250 calorie deficit, good idea or a motivation buster?
elizabethcurtis1996
Posts: 11 Member
Hey everyone,
So a little background I have a whole host of health problems, it's a big barrier to me losing weight however I'm still going to try. I struggle to consistently stick to a 500 deficit, the bigger my deficit the worse my symptoms can be. I'm thinking of switching to the 250 just to see how it goes, perhaps for a few weeks, and see where I am at the end of it. I would really appreciate any advice or personal experience anyone has had with a smaller deficit. I am making lifestyle changes rather than dieting in the hope that despite my challenges I can keep it off once I lose it. I have just under 3st to lose to get to a healthy weight. Thank you for reading
.
So a little background I have a whole host of health problems, it's a big barrier to me losing weight however I'm still going to try. I struggle to consistently stick to a 500 deficit, the bigger my deficit the worse my symptoms can be. I'm thinking of switching to the 250 just to see how it goes, perhaps for a few weeks, and see where I am at the end of it. I would really appreciate any advice or personal experience anyone has had with a smaller deficit. I am making lifestyle changes rather than dieting in the hope that despite my challenges I can keep it off once I lose it. I have just under 3st to lose to get to a healthy weight. Thank you for reading
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Replies
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I chose the slowest weight loss rate on MFP right from the beginning (50lbs ago). And I loved it, since I rarely felt deprived.
I'm pretty stoic, I log my weight daily in my own Excel spreadsheet to monitor the trend and I don't get upset when it takes several weeks between new lows. At a slower weight loss rate, it takes longer to spot fat loss between the randomness of weight fluctuations, so patience is definitely a virtue.
With a small deficit, it's also important to log accurately. No cups and spoons or eyeballing, but weighing everything and checking that the database entries used are correct.
I definitely recommend choosing a slower weight loss rate based on my experience, but yeah: patience and accurate logging are pretty important 🙂14 -
If aiming for a 250 calorie deficit every day means you’re able to stick to it then that’s absolutely perfect.
A deficit that small will mean patience, accuracy in logging and long term consistency but it’s much better for your overall health to lose slowly anyway.
Just bear in mind that even small lapses or logging errors may stall any loss from time to time and be prepared to keep going. If you can stay with it, it will work.
Best of luck to you. 😊8 -
What are your stats? What is your TDEE? Are you sedentary? Do you have to lose weight? Fat? What is your body fat percentage? Unless you're morbidly obese, 500 cal deficit is too high. The slower, the better.2
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Direction is more important than speed - the time will pass anyway, a sustainable weight loss uses that passage of time but an unsustainable rate of loss leads to no progress.
Another alternative to a small deficit if, like me, an everyday deficit bores and frustrates you is an irregular deficit with the other days eating at maintenance. Some days I find it easy to generate a significant deficit doing such simple things as skipping breakfast or making low calorie choices. Some days I don't but over time I can make my weight drift downwards without making the process feel onerous.
(Set goal to "maintain current weight" and some days seek to undercut that goal.)8 -
Thank you all, my husband is diabetic so we have to track things very accurately which has really helped me realize how much I end up eating without realizing. I'm going to give it a go and see how I feel. I absolutely love how supportive this community, and you all are!11
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Direction is more important than speed - the time will pass anyway, a sustainable weight loss uses that passage of time but an unsustainable rate of loss leads to no progress.
Another alternative to a small deficit if, like me, an everyday deficit bores and frustrates you is an irregular deficit with the other days eating at maintenance. Some days I find it easy to generate a significant deficit doing such simple things as skipping breakfast or making low calorie choices. Some days I don't but over time I can make my weight drift downwards without making the process feel onerous.
Indeed. Do whatever is sustainable for you long term. If a 500 calorie deficit is not sustainable, certainly, take the slower road, the end destination would be the same. You'd just take a little bit longer to get there and you'd be less likely to backtrack
Best of luck to you. 2 -
With such a small deficit you're going to have to accept that movement will come very slowly. Especially if you're someone who has periods/monthly cycles then you're going to need to wait at least a month to allow for monthly variation on weight. That said, I'm not saying it's a bad idea to take it slow and make that work for you if that's what your health conditions require. Patience; consistency in logging; and trusting the process are required. Slow will get you there in the end.
