Big Decision, Scared!

LaurenMT96

5'8 22y Female
I started on here in Feb 2018 at 259LBS, I've been on 1200 calories since then (31 Weeks) and lost 72lbs taking me down to 187lbs. I set my activity level to sedentary and eat back exercise cals that i manually input. MFP Goal currently set at losing 2lb/week.

I'm going away on a 2 week all inclusive holiday on the 17th September, and I'm really feeling run down and tired on 1200 calories recently, i'm planning a maintenance diet break when I go away in 16 days time but i feel that I need something sooner.
I made the decision to drop my rate of loss to 1.5lbs per week and MFP has given me 1320 calories.

I've been doing this for so long, so consistently that I'm afraid to eat more and slow my progress to a halt! I have PCOS too which is also an issue as apparently women with pcos need a few hundred less calories than normal women? Not sure how medically correct that is but apparently that's why it becomes harder for women with the condition to lose weight?

My goal weight is around 161-165lbs (This would put me in the healthy BMI range).

Should i have dropped the rate of loss sooner?

Should I drop it at all?

When should I drop to 1lb/week loss?

This is the first time I have gotten this far/been this successful with my weight, Its all new to me and super confusing! Any advice would be greatly appreciated, Thankyou.

bernadettenz

Sorry, I don't know the answers to your questions, but I just wanted to say what an amazing achievement! And I hope you have a lovely holiday 🙂

pinuplove

Congrats on your success so far! I'd suggest slowing your rate of loss to 1 pound a week at this point. You'll might 'gain' a bit at first, but it won't be fat, just water and increased food volume. As for the holiday, if you haven't taken a maintenance break yet (and it doesn't sound like you have) this is the perfect time!

Below is a good rule of thumb for appropriate rates of weight loss:
75+ lbs set to lose 2 lbs
Between 40-75 lbs set to lose 1.5 lbs
Between 25-40 lbs set to lose 1 lbs
Between 15-25 lbs set to lose .5-1 lbs
Less than 15 lbs set to lose .5 lbs

Purplebunnysarah

If you are losing 2 lbs/week on 1200 (and actually achieving that rate of loss) you will lose more like 1.8 lbs/week on 1320.

LaurenMT96

Thanks @bernadettenz And yes @pinuplove I haven't taken a maintenence break yet, i'm very much looking forward to it but also aprehensive of the gain that will inevitable come along with it! and @sarahthes I average my net calories weekly (usually going over at weekend and staying under during the week) usually averaging out around 1070-1170 which is why i probably feel tired.

MichelleWithMoxie

Great job! You’ve done fantastic these past several months. I second everything @pinuplove said. Enjoy your vacay!

pinuplove

@LaurenMT96 I took a long maintenance break in March/April of this year. I did gain a little (maybe 2 pounds) but as you can see, there was no problem getting right back to losing, and the post-break whoosh took care of it. Don't be afraid!



ETA there's a month between each grey line, with March and April in the middle

jennifer_417

It might be better to ease up a bit now in order to spare yourself from burn out later.

LaurenMT96

Thanks everyone, I've only had these thoughts recently as last week in the UK it was bank holiday monday and me and my partner went abit mental basically ate whatever we wanted and the next day (tuesday) the scale shot up by 8lbs! it was all gone by this morning but i'm afraid that if one day of indulgence can do that what will happen after 12 days all inclusive in Egypt lol!

Millicent3015

I don't think you need to worry. You'll likely continue to lose weight, it'll just be at a slower pace, and dropping your rate now might get you in the mindset of accepting and being comfortable with a slower rate of loss. You've been doing this for a long time, so you may have settled into a pattern of eating that's working for you, and even on the holiday you may find yourself choosing more nutritious foods naturally. Even if you don't, you won't undo the great success you've already achieved. Slower weight loss is still weight loss. As for your PCOS, I would ask your doctor, or look for an online PCOS forum (there'll probably be one on here) and ask people there. Enjoy your holiday!

PAV8888

You do need to recognize the difference between gaining and losing fat and gaining and losing water weight and/or food in transit through your digestive system.

So yes, the scale shot up by 8lbs. If I get on a scale holding a 4L jug of milk the scale WILL shoot up a good 8.8lbs. Once the food baby departs you may or may not be left with an actual lb of increase, assuming you overate by a good 3500 or so Calories

So if you go all out during your trip to Egypt, then yes, you have the *potential* to do some damage which you'd have to work on when you come back.

