I am aiming for 4lb a week loss! Is this realistic

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  • ejb06070
    ejb06070 Posts: 261 Member
    edited July 2015

    ethically i agree with you..but just think about it..If you tell her that she materialise just about a quarter of her expectations, will that make her leave her couch or if you tell her that the ONLY way she's gonna lose 4 lbs is if she works her *kitten* off for this week. ???and at the end of the week we have a new habit inculcated in her

    All good things start with a lie. What is important is setting things in motion

    I'm trying to see where you're coming from here. I guess it is possible that by lying, you may motivate the OP, but what would you tell her if she came back after the first week of sweating and eating and said "okay, so I burned 10,000 calories like you said, but I've gained a pound.. what the hell?" Would you tell her it's normal to gain weight before seeing a loss, would you tell her that you lied, would you tell her she just needs to keep working at it?

    While short-term motivation is needed, I feel long-term motivation is key. I think safe weight loss is the most important thing, whether it takes a month to lose a pound, or a year to lose ten. If someone ends up in the ER because I gave some crappy advice, I'd have that on my conscience, which isn't anything I'd want.

  • dubird
    dubird Posts: 1,849 Member
    dubird wrote: »
    I dont know why everyone here is being so pessimistic about it.It's very much possible...BUT ON A HIGH CALORIE DIET.

    sounds contradictory ??? read along

    well, I just lost around 2 kgs this july on a 2100 calorie a day diet..
    The thing to keep in mind is you should NEVER go below 1200 cals as someone has already pointed it. You need to lose it MAINLY by creating a deficit through EXERCISE.

    Eat a 200 cals above your maintainence and do cario/ HIIT/ weight training to create a 700 deficit.
    I had posted my weight loss program of how I lost 2 kg in a month but many people tagged it too drastic and shut it down...Which is the same wave of emotion i'm seeing here..Please losers!!!! if you can't do it doesn't mean you should be pulling others down as well

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    One method isn't going to work for everyone. You're saying that calorie deficit is created by just exercising more? Yes, that does work, but it's not practical for everyone. You can create that same deficit by just eating less. How you create the deficit DOES NOT MATTER. Not everyone can hit the ground running on a serious exercise and weight lifting plan. I sure as hell couldn't! I still can't, to be honest. Yet I'm losing weight just fine and looking more like myself than I have in years. So you lost weight doing your plan? That's great for you, but don't be calling us losers for not being able to or not wanting to follow what you did. Everyone is different, so everyone has a different method to lose weight. It's a lot of different paths to the same goal; one path isn't more valid than any other just because you're on it.

    Although it's true, one method doesn't work for all but the bottom line is still the same, one has to eat less. and normally eating less will create a deficit. Now If the person is 400lbs of course they can create a deficit by eating less. But there is a limit of how low one can really go and still be healthy, has energy and motivated to keep going.
    I don't have any friends here that can eat 500 calories for the day, and still have enough energy to burn 2000 calories.

    No, I agree that eating 500 calories a day is a HORRIBLE idea. But I do know people that do just fine on 1000 calories a day, and have enough energy to teach a dance class. My calories range from 1300-1400 a day and I have plenty of energy to walk on my walk days. I didn't used to, and then found out I was horribly deficient on B12. Got that taken care of, and hey! energy! But exercise isn't something I use for weight loss. Pretty much all of my weight loss was JUST calorie counting, no exercise. Even at that, I'm healthier than I used to be, almost to my target goal, no loss of energy or motivation. I walk now to get my asthma under control, not to lose weight. Granted, it helps burn some extra calories, but I don't NEED it for weight loss. It just lets me have a little extra to eat on those days.
  • Unknown
    edited July 2015
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  • Angelfire365
    Angelfire365 Posts: 803 Member
    ejb06070 wrote: »

    ya...i knew that already...but the OP didn't..now she does and the reality will hit her hard... which will become a reason for her laziness. Our individual bickering have saved OP some body fat.

    Knowledge is power, not an excuse to give up.

    I was not bickering, simply stating facts. If someone had told me when I first started trying to lose weight "4 pounds per week is perfectly do-able" then I only lost a pound a week, I would have been the farthest thing from motivated imaginable. I would have felt like a failure because I wasn't losing even close to as much as I "should have been". Honestly, I probably would have said "*kitten* this", grabbed a box of cookies, and binge-watched TV for a couple of days.

