Losing weight at an already healthy weight

susupali

I’m 23 y/o female 5’4 weigh 132.8 and currently not active. I’m trying to get to 117-120. I’m eating 1450 cals to lose 0.2 pounds weekly. Can anyone give me any advice or share their experience if it’s similar to mine... it’s really hard losing these last 10-15 pounds 😕

janejellyroll

Yes, for many people it is really hard to go from a normal weight to a lower normal weight. It requires patience, consistency, and dedication to that goal. That's about the only advice I have -- you want your logging to be very accurate and have the fortitude to withstand weeks where you aren't seeing direct progress to your goal. While you're doing it, it will feel like it is lasting forever.

cmriverside

It took me nine months to lose my last 15 pounds to put me dead-center in my healthy BMI range. So I was going from a healthy weight to a lower healthy weight.

I had a very small calorie deficit, like you do - and it was impossible for me to stick with it consistently so there were many days that I ate well beyond the goal.

It's hard.

I was hungry. It was two steps forward and one step back for all of those nine months.

Exercising helps, I got more to eat and for me exercise blunts my hunger. Win/win.

You'll get there, it just requires a good amount of patience.

cwolfman13

Probably more of a matter of body composition...which means you need to get active...losing a few pounds and being at some magical scale weight isn't going to change what you're looking at in the mirror. Make your body move.

sardelsa

The last 10-15 lbs can be quite slow. Water weight can mask progress and it can be discouraging, also you don't have as much room in your deficit as you used to and it can be easy to go over your goal. Many people find they have to weigh and measure their food more accurately. Also taking it slow (losing 0.5lbs per week) can be more sustainable and help you transition into maintenance.

alexmose

Almost exact same stats as you, except I was one in shorter and it took me a full year to lose the last 10 lbs. Keep grinding the deficit and start resistance training if you can; the muscle makes your body look a lot better!

AnnPT77

I've lost around 12 pounds in the past year, in about year 4-5 of maintenance, to lose some (regained) vanity pounds, all within the normal BMI range (upper 130s to mid 120s, at 5'5"). It was intentionally slow: I was going for a routine deficit of about 250 calories (which would be half a pound a week) but having some more indulgent meals or days (also intentionally), so netting out what looks like around a 125 calorie average daily deficit, in practice. That's slow, right? 😆

For me, that has been pretty painless.

IMO, for it to work best, you really need to trust your process, because small deficits are hard to track on the scale. I've had weeks at a time where it looked like I was gaining (wasn't), a whole month that looked like maintaining (wasn't). (And this is as a woman in menopause, so no hormonal cycles to exaggerate water weight shifts!) Since I'm a calorie counter, to me "trust your process" means having good logging practices that have been validated via experience, and knowing my actual (not calculator estimated) calorie needs, both with and without exercise.

I'm not saying that's the only way: Different processes other than strict calorie counting could work, but the scale is not a good short-term guide to whether it is working, with really slow loss. If one has daily random water weight shifts of up to a couple of pounds, and fat loss is half a pound a week . . . well, it takes weeks to be sure whether loss is happening, or not.

If your goals are appearance related (or health), I'd agree with others that increasing your activity level (some cardio, some strength) would probably give you better results than just eating less, since you say you're not active. Being fitter means looking healthier, and looking healthier is usually seen as more attractive. (Me, I'm old, so all about health for its own sake, so quite active, most of the time.)

Best wishes for success!

springlering62

Looking in my handy Mirror of Retrospect Wisdom, from the yawning gap of 35 years, my sincere advice would simply be to move more.

You don’t use it, you lose it, and it’s a *kitten* getting back up to speed.