4 pounds to go...question?

Christismylife

I am currently 4 pounds from my goal weight. Over the last two years, I've lost 35 pounds. It seems to be slow going getting the final pounds off. I have read on these forums (and on the skinny pants post, I think it was) that when you're this close to your goal weight, you should set your goal at losing 1/2 pound a week. Can someone explain this to me? I notice some days when I'm trying to eat at the 1 pound a week loss calorie mark, I feel pretty hungry. Thanks for your help!

WBB55

I read it here and the original link to a study where it estimated that each pound of fat on your body can provide you with something like 30 calories per day in energy. Just as an example, if you have 50 lbs of fat on you, that day the fat could potentially provide you with 1500 calories of energy -- So let's say your TDEE was 2500, you could IN THEORY eat 1000 calories and get the rest of your energy from your fat cells (note and warning: this is ENERGY, not nutrients. You also need nutrients...). However, you start to lose fat cells when you do this. So let's say eventually you get down to 30 lbs of fat in your body. That can only support a theoretical 900 calories of energy to you. Meaning if your TDEE is still 2500 (because you exercise more or something than you did when you were 20 lbs heavier) you'd have to eat 1600 calories in food to not send signals to your body that you're not eating enough.

Does that make sense? (and I hope I got my math right)

TL;DR: as you have less and less fat on you, your daily caloric deficit has to decrease in order to not feel hungry because you have less fat for your body to get energy from.

Christismylife

I should probably clarify that it hasn't taken 2 years of consistent calorie deficits to lose that weight. I have gone through phases of deficits and maintaining and even gaining back a few pounds and re-losing here and there.

WalkingAlong

In my opinion, few of us with actual weight to lose (not 100 lb. teens) can't get at least 500-1000 calories from body fat per day so you're probably fine aiming for whatever weight loss rate you want.

The reason it's slow is because our estimates of what we intake and burn aren't good and if we aim for a small deficit, they really NEED to be good to have any deficit at all. But if you're too hungry at 500 deficit, definitely eat more and take all the time you want.

IGbnat24

Perhaps you should reevaluate your goal? Maybe the number you're aiming for is irrelevant? Maybe get a legitimate read on body fat and go from there? I'm at 128, my 'goal' was 125, but I'm happy with how I look and where my bf% is. I think that it's good to have a goal, but once we are just about there and struggling, it's best to step back, look at yourself in the mirror, and reevaluate.,congrats on your weight loss!