What determines how much weight you lose per week?
stegeem
Posts: 165 Member
MFP has it set up so you have a 0.25kg deficit, a 0.50kg, a 0.75kg or 1kg deficit.
If I am 35kg from my goal, will I only lose 0.25kg a week, if that's what my weekly goal is set as?
I am asking because I was having a 750g (I mean calorie) deficit most days, and I ended up going crazy on food after about a week, and I'm wondering if it was linked. Or if the foods I was choosing to eat were just not nutritious enough?
If I am 35kg from my goal, will I only lose 0.25kg a week, if that's what my weekly goal is set as?
I am asking because I was having a 750g (I mean calorie) deficit most days, and I ended up going crazy on food after about a week, and I'm wondering if it was linked. Or if the foods I was choosing to eat were just not nutritious enough?
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Replies
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You only have a little (compared to many) left to lose, thus possibly about 0.5kg/week would probably be appropriate. Are you talking about a 750 calorie deficit or 750gr? I hope you mean the former as 750gr per day would come down to a 5kg loss per week. Likely not possible anyway
So lets assume 750 calorie deficit. That's about 1.5lbs per week, or 0.75kg per week, and that's quite stiff. And as you've found out it might be too little food for you and you started binging. Why not set your deficit to 0.5kg/week and see how this works for you? 1 -
You only have a little (compared to many) left to lose, thus possibly about 0.5kg/week would probably be appropriate. Are you talking about a 750 calorie deficit or 750gr? I hope you mean the former as 750gr per day would come down to a 5kg loss per week. Likely not possible anyway So lets assume 750 calorie deficit. That's about 1.5lbs per week, or 0.75kg per week, and that's quite stiff. And as you've found out it might be too little food for you and you started binging. Why not set your deficit to 0.5kg/week and see how this works for you?
750 calorie!!! opps!!!!0 -
35kg seems like a lot to lose. It's 77lbs?0
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35kg seems like a lot to lose. It's 77lbs?
If you use a weight loss rate (calorie level) you can stick with consistently - i.e., not "go crazy with food after a week" - you're likely to reach goal weight in less calendar time than when trying to lose 0.75 kg a week but periodically over-eating, taking breaks, or even giving up altogether.
Yeah, 35kg is a fair amount to lose. It's going to take quite a long time - many months, at least - even if you lose fast. Better to find a routine you can stick with for a long time, y'know?
Things that can lead to over-eating include too-low calories (too-fast loss rate), under-nutrition, over-exercise for current physical fitness level, poor food choices for a person's individual preferences/physiology, poor food timing for a person's individual preferences/physiology, inadequate sleep quality/quantity, self-soothing with food, situations in which it's previously been habitual to overeat, boredom, and more. You may need to think hard about what's going on with you to figure it out.
Feeling full most of the time (satiation) tends to be quite individual. A lot of people find they stay more full if they eat relatively more of so-called "whole foods" and less of so-called "highly processed" (refined) ones. (It doesn't necessarily have to be 100%.) Some people find protein filling, some find fats filling, some need high volume foods (such as big amounts of low-cal veggies). People do best on anything from one meal a day (OMAD) to all-day grazing on many snack-sized portions, and everything in between. Some people find specific foods really filling, but which foods that is will vary. (A couple of common ones are baked potatoes or oatmeal, but those don't work for everyone.)
What you can do is log your food, and pay attention to how you feel. If you feel more hungry on some days, or more full on others, try to figure out why those days are different. Make a theory, experiment with your eating/activity routine to see if that theory pans out. If you learn something about how to stay more full, keep that in your routine. If some experiment doesn't work out, you learned something useful (you didn't "fail"), so drop that change and try something else. It's like a fun, productive science fair project for grown-ups.
Keep working at it, you'll figure it out and find solutions. Only quitting altogether is a fail. So don't quit. Keep trying different routines (for a few days at a time to give them a fair chance), until you find what works for you.
Best wishes!
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35kg seems like a lot to lose. It's 77lbs?
