Am I Losing Weight TOO FAST?

TomSWalker

So my diet and exercise stuff has been going well so far. I started June 1 at 225.0 lbs and I'm now at 213.0 lbs on June 21st.

Not too shabby, but I'm a bit concerned that, at slightly over half-a-pound per day, I'm losing weight too fast. I definitely feel light-headed at times.

I throw it out to the community - what do you think? Should I bump up my calories a little bit on days I exercise, or am I safe to keep going as is? I'd prefer to keep going as is, but I'm prepared to be a bit more patient if it's potentially unsafe.

Good problem to have, I guess.

Some Background

Diet: I'm eating 1900 cals/day (always within 15% of that), which is slightly more than a 500 cal/day deficit (32, male, desk job). I don't eat back my exercised calories, so that makes the deficit higher.

Exercise: 6 days per week I'm doing P90 (the toned down version of P90X).

duddysdad

You lose a lot of water weight and bloat when you first start. A big part of that is probably that, with some fat loss.

cwolfman13

I'd keep an eye on it...you do lose a lot of water and waste initially, but the loss should slow down...if it doesn't then you need to bump your calories up.

I always ate my calories from exercise back (adjusted for estimation errors) and I lost at the rate I told MFP I wanted to lose at. Fast weight loss isn't necessarily good weight loss.

Luna3386

I thought it was fine until you mentioned being light headed.

Why not just eat at mfp's recommendations with at least some exercise calories?

Derf_Smeggle

I think the P90 series has a recommended calorie intake calculation that they use. You may want to look into what that calculation recommends.

Are you wearing a HRM during your workouts? That would also give you a good idea of where your calorie burn is at during the workouts.

You probably don't want to see that trend continue in your weight loss. The light headedness is not a healthy sign.

I restarted my weight loss goals on May 1st at 220.2 pounds. 5'11", 41yrs old, male. I did lose about nearly 10 pounds in the first 3 weeks, and around 15 pounds 6 weeks in. My deficit was too high with my activity level, so I've been adjusting my intake upwards.

SusanMFindlay

What did you weigh on June 7th (or thereabouts)? The initial fast loss from dropping water weight usually happens in the first week. If you've been losing faster than 2 pounds/week since then, you are not eating enough. This is demonstrated by the fact that you appear to be losing weight too fast *and* you feel light-headed. This is most likely due to the fact that you're not eating back any of your calories burned through exercise. Eat back at least half of the exercise calories and continue to monitor your weight. If you continue to lose faster than 2 pounds/week, eat back more of your exercise calories (or raise your activity level since it's also possible you've underestimated that).

JeromeBarry1

Light-headedness Is a real problem to really care about. I suggest you experiment with a smaller deficit and see if that improves. I also suggest that you evaluate your cardio work. Regular cardio workouts will improve cardiovascular fitness, which is the efficiency your heart has in pumping blood to your brain. Your light-headed feeling indicates that your brain is not getting enough oxygenated blood.

mmapags

What is your burn in a workout? You are likely in too high a deficit with not eating any exercise calories back. As cwolfman13 said, keep a close eye on it. You want to lose fat. Too high a deficit and you will lose too much lean muscle mass in addition to being light headed and other issues. Not a good thing.

Spliner1969

MFP uses the NEAT system, it's designed for you to eat back your exercise calories. How accurate those calories are is what many people debate about. Use your best guess and eat some of them back. You're probably increasing your deficit a LOT higher than you realize. But at first it's not uncommon to lose a lot of weight fast, it should slow down, but it just sounds like you should be eating at least a couple hundred or more calories back for your exercise.

TomSWalker

Hey, thanks for all the feedback.

I'm down at 211.8lbs today, roughly 6 days after I posted this initially. My goal was 1lb/week, and this seems to be closer to a 1.5lb/wk loss rate, now that things have settled. My June 7th weight was 219lbs, as someone asked, so a 6lb drop. I figured water/not as much food in my stomach/not as much sh** in my colon combined for that, rather than simply fat loss (though that'd have been nice).

The theme that appears in the comments is that I should bump my calories up a little bit, so that's what I'll do. I definitely am burning quite a lot on the P90 workouts, though I don't have a HRM so not sure how to check it - I always look for the guy doing the "extreme version" of the exercises and try to not just beat him, but destroy him (lol, I'm far too competitive).

I think one of the main things I need to do is stop worrying about the damn "Tom finalized his calories for [DATE] and was below his goal" message in the news stream and start aiming to eat at or slightly over my limit every day. I think I've stopped at 1750, 1820 on at least a half-dozen days in the diet, so I'm not getting enough. I think I need to look at that 1900 as a minimum, rather than a maximum, given that I'm not eating back the calories burned with my exercising.

I'll start with 1900-1950 and, if after 3 days I still feel light-headed, I'll bump to 1950-2000, etc., etc., every 3 days until I find a range that works.

Thanks to everyone who commented. This really is a great community and lots of genuine help. Have a great summer.

Spliner1969

You never really said what your height was, but assuming you're fairly tall, a 2000 calorie a day diet isn't out of line, especially for someone who is doing a lot of exercise each week. I'm 6'2" tall, work out for 90-100 minutes five days a week pretty darn hard (as in non-stop sweat out your clothes, can't possibly push any harder). I maintain at around 2700 calories a day 7 days a week (I split mine up so that I can eat the same each day whether or not its a rest day, otherwise on workout days I'd be eating over 3k calories a day, and on rest days closer to 2k. But I'd have to agree with you, slowly increase a few hundred at a time until you hit the level you're comfortable with. I'd suggest getting a HRM simply to watch your heart rate, and check your BP from time to time just to make sure those aren't causing the light headed issues. I use a HRM paired with an app I trust to gauge my calories burned (anyone reading this thread, please don't take that as a queue to go on about how inaccurate HRM's are for calorie calculation, I use more than just the HRM to calculate my calories burned), but also to watch my heart rate to make sure I'm not pushing myself too hard. There are times I will have to back off the intensity when I get near my maximum HR and start not feeling the greatest. Heart rate zones have pretty much been debunked, but I like to keep myself at around 80% of my maximum HR on average during my workouts. That means at times I'll be above that, and at times below, but it averages out. I also am working on endurance for running, so instead of seeing my heart rate hit 160 the entire time I'm running, I've been learning to pace myself and bring that down to 140-150 on average. The HR monitor helps by letting me know how hard I'm working my cardio vascular system. So if you get the chance to get one, don't hesitate. Used correctly they are a great tool to have. I use a chest strap (Polar H7).