Water weight and my calorie limit

Pbrogan

Hi all! I’m 12 days in, and I’m currently test-driving MFP’s suggested calorie intake. I’m F(49), 5’8”, and had a SW of 181. My daily intake is 1340. It feels a little low, but I’m taking some advice I saw elsewhere on the forum and sticking to it for 4-6 weeks to see how it works.

My question is this: when I do the math at the end of that time, do I discount the water weight? If so, how?

Thanks for your help!

quiksylver296

I don't understand your question. Discount what water weight?

Side note: I'm nearly 48, 5'9 and can lose on 1700-1800 calories. I am pretty active, but 1340 seems extremely low. Did you set your weight loss goal to 2 lbs per week? I'd move it to 1 lb per week and get some more calories so you are more able to stick to the plan.

Pbrogan

Oops! My weight has stabilized at 173.6 after an initial whoosh. I’m assuming most of that is water, and *hoping* some was fat. I set my activity level to “lightly active” and my rate of loss to 1.5 lbs a week. I have been darn near sedentary since then, because I came down with RSV. At “sedentary” 1340 was also what MFP recommended for a 1 lb a week loss, so I figured it’d all work out.

Rockmama1111

Water weight is going to come and go forever, and it’s only what? A couple of pounds? Just do your math on the total pounds you lose in that time period. You’ll probably re-gain and re-lose that water a couple of times anyway in 6 weeks, and you have no way of knowing how much you’re carrying on that 6-week weigh-in.

For what it’s worth, you and I have similar stats and age. I just did my math after 7 weeks back on MFP and logging every day. (Not perfect; there are some “estimate” meals due to holiday fun.) I lost a very respectable number of pounds on an average of 1600 per day. (That includes some VERY huge calorie days balanced with a few 1200 calorie days.) I get about 10,000 steps per day but no other exercise yet.

Pbrogan

Ah, that makes sense! Thank you both for your help. I really appreciate it. It’s useful to hear from people with similar stats. I am relieved to hear that other people also think this might be unnecessarily low.

AnnPT77

Pbrogan wrote: »

Ah, that makes sense! Thank you both for your help. I really appreciate it. It’s useful to hear from people with similar stats. I am relieved to hear that other people also think this might be unnecessarily low.

Keep in mind that if you do exercise, MFP expects you'll log that exercise and eat those calories, too. For that reason, MFP will frequently give lower starting calorie estimates than other web calculators that average in planned exercise.

To your core question, though: Averaging over 4-6 weeks tends to smooth out the water weight fluctuations in a statistical sense. If you still have menstrual cycles, compare body weight at the same relative point in at least two different menstrual cycles, since that source of water retention can have a monthly pattern.

No need to adjust for water weight explicitly. Obviously, you'll want to keep an eye on your multi-week average weight loss vs. calorie intake going forward, but that first 4-6 weeks should give you a more personalized calorie needs value than the initial estimate from MFP or another so-called calculator.

For a large fraction of people, the calculator - or fitness tracker - estimates will be close, but they can be noticeably high or low for a few, and surprisingly far off for a rare few. That's pretty much the nature of statistical estimates.

Don't worry: At 12 days in, it's very probable that some of the scale loss you're seeing is indeed fat loss. The RSV will have let to a little more water weight weirdness than usual, but I still think you're seeing some fat loss there. You're right to expect something of a water drop up front, then maybe a seeming slowdown on the scale as that rebalances, even as fat loss happens gradually in the background, playing peek-a-boo on the bodyweight scale.

Best wishes going forward - you're off to a good start!

Lietchi

I would recommend using Happy Scale or Libra, they're apps to follow your weight trend and not get caught up in daily weight fluctuations. Or not as much as least, even a weight trending app aren't entirely foolproof.