Calorie Deficit

thomas_sdj

I’ve been eating under 1200 calories for the last 6 weeks. Initially I lost quite a bit of weight but now the scale isn’t really moving. Any recommendations on how to get things going again?

AnnPT77

A week isn't long enough to worry about.

Number 1, if your tracking is accurate, don't eat that little or try to lose that fast. Extremely fast weight loss increases health risks, some of which can be major; and it's hard to stick with long enough to lose a meaningful total amount of weight. At your current weight, 2 pounds a week would be fine for a while, maybe the next 40-ish pounds.

It's normal to have short stalls of scale weight while losing. It's extra likely when starting a truly extreme calorie deficit like you're doing.

In the early weeks of weight loss, even at a sensibly moderate rate, part of the loss is reduced water retention.

Another part of the loss is less food waste in our digestive tract on the way to the exit, because we're eating less food. In your case, that second part - waste - is likely to be larger than average because you're following such an aggressively extreme diet.

Also in your case, after you've been at it for a while, there's IMO a higher than average chance of increased water retention beyond what would be seen for someone losing at a sensibly moderate rate. That's because extreme loss is a physical stress, stress can increase the hormone cortisol in our bodies, and in extreme cases that can increase water retention.

So: You've lost quite a lot of fat so far, in all probability. You've also lost some water weight, in the early weeks, and some amount of weight from less food waste on its way through your system. High odds that now the stall you're seeing is your body re-adjusting and rebalancing its water retention, masking continuing fat loss on the scale. You're losing fat, it's just hidden by the added water.

Shifts in water retention are part of what keeps a healthy body healthy. They know what they're doing. We don't want to try to mess with this. The right thing is to try to understand and accept that scale ups and downs will be normal through the weight loss process, but while fat is being lost, the overall trend of scale weight will be a downhill slope. There are just some up and down bumps on that slope.

If I can be frank, I think you're at a truly crucial moment here and now.

A common thing we see here is people who freak out at a brief scale stall, and cut calories more deeply, maybe start adding exercise that they're not getting enough calories to fuel. Their stress ramps up, their self-blame ramps up.

Those people are over-reacting, and it's usually not going to end well: They will give up because it's just too hard, or they'll have some significant health consequence from the extremes, they may begin to develop an eating disorder . . . lots of bad options, few good ones. Honestly, the best case among those is that first one, giving up, because the other possibilities are worse. But no one needs any of those outcomes, right?

Better idea: Think about a calorie level that can be sustained for many months, and help learn new, positive habits that will not just lead to goal weight, but make it easy to stay there long term, ideally permanently. Learn how the body responds to weight loss, and why the scale fluctuates. This thread, especially the article linked in the first post, would be a good start in that learning:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10683010/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-fluctuations/p1

Super common advice here: Any time you change your diet/activity regimen, give the new plan a 4-6 week trial period, or at least one full menstrual period for women who have those (to compare body weight at the same relative point in at least two different cycles). The result of that new regimen is the average of weight change over the whole time.

Short of that amount of time, any weight change is more influenced by water/waste fluctuations than fat loss, potentially even in cases of extreme loss like yours.

In your case specifically, you lost 18 pounds in 5 weeks, 3.6 pounds per week on average. That's your result, not the one week stall. The one-week stall is meaningless in the big picture.

Losing 3.6 pounds per week, your average calorie deficit has been roughly 1800 calories per day. In other words, whatever the average amount you've eating per day is, your current weight maintenance calories would be that daily average amount of calories, plus about 1800. (Calculation: Roughly 3500 calories in a pound of fat, times 3.6 pounds per week lost, divided by 7 to get a daily deficit estimate = estimated daily 1800 calories eaten below current weight-maintenance calories.)

Just as an example, since you can figure out your daily average calories eaten, but I can only approximate: If you've averaged eating 1000 calories your maintenance calories would be around 2800. Any time you ate under 2800, you'd expect to lose fat. If you want to lose 2 pounds a week - more sensible IMO than 3.6 pounds - you'd expect to accomplish that eating 1800 calories daily on average.

I'm not telling you to eat 1800. I don't have the data to do a better calculation, but I described how to do it above, so you can do the calculation if you wish.

I'm not in charge of your weight loss rate, that's your call how extreme you want to be, but I'd strongly advise you to slow down . . . partly based on negative experiences of my own when I accidentally lost too fast at first. If a person weighed maybe 125-150 pounds more than you do now, 3.6 pounds per week might keep health risk in a reasonable range, but I'd still be urging the person to get regular blood tests and other medical attention to monitor for deficiencies or complications. There's no way to get adequate nutrition on too-few calories, among other possible problems.

For sure, a one week scale stall, in the overall situation you've described to us, does NOT mean you've stopped losing fat. There is definitely no reason to cut calories further or add exercise to "get things going again". The scale will move again, with patience and persistence. You're seeing a water retention effect, and it will settle out over the next few weeks.

Best wishes: Please stay healthy as you succeed with your weight-loss goals!

sollyn23l2

My strong recommendation is to check your tracking. Make sure you're accurately weighing and measuring everything. And I mean everything. No guestimates. Also make sure you are choosing accurate entries. Not the one that shows how many calories you *wish* something had. Food entries are made by regular users and some have been very... imaginative... in how many calories they've given a particular food. For how long have you stopped losing weight?

yirara

Next to what sollyn wrote: if you're male you should not be eating less than 1500 calories. But if you're not losing over a longer period of time then you're not tracking accurately enough, hence no damage done. It's also possible though that you are tracking very well, but the stress on your body is such due to undereating that your cortisol is sky-high and your body is holding onto water, hence masking fat loss.

tomcustombuilder

Is that under 1200 cal every single day consistently For six weeks or is that cherry picking a few days here and there where the calories are that low. you want to count seven days worth of calories and divide by seven that is your actual daily amount.