If you use a weight loss rate (calorie level) you can stick with consistently - i.e., not "go crazy with food after a week" - you're likely to reach goal weight in less calendar time than when trying to lose 0.75 kg a week but periodically over-eating, taking breaks, or even giving up altogether.
I feel like in the conversations here, people lose weight really fast, like they can lose one kilo a week, or a dress size really quickly. Would losing 0.25 or 0.5 a week be very visible?Things that can lead to over-eating include too-low calories (too-fast loss rate), under-nutrition, over-exercise for current physical fitness level, poor food choices for a person's individual preferences/physiology, poor food timing for a person's individual preferences/physiology, inadequate sleep quality/quantity, self-soothing with food, situations in which it's previously been habitual to overeat, boredom, and more. You may need to think hard about what's going on with you to figure it out.
Yeah, that definately sounds like me. I lost about 20kg last year, but the weight kept swinging up and down.Feeling full most of the time (satiation) tends to be quite individual. A lot of people find they stay more full if they eat relatively more of so-called "whole foods" and less of so-called "highly processed" (refined) ones. (It doesn't necessarily have to be 100%.) Some people find protein filling, some find fats filling, some need high volume foods (such as big amounts of low-cal veggies). People do best on anything from one meal a day (OMAD) to all-day grazing on many snack-sized portions, and everything in between. Some people find specific foods really filling, but which foods that is will vary. (A couple of common ones are baked potatoes or oatmeal, but those don't work for everyone.)
It takes a lot for me to get full, my strategy is usually to have something small to medium size then get as far away from the kitchen for a few hours, or to distract myself.What you can do is log your food, and pay attention to how you feel. If you feel more hungry on some days, or more full on others, try to figure out why those days are different. Make a theory, experiment with your eating/activity routine to see if that theory pans out. If you learn something about how to stay more full, keep that in your routine. If some experiment doesn't work out, you learned something useful (you didn't "fail"), so drop that change and try something else. It's like a fun, productive science fair project for grown-ups.
Sounds like a plan
Edit: sorry, my replies are terrible. I'll try and double check what I've written before submitting in the future.1 -
(snip for reply length)
I feel like in the conversations here, people lose weight really fast, like they can lose one kilo a week, or a dress size really quickly. Would losing 0.25 or 0.5 a week be very visible?
(more snip)
Would that individual increment of 0.25-0.5 kg be very visible as a change every single week? Unlikely.
So what? It adds up.
Losing 0.5kg weekly, you'll have lost around 25kg by the end of 2024. That's better than a kick in the pants, eh? If a person is wrangling through cycles of restrict/overeat, it can be even slower.
I'd say I had to lose around 10kg or so before people noticed to the point of commenting. It took a few months. I lost sizes variably: There were more pounds between larger sizes, fewer pounds between smaller sizes. (There was a stage where I needed a new jeans size about once a month toward the end.)
Honestly, I didn't/don't care too much about how long it takes, especially if there's a tradeoff between the speed vs. the likelihood of reaching goal at all. For me, eating at white-knuckle low calories would be a non-starter, let alone a quick finisher. YMMV.
I'm not sure who you're following here who's losing a kilo a week or a dress size quickly. If someone's very severely obese, that kilo a week could happen. Do people keep that loss rate up? I'm sure some do. But quite a few people who show up here losing fast don't stick around long term. Maybe they succeeded and went on to successful maintenance, but I'm betting that a fair fraction burn out and quit. The diet honeymoon ends.
But there are a lot of long-term successful people here in maintenance (or close) who've lost much slower, in the realm of half a kg per week or slower. I lost faster at first, slower later, but averaged about a pound a week (less than 0.5kg) for most of a year before going to maintenance.
IMO, the real prize is staying at the healthy weight, and learning new sustainable habits has been a huge boon for me for maintenance. (I'm in year 7+ of maintenance, after about 30 previous years of overweight/obesity.)
I really feel like impatience, chasing fast loss, can be a trap. Maybe you'll find differently, but that's my experiential viewpoint. Only you can find your own best plan. As long as you keep working at it, you won't fail.