    Properly educating people and allowing them to make their own decisions is more motivating, in my opinion, then lying to manipulate someone to try harder to lose weight.

    ethically i agree with you..but just think about it..If you tell her that she materialise just about a quarter of her expectations, will that make her leave her couch or if you tell her that the ONLY way she's gonna lose 4 lbs is if she works her *kitten* off for this week. ???and at the end of the week we have a new habit inculcated in her

    All good things start with a lie. What is important is setting things in motion

    Reason why Dr. House saves every life

    Did you just?!? You know House is scripted, right? Dr. House saves every life because no-one would watch a TV show where everyone dies every episode. . . And what the HE-double-hokeysticks does that have to do with anything?
  • Liftng4Lis
    Liftng4Lis Posts: 15,151 Member
    No. Your body will go into starvation mode at that rate of eating/ exercising. Not healthy at all.

    Starvation mode doesn't exist.

    OP seriously, with that LITTLE amount to lose, you would have to create a horrendous deficit. The goal is unrealistic and unhealthy.
  • ejb06070
    ejb06070 Posts: 261 Member

    but seriously, anyone working with a 500 daily deficit will only gain weight if they are not sticking to their diet/ exercise...But again, seeing how motivated and free spirited she is, it would be criminal to crush her beliefs and tell her that "ok darling, what you're saying is not possible. You're clueless so just stop asking dumb questions"

    Everyone wants results, yes, otherwise they'd never try to lose the weight in the first place, cause they don't really care. Just remember though, as stupid as a question may seem, asking is the first step to learning. None of us can claim that we were born with all the knowledge we'll ever need. At some point, you and I both had to learn that, no 4 lbs. a week is not healthy, and yes, 2 lbs. a week might be realistic, but expect to hit a plateau at some point, especially once you get really close.

    With so many "miracle cures" and "facts" out there about weight loss, it's really hard to discern fact from crap sometimes. WikiHow has an article on how to lose 10 pounds per week. Alli claims that you don't have to exercise or change your diet (which most diet pills actually say... they just never mention the severe dehydration and diarrhea accompanied with the weight loss). No carbs after 3 o'clock, only eat in an 8 hour period, don't exercise in the morning, don't exercise at night... Lots of rules without much explanation as to "why."
  • PrizePopple
    PrizePopple Posts: 3,133 Member
    edited July 2015
    @workout_freak89 so what you're saying is you advocate outright lying to someone, or worse yet telling them in all seriousness that their desire to undereat to achieve weight loss is okay? I'm all for Darwinism, but when the person is outright asking if it's realistic that's not the time in which you feed them a crap cake of answers.
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  • 999tigger
    999tigger Posts: 5,235 Member

    1. So on the one hand you are condemning people
    You're clueless so just stop asking dumb questions"
    , but in the same post you do the same yourself
    seeing as clueless as our OP is I will make something up lol
    2
    . anyone working with a 500 daily deficit will only gain weight if they are not sticking to their diet/
    If they are at a consistent deficit they will lose over time. You will not gain other than through temporary fluctuation. You are either in one or you are not.
    3. the advice given to the OP was consistent and perfectly good back on P1. Your strategy to give her the wrong advice to get her going is bewildering.
  • Liftng4Lis
    Liftng4Lis Posts: 15,151 Member
    All good things start with a lie. What is important is setting things in motion

    Reason why Dr. House saves every life

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  • melimomTARDIS
    melimomTARDIS Posts: 1,941 Member
    TeaBea wrote: »
    No and eating under 1200 is frowned upon by MFP

    Read this - follow it - profit

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1235566/so-youre-new-here/p1

    This^

    Will your 800 calories be medically supervised? Are you currently morbidly obese? Are you eating specially prepared food that helps you meet some goals (prescription shakes) - along with vitamin injections?

    VERY low calorie diets should not be do-it-yourself plans. I'm not a nutritionist....there's no way I could adequately fuel basic bodily functions (heart, lungs, kidneys) on 800 calories a day.

    I strongly agree with this post, you should not do a VLCD with out a doctor's monitoring. these diets do involve medical foods as well, bars and shakes, to ensure proper nutrition.

  • MireyGal76
    MireyGal76 Posts: 7,334 Member
    tinicia wrote: »
    triciab79 wrote: »
    nanniek1 wrote: »
    Anything less than apx. 1200/day puts your body into starvation mode and to preserve itself it holds on to fat. Weird phenomenon, but, you'll lose faster on 1200 than 800 calories.

