Is hitting calorie goal really enough?

First, i am sorry if i sound like a broken record. I need some tough love and encouragement because it seems like i am working hard and getting no results.

I want a guarantee that hitting my calorie goal (of 1600) daily will allow me to lose half a pound per week.

At this point, i believe i will have to go a bit hungry and eat bland foods the rest of the time. I am willing to try to eat nothing but apples if it will guarantee fat loss every week.

Replies

  • joowelz
    joowelz Posts: 172 Member
    . How did you come up with 1600?
    .

    I did some math. I am 43 years old, 5’6 and 172 lbs. Due to lockdowns, i sit in my condo every day. The only exercise i do now is a light jog or brisk walk for 40 minutes, 4-5 times a week. I just bought a treadmill and started doing that. Gyms have been closed for the past year. I have gained 10 pandemic pounds since last year.

  • callsitlikeiseeit
    callsitlikeiseeit Posts: 8,626 Member
    Some things to keep in mind....

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  • joowelz
    joowelz Posts: 172 Member
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    joowelz wrote: »
    First, i am sorry if i sound like a broken record. I need some tough love and encouragement because it seems like i am working hard and getting no results.

    I want a guarantee that hitting my calorie goal (of 1600) daily will allow me to lose half a pound per week.

    At this point, i believe i will have to go a bit hungry and eat bland foods the rest of the time. I am willing to try to eat nothing but apples if it will guarantee fat loss every week.

    Nobody can guarantee anything. Weight management is about calories...a calorie is a unit of energy. You require XXXX amount of energy to maintain the status quo based on your personal stats and overall activity. When you consume energy in excess of what you need, that energy is stored as body fat...it's basically your backup generator. When you consume less energy than you require, that deficiency has to be made up...so your backup generator kicks on and you burn body fat to bridge that gap. It's that simple.

    Eating only apples would be a very bad idea and result in substantial malnutrition. If you're set to 1/2 Lb per week it's going to be difficult to see anything in the short term considering water and waste fluctuations can be much more than that. When set at 1/2 Lb per week it is very important to get some kind of trending app as you aren't likely going to be able to see what is truly going on for a good 4 to 6 weeks.

    This is really interesting. What is a trending app?
  • joowelz
    joowelz Posts: 172 Member
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    These are my results over the past 7 years. I can’t stop eating at 1,600. I want more food!
  • Theo166
    Theo166 Posts: 2,564 Member
    edited February 2021
    joowelz wrote: »
    This is really interesting. What is a trending app?

    A trending app just smooths out the daily fluctuations, into a trend line.
    You can make your own just by putting your data in excel and plotting a trend line.

    Not sure about a specific app, it might come with a Bluetooth enabled scale.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    edited February 2021
    joowelz wrote: »
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    joowelz wrote: »
    First, i am sorry if i sound like a broken record. I need some tough love and encouragement because it seems like i am working hard and getting no results.

    I want a guarantee that hitting my calorie goal (of 1600) daily will allow me to lose half a pound per week.

    At this point, i believe i will have to go a bit hungry and eat bland foods the rest of the time. I am willing to try to eat nothing but apples if it will guarantee fat loss every week.

    Nobody can guarantee anything. Weight management is about calories...a calorie is a unit of energy. You require XXXX amount of energy to maintain the status quo based on your personal stats and overall activity. When you consume energy in excess of what you need, that energy is stored as body fat...it's basically your backup generator. When you consume less energy than you require, that deficiency has to be made up...so your backup generator kicks on and you burn body fat to bridge that gap. It's that simple.

    Eating only apples would be a very bad idea and result in substantial malnutrition. If you're set to 1/2 Lb per week it's going to be difficult to see anything in the short term considering water and waste fluctuations can be much more than that. When set at 1/2 Lb per week it is very important to get some kind of trending app as you aren't likely going to be able to see what is truly going on for a good 4 to 6 weeks.

    This is really interesting. What is a trending app?

    A trending app will show the data points, along with a trend line showing the overall trend over time. Losing weight, and losing weight consistently means also hitting your targets consistently...at least reasonably so. I've done 1/2 Lb per week before, and the difficulty in that is that normal fluctuations are going to mask that week to week. I can fluctuate easily up or down 2-3 Lbs day to day and same week to week...that being so, it is easy to see how you're simply not going to see 1/2 Lb down on the scale week to week...there's too much noise in there. You could in fact lose 2 Lbs of fat in a month and never see it on the scale because of the other noise. When you're wanting to go that slow, it's really about a lot of patience and trust in the process and consistency. You also have almost no wiggle room for errors...cheats, etc. When you're losing that slow, it's all about the long game...you are lucky if you can identify a true loss on the scale in 4 weeks...in my experience, it's going to be more like 6 to 8 weeks before you can say, "yeah...I'm losing"
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    joowelz wrote: »
    . How did you come up with 1600?
    .

    I did some math. I am 43 years old, 5’6 and 172 lbs. Due to lockdowns, i sit in my condo every day. The only exercise i do now is a light jog or brisk walk for 40 minutes, 4-5 times a week. I just bought a treadmill and started doing that. Gyms have been closed for the past year. I have gained 10 pandemic pounds since last year.
    joowelz wrote: »
    These are my results over the past 7 years. I can’t stop eating at 1,600. I want more food!

    I want more than 1600 calories too. I get hours of exercise every day despite not belonging to a gym. I actually haven't gone to one since early 2017. If you want tips on how to get more exercise without belonging to a gym, perhaps start a thread dedicated to that.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    edited February 2021
    joowelz wrote: »
    First, i am sorry if i sound like a broken record. I need some tough love and encouragement because it seems like i am working hard and getting no results.

    I want a guarantee that hitting my calorie goal (of 1600) daily will allow me to lose half a pound per week.

    At this point, i believe i will have to go a bit hungry and eat bland foods the rest of the time. I am willing to try to eat nothing but apples if it will guarantee fat loss every week.

    It is quite possible that you will lose a half pound of FAT per week but you will not see this on the scale due to WATER retention masking it. I'm good for a four pound uptick every month when I ovulate, and somewhat less premenstrually.
  • sollyn23l2
    sollyn23l2 Posts: 1,758 Member
    joowelz wrote: »
    First, i am sorry if i sound like a broken record. I need some tough love and encouragement because it seems like i am working hard and getting no results.

    I want a guarantee that hitting my calorie goal (of 1600) daily will allow me to lose half a pound per week.

    At this point, i believe i will have to go a bit hungry and eat bland foods the rest of the time. I am willing to try to eat nothing but apples if it will guarantee fat loss every week.

    You might have to go a bit hungry, but that's ok. Bland, absolutely not. I'm 5 ft tall with a calorie allowance of 1300... last night I had a .5 lb tri tip steak and a noodle vegetable stir fry for dinner.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,259 Member
    I just had 800 Cal (155g) of chocolate covered Belgian cookies.

    Today's 2500 Cal look extremely likely to leave me a bit hungry unless I go over.

    Yesterday I had 263.5g of lean beef, 61.5g of Betty Crocker garlic mashed potatoes made with water. All of that was seasoned with 6g of lemon pepper seasoning, and eaten with 23g Keen's hot English mustard.... and totalled 797.5 Cal

    Yesterday I did not feel hungry, nor did I have any difficulty adhering to my caloric goals.

    Check out happy scale (iOS), Libra (Android), trendweigh or weightgrapher in terms of web sites
  • crb426
    crb426 Posts: 661 Member
    To follow suit, I had a Big Mac and homemade sweet potato fries for dinner last night. Still stayed at 1500 calories for the day.