How do they lose so much weight
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I've lost an average of 1.75 lbs a week since starting and I'm thrilled :flowerforyou: especially since I've been able to do it with net calories at 1600 - 1800 per day. Seems like the only way I could go faster would be to either work out twice as long or eat less and I'm not willing at this point to do that. What I'm doing is almost...easy! I could do this indefinitely. Works for me.
^^^ This is an important point.
I think people try to lose weight TOO fast by increasing their calorie deficit and only eating a tiny amount of food. That isn't the best way, neither is it the easiest way. I have also been between 1600-1800 calories since I started. I think that eating at a smaller deficit makes it a lot easier. What I eat now is roughly the amount of food that I will eat to maintain my goal weight.0 -
I agree with the people who are saying heavier people tend to lose weight quicker. I wish it was the same for everyone but I'm not complaining. I've been doing this consistently since the end of Feb/beginning of March and I'm down 38 lbs. This is a lifestyle change for me so I still eat breads, pastas, pizza, fries, and occasional soda. It may be taking me a little longer than others but I haven't gained a lb back yet so it works for me! Keep up the good work and trust me it'll pay off.0
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I don't know about other folks on here but I have a lap band. It is an aid but trust I have to do the work. My surgeon has me concentrate on a loss of 2 lbs. a week. Trust that is healthy you do not want to lose any faster than that remember you need to balance fat loss with muscle gain. When I first started losing weight I weighed 400 lbs. I got a gastric bypass but believe I was in the gym every morning. I got down to 175 lbs which for my body type was the bomb!! With my sons birth and severe depression I put on 100 lbs. Thus far since January I am down 52 lbs. and loving it. Yes I have a ways to go but as long as I have permanently altered my eating habits it's all good. It did not take us over night to gain it and it wont take over night to lose it. Keep it up you are doing awesome.0
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I see people on MFP who have lost 45-65 pound in just around 3 to 3 and half months. I have been on here for 40 days and I am only down 12 pounds. I have been doing very well counting every calorie that goes into my mouth and trying to walk every day. Should I be doing more I want my weight to come off that fast. The only time I ever lost weight that fast I was doing a diet pill.
BTW, you are doing TERRIFIC!0 -
The real question- since everyone is different, how long did it take you to gain that weight? I have never gained 60lbs in 30 months, I can't imagine taking it off that quickly.
We are so quick to pay attention to the loss and ignore the realistic issues of the gain- focus on that, because your body is like no other here.
For me, an extra 150 lbs took about 5 years to put on- and kept on an additional 3 years, up and down within a few pounds, telling myself I weighed less than I did- and refusing to get on a scale- then, dr visit (which also avoided) showed I was 330 lbs! At 5'9 I was able to hide it from myself I think, but how I fooled myself. So, that process took much longer, focus on how you gained, why you gained, and how long of time did you gain, then you'll know what your body gains at. I also did a average diet entry on MFP a couple months ago- (since when I started the weight loss I wasn't using this tool), my diet would range from 3000-4000 calories a day!!! And I was a carb addict- big time!0 -
I get discouraged sometimes too...last time I seriously tried to get fit and lose weight it seemed to come off much more quickly. BUT, since then I have had two children, aged 15 years, and the weight is much slower this time. I am losing about 1lb a week, but my fitness and overall health has greatly improved. Since I'm in this for the long haul, I'm pretty content
. Those weeks when I don't lose at all are still hard. It's all relative I suppose--two pounds would seem like a whole lot to me . 0 -
It's all relative to you.
I've lost 57 pounds since March 13th, 2012... but I've lost 10 pounds since August. That means in 4 1/2 months I lost 47 pounds, and in almost 4 months I've lost 10 pounds. I still have 80 to go, but I used to have 140 to go. When I was 270, the weight fell off quickly, and it was hard not to lose hope when that stopped.
It's actually almost a psychologically worse thing to be that overweight and lose weight. You watch 3-8 pound losses every week for a few months, and then it all but stops and you get 0.4 pounds here, 0.6 pounds there. This is where most people give up, when it slows.0 -
Maybe they are like me.
I started losing weight in January, when I was 238 pounds.
I didn't join MFP until June, when I was 214 pounds.
A couple of weeks ago I reset my ticker to reflect all of my weight loss, including that since January.
But I cannot change my MFP start date.
And that is why it looks like I have lost 63 pounds in 5 months. It's actually been going on 11 months.0 -
I've lost 25 pounds in going on 9 weeks. I have my calories set to 1400 and then sometimes I eat my exercise calories back and sometimes I dont. I know this "extra" defiicit is whats making up for the over 2 pound a week loss.0
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The faster you lose weight the looser your skin gets...I'm taking my time!0
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I see people on MFP who have lost 45-65 pound in just around 3 to 3 and half months. I have been on here for 40 days and I am only down 12 pounds. I have been doing very well counting every calorie that goes into my mouth and trying to walk every day. Should I be doing more I want my weight to come off that fast. The only time I ever lost weight that fast I was doing a diet pill.
