Ave weight loss per week and calories

shelleysykeskeene

So over 5 weeks I have noticed an average weight loss of 0.3kg (300g) a week. At this rate it will take me a year and 3 months to reach my goal of 22kg loss! Incredibly disheartening.
I've upped my walking time and intensity in the last week, walking 5k a day in under 60 minutes on an incline - no significant changes on the scale. I'm eating around 1250 calories a day (it should be 1300 but I'm worried that I will gain if I increase my calories!) As a chocoholic I do have one single kit Kat Finger a night as my "treat" (again, still under my calories for the day). Are calories equal? Eg 120cal from say fat free yogurt or 120cal of from a chocolate? They equal the same calories? Or does one have to cut out sugar, cut down /cut out dairy, cut out/cut down on carbs to actually see results? I'm one of those people that if I'm deprived I will binge and then give up! I really need help here.

bethjl96

My first thought is that maybe you aren’t eating enough? If you are eating under what you should be you probably won’t lose weight.

nutmegoreo

Time and patience. It's not ever going to come off as fast as you'd like. Sounds like the treat is helping you keep the balance in your eating. If you aren't feeling deprived/hungry all the time, you are doing pretty good. There is no need to cut out anything specific like sugar, unless it is depriving you of needed nutrition.

BarnardSunshine

Yes, a calorie is a calorie. The amount of nutrition and bang for your buck may differ, but strictly speaking for weight loss, calories are the same. Lots of people like to overcomplicate things and say they aren't, though.

As for what the above poster said- don't worry: you absolutely can NOT gain weight by eating too little. It's simply not possible.

Have you tried using a food scale? That was a huge eye opener for me personally, and helps me keep right on track. If I have days of water retention, etc, and the scale goes up a bit, I at least know it's not because I accidentally overate (which is so easy to do).

I'm rooting for you!

BarbaraHelen2013

A calorie is a calorie! Makes no difference whether that calorie is from a Kit Kat, yoghurt, pure sugar, pure butter or lettuce.

Technically, a calorie is the amount of heat energy needed to raise the temperature of a gram of water by one degree Celsius. That’s it!

iheartmyyorkie

bethjl96 wrote: »

My first thought is that maybe you aren’t eating enough? If you are eating under what you should be you probably won’t lose weight.

Um, no. This is a total myth. Otherwise no one on earth would lose weight by lowering caloric intake. And places suffering famine would be full of fat people.

NovusDies

shelleysykeskeene wrote: »

So over 5 weeks I have noticed an average weight loss of 0.3kg (300g) a week. At this rate it will take me a year and 3 months to reach my goal of 22kg loss! Incredibly disheartening.
I've upped my walking time and intensity in the last week, walking 5k a day in under 60 minutes on an incline - no significant changes on the scale. I'm eating around 1250 calories a day (it should be 1300 but I'm worried that I will gain if I increase my calories!) As a chocoholic I do have one single kit Kat Finger a night as my "treat" (again, still under my calories for the day). Are calories equal? Eg 120cal from say fat free yogurt or 120cal of from a chocolate? They equal the same calories? Or does one have to cut out sugar, cut down /cut out dairy, cut out/cut down on carbs to actually see results? I'm one of those people that if I'm deprived I will binge and then give up! I really need help here.

A calorie is a calorie.

5 weeks may not be enough time to establish your true trend. Check it again in another 3 weeks.

The bad news is that it may take 15ish months to get to your goal but then you will be managing your weight for the rest of your life or you risk regaining. There is no end so why rush through this small phase of it? The good news is that you can work on your process during this time and keep refining it and refining yourself until you find a good balance that you can hopefully live with for a very long time.

LivingtheLeanDream

0.3kg (just over 1/2lb) a week is good progress! and you might find that as you keep on being consistently in calorie deficit your weight loss trend could be a bit more per week - hormones and other things can mask fat loss.
1lb a week would be a healthy expectation of loss.
I had 20lbs to lose and it took me a year, slow and steady wins the race! and here I am 6 years later and have KEPT it off - losing takes hard work and maintaining that loss takes equally hard work.

shelleysykeskeene

BarnardSunshine wrote: »

Yes, a calorie is a calorie. The amount of nutrition and bang for your buck may differ, but strictly speaking for weight loss, calories are the same. Lots of people like to overcomplicate things and say they aren't, though.

As for what the above poster said- don't worry: you absolutely can NOT gain weight by eating too little. It's simply not possible.

Have you tried using a food scale? That was a huge eye opener for me personally, and helps me keep right on track. If I have days of water retention, etc, and the scale goes up a bit, I at least know it's not because I accidentally overate (which is so easy to do).

I'm rooting for you!

Thank you for rooting for me! I do have a food scale, as well as using cups and spoons (I bought a baking measuring set and I make sure everything is perfectly level - no heaped spoons or cups!)

I am just confused because when I followed specific diets such as Kelfit or weigh less (which are the same amount of calories) I lost an average of 0.8 to 1.2kgs a week. And with them it was strict eating plans - no alcohol, no sugar etc - you could only eat what was on the plan - completely inflexible which I why I lose but couldn't sustain it. I cannot follow those plans anymore because I'm now lactose and gluten sensitive and not sure what to replace the dairy with!

