Is something wrong in my daily calorie goal? Losing weight too quickly.

adnan2710

I am 50 year old male who has been over weight since the 20's. My son got me started with MFP around new years. I am 5.7" and I entered my goal of losing 1 lb per week in MFP and it set my daily calories limit at 1810. For the past 12 days I am eating perhaps 200 calories less than the 1810 limit and I have not started to exercise. I weighed myself and I have gone done from 230 lbs to 223 lbs or 7lbs in 2 weeks.

I want to know is losing weight this rapidly normal for people who go on the diet initially? Is losing weight a linear endevour or does one lose many pounds initially and then the weekly weight loss tapers off?

LaurenMT96

Generally it's safe to lose 1-2lb per week, or 1% of your bodyweight. In your case that would be 2.3 lbs per week. Everyone is different though and we do seem to see bigger losses at the start.
I started at 259lbs and lost 3lb per week for 10 weeks straight until it slowed down. I'm now down 86lbs and currently coming off at less than 1lb per week.
It will slow down, if you are worried you should eat the 1810 that MFP has recommended.

marthall

You are doing it right, there is often a burst of quick weight loss at the start which is mostly water weight. The fluctuations in water in your body hide the actual fat changes, and it's only over longer scales that things even out and you can see trends.

When you first start to diet your stores of glycogen start to deplete because you are using the energy and not fully replenishing it and the body starts to draw on fat reserves more. The body stores a lot of water with Glycogen, so a small calorie deficit is enough to start this process, which is amplified by the 3-4x amount of water stored along side it.

If you start to exercise and this causes some inflammation (As you would expect when sore muscles start to heal and get stronger) then you tend to find that this will increase water storage. Salt and Alcohol fluctuations also affect the amount of water in your body.

Keep up the good work.

Edit: Forgot to say, if you overeat a little at some point your glycogen stores go back up, and your body will store extra water with it. Which is why you see people in despair that they put on several lbs after one bad day. It's mostly water.

I've learned it's the long game - consistency that counts.

smolmaus

You can't really know how much of that 7lb is an initial big drop. It is normal to see that, from just having less food in your system, or eating fewer carbs can make you drop some water weight. The following 2-3 weeks you can see some relevant data from your weigh-ins.

There's no need to eat less than the calorie goal you're given though. 1500kcal is the generally accepted lower limit for men (lower than that and you might not be getting all the nutrition your body needs) and you're skirting pretty close to it.

TavistockToad

adnan2710 wrote: »

I am 50 year old male who has been over weight since the 20's. My son got me started with MFP around new years. I am 5.7" and I entered my goal of losing 1 lb per week in MFP and it set my daily calories limit at 1810. For the past 12 days I am eating perhaps 200 calories less than the 1810 limit and I have not started to exercise. I weighed myself and I have gone done from 230 lbs to 223 lbs or 7lbs in 2 weeks.

I want to know is losing weight this rapidly normal for people who go on the diet initially? Is losing weight a linear endevour or does one lose many pounds initially and then the weekly weight loss tapers off?

you say you're eating less than your calorie goal, and therefor increasing your deficit, yet you also wonder why you're losing more quickly than expected?

eat more!

PAV8888

While it is too early to tell whether you're pushing too hard, having been very close to where you are I will say that your selected goal is good and your current results, if they continue, aggressive.

The way MFP works you are aiming for your goal calories, not below.

Also exercise or excess movement as compared to your selected activity level should also be eaten back in order not to push harder than you've chosen to.

The MFP definition of sedentary tops out at about 35 minutes of non sitting activity a day (say 3500 steps of using a pedometer, phone, or fitness band).

So do keep that in mind and also the twin facts that male minimum net calories are 1500... and that in order to maintain your new weight you will probably end up having to eat somewhere between 2 and 3k calories a day depending on activity... with most 5ft 7" men probably clustering between 2100 and 2300 net Cal (before counting exercise)

It won't hurt you to develop strategies that will help you stabilize your eating in that range... and you will probably still lose weight for a good while while eating at the lower end of that...

Again though, it is early days. Keep plotting your daily weigh ins in a trending weight app and revisit at the two week mark to adjust as needed.

sijomial

"I want to know is losing weight this rapidly normal for people who go on the diet initially?"
Yes very common, water weight loss from dietary change creates weight loss out of proportion to your deficit, also reduced weight of food in your GI tract.

"Is losing weight a linear endevour or does one lose many pounds initially and then the weekly weight loss tapers off?"
Yes that is very, very common.

Don't undercut your daily goal calories, that will make the process far harder than it needs to be and increase the risk that you give up and abandon your diet.

Deviette

You are eating less than your calorie goal, so you will see more loss than expected, however:

It is completely normal to get big drops suddenly, especially when you're starting out. Weight loss is most certainly not linear and chances are that the next couple of weeks you might not see much movement on the scale (even possibly a rise). This is often disheartening, but when(/if) that happens, just remember the weeks that you've lot a lot more than you expected, if you average them out you'll find that you're probably losing at the rate that you aimed to do so.

Personally I tend to find that my weight will stay around the same for approximately 1 weeks, gain a little for 1 week, lose big for 1 week, and then lose slightly for 1 week. I'm aware that I have ovaries which is a reasonable contributor to this fairly regular pattern. However there are plenty of men who also have similar experiences (just maybe not quite so clockwork )

If you come back in another 3 weeks and are still losing weight much faster than you want to, it might be time to increase your calories slightly.

adnan2710

I want to thank you all for your most valuable feedback.

Tacklewasher

If you are under by ~200 a day, then that will give you a bit less than another 1/2 lb a week. But yeah, initially there is usually (not always) a big drop. Give it a month, pick up those 200 cals (have a beer) and see where you are at.

I've been losing for a while now (2.3 years apparently) but took most of Dec off. My Jan numbers look stupid fast for loss, but I know it's temporary.

adnan2710

@jassimnaqvi @zaimnaqvi1014

Ddsb11

adnan2710 wrote: »

I am 50 year old male who has been over weight since the 20's. My son got me started with MFP around new years. I am 5.7" and I entered my goal of losing 1 lb per week in MFP and it set my daily calories limit at 1810. For the past 12 days I am eating perhaps 200 calories less than the 1810 limit and I have not started to exercise. I weighed myself and I have gone done from 230 lbs to 223 lbs or 7lbs in 2 weeks.

I want to know is losing weight this rapidly normal for people who go on the diet initially? Is losing weight a linear endevour or does one lose many pounds initially and then the weekly weight loss tapers off?

I would also use a food scale to see how many calories you are truly consuming if you aren’t already. Many times it’s far less or far more than you think. Might as well have the data from the start.