Many health experts have said that overweight/obese people tend to lose a lot of weight in a short amount of time when they first start a diet and exercise regime. It is because they going from not exercising and eating a lot of food to cutting back on food and increasing the fitness. Their metabolism starts to increase and they burn energy faster than before. Also they have more fat than muscle and fat is slightly easier to burn than muscle.
However, like any other person trying to lose weight, they do plateau and have to change up their routine to lose more weight.
I weighed 327.6 pounds when I joined MFP and I lost 22 pounds in the first 4 weeks. I went from gorging on Pizza Hut and Blue Bell ice cream and doing nothing but watch television to eating fruits, vegetables, and lean meats and exercising 1-2 hours every day. It's like putting your body in shock and one of the results is losing a lot of weight, especially in the beginning.0 -
Many things could be pointed out here...
1- Someone who is 5ft tall and 350 lbs will lose faster than someone who is 150lbs and 6ft1.
2- A 16 yrs old at the same height/weight can lose faster than a 50 yrs old.
3- Someone who is training hard will lose quicker than someone who is sedentary.
4-They may have eaten at an unhealthy amount (think 300 calories per day).
4- Just because they lost really fast, doesn't mean it was healthy or that they will keep it off.
5- Its a lifestyle change, not a race.
6- You don't know their circumstances.... they could have had gastric bypass surgery, were pregnant, had liposuction right when they started MFP.
7- Don't believe everyone on the internet - liars do exist
Overall, its all about calories that you take in versus calories that you burn naturally and working out.
3500 calories = 1 lbs. So if you're over 3500 calories compared to your caloric burn, youll have gained 1 lbs...if you ate 3500 less than what your body burns, youll have lost 1 lbs.0 -
I did an experiment about five years ago. I decided to see how fast my weight was coming on. Come to find out I gain 8lbs in 5 months, and i think holy crap.
Now, I was 243 before rejoining MFP, and I was pregnant at the time. The weight started coming off between all the walking I was doing between school and working. and after my son was born i was down to 204 in Jan (mind you, I had found out I was pregnant at the end of may going into june 2011). I gained a pound back in Jan (I was breastfeeding) and then after a month, I couldn't breastfeed anymore (my nipples were inverted, he couldn't latch on, my boobs are too big, and my body wasn't producing enough as in at one time i was producing 5 oz bottles and then it went down to 5ml in about a week).
Anyways, since Feb of 2012, I am down 28 more pounds without gimmicks or fads or anything (I can't say the same for a family member of mine who is doing body by vi) and basically have been doing JM videos, along with Dance videos, Zumba, and running and walking. As soon I was cleared in March, i started c25K.
Since joining, i have ran five 5ks (not the best time mind you but i still got out to do it) and right now, my weight isn't linear, some weeks i go without losing a pound, other weeks like fairly recently my weight drops down by 3 or 2 or 1. Important thing is that I don't eat out anymore (or if i do, its once in a blue moon), i don't eat bags of chocolate bars or bags of chips (I can actually have one serving and thats it....which i am proud of), I have been getting to a point where i refuse to eat process foods (kinda fight with the husband on that because he wants fast food and processed all the time) and I have been working out at home (I have a 9 month old and a lot of places around here don't have daycare gyms) and that is normally 45-60 minutes a day. I am very proud of how far I have come, and yeah I am not losing 60lbs a month but as many here can say, we all have wished to lose a lot at once but are glad that we don't and honestly learning the recipes for this lifestyle change is a lot more important then the scale.0 -
I see people on MFP who have lost 45-65 pound in just around 3 to 3 and half months. I have been on here for 40 days and I am only down 12 pounds. I have been doing very well counting every calorie that goes into my mouth and trying to walk every day. Should I be doing more I want my weight to come off that fast. The only time I ever lost weight that fast I was doing a diet pill.
Generally speaking the more you have to lose, the faster you can lose. Someone who is 400lbs can lose weight at a much faster pace than someone who just needs to drop 20lbs. I have no idea what your stats are, but keep this in mind.
i usually say 1% body weight per week is good. Sometimes higher.0 -
I think it's probably all been said, but people who weigh a lot more tend to lose faster. Someone who is 350lbs will drop weight quite quickly initially, whereas someone who is 190lbs will do it a bit more slowly.
Also, it depends on what your diet/exercise was like prior to starting on MFP. If someone has gone from eating 3000 calories of crap a day and sitting on their ar*e to eating 1800 calories of healthy food and exercising several times a week, that will have a bigger impact than someone just altering their eating and exercise habits slightly for the better.
It's taken me 16 months to lose 50lbs, but I have toned up loads and lost a lot of inches and built muscle. I put weight on in my 2nd pregnancy, but have always been an active and healthy person, so there hasn't been much i can change in my diet, apart from actually eating a little more (not just salad) and doing more intensive workouts.