I would think that it would be best to approach the holiday with the intention of eating at maintenance or, at worse, the occasional surplus if something is really worth it, as opposed to saying "*kittens* to it all: this is a free for all and I have to cram in everything I can because I'll never have any of this ever again!"

There was a recent forum post by @middlehaitch sharing some good suggestions on how to manage eating during a cruise while still having a blast...

Deviette

First off, congrats on your loss so far! It's amazing!

So, question. How long did it take for you to put on that 72lbs you've already lost? I'm guessing it was more than 2 weeks. I'm guessing it was probably over several years.

So why would two weeks make all that weight magically go back again?

Yeah, right at the beginning of my journey I went on a week long holiday and basically ate and drank everything in sight. I only gained 1.5kg. 0.5kg came off within 2 days (flying messes with your scale weight) and the remaining 1kg took just over a week to come off (much more aggressively than my calorie deficit would suggest).

My point is, if you go on holiday and overeat, yeah you'll probably see a rise on the scales. But relax. It's your holiday. You're doing amazingly and yeah you might have a little more to loose again, but you'll be refreshed and remotivated and you already know what you need to do to sort this.



I feel with you on the diet break maintenance thing. Personally I have just taken a diet break. Before I did it though, I was so worried about the scales going back up again. I'd been putting the break back and back because I didn't want to see that scale rise up.

I can tell you now that that was completely unfounded. I had a great diet break. I didn't realise quite how much I needed it mentally. I was eating at my maintenance for a week and I pretty much kept my weight at the same level. And when I was back at the deficit, I got the honeymoon period again. I'm still eating at the lower end of my goal calories as opposed to my higher end which I was doing just before the break. My progress has definitely stepped up, and tbh, with my adherence being better to my goal, I think that I'm probably at the same kind of place weight wise as I would be if I had just gritted my teeth and pushed through. And mentally I'm in a much much better place.

Remember that overeating is not the same as a diet break. Overeating tends to lead to water retention and also the fact that you've just got physically more mass in your body (the food you've eaten), so it's completely normal to have a raise on the scales the day or 2 after an over eating session. But a diet break isn't an overeating session. It's just eating at maintenance. By eating at maintenance for a week (for example), you're not undoing progress, all you're doing is putting off your final goal weight by 1 week. Would you rather be there one week later, or never because it was too tough and you gave up?

LaurenMT96

Aww thanks so much everyone this advice has all been great, and amazing MFP community always calms down my irrational thoughts and fears! I think i had it set in my head that i would lose 2lb every week all the way until goal but obviously it doesn't work like that for everyone, including me

Deviette

LaurenMT96 wrote: »

Aww thanks so much everyone this advice has all been great, and amazing MFP community always calms down my irrational thoughts and fears! I think i had it set in my head that i would lose 2lb every week all the way until goal but obviously it doesn't work like that for everyone, including me

I wish that was the case! I'd be at goal by now if I kept the same rate of loss as my first week!

veganbaum

For some perspective, I'm 5'8" and weighed over 200 pounds at my heaviest. I'm also nearly twice your age. The only time I ate 1200 calories was before I knew better. I'd have to look back at my logs, but I'm pretty sure my calories ranged from 1500-1900 while losing, increasing as I increased my activity. I lost the last 25 lbs at a rate of .5 lb/week, by choice. I believe I was eating between 1700-1900, with around 2500-3000 on Saturdays, for that rate of loss. I'd have to look back to be certain because I've been in maintenance for a few months. I looked at weekly calories, so I might eat 1700-1800 calories Mon-Fri and save around 200 each weekday for the weekend.

While less that 2 lbs/wk may seem slow, the point is to get to goal weight and maintain. I got to my goal weight. Who cares how long it took? There are so many threads about people starting again for the umpteenth time, never having reached goal weight or having reached it but gaining it back. If I were you, I'd take a diet break, as mentioned, and eat at maintenance for your holiday and the week prior. Then I'd set my rate to 1 lb/wk.

ETA: I am maintaining in the high 130s. I ate a lot more than you are from about 175 down to goal weight. At 5'8" you really shouldn't be eating so few calories.

shaf238

I think you're overthinking a little bit (which is normal!), you've made incredible progress. The expected increase in calories over your holiday isn't going to set you back at all and you're doing the right thing for you by reducing the loss rate to 1.5lb per week and so on in the lead up to your break.

