3 easy rules that helps me losing 5 pounds a week!

adrienc

Here are the 3 simple rules I follow and I wanted to share with you.

They allow me to keep losing weight, and I never feel like I'm starving or hungry between meals.
Before doing this, make sure you have downloaded the MFP app on your phone, and punch in every food you eat along the day.

1) Max input @ Breakfast, Min input @ Dinner
I ate almost 700 calories during breakfast, then about 300 for dinner and 150 for dinner.
Breakfast should be the strongest meal of the day, as it will give you a strong fondation upon which you develop your activities.
Try to avoid eating too much sugar (juices, jam, etc..) as your energy will run off quickly and you will feel exhausted before noon, so you're better with carbonate fibers (cereal, bread, etc..)
Typically I have a continental breakfast (cereal+milk, coffee, orange juice, fruit and toasted bread), then a light lunch (chicken + puree or vegetables), then a toast with turkey and a tea for dinner.
The immediate benefit of doing this is that you will sleep better and longer, and you will not wake up feeling tired anymore

2) Be active but don't over exercise.
Find an daily activity that feels right for you and google it for finding how many calories you are burning by doing it. It can be as simple as going for a 20mn walk every evening. Keep logging in the calories you burn through it as it will give you a reward e.g you burnt 100 calories when going for a walk so you can eat a little extra at dinner or have a light snack between meals (kellogs stila bar for instance). Avoid to over-exercise as you will feel very hungry after it, and you might risk to over eat and ingest more calories than you should.
My activity is yoga. I'm doing it principally from home, one hour each day. I started at beginner level as I had no flexibility and a bad back, and now I've progressed little by little at intermediate level. It helps me to feel calm and energized, but not exhausted as I used to feel normally after going back from gym.

3) Keep minerals and vitamins at recommended levels
In the MFP home menu on the Ipod app, you have the summary of the amount of calories and food composition you ingested each day. Make sure you keeps minerals (sodium, iron, potassium, calcium) and vitamins (A,C) as close as the recommended values as possible. That will allow you to lose weight while keeping an healthy and balanced diet. It will also keep you away from most of side effects you can get when doing a too drastic diet, such as feeling tired or having headaches.

Et voila!

I hope you find it helpful! huh.. and I forgot the most important : keep it fun, relax and enjoy life!

sonia2003

Great! Thank you so much for this!

totaltexan

:bigsmile: Thanks for sharing that Adrien! Great tips!

RushinBruisette

5lbs a week seems like too much too fast, but to each their own...

girlruns

Good tips! I really wish I was at the point of Breakfast like a Prince, Dinner like a Pauper, but I'm not yet. Maybe someday!

crissgr

Sorry to say this, but 5 pounds a week seems a lot. I can only assume that you are losing water and muscle, which is not good by any means. Are you measuring your body fat regularly? If so, and the levels are to your satisfaction then please by any means don't change a thing. Otherwise, you may want to re-think your whole fitness and nutrition plan.

Not trying to be rude or anything, just some well intended critic. Hope you don't mind.

Take care.

TheQuitter

Cheers for that! Will try fruit AND toast tomorrow. I'm a newbie at this, but so far have been splitting the calories 4 ways - a quarter each for breakfast, lunch and dinner with the final one saved for a glass of wine! Maybe even 2 glasses of wine on the three days I go swimming But will try the more substantial breakfast. And hopefully get the 1 lb a week I'm hoping for ...

hkystar

I am still confused by the dont over exercise. What does that mean?

rml_16

Sorry to disappoint, but he's losing 5 pounds a week because he's severely restricting his calories for his gender and probably size. I'd guess the original poster weighs at least 180 pounds and is a man, so has more muscle mass than a woman and will lose faster, no matter what.

And he's eating fewer than 1,200 calories a day and then exercising on top of it.

If you think you can stick to that kind of lifestyle, go for it. But don't expect the same results, especially if you're female.

