I need to know it's okay...

avivan

I started on MFP in April of this year. I have lost 33 lbs so far. I injured my hip in August and after getting physical therapy for 3 months am now finally getting into a better workout routine.

I've noticed that over the past 2 months I haven't really budged much on the scale, although I have lost inches. From October - last week I lost just 5 lbs, despite eating perfectly per MFP settings. I had it set on lose 1lb/week, and that I was sedentary. I ate back all or most of my exercise calories. MFP had me set at 1540 cal/day.

Here are my stats now:
33 yo, 5'5.5", 199 lbs, BF 45%, GW 155-160

I work at a desk job, but I live in a city and walk a minimum of .5 mile/day on average, just to/from parking garage at work, etc. I work at a minimum of 2hrs of intense cardio/week and I also do body weight strengthening exercises 2-3x/week for about 20 min. each.

I calculated my tdee at the light active level and I'm at 2293. Do you all think this a good place to start? The calculators say I should be eating 1835 for a 20% cut but I have to admit I am WAY nervous about making such a huge calorie jump, even not eating back exercise calories. I changed all my settings in MFP and upped my calories to 1700. I've ready that this is low. Is this really too low? Should I really try to eat 1835/day? I added a protein shake and with milk that's 200 calories, so that part has not been hard. I'm just worried I'll gain weight eating so many more calories.

Today I did Zumba and the rough estimation for burned calories was about 450/hr for me. My BMR is 1635, so I ate back 200 calories, bringing my total today up to 1861.

Even though I have been pretty successful with my weight loss thus far (overall), I am pretty sure I have stalled out since I still have 45lbs to lose. I am in this for the long haul. I would love any advice on this topic that I can get!

KarenJanine

The figures you've calculated sound about right for your current stats. EM2WL usually recommends a 15% cut or smaller which for your 2293 TDEE would mean you eating 1949 cals every day. This is still a 344 deficit which is around 0.75 lb per week. This may not sound much but the loss will be mostly fat meaning you preserve as much LBM as possible, which will be even more so if you do plenty of strength training.

In this instance you do not eat your exercise cals back because they are already accounted for. On exercise days your deficit will be larger and on rest days your deficit will be smaller but eating this way averages it out across the week and gives you a single daily target and makes it simpler.

Provided your TDEE calculation is correct you will not gain weight unless you eat more than 2293 on a persistent basis. You may need to adjust the figures a bit to find your sweet spot but this should be done over extended periods of time (e.g. a month) as week to week weight can fluctuate owing to all sorts of external factors and is not a true reflection of fat loss.

avivan

Thanks for the feedback. It's really challenging going from one way of thinking (pre-set calories from MFP) to another. Yesterday was day 2 of eating 1700 calories and according to my scale I'm 2 lbs down. This seems like a lot to me, and of course could change over the course of the week(s). However, I have not seen the scale move like that in months, so something is definitely happening.

Would it make more sense to try 1700 cals/week for 3-4 weeks, and then adjust up? Or should I just bump up to like 1850 and see what happens at that cal level for 1 month?

KarenJanine

It's personal choice really, some people will up their cals slowly, some will jump straight up. I think it's best to go with whichever you are most comfortable with and are able to do mentally.

avivan

Hah, well I could probably do 1800 or more tomorrow, I rarely have an issue with eating. I'm just worried I'll gain back the weight I worked so hard to lose in the first place.