How to start with significant fat loss?

25 m , 182 cm , 130 kg , 40% body fat

What is the right way to count calories for this kinda goal because i need to lose alot of fat, i'm moderatley active and burn around 1000 cal daily from activity due to my large mass, and i practice strength training 5 times a week.

I want to lose fat while preserving muscle or increasing it.
I aim for 40% protien 35% carb 25% fat

Any other advices from similar cases is welcome

Answers

  • csplatt
    csplatt Posts: 1,187 Member
    Preserving muscle often means selecting a slower rate of loss in MFP (not 2 lb per week), but I am not sure if that “rule” varies with individuals with high percentage of body fat.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,072 Member
    You can maximize fat loss by setting your goals in MFP to lose 1 kg per week, or you can minimize muscle loss by setting your goals in MFP to lose 1/4 kg per week (while continuing progressive strength training and getting plenty of protein). With your stats, I would focus more on fat loss initially, but it's your choice.

    If you are doing whole body workouts, you should cut back the frequency of your strength training so you always have at least one rest day after a workout. You build muscle during recovery, not while you're lifting.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,139 Member
    When starting out you will preferentially lose fat especially if you're engaged in any strength training so I would more focus on satiating choices at reduced calories than exercise

    Exercise is good. Exercise will be your friend for a long time and may encourage your goal setting

    But you didn't get to 130kg because you didn't exercise. I certainly didn't get to 130kg (and I'm 10cm less tall than you) JUST because I didn't exercise

    Your food/alcohol, is in play, intake habits will have to be modified for the long term in other to achieve and maintain weight loss

    Consider looking at what 2500 Cal per day buys you. And try to envision a future where you sort of average in that range.

    It doesn't mean that that's your long term average but it's a good baseline number to have in your long term consideration.

    Beyond that remember that long term compliance and adherence to your new plan is worth more than fast results.

    Sure take the fast results when you can, especially early on. But two months of reduced weight and plodding along at 226.8g a week (half lb) is worth more than a one week 2kg loss and two months of regain because you gave up for now and will start again tomorrow or on Monday.

    Any results in the 0.25% to 1% body weight loss per week as a long term average are fine.

    Most people find the lower end easier to adhere to than the high end longer term.

    My suggestion? There is a learning curve with logging and varying degrees of accuracy that people achieve.

    **Start** with ~2000 days and a percentage of exercise calories. Maybe go as high as the 23-2500 range for the day especially if active.

    Put your weight in a weight trend app.

    Multiple years ago I found Libra for android, happy scale for iPhone and trendweight.com for PC (usable w/free Fitbit/Google account without devices). There's others. Spreadsheet works too with exponentially weighted average.

    Compare your expected to actual results over two to three week time periods for males considering a weight change of 453.6g to be worth about 3500 Cal... and adjust your aimed for and "purported" deficits based on your actual results....

    ...and make choices you believe you will be able to stick to for months and years not weeks and days!

    Don't be shy to push. But don't push so hard you're hanging in there for dear life ready to give up
  • tomcustombuilder
    tomcustombuilder Posts: 2,133 Member
    edited August 10
    First of all use grams for macros instead of percentages with protein being the main focus. Figure around .7-1 gram per pound of your target weight as figuring current weight for you would put it way too high.

    Be careful to not figure your necessary calories too high or you’ll spin your wheels for awhile trying to figure things out. You’ll most likely have to bring calories down a bit at a time to avoid too big a deficit at first otherwise you won’t be able to deal with the hunger and then quit.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,053 Member
    Losing 110 pounds/50 kg would put you in the top of the healthy BMI scale. You could lose a little more than 1 k per week initially, but keeping to a slightly slower/sustainable loss will help preserve muscle.

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    Here's a reputable protein calculator:

    https://examine.com/nutrition/protein-intake-calculator/

    I shoot for 500 calories of exercise per day, and when I achieve that, using the MFP default of 20% protein aligns with the protein grams recommendation from Examine. If I were completely sedentary, I'd need to bump it up.