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melanie9674
melanie9674 Posts: 4 Member
in Introduce Yourself
Hi! I’m Melanie, 52 year old and gained 20 pounds in 2 years! I want to decrease my body fat, weight and increase muscle. My goal is lose 30 pounds by my BD in October.

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  • nossmf
    nossmf Posts: 9,366 Member
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    Welcome, Melanie!

    The twin goals of losing fat and gaining muscle are hard to work together, not impossible just hard. If you have to focus on just one, the faster results come from losing fat, which has the side consequence of revealing already-existing muscle so you appear more muscular without actually gaining muscle. Double-win!
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,432 Member
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    Hi, Melanie!

    In cases like yours, I kind of like to point out the math. Maybe this isn't true for you, but it surprises a lot of people: Gaining 20 pounds in 2 years suggests a person has had an average daily calorie surplus of approximately 100 calories. That's like the equivalent of a daily big blop of creamy salad dressing, a tablespoon of peanut butter, or one slice of hearty bread. (Not all of those, just one.)

    For a 150-pound person, it would also be around 2700-ish daily steps. It can be more intermittent, too, like one of those sweet large-sized Starbucks coffee drinks a couple of times a week, or one of those yummy milkshakes with the candy add-ins once a week (or less). It doesn't take much!

    A lot of people had those kinds of changes during the pandemic without even noticing.

    The good news is, reversing that also doesn't need to be some extreme suffer-fest. You'd probably like to lose it faster than 2 years, but "extremely fast" (if 20 pounds is all you need to lose) isn't a great idea, either. For many people, a pound a week is a great goal. Twenty pounds is gone in about 5 months, and the slower process can help a person establish relatively pleasant new habits that keep them at a healthy weight. That would be eating roughly 600 calories daily fewer than your last couple of years average, or moving that many calories more, or some combination. Slower is also fine (and easier). Personally, I'm a big fan of "easy". ;)

    You can totally do this, and IME the results are worth it. I'm cheering for you to succeed!

    Best wishes!

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