2lbs a week when less than 10lbs to lose

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Replies

  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
    HarlemNY17 wrote: »
    kommodevaran wrote: »
    When you lose weight, you lose fat and muscle. As the calorie deficit increases, the ratio of fat:muscle get skewed in the direction of muscle. 1% of total body weight is a general recommendation for healthy weekly loss. You will notice it when you're eating too little, but there are some confounding factors - logging of food intake may be inaccurate so you're eating more than you think, the lag before malnutrition catches up with you, your tolerance for hunger, water weight fluctuations, your body's fat% and maybe more.

    Think about is as a river that dries up during summer and turns into a little creek. There is water, but it runs so so slowly, and starts to trickle.
    You lose muscle only if you don't hit you're macro nutrients because I've been dieting and haven't lost any muscle I've been gaining a lot of muscle .

    Unlikely that you've gained any significant muscle while dieting. Are you a newbie, and returner or obese? And other than adequate protein, hitting your macros has little impact on muscle loss. Lack of sufficient energy in (calories) will though.
  • deannalfisher
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
    HarlemNY17 wrote: »
    Take your time . At 1200 calories a day or lower for a male is not NORMAL . Male should atleast consume 1500 calories per day . Eating less than that you should see a doctor and not MyFitnessPal

    except that the OP is female...
  • GrumpyHeadmistress
    GrumpyHeadmistress Posts: 666 Member
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    If you're losing more than 1% of your BW per week, you're definitely getting into your muscle mass. You don't have the fat stores to mobilize for fast weight loss.

    This is concerning - I don't want to end up skinny fat. I do work out with a PT twice a week doing purely strength but have always assumed that I'm just losing the duvet of fat and maintaining the muscle underneath but not actually building any muscle.

    So your body has a maximum amount of fat it can use every day/week?
  • karahm78
    karahm78 Posts: 505 Member
    Need2Exerc1se wrote: »
    karahm78 wrote: »
    If you are still losing 2 pounds per week, you are either underestimating what you are taking in or burning more cals than you think. Are you eating your exercise calories?

    Why must this be? Many women at goal weight have maintenance calories of 2200.

    True that this is possible if she is as active as she is mentioning with her swimming, etc. If we had height/weight/age we could estimate maintenance calories.... Just like we always say on here though, having a 1000 deficit with less than 10 pounds to goal is very tough to maintain. Figuring that the odds are that the answer falls somewhere in those areas, which is why I asked if she was eating her exercise calories that could have lead to a high deficit.

  • GrumpyHeadmistress
    GrumpyHeadmistress Posts: 666 Member
    karahm78 wrote: »
    Need2Exerc1se wrote: »
    karahm78 wrote: »
    If you are still losing 2 pounds per week, you are either underestimating what you are taking in or burning more cals than you think. Are you eating your exercise calories?

    Why must this be? Many women at goal weight have maintenance calories of 2200.

    True that this is possible if she is as active as she is mentioning with her swimming, etc. If we had height/weight/age we could estimate maintenance calories.... Just like we always say on here though, having a 1000 deficit with less than 10 pounds to goal is very tough to maintain. Figuring that the odds are that the answer falls somewhere in those areas, which is why I asked if she was eating her exercise calories that could have lead to a high deficit.

    If it helps - 5'4", 134.4lbs, 36. Goal is 125lbs
  • GrumpyHeadmistress
    GrumpyHeadmistress Posts: 666 Member
    I eat everything that doesn't move. And some things that do.
  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,179 Member
    @GrumpyHeadmistress I haven't seen you say, so I'll ask. What is your BMI. It actually might inform the answers you get.
  • GrumpyHeadmistress
    GrumpyHeadmistress Posts: 666 Member
    Apparently it's 23. Who knew?!
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,575 Member
    JeromeBarry1 wrote: »
    @GrumpyHeadmistress I haven't seen you say, so I'll ask. What is your BMI. It actually might inform the answers you get.

    According to the height/weigth she posted it would be 23.1
  • deannalfisher
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
    you are well within normal range for your height; maybe look to do something more like recomp to help with build lean muscle mass and reduce BF% - you'd need to increase your food to maintenance to do this and then do a progressive strength program (strong lifts, strong curves)
  • animatorswearbras
    animatorswearbras Posts: 1,001 Member
    edited August 2017
    If you are going to lose at this rate make sure you get enough protein and maybe do some resistance workouts to preserve as much muscle as you can. I asked this question last week because I was losing a pound a week with nearly identical stats and wondered whether to slow it down to 0.5 for the sake of muscle retention and because that was the MFP conventional wisdom.

    Was sent this "Martin MacDonald - diet as aggressively as you can without losing muscle" podcast in the replies which was really interesting and very debate worthy, also comes with some formulas of max you can lose based on your BF%

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhLIsFFsPAA

    I'm sticking to a pound a week because I really don't want to restrict more than that but thought this was a good counter argument to the 0.5 a week for the last 15 pounds that gets banded about on the forums. Also watch the follow up vid about maintenance too since you're nearly there.

    Interested what other MFPers think of this though? Seems solid advice and not woo to me but always happy to hear what others make of it?

    EDIT: Heres my original thread for context:-

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10583651/should-i-slow-my-rate-of-loss-i-dont-want-to-lose-too-much-muscle#latest
  • PikaJoyJoy
    PikaJoyJoy Posts: 280 Member
    In all honesty, if you have 10lbs to lose and you try to do it fast - you aren't really going to see a big difference because you'll be setting yourself up to lose a lot of muscle along with that fat.

    What you're probably aiming for is more body recomposition versus losing the scale #. And to do that, you aren't going to want to start doing crash diets.
  • GrumpyHeadmistress
    GrumpyHeadmistress Posts: 666 Member
    Thanks all.

    Crash diets definitely aren't my thing but I feel comfortable sticking to 1200 plus exercise calories.

    I'm doing two pure strength sessions with a PT each week so I'm ok there.

    I did try a diet break for two weeks but gained a 1lb the first week and then lost 2.5lbs the second week. Possibly wasn't at maintenance?
  • GrumpyHeadmistress
    GrumpyHeadmistress Posts: 666 Member
    I'm always over my protein macro and have an open diary (I think).

    Don't freak out about being under today - I'm saving up for a huge burger with waffles and fried chicken on Friday...
  • GrumpyHeadmistress
    GrumpyHeadmistress Posts: 666 Member
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    GrumpyHeadmistress wrote: »
    Thanks all.

    Crash diets definitely aren't my thing but I feel comfortable sticking to 1200 plus exercise calories.

    I'm doing two pure strength sessions with a PT each week so I'm ok there.

    I did try a diet break for two weeks but gained a 1lb the first week and then lost 2.5lbs the second week. Possibly wasn't at maintenance?

    Maintenance isn't an exact number...1 Lb up and 2.5 Lbs down are well withing the range of perfectly normal body weight fluctuations...maintenance is a range.

    Maybe I was at maintenance then!
  • deannalfisher
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
    fluctuating weight is a sign of a healthy metabolism - my weight changes every day, but its the overall trend that is important
  • GrumpyHeadmistress
    GrumpyHeadmistress Posts: 666 Member
    I think I'll leave a calories at 1200 but keep an eye on it. If I'm still losing rapidly (on average over a period) I'll up the calories based on MFP's recommendation for a 1lb or 0.5lb loss.

    Thanks for the advice!

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