I'm actually well on board with what's suggested above by @sijomial (eating around maintenance and having a couple of days with a larger deficit), depending on how the deficit affects your health on those much lower days. This is basically what I do. I have two days a week (sometimes three) when I'm a lot more active than the rest of the week (and I tend to be less hungry too), on those days I rock up a deficit that sits me at around 300kcals average for the week. As long as I can stick something below to at maintenance for the rest of the week, it means I'm losing weight. And I find it much easier to adhere to a very small deficit on the other days and trying to grit it out and be consistent to the same deficit every day.4 -
With such a small deficit you're going to have to accept that movement will come very slowly. Especially if you're someone who has periods/monthly cycles then you're going to need to wait at least a month to allow for monthly variation on weight. That said, I'm not saying it's a bad idea to take it slow and make that work for you if that's what your health conditions require. Patience; consistency in logging; and trusting the process are required. Slow will get you there in the end.
I'm actually well on board with what's suggested above by @sijomial (eating around maintenance and having a couple of days with a larger deficit), depending on how the deficit affects your health on those much lower days. This is basically what I do. I have two days a week (sometimes three) when I'm a lot more active than the rest of the week (and I tend to be less hungry too), on those days I rock up a deficit that sits me at around 300kcals average for the week. As long as I can stick something below to at maintenance for the rest of the week, it means I'm losing weight. And I find it much easier to adhere to a very small deficit on the other days and trying to grit it out and be consistent to the same deficit every day.
Yes, I agree I will definitely experiment with lower-calorie days. Do you use a spread sheet or something to keep track of yours?0 -
In the app there is an option to look at a weekly view of your calories instead of a daily view: tap on the pie chart in your food diary and then choose "Calories" and "week view".2
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Consider that if you go down a path that is easier you should need less motivation to keep going. If your path is harder you need more. One of the biggest mistakes in the weight loss community is piling on the hardship and expecting to remain motivated to do it. I made this mistake many times myself.
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I can maintain a 250 calories deficit for sedentary TDEE with some walking a few times a week and lose weight. Right now, I'm on a plateau because of over-eating and under-walking. You need to figure out what works for you long term. If a 250 calorie deficit works better for you, then do it. This is not a speed contest. It's an endurance race.5
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I read, on here probably, that the best diet (weight loss plan?) is the one you stick to.
Absolutely nothing wrong with 250 deficit, but remember there is less room for error - either yours (logging) or any estimated calorie burn from added in exercise.
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I put my comments on your Fitbit forum topic - pretty much what has been said here.
You won't get nearly the nice support there as here on MFP.0 -
elizabethcurtis1996 wrote: »With such a small deficit you're going to have to accept that movement will come very slowly. Especially if you're someone who has periods/monthly cycles then you're going to need to wait at least a month to allow for monthly variation on weight. That said, I'm not saying it's a bad idea to take it slow and make that work for you if that's what your health conditions require. Patience; consistency in logging; and trusting the process are required. Slow will get you there in the end.
I'm actually well on board with what's suggested above by @sijomial (eating around maintenance and having a couple of days with a larger deficit), depending on how the deficit affects your health on those much lower days. This is basically what I do. I have two days a week (sometimes three) when I'm a lot more active than the rest of the week (and I tend to be less hungry too), on those days I rock up a deficit that sits me at around 300kcals average for the week. As long as I can stick something below to at maintenance for the rest of the week, it means I'm losing weight. And I find it much easier to adhere to a very small deficit on the other days and trying to grit it out and be consistent to the same deficit every day.
Yes, I agree I will definitely experiment with lower-calorie days. Do you use a spread sheet or something to keep track of yours?
I do, but that's because I'm an excel nerd. I have an activity tracker so mine uses an In, Out and calculated daily deficit. Then I have a daily average for the week calculated by the total of the week's deficit.
For a little bit more complexity I also track my daily weight so to match my expected weekly loss with my actual weekly loss. I means I'm able to adjust my assumptions on if my tracker is being fair on the amount of calories it's giving me, and for non tracker exercise.
But as has been said above, you can track a weekly consumption in the app, if you find that easier (I just like to geek out with excel)0 -
I've actually been running an average daily deficit in the 150-250 daily calories range for about a year, but with a view that I'm calorie banking so adding some indulgent days in there, including some well over maintenance calories (so my actual average deficit averages a bit lower).
