Advice - Rate of Weight Loss

phoebe112476
phoebe112476 Posts: 269 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I started logging 3 months ago. Over the first several weeks I learned quite a bit about accurately logging and staying in my goal. I am 42, female, 5'5.5" tall, and starting weight was 228.5 pounds. I set the calorie goal for 1 pound a week weight loss. I am sedentary (less than 3,000 steps most days) and very rarely exercise aside from stretching and walking the dog about 30-60 minutes around the neighborhood or on a local trail.

I have not had much difficulty with the calorie deficit. I am rarely hungry, rarely have cravings I can't fit into my goals, and have found this relatively easy. I have been losing weight steadily. I joined a step bet (basically committing to walking about 7500 steps daily for 6 weeks) about 3 weeks ago and have been walking more so seeing more exercise calories added (again generally don't eat this back). I usually come in under the recommended calories by a bit each day. My diary is open.

I am losing weight more rapidly in the recent few weeks than I had anticipated (see below for weights). Last week I started to feel easily tired with walking short distances and generally exhausted. It was hard to know if it was just because of the time change and the cold dark weather, which often makes me tired. In any case, I decided to start eating closer to my calories (including the "exercise" calories I mean). Then yesterday, I was just starving and I could not feel satisfied. This did not seem like emotional need to eat but actual stomach growling and even when I would finish eating my dinner my stomach was still hungry. I have not had this since starting the deficit for weight loss. So yesterday I ate a bit over my recommended calories (still went to bed feeling hungry). This morning I changed my goal to maintenance and have been eating more today. I do feel more hungry than normal but satisfied so far by the extra calories.

Moving forward, I plan to change deficit to 1/2 pound a week and keep monitoring. Does than seem reasonable? I still have a lot of weight to lose. Or should I eat at maintenance for a week or two and then restart a deficit? Any advice would be appreciated.


8/4/18 - 228.5
8/11/18 - 220.5
8/18/18 - 219.5
8/25/18 - 219.0
9/1/18 - 216.0
9/9/18 - 214.5
9/15/18 - 212.5
9/29/18 - 210.5
10/06/18 - 206.5
10/13/18 - 205.5
10/20/18 - 205.5
10/27/18 - 203.8
11/3/18 - 201.1
11/10/18 - 200.5
11/17/18 - 198.0
Today - 197.1

Replies

  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,345 Member
    You are under eating if your loss is more than 1lb a week and that's what you're aiming for ...you can eat more. You're obviously burning more than MFP has calculated or you are under estimating calorie your intake.
  • amy19355
    amy19355 Posts: 805 Member
    OP are you using a scale to measure the portions you plate for each meal?
    That is the only way I was able to be confident that I was staying true to my calorie goals/
  • phoebe112476
    phoebe112476 Posts: 269 Member
    Thanks to all replies. I finally feel back to not extra hungry today. Will see what tomorrow brings. Not eating over maintenance. Monitoring weight and aiming to eat less than maintenance. Anyone keep set at maintenance and then aim to eat 250/500 below each day for your deficit? Instead of setting to 1/2-1 pound weight loss? Wondering if this will work better for me going forward.

    To answer weighing question:
    I weigh almost everything I put in my mouth. I weigh the hard boiled egg at 57 grams and then divide 57/50 to get a serving size of 1.14 since the serving is 50g. I weigh each slice of bread to make sure really is 35 grams. I weigh my apple and log in grams.

    I weigh each and every ingredient in all cooked meals using recipe building feature and then weigh final product; setting the total weight in grams as the number of servings. Then I weigh my portion and set the weight in grams as my servings. I have a chart posted with the weights of all my pots/pans/etc to aid in getting accurate post cooked final total meal weights.

    The only issue is when estimating foods cooked else where. I can only guess and do my best. If eating out I can at least use the websites for estimates. If my kids baked homemade pumpkin pies from the pumpkins they grew from seed and brought them home to share - you can bet I am going to eat a piece and just estimate the calories.

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