Anyway, any expert in the field will tell you it's unhealthy to lose more than 2 pounds a week (or 10% of your body weight) for an extended period of time. As someone else said, it's probably water and muscle mass that is being lost more than fat. Be careful with the advice given.

However, 1,150 calories for a smaller woman is probably a healthy intake of food. It just isn't going to give you those results.

LotusF1ower

I am still confused by the dont over exercise. What does that mean?

I was wondering this too, think I'll stay with my own eating plan and continue doing my exercise that I love doing lol

jamie1888

I'm surprised by all the carbs at breakfast with almost no protein; I'd carb crash for sure! I need my protein! :bigsmile:

:drinker: Cheers to your success!

oklahoma_cowgirl_51

overexercise means when you try to do too much activity and don't increase your caloric intake. this isn't true for me anymore, but when i FIRST started trying to lose weight, i tried to diet and exercise a lot all at once. didn't work. i failed miserably. all the exercising was making me more hungry, and i wasn't at a point yet where i could control it. SO i decided to meet my goal weight or as close as i could to my goal weight with diet and and SOME exercise, but not anything that would make me feel more hungry. after i reached my goal weight i just couldn't figure out why i didn't look like i wanted to, so i kept trying to lose, and just couldn't lose anymore with diet. Then i realized, that the look i was going for wasn't necessarily skinnier, but more toned. So i upped my caloric intake by 300 calories a day, and started working out 2 times a day. intense cardio in the morning, and in the afternoon or evening, moderate cardio with weight training or toning etc..... I really found over the last year and a half after losing 35 pounds, that slow and steady, baby steps, is the only way to truly lose it and keep it off.... Once i met a healthy weight for my body, it was harder for me to lose.... but very easy for me to firm right up with exercise! so don't get discouraged. We didn't gain the weight overnight, and we certainly won't lose it overnight!

frabjak

5lbs a week isn't a healthy goal sorry Also, I agree that eating protein for breakfast will help sustain better, but if it's working for you great. A lot of people won't be able to have the same results with that too.

As far as excercise...you can absolutely excercise quite a bit and lose weight. The key to being hungry is not only to eat, but to eat the right things. Eating only carbs will make you famished! Eat carbs preworkout, and protein after (a mixture of the two works well too). And it's important to eat the right carbs, complex carbs will sustain longer. Most importantly, listen to your body when choosing a routine (not to mention doctor). If you can do more and want to, go for it (and eat back some of those calories if not all because the body will need fuel). Also, googling to find out how many calories you burn is dangerous and innacurate. This could lead to eating too many calories. Unfortunately the only really accurate way to determine calories burned during excercise is with a heart rate monitor (one with a chest strap) that you will be inputing your weight, age, gender, height and all that good stuff.

adrienc

Thanks for all the comments!
yes I'm male, 6"ft, and I started my diet weighting 90kg (200 pounds) - My goal is to get to 22.6 BMI, which is 75kg (165 pounds).

I'm now down to 83 kg (183 pounds) in a little more than 3 weeks.

and Yes, I keep track of my body fat percentage (was 22%, and now I'm down to 20.5 %), by updating my body measurements regularly (I use http://www.am-i-fat.com/body_fat_percentage.html for calculating my body fat)

So you see, I'm quite sure I'm losing fat and not that much water and muscle.. Anyway I keep drinking at least 2 liters of water per day and I practice yoga everyday (intermediate level). The changes I'm looking at in the mirror look good to me, which I guess is what matters!

For those who wonder: by "over-exercise", I mean than sometimes if you exercise below your own limits, you're creating a strain on your body and you're feeling so hungry afterwards (your body needing more fuel), that you might over-compensate by ingesting more calories than what you actually burned. This is what happened to me last year, when I was going to the gym, burning over 400 calories each day, and I stayed at the same weight (90 kg, which is overweight for me). I understood afterwards that I was eating too much

Again, this is my personal story, and those 3 simples rules work for me.