It's practically painless, and has been very successful for my relevant goals, which were to (re-)lose a few vanity pounds in year 5 of maintenance, without making dramatic changes in my happy routine. Since last October, I'm down around 12 pounds (so about a 125 calorie daily deficit) if I use my Libra trendline as my bodyweight metric. I'm hitting low weights lately (below the trendline) I haven't seen since the year I hit goal weight (2016).
There are 4 things that I think are pretty important, to make this work:
1. Tolerance for no positive feedback from the bodyweight scale for even weeks at a time. If normal daily fluctuations from water weight & digestive contents make daily weight vary within a random 2-3 pounds, then a half pound a week fat loss can take over a month to show clearly. Even Libra, set for the default 7-day trend/smoothing, has shown a month at a time when it looked like I had no net loss at all. I didn't worry about it, because of #2.
2. Trust in the process, i.e., logging and tracking. I've been calorie counting for over 5 years now, through loss, maintenance, slow upward creep, and now slightly faster but still very slow downward creep. I have pretty rock-solid confidence in my process at this point, and even I was wondering for a bit during July (the month when Libra showed a level trend). When I say "process", #3 & #4 are the key elements. Given the potentially lengthy incorrect feedback from the bodyweight scale (even with a trending app), this trust in the process is pretty important.
3. Accurate food/activity logging skills. It isn't just "commitment" or "discipline" (although those matter), it's "skills". It's unclear to me from your OP whether you've used calorie counting as a tool very much before now, or how skillful you are at it. Learning how to do it accurately is perhaps underappreciated as taking time and attention. For people with bigger deficits, the size of the deficit will dampen out oopsies along the way, as that skillset gets developed. If you're trying to develop the skills in parallel with maintaining a small deficit, the most common feedback mechanism (bodyweight scale) isn't as helpful (see #1), and it's easy to wipe out one's deficit with fairly small but persistent mistakes.
4. A good handle on your true calorie needs to maintain weight (NEAT, the before exercise version, or TDEE, the after exercise version). The calculators (MFP or others) are just estimates. They spit out a statistical average calorie need for someone who's similar to us with respect to a small number of datapoints (age, size, etc.). Most people are close to average, some further off (high or low), a very few suprisingly far off. For someone with a bigger deficit, they get a reasonable idea in a month to 6 weeks about whether the calculator estimate is accurate for them, or not. Then they can adjust. For reasons mostly related to #1, it could take literally several months for the feedback mechanisms to tell you whether your 250 calorie deficit is really a 250 calorie deficit, even with perfect logging skills. Fitness trackers are not the magic answer to this. They also produce estimates, just slightly more personalized ones. (I happen to be one of the people for whom many calculators mis-estimate by quite a lot, like -shockingly - 25-30% incorrect, which for me is around 500 calories daily. My good brand/model tracker, one that's accurate for all-day calories for quite a few people I've seen comment here, is inaccurate by about the same amount MFP is, for me. It's rare, but it can happen, trust me. From experience, I know what my actual maintenance numbers are, fairly closely - well within that 250 range.)
So, bottom line: I think a 250 calorie deficit can be an excellent strategy. Logistically, there are some challenges in making it work. Most people I've seen here who do it are those reaching the end stages of a longer weight loss, so they have some pretty clear experiential understanding about the items above. It's unclear to me where you are on that skill/experience scale - which is not a criticism!
I think even if you have less experience, it can be worth a solid try, but I'd encourage you to keep the above points in mind. It'll be a while, IME, before you know whether it's working, or not, and that can be psychologically challenging.
Wishing you all the best!6 -
elizabethcurtis1996 wrote: »With such a small deficit you're going to have to accept that movement will come very slowly. Especially if you're someone who has periods/monthly cycles then you're going to need to wait at least a month to allow for monthly variation on weight. That said, I'm not saying it's a bad idea to take it slow and make that work for you if that's what your health conditions require. Patience; consistency in logging; and trusting the process are required. Slow will get you there in the end.
I'm actually well on board with what's suggested above by @sijomial (eating around maintenance and having a couple of days with a larger deficit), depending on how the deficit affects your health on those much lower days. This is basically what I do. I have two days a week (sometimes three) when I'm a lot more active than the rest of the week (and I tend to be less hungry too), on those days I rock up a deficit that sits me at around 300kcals average for the week. As long as I can stick something below to at maintenance for the rest of the week, it means I'm losing weight. And I find it much easier to adhere to a very small deficit on the other days and trying to grit it out and be consistent to the same deficit every day.
