Am I doing it right?

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samammay
samammay Posts: 468
in Health and Weight Loss
Ive been doing a ton of reading about healthy weight loss and wanted some feedback on what I am doing.

Me: 42/M 6'
SW: 255 (247 when I joined MFP)
CW: 231
GW1: 220
GW2: 205
GW3: 195
My calories for the day are set to 1490 but I get between 5 and 600 per day from my fitbit one and I try to eat most of my exercise calories back.

Currently, over the last 16 days my daily net has averaged 1293. My plan is 2 lb/week to first GW, 1lb/wk to GW2, .5 lb/wk to GW3. Currently I lift 1 day/wk, cardio 2-3 times a week. After GW1, I will add a day of lifting, after GW2, I will swap a day of cardio for lifting.

Am I doing it right, being too aggressive, taking it too easy? All opinions valued. My diary should be open. My goal is healthy above all else. Second most important is fat loss. Weight is just a number that I use to track progress... directly translating to BF% and a whole lot easier to measure.

Thanks for any feedback.

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  • samammay
    samammay Posts: 468
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    I also wanted to add that I know many advocate no cardio, but the cardio I do (bike riding) is as much for my sanity and getting away for an hour as it is for fitness and I don't want to have to give it up.
  • Mokey41
    Mokey41 Posts: 5,769 Member
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    A healthy male should be netting at least 1800 calories a day. You aren't doing your body any favors by not hitting that and you'll start losing a lot of lean muscle mass along with the fat. You may lose slightly slower but you'll feel better and not end up looking like a sack of potatoes.
  • lukage1
    lukage1 Posts: 6 Member
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    make sure your times are set to your correct timezone on both mfp and fitbit. if not it will screw up your numbers. happened to me.
  • jeffpettis
    jeffpettis Posts: 865 Member
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    By eating so few calories you are setting yourself up for a lot of lean muscle loss. Especially with only one day a week of lifting. While cutting fat your goal should be to hang onto as much muscle as possible, you're not going to gain any muscle while in a deficit but you don't want to lose any. The only way to tell your body to hang onto the muscle you have is to lift and once a week isn't going to signal a need to hang onto much muscle.

    As far as the cardio goes, if that's something you like then do it. I don't like cardio and choose to create a deficit through diet alone but if cardio is something you enjoy doing then you should absolutely do it. My only recommendation with that is be careful about using exercise to create a deficit. Calories burned are hard to estimate, even with a HRM, so you don't want to be eating back calories you never burned in the first place.

    Hope it helps...

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