How close to your goal weight did you switch to "lose .5 lbs

kabakken

I'm about halfway to my goal and have 22 lbs left to lose. I just recalculated my calories for losing 1 lb/week and lost an extra 100 calories to eat.. so I'm now eating 1340 + my exercise calories, which doesn't seem like a lot to me. Just wondering if anyone has experience switching their goal to lose 1/2 lb a week and actually ended up losing more like 1 lb/week? And if you did switch to 1/2 per week, how far were you from your goal? 10 lbs? 15 lbs?

Thanks for the info!

sammys1girly

I just switched from aiming to lose .9 lbs (mfp set that up for me automatically per their recommendation) to .5lb/wk now that I'm 5-6 lbs away from my goal. Started at 135, now around 125 to 126, depending on the day. That was my goal but decided to aim for another 5 lbs. But it only gave me 20 more calories a day so not much changed.

Deev79

Well, I started MFP about 3 weeks ago and my initial goal was set at 1.5 pounds per week. I had about 10+ pounds to lose and this gave me 1200 calories per day!! I've been eating back my exercise calories and I do tend to go over my calorie goal by about 100 occasionally. 1200 calories is not much and it was hard the first week but honestly has not been bad since I got used to just making better choices. You can eat a WHOLE lot of veggies and fruits and still stay under budget. Anyway, it's been working and I've lost 5 pounds so far! Yay!! Good luck to you!

melizerd

I'm still at lose 1lbs a week and I have 13lbs to go to my minimum (maximum lol) goal weight.

I'm eating about 1460 right now and that's just fine, I tend to eat about 1600 calories a day with exercise but on off days I do okay on the 1460, I just have to plan really well.

So I think it's all about what you're comfortable with for eating, and how your body responds. If I NET less than 1300 calories a day I won't lose weight and get stuck. So my body tells me that it doesn't want to be below that. I'm also strength training and doing cardio 6 days a week. So I need the fuel!

Jeneba

The MFP Police won't let me adjust any more... No matter what I say my goal is, the calculator still comes up with an allowance of 1,200 calories - I will not lose an ounce on this amount AND even MFP admits it because it says IF I maintain this amount, I will lose .40 of a pound by September 1st! How silly! The point I guess I am trying to make is that although MFP is THE VERY BEST tool for weight loss and a healthy lifestyle, it is still only a TOOL! You really have to know your own body. Good Luck!

baisleac

I switched to 1/2 lb per week at 20 lbs to go (ish) and was losing too fast, so I upped my calories again and am currently set for approx. 0.3 lbs per week.

Haven't lost anything since the most recent switch, but I also added Insanity back into my workout schedule so I expect a bit of it is new exercise weight.

juliapurpletoes

I switched mine to 1/2 pound loss per week at about 12 to go. I only needed to lose 20. Some weeks I will lose a pounds and then for a few weeks I lose nothing. And of course there are so many factors involved here that I could say an exact reason why.

What I found most important was to be as accurate as possible. Weigh all food, adjust exercise calories to reflect true burn by subtracting what I call your BMR calories, (use a great HRM with chest strap to be as accurate with that too)

Most important knowing that it will take perhaps 6 months to healthfully lose the last 10 and be okay with that!

Best to YOU!

CARNAT22

The MFP Police won't let me adjust any more... No matter what I say my goal is, the calculator still comes up with an allowance of 1,200 calories - I will not lose an ounce on this amount AND even MFP admits it because it says IF I maintain this amount, I will lose .40 of a pound by September 1st! How silly! The point I guess I am trying to make is that although MFP is THE VERY BEST tool for weight loss and a healthy lifestyle, it is still only a TOOL! You really have to know your own body. Good Luck!

I think they do that to prevent the site being abused..... it is pretty much industry standard that the minimum amount of daily calories should not be below 1200... unless on Dr's advice

Of course everyone is different but personally if the whole diet industry tends to agee on the 1200 calorie thing then I am happy to stick to that.

melizerd

The MFP Police won't let me adjust any more... No matter what I say my goal is, the calculator still comes up with an allowance of 1,200 calories - I will not lose an ounce on this amount AND even MFP admits it because it says IF I maintain this amount, I will lose .40 of a pound by September 1st! How silly! The point I guess I am trying to make is that although MFP is THE VERY BEST tool for weight loss and a healthy lifestyle, it is still only a TOOL! You really have to know your own body. Good Luck!

You're pretty petite so what works for you probably doesn't work for many people because most of us are taller.

Also remember that the scale is only a tool and that if you build muscle mass you will LOOK smaller and more toned even if you weigh more.

Staci is my hero and she's 5'4" so petite too. It shows what a woman will REALLY look like if she lifts heavy weights, not what we THINK will happen (we do not turn into those gross pictures of steroid taking body builders).
http://nerdfitness.com/blog/2011/07/21/meet-staci-your-new-powerlifting-super-hero//

psuLemon

Usually if you are within 20 lbs of your goal, you should switch to .5lbs per week. A bigger thing to do is use the link below to determine what your caloric needs are based on your active lifestyle. This would consider your workouts and other activities and compare that against your average calories after workout calories have been consumed. I found MFP was short by about 200-300 calories based on my BMR. It could have been i set it up wrong but now I have a custom setup.

http://www.fat2fitradio.com/tools/bmr/

melsinct

I switched to 0.5 pounds/week at the half way point, but not out of choice!

Goal weight is 145, I am 5'7", started MFP at 175 (30 pounds to lose) with a 1-2 pound/week loss goal. Everything went well until I plateaued (wasn't eating enough) at 160 pounds, or the half way point. The plateau lasted 2 months and what finally broke it was eating more by way of me setting MFP at a 0.5 pound/week loss.

Since setting my loss at a lower amount, my weekly losses have been all over the place, anywhere from losing 0 pounds in a week to losing 1.5 pounds in a week. I averaged it out over the course of time and since dropping my loss to 0.5 pounds/week, I have average a 0.7 loss every week.

dad106

I'm down to my last 7 but I haven't switched to half a pound... I've only added in 50 calories. The main reason why I did this is because the amount of calories MFP would have me eating for half a pound a week at lightly active, seems like way to much. So I'm going to increase my calories slowly ands see if that helps at all.