Yes, I agree I will definitely experiment with lower-calorie days. Do you use a spread sheet or something to keep track of yours?
I do, but that's because I'm an excel nerd. I have an activity tracker so mine uses an In, Out and calculated daily deficit. Then I have a daily average for the week calculated by the total of the week's deficit.
For a little bit more complexity I also track my daily weight so to match my expected weekly loss with my actual weekly loss. I means I'm able to adjust my assumptions on if my tracker is being fair on the amount of calories it's giving me, and for non tracker exercise.
But as has been said above, you can track a weekly consumption in the app, if you find that easier (I just like to geek out with excel)
Sounds like we are using a similar spreadsheet. Mine has grown, admittedly to a ridiculous level, in the 2 years I have been using it. It tracks 3, 6, 12, and running rate of losses. It has updated running weight columns that allows me to see how much fat loss I might be masking. It recalcs my TDEE daily based on results daily 2 different ways. It compares Apple numbers to MFP numbers. Etc. Etc. Etc.
One of the most important thing it did for me was near the beginning of its use. When I went up on the scale it told me how much my logging would have to be off for that result to be true. That desensitized me to scale fluctuations (mostly). Now I don't even look at that column anymore.0 -
Given you can’t have a larger deficit due to other health problems, then you don’t really have a choice.
Remember the story of the turtle and the hare; slow and steady wins the race.
Not that this is a race, just a good analogy that with a smaller deficit it will take longer, but it’s a more sustainable approach.
Take care1 -
elizabethcurtis1996 wrote: »With such a small deficit you're going to have to accept that movement will come very slowly. Especially if you're someone who has periods/monthly cycles then you're going to need to wait at least a month to allow for monthly variation on weight. That said, I'm not saying it's a bad idea to take it slow and make that work for you if that's what your health conditions require. Patience; consistency in logging; and trusting the process are required. Slow will get you there in the end.
I'm actually well on board with what's suggested above by @sijomial (eating around maintenance and having a couple of days with a larger deficit), depending on how the deficit affects your health on those much lower days. This is basically what I do. I have two days a week (sometimes three) when I'm a lot more active than the rest of the week (and I tend to be less hungry too), on those days I rock up a deficit that sits me at around 300kcals average for the week. As long as I can stick something below to at maintenance for the rest of the week, it means I'm losing weight. And I find it much easier to adhere to a very small deficit on the other days and trying to grit it out and be consistent to the same deficit every day.
Yes, I agree I will definitely experiment with lower-calorie days. Do you use a spread sheet or something to keep track of yours?
I do, but that's because I'm an excel nerd. I have an activity tracker so mine uses an In, Out and calculated daily deficit. Then I have a daily average for the week calculated by the total of the week's deficit.
For a little bit more complexity I also track my daily weight so to match my expected weekly loss with my actual weekly loss. I means I'm able to adjust my assumptions on if my tracker is being fair on the amount of calories it's giving me, and for non tracker exercise.
But as has been said above, you can track a weekly consumption in the app, if you find that easier (I just like to geek out with excel)
Sounds like we are using a similar spreadsheet. Mine has grown, admittedly to a ridiculous level, in the 2 years I have been using it. It tracks 3, 6, 12, and running rate of losses. It has updated running weight columns that allows me to see how much fat loss I might be masking. It recalcs my TDEE daily based on results daily 2 different ways. It compares Apple numbers to MFP numbers. Etc. Etc. Etc.
One of the most important thing it did for me was near the beginning of its use. When I went up on the scale it told me how much my logging would have to be off for that result to be true. That desensitized me to scale fluctuations (mostly). Now I don't even look at that column anymore.
Last time I lost weight I had a spreadsheet that grew and grew in complexity over the 10 months I was using it. When I came back this time I thought about using it again, but looking at all of that guff I had around it seemed too daunting so I started a new one. That and I've seriously upgraded my excel levels in the 2 years since then, so I'm looking at much less complicated ways to producing the same results.
I really like that one you mentioned at the end there, I hadn't considered something like that, but I like it0 -
It's absolutely a good plan. Just be prepared to ignore the scale (your weight, not the food scale) for a while if the ups and downs bug you. Daily fluctuations can make it seem as if you're not getting results. Stick to it and be patient. You have the right attitude! 0
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I think its a fantastic idea if you have the patience for it. You're more likely to keep the weight off in the long run as well if you aim for a slower weight loss too, and less likely to lose lean muscle mass.0
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