Help!!

678abc

I am 190 lbs and trying to lose 30 pounds by May 5th on my birthday. Please help me to get there, I will be 66 years old. I am 5'2. Need suggestions.

9bhtn65nzj

Hi there, I did similar last year. I was 183 and got down to 152. I really recommend intermittent fasting. Plus 10,000 steps a day. I am back on MFP after a bit of over indulging over Xmas.

AnnPT77

I can understand wanting to lose a meaningful amount as a birthday present to yourself . . . but that's a pretty aggressive goal, to be honest.

With your stats, and if you walk 3-4 days a week or do more focused exercise 1-3 days a week, it might take as many as 2000 calories per day to maintain that weight, might be less.

Think about what it would take to lose 30 pounds in that time. May 5 is roughly 4 months away, so call it 16 weeks. To lose 30 pounds in 16 weeks, you need to lose 1.875 pounds per week, on average. That would require about a 938 calorie daily deficit, meaning you'd have to eat around 1063 calories daily (or add equivalent more exercise) in order to accomplish that, assuming it takes around 2000 to maintain. That's not very much food.

I don't know about you, but I'm less resilient to stress than I was when I was 20-something. (I'm 67 now.) My health stays stronger if I don't go to extremes, and a big calorie deficit (especially if adding new exercise) is a pretty big stress load. The lower the calories, the harder it is to get good nutrition, besides.

Your profile makes it sound like you have quite a long history of dieting. I can empathize! What has worked well for me has been trying to find new, sustainable habits that lead me to a healthy weight, without major health risk along the way. In that setting, I don't personally set goals like "X weight by Y date", but more of process goals that are completely in my control, such as logging my eating fully every day (good, bad or in between), eating at least X servings of veggies daily, taking Y number of walks (or whatever exercise) each week, and that sort of thing - things I can make a habit, and keep doing long term.

It inherently takes weeks to months, maybe even years in some cases, to lose a meaningful total amount of weight. IMO, that puts a priority on methods we can follow for that long - and ideally permanently to maintain - rather than focusing on losing weight fast, tempting as that is. In practice, a gradual loss rate that we can stick with, having good energy and robust health, can get us to goal weight in less calendar time than an aggressive plan that may have compensatory overeating, episodes of fatigue/weakness, or even periods of giving up altogether.

I'm not trying to be negative or discouraging, I swear. I'd love to see you succeed, because I understand from experience how much my quality of life improved from reaching a healthy weight after decades of overweight/obesity, and staying there (for about 7 years now).

I'd encourage you to give this some thought. Regardless of what you decide, I'm cheering for you to succeed, sincerely!