The more slowly you lose weight, the more likely you are to keep it off.0 -
Its taken me 90 days to lose 16lbs and I have a 68lb loss goal. I wonder how others lose so fast as well. It is frustrating.0
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The faster you lose weight the looser your skin gets...I'm taking my time!
QFT
I'm taking my time too. I keep my deficit smaller. A one thousand calorie deficit would mean only eating 1100 calories. NO WAY! My TDEE is 2150, so I keep my net calories to 1800. Averaged out, my loss is about 10 pounds a month, but that includes my big "whoosh" at the beginning when I lost 24 pounds in less than 3 weeks.0 -
I know from lurking on another website that ALOT of people who have had weightloss surgery come on MFP to work thier program. And only a few of them tell that they have had the surgery because they don't want the judgment. Thier calorie intake will be very low and have lots of protien shakes with dramatic weightloss.0
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I've seen a few diaries around where intake is down around 600-800 calories.
That's scary. I was reading someone's concern earlier about how easy it is to develop an ED in the dieting industry. 12 pounds in 40 days is very healthy. A person who is dieting and exercising properly should be losing between 1-2 pounds a week. Don't stress too much, you'll get there!0 -
yeah i try not to get jealous when i read success stories and sometimes i'm very tempted to slash and burn my calories down to nothing but then i remember how much i like food :laugh: i've pretty much resigned myself that it's going to take me 24-28 months to reach my goals0
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Holy crap you lost 12 pounds?? AWESOME.
Man, don't sell yourself short. Whatever you're doing, you're doing it right! Don't get impatient, this stuff takes time. Keep at it and you'll reach your goals in time. 0 -
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Also keep in mind that a lot of people have lost weight before using MFP. In your ticker you can put total pounds lost (even before MFP).
this
I've only lost about six or eight pounds since coming around here.
12lbs is great, keep up the good work0 -
as im sure someone above me would have pointed out it depends on start weight. when i started i was 355 i lost a stone in week 1 8 pound week2 and week 3... it depends on how much you need to lose. your loss is brilliant and totally healthy you should be proud of yourself xxx0
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I see people on MFP who have lost 45-65 pound in just around 3 to 3 and half months. I have been on here for 40 days and I am only down 12 pounds. I have been doing very well counting every calorie that goes into my mouth and trying to walk every day. Should I be doing more I want my weight to come off that fast. The only time I ever lost weight that fast I was doing a diet pill.
You should look into Intermittent Fasting. In a nutshell, you are eating all of your calories in an 8 hour window instead of eating throughout the day. I'm doing IF and also on a 500 kcal deficit and within 3 weeks I could see the results without using a scale.0 -
First, let me say, 12 lbs in a little over a month is pretty awesome!! Be proud of that!
As others before me have already mentioned, the more you weigh, the more calories you burn and the faster the weight comes off. but once you start getting smaller and smaller, there is less fat to lose, and therefore, the loss just slows down.
Just always remember, weight loss is not a race! Don't compare and compete against others because you'll just end up disappointed. The safest and healthiest...and most successful....way to lose weight is at a slow and steady pace. As you learn new healthy habits, you'll have better chances at keeping that weight off once it's gone.0 -
I've lost 46 lbs over 2 years (16lbs since starting MFP in May of this year)....NOT FAST AT ALL! And I am kind of ok with that. Sure I would love to loose faster, but then I know I would have to give up foods that I love, eat so few calories and work out constantly. I can't sustain that long term. What I'm doing now...I can! And honestly most of the time I don't feel like i'm even trying. I'm glad for people who can and do loose quickly, but I just know that would never work for me.0
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Congrats on your weight loss so far!
I had 110 pounds to lose back in May 2010, I lost 80 pounds but it's taken 2 and a half years. Sooo yeah, I'm not very inspirational in terms of weight loss since it's taking me so long but I feel better than I did back then. It's not a race so take it as it comes. 0 -
I completely agree. We gain weight slower than we gain in a normal routine. So the point from my perspective is not to create so many expectations about a quick loss.... Just think it is a change in lifestyle and that this road will be long.
So, if it's going to be long, why not enjoy it?
Learn to it so you are always full and sit back noticing that you are losing weight without starving or suffering. Or dieting!
I hate dieting!The real question- since everyone is different, how long did it take you to gain that weight? I have never gained 60lbs in 30 months, I can't imagine taking it off that quickly.
We are so quick to pay attention to the loss and ignore the realistic issues of the gain- focus on that, because your body is like no other here.
For me, an extra 150 lbs took about 5 years to put on- and kept on an additional 3 years, up and down within a few pounds, telling myself I weighed less than I did- and refusing to get on a scale- then, dr visit (which also avoided) showed I was 330 lbs! At 5'9 I was able to hide it from myself I think, but how I fooled myself. So, that process took much longer, focus on how you gained, why you gained, and how long of time did you gain, then you'll know what your body gains at. I also did a average diet entry on MFP a couple months ago- (since when I started the weight loss I wasn't using this tool), my diet would range from 3000-4000 calories a day!!! And I was a carb addict- big time!0
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