By no means, I'm saying that you should follow them, and that you will get those results.

I'm not saying neither that losing 5 pounds a week is healthy.
It just happen that those are the numbers I'm getting, and I was a bit shocked myself, as I wasn't expecting to lose as much that fast.

Maybe it's just the yoga doing its magic after all !!

rml_16

Thanks for all the comments!
yes I'm male, 6"ft, and I started my diet weighting 90kg (200 pounds) - My goal is to get to 22.6 BMI, which is 75kg (165 pounds).

I'm now down to 83 kg (183 pounds) in a little more than 3 weeks.

and Yes, I keep track of my body fat percentage (was 22%, and now I'm down to 20.5 %), by updating my body measurements regularly (I use http://www.am-i-fat.com/body_fat_percentage.html for calculating my body fat)

So you see, I'm quite sure I'm losing fat and not that much water and muscle.. Anyway I keep drinking at least 2 liters of water per day and I practice yoga everyday (intermediate level). The changes I'm looking at in the mirror look good to me, which I guess is what matters!

For those who wonder: by "over-exercise", I mean than sometimes if you exercise below your own limits, you're creating a strain on your body and you're feeling so hungry afterwards (your body needing more fuel), that you might over-compensate by ingesting more calories than what you actually burned. This is what happened to me last year, when I was going to the gym, burning over 400 calories each day, and I stayed at the same weight (90 kg, which is overweight for me). I understood afterwards that I was eating too much

Again, this is my personal story, and those 3 simples rules work for me.

By no means, I'm saying that if you should follow them, and I'm not saying that losing 5 pounds a week is healthy.
It just happen that those are the numbers, and I was a bit shocked myself, as I wasn't expecting to lose as much that fast.

Maybe it's just the yoga doing its magic after all !!

So, you've been doing this for three weeks only? That also explains a lot. You tend to drop a lot of water in the first 2-3 weeks if you weren't drinking enough or eating right before you started. I suspect that your losses will begin slowing down.

However, you really are eating a very small amount for your weight. Doing this for too long could backfire on you by slowing your metabolism.

Trust me, I WISH I could easily drop 5 pounds a week. I'd be at my goal in a month! But you have to consider that this is a long-term committment and there's a good chance you're going to burn out on this plan. Yoga is GREAT exercise, but it burns a very small amount of calories. You're losing because you're undereating to an extreme. I lost 25 pounds in two weeks once. It was situational depression and not intentional, but I still lost the weight. I wouldn't recommend it as a diet plan, though.

Good luck! Maybe if you reach your goal quickly, you won't do too much damage. :-)

adrienc

Thanks to all for your concern and your healthy tips.
I will definitely add more protein to my morning diet and I'll eat a little more (1800 Net calorie/day) when I reach my first goal of 80kg (176 pounds)

Thanks again for your support and good vibes!

nelsaphine

Keep up the good work and congratulations on your weight loss! Thank you for sharing your story. I believe that most people that have been or are on a weight loss regimen know the 'good' and 'bad' tricks to losing weight. So, the way I see it someone on MFP could find your story inspirational, go for it and work for them as well. Others will know that this plan is not for them and disregard it. So thanks again for your post, I'm sure that someone here will benefit from it.

It's just a matter of getting started, sticking with it and having fun.

cparter

Sorry to say this, but 5 pounds a week seems a lot. I can only assume that you are losing water and muscle, which is not good by any means. Are you measuring your body fat regularly? If so, and the levels are to your satisfaction then please by any means don't change a thing. Otherwise, you may want to re-think your whole fitness and nutrition plan.

Not trying to be rude or anything, just some well intended critic. Hope you don't mind.

Take care.

