Realistic weight and BF goals/plan?

Marcusvpn

Hi there,

I've been on MFP for almost a month now. I was looking for some opinion on whether I have set realistic goals.

I am male 6'1", currently 220 lbs and 32% bodyfat.

My goal is by 4 months to:
* achieve a weight of 187 lbs (lose 2lbs a week)
* achieve 20% body fat (lose 2-3% BF per month)
* maintain my current LBM (~149 lbs)

My question: Is my goal realistic? Is it realistic for someone my size to maintain LBM while losing 2lbs a week?

From reading the forums, I'm concerned my rate of weight loss might be too high and that I'd end up losing more LBM than expected in the process.

About my diet and exercise plan:
* Averaging 1,500 net calories per day ( equating to 2 lbs per week)
* Actively tracking all meals in MFP, have been averaging ~100g/day of protein, ~150 g/day of carbs, ~70 g/ day of fats
* I work a desk job, but am doing cardio/weight lifting at the gym 3 nights a week.

Success so far: 1 month in:
* have dropped 16 lbs, (big loss in first 2 weeks, followed by 2-3 lbs a week recently)
* I have just started tracking body fat %, seems relatively flat over last week

Any thoughts inputs would be welcome! Thank you!

bostonwolf

the goals seem fine, though I personally might focus more on adding a bit of muscle. 149lbs LBM seems a bit light on a 6'1 frame, but we are all built differently.

Your net calories seem a bit low as well. Have you used any of the TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) calculators to get an idea of what level of calorie intake would be necessary to maintain your current body mass?

I estimated your age at 30 and had you working out 3-5 hours a week and came up with 3300 calories. That's just to maintain your current weight.

Take a look at the link as you can enter more accurate information than I did.

http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

Get the number and try to eat TDEE minus 20% to lose fat, that is the general rule. As you get nearer to your goal drop it to 15%, 10% etc (while adjusting the bodyweight number)

You don't really get into the details of your workout so I will leave that to others that have more experience there.

I'm gone from about 320lbs to 285 in about nine months using this eating program and doing Crossfit 3x/week along with some added light cardio.

Marcusvpn

Thanks bostonwolf!

I really appreciate your comments!

Using the link you provided, I got 2,566 TDEE, with 2,053 cals for a 20% cal reduction.

Should I treat 2,053 as my calorie consumption (food only), or net intake ( food minus exercise)?

Also, I like your suggestion of focusing on adding a bit of muscle - would that be realistically while simultaneously reducing calories and weight?

Thanks again!
Marcus

bostonwolf

So long as you figured in your activity level correctly 2053 is what you should be eating. Do not track exercise calories at all (I log exercise here as 1 calorie burned, only because you cannot put a zero.)

Losing fat while gaining muscle can be tough but I'm doing it right now. It's easier when you are just starting out because you'll see bigger gains from lifting initially.

Right now I'm trying to lose fat and maintain my lean body mass. If I lose a bit in the process but get myself to around 20% body fat I'd be happy with that.

SideSteel

Hi there,

I've been on MFP for almost a month now. I was looking for some opinion on whether I have set realistic goals.

I am male 6'1", currently 220 lbs and 32% bodyfat.

My goal is by 4 months to:
* achieve a weight of 187 lbs (lose 2lbs a week)
* achieve 20% body fat (lose 2-3% BF per month)
* maintain my current LBM (~149 lbs)

My question: Is my goal realistic? Is it realistic for someone my size to maintain LBM while losing 2lbs a week?

From reading the forums, I'm concerned my rate of weight loss might be too high and that I'd end up losing more LBM than expected in the process.

About my diet and exercise plan:
* Averaging 1,500 net calories per day ( equating to 2 lbs per week)
* Actively tracking all meals in MFP, have been averaging ~100g/day of protein, ~150 g/day of carbs, ~70 g/ day of fats
* I work a desk job, but am doing cardio/weight lifting at the gym 3 nights a week.

Success so far: 1 month in:
* have dropped 16 lbs, (big loss in first 2 weeks, followed by 2-3 lbs a week recently)
* I have just started tracking body fat %, seems relatively flat over last week

Any thoughts inputs would be welcome! Thank you!

Can you please set your food diary to "open" or "public" and let me know when you've done that, so I can take a look at a few things before commenting?

Marcusvpn

Hi SideSteel,

I've just set my diary to public.

Thanks for your help
Marcus

SideSteel

So this is sort of a complicated reply/issue but I'll try to lay my thoughts out on this.

At the surface when you look at your food intake it's very easy to see 1650 calories and make the immediate conclusion that you're starving yourself and you will lose muscle mass. The complication with this is tracking intake is highly variable in terms of accuracy and we know that most people eat more than they think they do. So in most circumstances my belief is that it's best to look at rate of weight loss and use that as a means to validate or invalidate intake.

In your particular case since it looks like you're losing very fast, AND it looks like you're eating quite a low calorie intake based on your stats (even if we factor in estimation errors and assume you're eating more than you're logging it's still low) I'd be inclined to suggest that you add some calories in.

Your current averages are as follows:

1656.315789 174.2631579 65.21052632 103.7894737


That's calories, carbs, fats, protein and I'm too lazy to chop the decimals.

I'm going to suggest a couple of things here and you're welcome to do as you please --- this is just how I would handle things over the next few weeks.

I'd immediately bring your intake to the following and this is average daily intake. You can ignore exercise calories with the intake I'm about to suggest, however if you prefer to eat more on training days and less on rest days you can freely manipulate that provided the averages work out to what I'm listing:

1800 calories
175 carbohydrate
65 fat
130 protein

I would eat at this intake immediately and monitor your change in weight over the next week. If you start gaining weight I would remain there another week and PM me to discuss. Provided you do not start gaining (I would expect you to continue to lose weight) I would then set your intake as follows the next week after that:

1950
175 carbohydrate
65 fat
165 protein


From here I would look at your results from week to week and based on those results I would adjust this further as needed.

You can reply here with questions or you can PM me. I'd suggest updating this thread or PMing me in about 1 to 2 weeks with an update as well.

Marcusvpn

Thanks sidesteel for the comprehensive reply

This makes sense... and looks from your recommendation you would add calories in the form of protein, which makes sense to me as I'm worried about maintaining LBM.

I will try out your advice and see how it goes!

Best regards,
Marcus

SideSteel

Locking this thread for clean-up/administrative purposes. Please PM me when it's time to update this and I'll unlock it.

When you PM me, please copy and paste a link to this thread.

Marcusvpn

Hi Sidesteel,

Thanks again for your advice.

I just wanted to check back. I have taken your advice and increased my daily calorie intake. I found I continued to lose weight, but at a slower pace, which I'm comfortable with.

Over the last two weeks I have been consuming roughly ~2000 cals, 190g carbs, 60g fat, and 170g protein. I have also continued to lift weights ~3x per week

Over the last week, I have been losing at a rate of 1 lb per week, my BF% has not moved significantly, but hard to tell as readings vary around 30-32%

Would you suggest any other tweaks?

Also, I'm very goal oriented, and I wanted to set a clear goal for late August. Do you think going from 217 to 190 lbs and from ~30% BF to 20% BF would be attainable in 4 months? I'm looking for challenging, but realistic.

Thanks!

Sarauk2sf

Where are you getting your BF% estimate from?

Marcusvpn

I have a Withings Scale that measures BF%. I know it gets thrown off by my level of hydration, but I measure it at the same time every morning. it is probably not very accurate but should be OK to use for directional results. ( eg am I increasing decreasing or holding steady?)

SideSteel

Moving this up