get to 130. Well I started eating about 1200 calories a day and exercising daily and now I'm losing about 1-2 lbs a day. I know that's not healthy and I don't want to lose it that fast. A couple months back I did the same thing, was at 155 lbs and lost 20 lbs in about a month. The reason why I don't want to lose weight fast is because I gain it back so fast and I don't want that to happen again. Why does that happen? What do I do?

    Before you take the advice to eat more; how long have you been doing this? If it is 2 weeks or under them leave your calories where they are. You're losing water weight, especially if you have reduced carbs and sodium as well as calories.

    If it has been a month and you're still losing fast (and using food scale as well as logging accurately), increase your calories.

    But if she's netting less than 1200 by not eating back any exercise calories, she needs to increase her calories anyway.
  • TimothyFish
    TimothyFish Posts: 4,925 Member
    try2again wrote: »
    Yes I'm trying to lose weight, the problem is I lose weight so fast. I am about 155 lbs at the moment, I'm trying to get to 130. Well I started eating about 1200 calories a day and exercising daily and now I'm losing about 1-2 lbs a day. I know that's not healthy and I don't want to lose it that fast. A couple months back I did the same thing, was at 155 lbs and lost 20 lbs in about a month. The reason why I don't want to lose weight fast is because I gain it back so fast and I don't want that to happen again. Why does that happen? What do I do?

    Before you take the advice to eat more; how long have you been doing this? If it is 2 weeks or under them leave your calories where they are. You're losing water weight, especially if you have reduced carbs and sodium as well as calories.

    If it has been a month and you're still losing fast (and using food scale as well as logging accurately), increase your calories.

    But if she's netting less than 1200 by not eating back any exercise calories, she needs to increase her calories anyway.

    Why? She says she is eating 1200 calories per day, which is the minimum recommended for women.
  • deannalfisher
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
    try2again wrote: »
    Yes I'm trying to lose weight, the problem is I lose weight so fast. I am about 155 lbs at the moment, I'm trying to get to 130. Well I started eating about 1200 calories a day and exercising daily and now I'm losing about 1-2 lbs a day. I know that's not healthy and I don't want to lose it that fast. A couple months back I did the same thing, was at 155 lbs and lost 20 lbs in about a month. The reason why I don't want to lose weight fast is because I gain it back so fast and I don't want that to happen again. Why does that happen? What do I do?

    Before you take the advice to eat more; how long have you been doing this? If it is 2 weeks or under them leave your calories where they are. You're losing water weight, especially if you have reduced carbs and sodium as well as calories.

    If it has been a month and you're still losing fast (and using food scale as well as logging accurately), increase your calories.

    But if she's netting less than 1200 by not eating back any exercise calories, she needs to increase her calories anyway.

    Why? She says she is eating 1200 calories per day, which is the minimum recommended for women.

    she said she "started eating about 1200 calories a day" - no indication if she is eating back workout calories; info on how she is determining etc (scoop vs weighing in g)
  • try2again
    try2again Posts: 3,562 Member
    try2again wrote: »
    Yes I'm trying to lose weight, the problem is I lose weight so fast. I am about 155 lbs at the moment, I'm trying to get to 130. Well I started eating about 1200 calories a day and exercising daily and now I'm losing about 1-2 lbs a day. I know that's not healthy and I don't want to lose it that fast. A couple months back I did the same thing, was at 155 lbs and lost 20 lbs in about a month. The reason why I don't want to lose weight fast is because I gain it back so fast and I don't want that to happen again. Why does that happen? What do I do?

    Before you take the advice to eat more; how long have you been doing this? If it is 2 weeks or under them leave your calories where they are. You're losing water weight, especially if you have reduced carbs and sodium as well as calories.

    If it has been a month and you're still losing fast (and using food scale as well as logging accurately), increase your calories.

    But if she's netting less than 1200 by not eating back any exercise calories, she needs to increase her calories anyway.

    Why? She says she is eating 1200 calories per day, which is the minimum recommended for women.

    So she's good to go burn 500 calories on a run only eating 1200 calories? (I'm not saying this is a likely scenario, and in fact, OP didn't specify how much she was exercising or if she was eating any back, but if she has a history of losing that fast at her size, she is not netting enough calories.)
  • My200lbLife
    My200lbLife Posts: 3 Member
    I was always a "quick fix" "diet" kinda girl and now I just realize they were all fad diets and I just gained all the weight back just as quickly as I lost it - maybe water weight or maybe simply not sustainable. Now im trying to go the proper route on MFP. I think slow and steady is the way to go.
  • cerise_noir
    cerise_noir Posts: 5,468 Member
    try2again wrote: »
    Yes I'm trying to lose weight, the problem is I lose weight so fast. I am about 155 lbs at the moment, I'm trying to get to 130. Well I started eating about 1200 calories a day and exercising daily and now I'm losing about 1-2 lbs a day. I know that's not healthy and I don't want to lose it that fast. A couple months back I did the same thing, was at 155 lbs and lost 20 lbs in about a month. The reason why I don't want to lose weight fast is because I gain it back so fast and I don't want that to happen again. Why does that happen? What do I do?

    Before you take the advice to eat more; how long have you been doing this? If it is 2 weeks or under them leave your calories where they are. You're losing water weight, especially if you have reduced carbs and sodium as well as calories.

    If it has been a month and you're still losing fast (and using food scale as well as logging accurately), increase your calories.

    But if she's netting less than 1200 by not eating back any exercise calories, she needs to increase her calories anyway.

    We have no idea if OP is logging accurately, either.
  • try2again
    try2again Posts: 3,562 Member
    try2again wrote: »
    Yes I'm trying to lose weight, the problem is I lose weight so fast. I am about 155 lbs at the moment, I'm trying to get to 130. Well I started eating about 1200 calories a day and exercising daily and now I'm losing about 1-2 lbs a day. I know that's not healthy and I don't want to lose it that fast. A couple months back I did the same thing, was at 155 lbs and lost 20 lbs in about a month. The reason why I don't want to lose weight fast is because I gain it back so fast and I don't want that to happen again. Why does that happen? What do I do?

    Before you take the advice to eat more; how long have you been doing this? If it is 2 weeks or under them leave your calories where they are. You're losing water weight, especially if you have reduced carbs and sodium as well as calories.

    If it has been a month and you're still losing fast (and using food scale as well as logging accurately), increase your calories.

    But if she's netting less than 1200 by not eating back any exercise calories, she needs to increase her calories anyway.

    We have no idea if OP is logging accurately, either.

    No, we don't. I'm going by the fact she lost 20 lbs in a month on her last weight loss attempt, and seems to be approaching things in the same way.
  • SadDolt
    SadDolt Posts: 173 Member
    that's water weight. you can't lose fat in 1 day
  • try2again
    try2again Posts: 3,562 Member
    SadDolt wrote: »
    that's water weight. you can't lose fat in 1 day

    Actually OP didn't specify how long she has been trying to lose weight currently. If it's within the last week, much of it likely has been water weight. But she said she did the same thing a few months ago and lost 20 lbs in a month, so I am inclined to think she is crash dieting each time.
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