Thanks for taking the words out of my mouth.

nicolet04

thanks!!!

vencellia

This is sort of like the reverse diet and that is how I eat too!!! I eat a bigger lunch small dinner and my breakfast. And I lose weight fast but not 5 pounds a week mostly 2 or 3. And I have kept mine off since 08 and still losing. I keep my meals balanced and get my proteins in always.

rml_16

This is sort of like the reverse diet and that is how I eat too!!! I eat a bigger lunch small dinner and my breakfast. And I lose weight fast but not 5 pounds a week mostly 2 or 3. And I have kept mine off since 08 and still losing. I keep my meals balanced and get my proteins in always.

See, I eat a very small breakfast, if any at all, and eat most of my calories in the evening. And I lose 2 or more a week usually. I'd have to eat about 300 calories a day, I think, to lose 5. Maybe a little more, but it would be extremely low.

katypres

Thanks for sharing! Great advice!!!

rose1617

Your diet is similar to mine.
I've been lucky this past week to have lost 2 lbs. as well. I don't think I'll get to 5 lbs./week, I don't have that much to lose, but I went from 24% body fat to 19%.
Congrats on your weight loss! And congrats on finding what works for you!

adrienc

.

adrienc

Sorry to say this, but 5 pounds a week seems a lot. I can only assume that you are losing water and muscle, which is not good by any means. Are you measuring your body fat regularly? If so, and the levels are to your satisfaction then please by any means don't change a thing. Otherwise, you may want to re-think your whole fitness and nutrition plan.

Not trying to be rude or anything, just some well intended critic. Hope you don't mind.

Take care.

Thanks for your concern! I do track my body fat index using measurements (waist, hips, neck, wrist, foream)
I went from 22.5 in july to 20 two days ago. To me, that means I´m losing fat, or am I totally wrong??
Don´t know about the water loss though, but I´m sure keeping hydrated all the time (8 cups a day or more)

And about muscle, I can´t know for sure if I´m losing from other parts or not, but I actually gained half an inch on my biceps circonference... can´t be that bad, right?

katya143

Bump

rml_16

Sorry to say this, but 5 pounds a week seems a lot. I can only assume that you are losing water and muscle, which is not good by any means. Are you measuring your body fat regularly? If so, and the levels are to your satisfaction then please by any means don't change a thing. Otherwise, you may want to re-think your whole fitness and nutrition plan.

Not trying to be rude or anything, just some well intended critic. Hope you don't mind.

Take care.

Thanks for your concern! I do track my body fat index using measurements (waist, hips, neck, wrist, foream)
I went from 22.5 in july to 20 two days ago. To me, that means I´m losing fat, or am I totally wrong??
Don´t know about the water loss though, but I´m sure keeping hydrated all the time (8 cups a day or more)

And about muscle, I can´t know for sure if I´m losing from other parts or not, but I actually gained half an inch on my biceps circonference... can´t be that bad, right?

You can lose inches without losing fat. Losing muscle and water will cause your inches to go down.

The only truly accurate way to check body fat is not something you can do at home an dinvolves being submerged in water and electrodes and complicated, expensive stuff like that. There's no way to know by taking measurements that you're losing body fat, only that you're getting smaller.

adrienc

Another thing... for those who thinks I'm doing the Gandhi diet
my aim is to get 1200 NET calories a day.

That means when I go to the gym and burn out 300 calories, I'm eating a total worth of 1200+300 = 1500 calories that day, in order to get 1200 NET calories.

No rocket science in it, I'm just following MFP advice (btw this magic number of 1200 NET calories/day is also the recommended number I got from MFP after entering my biometrics and my goal)

I'm never feeling hungry during the day, and I'm sure not starving at all.

Today is 1st day of my week #4 and I check my weight : I'm 83.7 kg and my BMI is now 24.9 (not overweight anymore!).

That means I "just" lost 2 pounds since last week.

Sounds to me as my body somehow needed to shed those extra pounds during the first weeks and now that I'm getting closer to my ideal weight, my weight loss is now slowing down and leveling to a smoother (and granted, healthier) rate.

Thanks again to all for your posts, and remember: do what seems right for you but keep it fun and enjoy life!