Best wishes!1 -
Were you actually in a 750 calorie deficit? I mean, were you losing 1.5 pounds per week? Or are you assuming that was your deficit because of what some online calculator said your TDEE is?
Ultimately, the slower you lose, the easier it will be to sustain and ultimately maintain. It won't require drastic diet or life changes, and shouldn't leave you feeling low energy.
If you have 77 pounds to go, you should be able to have a decent sized deficit while focusing on balanced meals with a focus on protein and fiber, which are satiating. Avoid ultra processed foods, full sugar sodas, use reduced portion sizes or low fat alternatives for butter, salad dressing, desserts, things like that. At this point, you can probably still enjoy many of the foods you like, but in moderation. Drastic changes are hard to maintain.1 -
Retroguy2000 wrote: »Were you actually in a 750 calorie deficit? I mean, were you losing 1.5 pounds per week? Or are you assuming that was your deficit because of what some online calculator said your TDEE is?
Ultimately, the slower you lose, the easier it will be to sustain and ultimately maintain. It won't require drastic diet or life changes, and shouldn't leave you feeling low energy.
If you have 77 pounds to go, you should be able to have a decent sized deficit while focusing on balanced meals with a focus on protein and fiber, which are satiating. Avoid ultra processed foods, full sugar sodas, use reduced portion sizes or low fat alternatives for butter, salad dressing, desserts, things like that. At this point, you can probably still enjoy many of the foods you like, but in moderation. Drastic changes are hard to maintain.
Yes, I have checked all of my data carefully, and only a few times have been off in terms of calories, like off by 6 calories for the amount of gs. My deficit was between 750 and 1000 each day but I only lasted about a week.0 -
Retroguy2000 wrote: »Were you actually in a 750 calorie deficit? I mean, were you losing 1.5 pounds per week? Or are you assuming that was your deficit because of what some online calculator said your TDEE is?
Ultimately, the slower you lose, the easier it will be to sustain and ultimately maintain. It won't require drastic diet or life changes, and shouldn't leave you feeling low energy.
If you have 77 pounds to go, you should be able to have a decent sized deficit while focusing on balanced meals with a focus on protein and fiber, which are satiating. Avoid ultra processed foods, full sugar sodas, use reduced portion sizes or low fat alternatives for butter, salad dressing, desserts, things like that. At this point, you can probably still enjoy many of the foods you like, but in moderation. Drastic changes are hard to maintain.
Yes, I have checked all of my data carefully, and only a few times have been off in terms of calories, like off by 6 calories for the amount of gs. My deficit was between 750 and 1000 each day but I only lasted about a week.
If you only lasted a week, I'd suggest you don't know you were in a 750-1000 calorie deficit.
MFP, fitness trackers, and other calorie calculators only estimate deficits. Your body measures them, but because of daily water & digestive contents fluctuations that can be a kilo or more in magnitude from one day to the next, fat loss can only be estimated by looking at average weekly weight loss rate over 4-6 weeks.
Until a person has sufficient experiential data to validate, the most meticulous logging is only working with theoretical estimates about "the average person". MFP and my good brand/model fitness tracker (one that's accurate for other people) are off by 25-30% about my all-day calorie needs, compared with almost 9 years now of logging and weight change experience. That's several hundred calories of discrepancy, enough to make a pound a week difference, maybe more.
It's unusual to be that far off average, but it's possible. It may not be obvious why a person is non-average, either.
It's no1 -
Retroguy2000 wrote: »Were you actually in a 750 calorie deficit? I mean, were you losing 1.5 pounds per week? Or are you assuming that was your deficit because of what some online calculator said your TDEE is?
Ultimately, the slower you lose, the easier it will be to sustain and ultimately maintain. It won't require drastic diet or life changes, and shouldn't leave you feeling low energy.
If you have 77 pounds to go, you should be able to have a decent sized deficit while focusing on balanced meals with a focus on protein and fiber, which are satiating. Avoid ultra processed foods, full sugar sodas, use reduced portion sizes or low fat alternatives for butter, salad dressing, desserts, things like that. At this point, you can probably still enjoy many of the foods you like, but in moderation. Drastic changes are hard to maintain.
