When do I switch from headlong to sensible?

siobhanaoife

So, I started with a LOT to lose - 367.8lbs at 5'7". I set my goal for 2lbs/week, marked myself as "sedentary", and was off to a great start. At that weight, though I occasionally hit the standard bizarre and frustrating multi-week plateaus, overall I was losing more than 2lbs/week on average.

I got used to that.

Eventually my rate of loss slowed, but I was still obese and very highly desirous of not being so. I asked MFP to recalculate my calorie goal and this time it said 1200. I grumbled, I grouched, I went along with it. Kept chugging along productively.

Slowly during this process my steps per day increased. I track them with a Misfit Ray. There's something completely broken about how its integration with MFP works, because it had me getting WAAAAAY too many exercise calories. So, I ignored them.

I'm now only overweight - hooray! Go me! - top end of overweight, 188.2 at 5'7". I'm still losing around 2lbs a week. I'm walking waaay more than I used to - 10,000-14,000 steps a day. I'm still eating 1200 calories gross (not net, as I can't figure out my exercise calories).

Part of my brain says: time to start coasting down to maintenance. Another part of my brain says, WTF, you're on the edge of obesity, you're this close to having your old holiday dresses fit again, the terrifying season of too many food-centered events is upon us, don't stop now - carry on full steam ahead, there's 3 birthdays, your anniversary, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and the entire month of Christmas events, and then New Year's coming up - this would be a terrible time to lighten up! Stick with it and just be calm about birthday cake and champagne from time to time.

I'd rather be 160 at Christmas than 188. When do I ease up on the goal-oriented iron will that has gotten me this far? I don't mean like, go for broke eat whatever, I mean, jump off the 1200 calories a day ship and go for a luxurious 1600 or the like?

Obese folks get to go fast. Healthy weight folks have to go slow. What's the path from fast to slow?

shadow2soul

You need to increase your activity level. You should be set at active if you are getting that many steps daily and change your rate of loss to about 1 lb per week.

Basic recommendations:

National Institute of Health recommends a loss of 10% bodyweight over 6 months and then maintaining a bit before continuing.

Mostly fat loss and you don’t want to lose more than 1% bodyweight per week. Faster than that and you will be losing a larger portion of your lean body mass which can actually make it harder to maintain when you get to goal.

For sustainability:
0.5 lbs per week if less than 25lbs to lose
1lb per week if 25-50lbs to lose
1.5lbs per week if 50-75lbs to lose
2lbs per week if 75+ lbs to lose.

siobhanaoife

Thanks, this is great information.

I wish I could figure out my actual exercise calories. For example, this is what I saw this morning (hmm... Attaching screenshot not working?) Anyway, it was giving me something like 42 calories for having walked to the bathroom and back and then getting dressed. Clearly fictional!

spiriteagle99

I wouldn't bother with steps that are involved in just regular day to day living - i.e. around the house, around the office, in the grocery store. I do count actual deliberate exercise i.e walking the dog 2-3 miles, running 5, doing an aerobic video. I eat back all the calories that MFP gives me for those exercises, since they are fairly accurate. If you aren't doing any deliberate exercise but your step count is that high, then you aren't really sedentary, you're at least lightly active.

nowine4me

My suggestions on MFP are typically not in line with others, so here goes.....

IMHO: If you are NOT white knuckling it and feel good at your current calorie level — keep going. If you are motivated to be lighter at Christmas, carry on. Coast in to maintenance when you’re about 10# from your goal weight. Then start slowly ramping up calories until you hit homeostasis.

BTW - you’re amazing and should be very proud of what you’ve accomplished. Good for you to start thinking about maintenance now.

emmamcgarity

Have you taken any diet breaks? A week or two at maintenance might help you clear your mind a bit and determine your current goals. Your word choice for the title of this post makes me think you might need a break.

swim777

nowine4me wrote: »

My suggestions on MFP are typically not in line with others, so here goes.....

IMHO: If you are NOT white knuckling it and feel good at your current calorie level — keep going. If you are motivated to be lighter at Christmas, carry on. Coast in to maintenance when you’re about 10# from your goal weight. Then start slowly ramping up calories until you hit homeostasis.

BTW - you’re amazing and should be very proud of what you’ve accomplished. Good for you to start thinking about maintenance now.