Make the most of your holiday and enjoy it, and I would even go so far as say...indulge yourself a little

quiksylver296

Read through this article, OP. It explains a lot about scale fluctuations.

http://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations/

AnnPT77

LaurenMT96 wrote: »

Aww thanks so much everyone this advice has all been great, and amazing MFP community always calms down my irrational thoughts and fears! I think i had it set in my head that i would lose 2lb every week all the way until goal but obviously it doesn't work like that for everyone, including me

This is extra true if - as you say in your OP - you're "really feeling run down and tired on 1200 calories recently".

Fatigue can lead to less daily-life activity, and possibly lackluster workout intensity, reducing your total daily calorie burn (TDEE). You don't want that.

Taking a maintenance break is a good plan, as is increasing your daily intake. Tapering weight loss rate into maintenance has several potential advantages:

* Less fat on your body means less fat available to metabolize; continued fast loss rate increases risk of losing unnecessarily much lean tissue.

* You gradually move to maintenance calories, allowing you to "practice maintenance" as you go along.

* Adding a few calories at a time (rather than a big jump to maintenance) makes it psychologically easier to add enjoyable but nutritionally useful tweaks to your eating with those extra calories, rather than being tempted to add a single every-day mega-treat that isn't very nutrient dense. (I'm not saying treats are bad; I'm saying daily nutrition as the main focus is good.)

* Adding gradually allows you to fine-tune your estimated maintenance calorie intake with lower risk: If you add 500 daily calories at once and totally overshoot, you could gain up to a pound of fat in a week. If you're gradually adding 100 every couple of weeks or so, and overshoot, it would take over a month to gain that pound.

* Gradually adding calories helps avoid (hide, really) the scale jump some people see from glycogen replenishment water weight.

* Coasting slowly into maintenance may result in a little extra weight loss (couple pounds), putting you at the bottom end of a maintenance range to start, rather than at the top of a range (and you want it to be a range, or at least a ceiling).

middlehaitch

PAV8888 wrote: »

You do need to recognize the difference between gaining and losing fat and gaining and losing water weight and/or food in transit through your digestive system.

So yes, the scale shot up by 8lbs. If I get on a scale holding a 4L jug of milk the scale WILL shoot up a good 8.8lbs. Once the food baby departs you may or may not be left with an actual lb of increase, assuming you overate by a good 3500 or so Calories

So if you go all out during your trip to Egypt, then yes, you have the *potential* to do some damage which you'd have to work on when you come back.

I would think that it would be best to approach the holiday with the intention of eating at maintenance or, at worse, the occasional surplus if something is really worth it, as opposed to saying "*kittens* to it all: this is a free for all and I have to cram in everything I can because I'll never have any of this ever again!"

There was a recent forum post by @middlehaitch sharing some good suggestions on how to manage eating during a cruise while still having a blast...

This thread has the post @pav888 referred to. The post is 3rd or 4th down.

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10690651/new-to-maintenance-psychological-help-please#latest

You have just over 2weeks until your trip. Start upping your cals now as per @AnnPT77's suggestion above.

You are going to be transiting more food, and water retention will increase with more food.

This means you may have a small weight increase and a little bloat.

It is better it discover how this will affect you now, while you can adjust your wardrobe, rather than go on your trip and find things a bit tight in your first week, things not fitting on the 2nd week.
(Been there done that)

I take a couple of very nice floaty things that can be called into use for the 2nd week, and looser fitting shoes.

You are going from a cooler climate to a hot one, keep hydrated it will help with heat induced water retention.

If you are going to be active, even long walks in the sun, carry electrolytes. (I just use Emergen-C, but there are lots of others).

Sun block everywhere all the time.

When you get home, make your deficit one that is appropriate to the amount of weight you have left to lose. (That is well covered above)

Also, give it 2 weeks before you decide how much fat you have gained, you will probably pee like an elephant.

Cheers, h.

Sorry that was so long. Blame @pav888

AvandHK

2 pounds per week is a lot specially later on when you don’t have much fat to lose so if you go for 1.5 it’s ok even if you stick with 1.5 or even 1 pound per week it might be a lot more beneficial to your health the process will be slower but healthier and better for your body

NovusDies

Also remember that you don't actually have to eat 1320 each day. I upped my calories recently too and instead of doing them each day I lumped them all into Fri, Sat, and Sun. Your new goal is to increase your calories by 120 a day or 840 each week.

It really just depends on what makes you comfortable or what you might enjoy more. If daily suits you better go for it. I just thought I would mention you have options if you want to get creative.