Yes, I have checked all of my data carefully, and only a few times have been off in terms of calories, like off by 6 calories for the amount of gs. My deficit was between 750 and 1000 each day but I only lasted about a week.
If you only lasted a week, I'd suggest you don't know you were in a 750-1000 calorie deficit.
MFP, fitness trackers, and other calorie calculators only estimate deficits. Your body measures them, but because of daily water & digestive contents fluctuations that can be a kilo or more in magnitude from one day to the next, fat loss can only be estimated by looking at average weekly weight loss rate over 4-6 weeks.
Until a person has sufficient experiential data to validate, the most meticulous logging is only working with theoretical estimates about "the average person". MFP and my good brand/model fitness tracker (one that's accurate for other people) are off by 25-30% about my all-day calorie needs, compared with almost 9 years now of logging and weight change experience. That's several hundred calories of discrepancy, enough to make a pound a week difference, maybe more.
It's unusual to be that far off average, but it's possible. It may not be obvious why a person is non-average, either.
It's no
I don't know if this is worth mentioning, but I use the calorie goal recommended by the site. I haven't used an alternative calculator, which is often recommended to me. The goal they have given me has worked in the past. It is paired with my fitbit.
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Retroguy2000 wrote: »Were you actually in a 750 calorie deficit? I mean, were you losing 1.5 pounds per week? Or are you assuming that was your deficit because of what some online calculator said your TDEE is?
Ultimately, the slower you lose, the easier it will be to sustain and ultimately maintain. It won't require drastic diet or life changes, and shouldn't leave you feeling low energy.
If you have 77 pounds to go, you should be able to have a decent sized deficit while focusing on balanced meals with a focus on protein and fiber, which are satiating. Avoid ultra processed foods, full sugar sodas, use reduced portion sizes or low fat alternatives for butter, salad dressing, desserts, things like that. At this point, you can probably still enjoy many of the foods you like, but in moderation. Drastic changes are hard to maintain.
Yes, I have checked all of my data carefully, and only a few times have been off in terms of calories, like off by 6 calories for the amount of gs. My deficit was between 750 and 1000 each day but I only lasted about a week.
If you only lasted a week, I'd suggest you don't know you were in a 750-1000 calorie deficit.
MFP, fitness trackers, and other calorie calculators only estimate deficits. Your body measures them, but because of daily water & digestive contents fluctuations that can be a kilo or more in magnitude from one day to the next, fat loss can only be estimated by looking at average weekly weight loss rate over 4-6 weeks.
Until a person has sufficient experiential data to validate, the most meticulous logging is only working with theoretical estimates about "the average person". MFP and my good brand/model fitness tracker (one that's accurate for other people) are off by 25-30% about my all-day calorie needs, compared with almost 9 years now of logging and weight change experience. That's several hundred calories of discrepancy, enough to make a pound a week difference, maybe more.
It's unusual to be that far off average, but it's possible. It may not be obvious why a person is non-average, either.
It's no
I don't know if this is worth mentioning, but I use the calorie goal recommended by the site. I haven't used an alternative calculator, which is often recommended to me. The goal they have given me has worked in the past. It is paired with my fitbit.
Yes, the discrepancy I mentioned in my own experience is as compared with MFP's calorie estimate for me, and compared with the daily all-day calorie estimate from my Garmin Vivoactive 4, which gives a similar estimate to MFP. They both think I'd maintain at something like 1500 or so calories, when I've actually been maintaining for several years on something in the lower 2000s.
I don't pair the Garmin because that would be very misleading in my case, more problem than solution. (I got a device after I'd already figured out my calorie needs from logging/weight-change experience. I've had two different devices since, they agree with each other, but not my experience.)
If your Fitbit estimates worked for you on past iterations, it's probable that they'd work for you now . . . although things can change.1 -
Thanks everyone, I have set my deficit to 250 calories per day, and I'll try not to have a deficit greater than 500 per day.1
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