Am I too aggressive ??

Craigjessop1

Im 5,10, male, 42, around 199 lbs.
TDEE calculated at 2900.

I’m aiming for 160 calories each day.

Training 5 times a week ( weights) each session I’m lifting more weight. Wishing says I’m losing fat based on a good reading today.
I was made redundant 5 weeks ago so joined a gym, training 5 times a week.

This week I included 2 spin sessions and body combat. walking min 12k steps a day.

My weight in the last month is -1.5lbs. I’ve lost 4 + stone in the last 6 months.

Am I too aggressive in my calories? Would you expect a bigger weight loss? Should I not be concerned with the sad step?

any advice to say I’m in the right approach?

Screen shots below to help..

Corina1143

Using your figures—

2900-1500(average you're eating, not goal)=1400=deficit. So you're eating about 1/2 the calories your body expects/needs to maintain while exercising much more than before. Hmm. Yes, I'd definitely say you're definitely being unnecessarily hard on your body.

My personal opinion—definitely not proven fact—the winner is the person who eats the most and best while losing a reasonable amount of weight, improving their health, and enjoying life.

ddsb1111

My numbers reflect a little less than a 1200 cal deficit per day.

(since 56 lbs × 3,500 = 196,000 calories / 168 days = ~1,167/day)

That loss seems extreme. I would shoot for 1-2 lbs a week. You have to learn how to eat for the rest of your life and this is part of it. Kudos on the commitment though!

PAV8888

I'm gonna be a bit of an *kitten*!😳 Or at the very least rain a tiny bit on any parades while at the same time, hopefully, both congratulating accomplishments and highlighting the need to aggressively pursue the consolidation of your success!

Success: more than 56lbs!!! Probably closer to 60 if one reads the subtext and adds the extra 1.5. This is simply awesome. And a more than 20% reduction in total weigh. No longer obesse. Huge positive future health implications. Feeling awesome and strong right now!

Have you been aggressive? Do cows produce manure? Yes! You've been extremely aggressive.

The good news? There is about the same level of success in retaining weight loss at the end of a year (and if I recall correctly extending to 3 years) in studies between cohorts who initially lost fast and then attempted to maintain their weight loss with the aid of nutritional counseling sessions and the people who lost slower.

The bad news? The long term success of both groups was nothing to write home about. Which probably doesn't come as a huge surprise to most denizens of MFP

The real news? Losing is the fastest most exciting time period. You make snap decisions, you feel the rewards, throttle to full ahead and damn the torpedoes!

Landing into maintenance? Continuing with maintenance and finding a long term groove that takes you out to 5 years and then 10 years of successful defense of your weight loss? Takes you to 47 and then 52?

That's the long term grind where your current efforts have only just bought you an entry ticket to the party.

So. Let's not mince words. You HAVE bought yourself a ticket! But you've gone fast. And you've hit a wall. The wall won't move much if you just keep hitting it harder. And it is not unknown for the wall to happen.

In fact the most common profile of a weight loss intervention is lose to about six months. Things slow down. You fight it a bit going upward with sporadic downward attempts for another few months--call it a year total. Give up and shoot back up and regain with friends by the end of year two or so.

Don't like the 6, 12, and 24 much? Move things around by a few months in either direction and you will find a reality that many (most?) of us on MFP have gone through at least once, if not more than one time, in our lives.

So this, my friend is the moment of truth.

Sure you can double down. Drop calories. Exercise like a fiend now that you're unemployed. Continue losing fast.

Maybe not as fast as before (which is physically impossible since you no longer have the fat reserves to support that level of loss); but faster than the current"disappointing" 1.5lbs a month.

So what's the plan for when you're employed again and spending 10 hours a day between commute and work?

🤔🤔🤔

Your current six month slow down is a combination of having less fat stores available to lose, the fact that because you've lost weight you burn less Calories so while eating the same intake your effective deficit is smaller, the potential issue that your aggressive deficit has caused some adaptation / down regulation, and probably because your recently increased combination of exercise intensity and duration is clouding up things by increasing your water weight (which would imply that your actual loss remained more than what you saw reflected on your scale)

That said, 1.5lbs a month is 18lbs a year! One rock plus 4 lbs! That ain't chump change!

18lbs would put you at 181lbs and BMI 26.0 at age 43. Which for a lifting bro brings to mind a strong and healthy individual with low adiposity as opposed to someone with the fat levels you would expect for someone in the overweight range.

And you know what the biggest benefit of that would be? That you would be looking at the long term. At getting to a year and a half. At getting to TWO years. At getting to THREE years (36 months instead of 6). At getting to FIVE years (60 months, not 6)

Somewhere in here you have to start taking into consideration sustainability of effort and seeking to position yourself for the long term.

Sure. You CAN overdo things a little bit and get away with it when you're relatively young and committed.

But maybe it is time to start hedging your bets and defending the weight loss you've already achieved more so that looking into ways to double down on speed.

Increase your gym time? Sure, while being mindful of injury. What's the plan in case of injury, btw?🤔

Continue trying to lose weight for the next, not only 12 months, but maybe even 24 months. But at a much much slower pace!

So what if you land into maintenance? Landing into maintenance is not a terrible thing. In fact it is an **almost** painless way of implementing maintenance. Other than being ticked off that you're no longer losing!

There is landing into maintenance, there is dealing with finding new work, there is continuing to maintain your new health and exercise habits while all the rest of life is happening.

Don't be disappointed that things have slowed down. Take the opportunity (while continuing to try to lose at a much slower pace) to explore long(er) term eating and exercising strategies.

And yes. What you've done so far is awesome. Aggressive. But awesome.

Now move that aggression to aggressively pursuing LESS aggression, and save some of it for an extra push during your body combat and lifting sessions!

And realize that ** total time at reduced weight ** is what provides the health benefits. Not the speed of loss.

AnnPT77

Such good and comprehensive advice from @PAV8888 ! Better yet, he speaks from a combination of book-learnin' and experience. (Or web-learnin'? Whatever. Good stuff.) Good advice from others, too, along the same lines.

Personally, from a personal perspective of major weight loss starting over 10 years ago now, and 9+ years of maintaining a healthy weight since . . . same as they said.

You've been very aggressive. You've taken some risks, may even have invoked some subtle negative consequences already. Slow the bus down. Recalculate your calorie needs for your lighter weight - or better yet, estimate them from the last couple of months' experience. Target a slower loss rate. Start thinking about - experimenting, finding, practicing - the sustainable habits that will help you stay at a healthy weight and in reasonably fit condition, once you get there.

Good overall life balance is a necessary part of the goal, and that takes a very different mindset from "lose weight fast". Find a happy, sustainable eating routine, an enjoyable, productive exercise plan. Be sure to have time and energy for job, family, social life, non-exercise hobbies, anything else important to you. Work out the habits you can continue long term almost on autopilot when other parts of life get challenging . . . because they will, eventually. Don't join the "I'm back, having regained" brigade.

Best wishes!

springlering62

Your two largest calorie sources are protein powder and whey (presumably powdered, too, since not many folks have access to liquid whey).

if this is a long term loss and maintenance plan, I’d start working towards swapping beans, lean meats, fish, tofu etc for your protein. Sounds like you’re very shake or smoothie heavy.

Do you picture yourself “eating” this way long term? Do you enjoy a heavily liquid diet? If so, have at it. There’s occasional users here who prefer it for whatever reason.

But real foods lead to real satisfaction, imho.

Prepare for maintenance by thinking ahead during the loss phase.