Should I Increase My Calorie Goal?

DupreeTheTRex

Hello,

I’m concerned that I’m possibly losing too much weight too fast. I’ve got a history of rubber banding when it comes to weight-loss and I’ve been trying my best to make changes to my lifestyle as minimal as possible in hopes that it would make it easier to maintain long term.

I’m three weeks in, and I’m averaging 2.8 lbs per week. I’m eating most nights as close as I can to keep on pace with 1lbs per week. There have even been days where I ate over my caloric goal. There have also been days where I was significantly under. I just don’t want to have a repeat of all my other weight loss attempts.

Additional Information

The days that I ate significantly under were often days I planned to treat myself to fast food, or eat a meal I thought would be significantly more calories than it actually was. Knowing what I know now I don’t plan on saving as many calories leading up to those meals.

All of my food is measured with a scale (for the most part) but once I have a good idea of what the caloric intake is by the look of the portion size (I.e. a bowl of bits and bites is around 440 calories) I simply input a rough estimate.

I’m not exercising still, I’m simply watching my calories in calories out. It’s the method I used in the past to lose 50lbs in two months. The problem was I would exercise 6+ hours a day to really inflate the deficit. Other issue is that is not manageable lifestyle nor was it a safe method to lose weight (despite being monitored by professionals).

Main Question

At what point can I use my weight loss to more accurately assess my caloric needs for maintenance/weight loss? I assume that MFP guidelines are great to start but probably need some tweaking depending on the individual.

cmriverside

Three weeks is pretty early on. Depending on your macros you could have just lost a lot of water. I lost 8 pounds in the first week then settled down. I had 80 pounds to lose, though.

How much weight do you need to lose? It makes a difference. If you have 70+ pounds to lose, that seems fine for now but if you have 30 pounds to lose, it's too much too soon

How about some info?

Height, current weight. Male or female? Current calorie intake.

cmriverside

As far as "How accurate is the goal?"

It also depends. Your accuracy and long-term consistent tracking is the best tool. All the online calculators do is give you a in-the-ballpark start point. It's up to you to actually fine tune.

cmriverside

.

DupreeTheTRex

cmriverside wrote: »

Three weeks is pretty early on. Depending on your macros you could have just lost a lot of water. I lost 8 pounds in the first week then settled down. I had 80 pounds to lose, though.

How much weight do you need to lose? It makes a difference. If you have 70+ pounds to lose, that seems fine for now but if you have 30 pounds to lose, it's too much too soon

How about some info?

Height, current weight. Male or female? Current calorie intake.

Height: 178cm/5ft10
Weight: (current) 258lbs (goal) 180lbs
Gender: Male
Current caloric intake: 2200 calories a day

cmriverside

DupreeTheTRex wrote: »

cmriverside wrote: »

Three weeks is pretty early on. Depending on your macros you could have just lost a lot of water. I lost 8 pounds in the first week then settled down. I had 80 pounds to lose, though.

How much weight do you need to lose? It makes a difference. If you have 70+ pounds to lose, that seems fine for now but if you have 30 pounds to lose, it's too much too soon

How about some info?

Height, current weight. Male or female? Current calorie intake.

Height: 178cm/5ft10
Weight: (current) 258lbs (goal) 180lbs
Gender: Male
Current caloric intake: 2200 calories a day

Thanks. Then I think you're doing the right thing for now.

I'm assuming one of those weeks were a pretty big loss and then the other two were not? Regardless, at your weight it's good to stay at 2 pounds per week, try to dial in your food logging, eat a little more (not a lot) if you do an hour of purposeful exercise.