If in fact, you actually were on 1200 consistently and you stop losing all of a sudden very good chance if you’re doing any exercise at all that you’re holding onto water Due to your homeostatic system trying to protect you from losing too much weight.

I would definitely look though at your actual calorie amounts and go from there.

thomas_sdj

At first I was eating an average of around 900-1000 calories but recently (say last 1 week) up it to about 1200 on average. Some days lower than 1200 but never over. I am barely exercising right now.

csplatt

What do you mean by “quite a bit” over six weeks? How many pounds, and what is your current height and weight? @thomas_sdj

totameafox

Why are you eating so few calories? You don't mention your age or weight. We don't know how much you need to lose or why you need to lose it quickly. You should be looking to make a healthy, sustainable change or the weight you lose will come right back. I can't imagine that you actually feel good while you are doing this either.

I once lost 42 lbs calorie counting. 32 of that was without exercise. I did it. I was happy I was losing weight. But it wasn't until I did my second attempt at loosing weight did I find that what food I was choosing to eat helped in how I felt during the day.

You didn't gain weight overnight. You aren't going to lose it overnight either. This isn't a race, it's the rest of your life. Please take the time to reevaluate your path.

thomas_sdj

@csplatt I lost 16 pounds in the first month. Than 2 pounds at week 5. I haven’t lost any this week. I am 39 y/o female. I currently weigh 235- from 254.

csplatt

This is great info @thomas_sdj

You are doing nothing wrong. It’s normal to have weeks where you don’t lose. Sometimes the scale actually goes up and it has nothing to do with fat. So many things inside our bodies make the scale shift up and down. You should change nothing. Good work!!

PAV8888

You are looking at a multi-year journey. And if you're not. You should. Because otherwise you will just yo-yo down and up and down and up. This is NOT a few months and done. Your goal is NOT "just to lose weight no matter what". Your focus should really be on a longer term process. And on setting up appropriate goals. so far it SOUNDS to me that the goal is to eat the least amount you can and lose as fast as you can. That's not long term thinking from my point of view.

You've done great so far. Great in terms of getting started. Great in terms of applying deficits. Great in terms of seeing results. Great in terms of maybe feeling better about yourself. Great in terms of seeing that you CAN create a deficit by making changes in terms of what you ingest on one end. And of starting to contemplate on how you might make changes in terms of how you move and exercise in the future. This is all great. Seriously. I am not joking. It's not as if I didn't start at a similar place.

Now you need to take it a step further and realize that all you need to move forward is "a" deficit. Not a huge deficit. Not a small deficit. But an appreciable and sustainable deficit. Think 0.25% to 1% of your body weight per week as opposed to >1% of your body weight per week. 3.16lbs a week is not long term sustainable

PLS re read Ann's post. She has covered most of everything except maybe discussing how you can more consistently evaluate your weight trend changes over time. Because yes, there will be times where you will think that nothing is moving when in reality everything is moving perfectly fast!

(ask me how I thought that I would never get below 200lbs and how I was "stalled" at 200lbs and nothing was happening. When I look at my weight loss graph of that time from the perspective of 10 years later... there wasn't even a speed bump as I moved through 200lbs. Yet at the time I was convinced I had stopped losing!!! And that's with me already using a weight trend app and being aware of the issue!!!!)

thomas_sdj

I started the calorie deficit on 1/15/25. I am currently 235 at a height of 5’8. I would like to be between 165-180.

Thanks!

totameafox

I am 52, 5'2, started at 238.4 and am currently 228.2. that is a loss of 15.6 pounds in 7 weeks. The first 10 pounds was in 2 weeks. I will not lie and say that there were not days when I ate less than 1200 calories. but if i did it was 1100-1150. There are also days where I go out to eat with family where I don't track the number of calories. I just make that the only meal of the day.

As you can see the amount of weight I have lost isn't consistent week to week. I didn't do anything different from week 3 to 4 to go from losing 2 pounds to only 0.4. I did not eat 4900 calories over maintenance to gain 1.4lbs on week 5. I didn't starve myself to lose 2.6 pounds the following week. what isn't show is that in week 6 I lost 4 pounds in two days and then gained 1.4 pounds back overnight. I think I was dehydrated because I was only drinking soda and I don't drink soda like I do water so my fluid intake was lower those few days.

Obviously I can't be hypocritical and say don't try to lose more than a pound a week or cut calories to 1200 a day. because 1200 is what I do most days. The goal calories set by mfp is 1570 to lose 1 pound a week. But I also know I am going to go to restaurants with family where I can't track how many calories I'm going to consume. Or I'm not going to worry about logging a pinch of cheese here or there.

You should be able to lose weight at a good pace with 1200 to 1400 calories. I plugged your numbers into a tdee calculator with you being inactive and 1647 was the number it gave me for you to lose 1 lbs a week. So you definitely don't need to go below 1200. Make changes to your life that you can sustain. You didn't become 254 overnight you won't become 165 over night ether. But you want to make a life where you can happily sustain 165.

& you are beautiful by the way. Congrats on the weight loss. It will continue. Give it time and trust the process.

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/147555-speak-friend-and-enter