How does it work

sranney2

Hi, all I’m 61 years old 52 and I weigh 191 pounds as of today, oh and female I want to get down to 135 pounds. Do I just follow the recommended calories? Is it that simple? Thank you! To convince myself, it won’t work before I get started looking for obstacles. The biggest one being that eating so little won’t work over the Hall.

yirara

Yeah, pretty much that's it.

Two things to keep in mind:

1. if you're given 1200 calories then your weightloss goal is too steep. For your current weight maybe 1lbs/week might be a good goal. Play a bit with your weekly goal. An advice: fast is not always better. Slow, steady and as easy as possible wins the race.

2. If you use mfp to calculate your calories then those are without exercise, but only with everyday activities. Like if you're a teacher or police woman, and on your feet all day then you're probably higher active than when you're a programmer. If you do it this way you're supposed to log your exercise and eat those back. But exercise calories are often overstated. Might be a good idea to start with half. Other option is to use a TDEE calculator to calculate your calories. This will already include exercise. Then you don't log exercise separately.

sranney2

Thank you!

AnnPT77

Yes, pretty much. There are just a couple of refinements I'd suggest to that idea.
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As context, I lost from 183 to the 130s pounds at age 59-60, after about 3 previous decades of overweight/obesity. I'm also severely hypothyroid (but properly medicated), if that matters. I'm now 68, still maintaining my weight in a healthy range. (Coincidentally, I was at 135.2 pounds this morning. We're somewhat similar. :flowerforyou: )

Yes, eating the right calorie level was THE key, for me.

A couple of tweaks:

MFP (or other calorie calculators, fitness trackers, etc.) just give us a calorie goal that's the statistical average calorie level for superficially demographically similar people. The best course is to follow that recommendation very closely for 4-6 weeks (whole menstrual cycles for people who have those). I'm talking like within +/- 50 calories.

After the 4-6 weeks, you'll have enough personal experience data to adjust your calorie goal based on that experience. (Use the assumption that 500 calories a day is a pound a week, and use arithmetic for fractional pounds.)

Don't shoot for crazy-fast weight loss, keep it sustainable. It will take some time to lose a meaningful total amount of weight. That puts a priority on picking a sustainable loss rate, and adjusting habits in ways that make loss easier (not faster ).

That approach has a bonus: It can help us experiment and find the new routine habits we need - eating and activity - to not only reach goal weight, but stay there long term. For many people, maintaining a loss is harder than losing in the first place.

You say "obstacles . . . The biggest one being that eating so little won’t work over the Hall." I hope you're not shooting for two pounds a week. If you are, a pound a week would be easier. For sure, losing at a sensibly moderate weight can sometimes get a person to goal weight in less calendar time than some extreme regimen that causes deprivation triggered over-eating, breaks in the action, or giving up altogether because it's Just. To. Hard.

Too many people come here thinking they need combination of extreme eating restriction, plus maybe punitively intense exercise on top of that. Total mythology. Moderate changes we can stick with: Those bring results, durable results, with patience and time.

It's a different mindset that the yo-yo formula: Lose weight fast through extreme measures, then go back to normal.

Think about it. Think differently.

Find an enjoyable, reasonably filling eating routine using foods you personally find tasty. If you feel up for it, add some new movement to your life - exercise or daily life - that's ideally really fun, but at least practical and tolerable. That can work! Being overweight is not a sin we need to expiate by suffering. We just need new, manageable, improved routine habits.

I'm cheering for you to succeed: The quality of life improvement is worth the effort!

tomcustombuilder

sranney2 wrote: »

Hi, all I’m 61 years old 52 and I weigh 191 pounds as of today, oh and female I want to get down to 135 pounds. Do I just follow the recommended calories? Is it that simple? Thank you! To convince myself, it won’t work before I get started looking for obstacles. The biggest one being that eating so little won’t work over the Hall.

It may work or it may not. There are all the factors involved that need to be in place in order to have success from the get go. Most people after a month or so need to adjust things around a bit in order to hit their target.