I second this advice. I was someone who had not been able to reach my goal in years. I started out losing two a week which of course helped keep me motivated, and I had a lot to lose. This kept me thinking..I can do this. I AM doing this. Eventually, the loss slowed to a lb a week and it got tougher. Still, I kept at it, and reached original goals, then new ones. I guess I’m a momentum person. When it’s working, and you are in the zone...keep on. You have done fantastically! Be proud! Stay strong. You can always adjust your goal. The last 8-10 are a little harder. You might want to add 100 calories back over two weeks, then wait a week, and add 100 more, as you coast into maintenance. I hear that many people make those last few lbs feel more like maintenance. So happy for you!

thisPGHlife

One thing to keep in mind is that you're eventually going to eat at maintenance calories. The slow take off weight loss is to also get your in the mindset of eating maintenance calories. Also, anytime you increase your calories your going to see a jump on the scale because of things like increased carbs and sodium. If you only have 250 calories between where you're at and where you need to be calorically, it's less of a psychological hot than if you all of a sudden need to start eating an extra 1000 calories. You are also helping to minimize the jump on the scale. And if you're increasing your calories every so often along the way, it's easier to deal with because you've done it before and it was manageable.

peggym4640

Congratulations on your loss. You're amazing. If you feel good, keep doing it. When I hit a wall, my body told me and I was able to adjust my calories up at that time.

maureenkhilde

OP you truly are an inspiration. And as I was reading your post I was like wow, I have many of these type of thoughts too for next steps even though you are way ahead of me for weight loss. And huge congratulations for what you have lost simply amazing. And some great advice in this post about transitioning as well. I am doing the yellow star for this one so I can go back and review when I get closer in about 6 more months. But great advice all around.

GOT_Obsessed

Wow, well done!

I second the recommendation to take a maintenance/refeed/diet break for a bit. 10 days to 2 weeks is recommended. When I did that I was ready to tackle and conquer more.

Best of luck.

lorrpb

Congrats on your Amazing loss! I am your height and goal weight. I started at 301. It took me 6 months to lose the first 50, 8 months to lose the next 50, and 1 year to lose the last 45. I ate about 1700 most the time with a sedentary job, 3-4 workouts of 30-60 minutes per week, and lots of walking. The last 6 months I was losing very slowly probably 2 lbs a month. Finally I stopped losing and I was at my maintenance weight.
I think you're at a point where it would be beneficial to slow down your loss rate. It will be better for muscle retention and smooth out the transition to maintenence. Please feel free to message me if I can be of any help.

MelanieCN77

siobhanaoife wrote: »

Thanks, this is great information.

I wish I could figure out my actual exercise calories. For example, this is what I saw this morning (hmm... Attaching screenshot not working?) Anyway, it was giving me something like 42 calories for having walked to the bathroom and back and then getting dressed. Clearly fictional!

These cals are already included in your MFP daily goal, just FYI.

siobhanaoife

MelanieCN77 wrote: »

siobhanaoife wrote: »

Thanks, this is great information.

I wish I could figure out my actual exercise calories. For example, this is what I saw this morning (hmm... Attaching screenshot not working?) Anyway, it was giving me something like 42 calories for having walked to the bathroom and back and then getting dressed. Clearly fictional!

These cals are already included in your MFP daily goal, just FYI.

I know, that's what's so annoying. When I sync the Misfit Ray with MFP it counts all sorts of calories as additional exercise calories to eat back. I know that can't be right, so I just disabled the exercise calories option in MFP. But it still bugs me. I walked 19,000 steps yesterday so I should be able to add some exercise calories in, but I clearly can't trust what's reported when I sync them. It's frustrating.

MelanieCN77

If you want to add your varying daily non-exercise calories like that, set your MFP goal to your RMR instead. Won't work with Apple Watch but it will with Fitbit or Misfit it seems.

rheddmobile

1200 gross is not a lot of calories for your activity level. You could manually add some cardio exercise based on the time you spend walking to get an estimate.

When you were obese, your body had a lot more fuel to draw on, it doesn't anymore. So carrying that steep a deficit is harder on you. The dividing line between obese and overweight is a fine place to swap goals, maybe go for 1.5 lbs/wk and see where that gets you.

By the way, great job on your loss so far!