NovusDies

shelleysykeskeene wrote: »

BarnardSunshine wrote: »

Yes, a calorie is a calorie. The amount of nutrition and bang for your buck may differ, but strictly speaking for weight loss, calories are the same. Lots of people like to overcomplicate things and say they aren't, though.

As for what the above poster said- don't worry: you absolutely can NOT gain weight by eating too little. It's simply not possible.

Have you tried using a food scale? That was a huge eye opener for me personally, and helps me keep right on track. If I have days of water retention, etc, and the scale goes up a bit, I at least know it's not because I accidentally overate (which is so easy to do).

I'm rooting for you!

Thank you for rooting for me! I do have a food scale, as well as using cups and spoons (I bought a baking measuring set and I make sure everything is perfectly level - no heaped spoons or cups!)

I am just confused because when I followed specific diets such as Kelfit or weigh less (which are the same amount of calories) I lost an average of 0.8 to 1.2kgs a week. And with them it was strict eating plans - no alcohol, no sugar etc - you could only eat what was on the plan - completely inflexible which I why I lose but couldn't sustain it. I cannot follow those plans anymore because I'm now lactose and gluten sensitive and not sure what to replace the dairy with!

There is a difference between fat loss and weight loss. When you cut sugar or carbs you will naturally lose water weight which gives you a bigger trend for a time. There is also the possibility that those diets put you in a steeper calorie deficit which might have resulted in bigger losses but since you couldn't sustain them they have only prolonged how long it is taking to get your weight off.

That is something that I have come to realize. Weight loss is not actually that slow if you factor in all the time you have spent either not trying or trying to lose and failing to do so. For me this adds up to decades. Since I started with MUCH more than you to lose I have been doing this for 21 months now but compared to all the time spent failing or not trying this has been a blink of an eye.

A sustainable plan that doesn't leave you grumpy all day makes the time go faster. This is why it is better to think of it in terms of allowing weight loss to happen instead of forcing it to happen.

sijomial

A calorie is a unit of measurement and units of measurement have to be uniform. Yes a calorie is a calorie.

No you don't have to cut out any specific foods to lose weight - I got fat eating almost all good home cooked food, the problem wasn't the food it was the quantity. Got slim eating the same foods but less of them for a while.
I'm a moderator and not an excluder, exclusion makes me frustrated and makes the process harder and adherence less likely.

If you want accuracy do not use cups and spoons, they measure volume and not weight and the calories in foodstuffs are related to weight not volume. See how much grated cheese you can cram in a cup...

You are walking roughly 3 miles in 60 minutes - 3miles X bodyweight in pounds X efficiency ratio of 0.3 will give you a reasonable net calorie estimate. You might see that you have to walk an awful long way to make a significant difference in the short term in terms of weight loss. Try thinking of exercise as a great habit for health rather than a short term calorie burner..

bethjl96

I did not say she would gain weight from not eating enough....I was just trying to be helpful and suggest that by not eating enough it was not helping her weight loss goals. I have seen it happen before....

brittanystebbins95

bethjl96 wrote: »

I did not say she would gain weight from not eating enough....I was just trying to be helpful and suggest that by not eating enough it was not helping her weight loss goals. I have seen it happen before....

No, I get what you mean now that you explain it that way.
By not eating enough, one could set themselves up for failure because they won't be able to sustain the diet long term and will either give up or end up bingeing.

I was there. That's the entire reason I gained weight in the first place.
I had no issues with my weight, ever. I was healthy. Went through a traumatic accident and then other teenage strife on top of it, stressed out about boys, too, and developed an eating disorder.
I'd starve myself for days on end eating as little as 400 calories a day sometimes, or sometimes even just all day, and then break stride and binge for a week straight before I broke myself of that and went back to not eating.
A year of that and I packed on almost 60 lbs.

So, I understand what you meant by gaining weight from not eating enough.

I think she's figured out a pretty good balance for herself, though. She's allowing herself a treat and staying within her calories. She doesn't claim to be hungry all the time or feel deprived.

But to answer the original question: Yes, a calorie is a calorie. Even if it takes you a year, so be it. That's where I failed again and again and again and put on weight instead of losing it. I set a timeline for myself and then panicked when I wasn't reaching it everytime, and then gave up.
Just breathe. Relax. Stay consistent and you will get there. Your end goal does not have an expiration date. Keep doing what you're doing. Depriving yourself will only increase your chances of giving up and then it will take you even longer. This is your health, the rest of your life we are talking about. There's no deadline.

cheryldumais

Often we want to lose weight as quickly as possible. I understand that but the trouble with that goal is that we often find ourselves going in circles because we can't sustain that level of deprivation for long. Another side to the equation is that when you lose 22 kg your maintenance calories will be lower. So you're going to eventually be pretty close to your maintenance level anyway. If you find it hard to do what you are doing now permanently you will end up gaining the weight back. So eat things you like and just stay at or under your goal and the time will go by faster than you think. I agree with @NovusDies that your old diet likely caused a water weight loss. This is very common when carbs are restricted. Hopefully what you are losing now is fat. Let's face it that's our goal anyway. Hang in there you're doing great.

Danp

You think having to wait a year and three months to reach your goal weight is disheartening?

Think about how disheartening it will be in 5, 10 or 25 years time when you look back and realise you've stayed overweight all that time because you were too impatient do things sustainably. That's the position I found myself in and I don't recommend it. It kills me to realise that I was still fat in my mid 40's because I was too impatient when I was 20 to be slim by 23.