    There is no such thing as starvation mode!!! It is a myth. Stop confusing new people with outright lies. There are a lot of reasons to keep the right amount of calories but fear of not losing because you eat too little is not even logical. Calories are a unit of measurement for energy. They are not magical creatures that live inside you. When you eat more calories than your body needs to run it stores them, when you eat less it burns the stored calories for energy. When you eat less it has to work to burn the stores of fat. Fat cannot just be called on for energy like unstored calories this makes you feel more tired and it will occur whether you are eating 100 fewer calories or 1000 fewer calories. This will balance over time and your energy will increase as your mass decreases.

    OP I do not know how much you have to lose, but 4lbs a week is only doable if you are eating 14,000 calories less per week than you are burning. My maintenance calories are only 10,500 per week so I would have to exercise off an additional 3500 calories and not eat anything for an entire week to lose 4lbs. If you have a maintenance of 3000+ calories a day I would say you could do it if you do not cheat at all and accept that you will be miserable. Of course to have a maintenance of 3k on a 28yr old average height female you would need to weigh 400lbs and you do not look like you weigh 400lbs.

    Nope you will not lose 4lbs a week consistently but you might be able to drop that much water weight on week one.

    Thanksgiving the advise im 5"9 and weight 12st 9lb and I want to be 11st 7lb so I don't want to lose to much, I'm very tall and do not want to be skinny

    So basically you want to lose 16 pounds,and you hope to achieve that in a month? (Sorry, I had to convert as I don't know "stones")

    I'm with everyone else. The answer is NO.

    You're that close to goal weight, you should be looking at adjusting your habits and striving for 0.5 pounds a week loss. ASSUMING you are weighing and measuring everything. You are almost at goal now. A starvation diet will just set off a binge/crash-diet cycle that will more likely see you pack ON 20 pounds by the time it's done.
  • nanniek1
    nanniek1 Posts: 10 Member
    Starvation mode or adaptive thermogenesis or metabolic damage can be debatable. Yet, here is a simple explanation.....http://www.livestrong.com/article/264810-weight-loss-starvation-mode/
  • kk_inprogress
    kk_inprogress Posts: 3,077 Member
    edited July 2015
    @workout_freak89 so what you're saying is you advocate outright lying to someone, or worse yet telling them in all seriousness that their desire to undereat to achieve weight loss is okay? I'm all for Darwinism, but when the person is outright asking if it's realistic that's not the time in which you feed them a crap cake of answers.

    Yup. This.
  • Angelfire365
    Angelfire365 Posts: 803 Member
    ejb06070 wrote: »

    ya...i knew that already...but the OP didn't..now she does and the reality will hit her hard... which will become a reason for her laziness. Our individual bickering have saved OP some body fat.

    Knowledge is power, not an excuse to give up.

    I was not bickering, simply stating facts. If someone had told me when I first started trying to lose weight "4 pounds per week is perfectly do-able" then I only lost a pound a week, I would have been the farthest thing from motivated imaginable. I would have felt like a failure because I wasn't losing even close to as much as I "should have been". Honestly, I probably would have said "*kitten* this", grabbed a box of cookies, and binge-watched TV for a couple of days.

    Properly educating people and allowing them to make their own decisions is more motivating, in my opinion, then lying to manipulate someone to try harder to lose weight.

    ethically i agree with you..but just think about it..If you tell her that she materialise just about a quarter of her expectations, will that make her leave her couch or if you tell her that the ONLY way she's gonna lose 4 lbs is if she works her *kitten* off for this week. ???and at the end of the week we have a new habit inculcated in her

    All good things start with a lie. What is important is setting things in motion

    Reason why Dr. House saves every life

    Did you just?!? You know House is scripted, right? Dr. House saves every life because no-one would watch a TV show where everyone dies every episode. . . And what the HE-double-hokeysticks does that have to do with anything?

    The reference to Dr.House is a way of saying that manipulations are sometimes healthy and even mandatory, because the maturity level of thoughts are different in case of a noob and someone who's been down the path before.
    That's what supplement companies do, that's what the politicians do, that is exactly what anyone in power does , and every other person you meet these days.

    The only difference is the common aim I and OP share ( which is to lose weight in a safe way) which justifies my action..

    No. No it doesn't. Nobody trusts politicians or people in power, and most people seriously question most supplements on the market nowadays. All it does is prove you cannot be trusted. Manipulations are the quickest way to lose respect, trust and friendship. Maturity levels also have nothing to do with knowledge; just because someone is a noob does not mean they're immature.

    And all this 'justification' you're spitting out just makes me think you're less than bright. The OP asked a question, got reasonable feedback from more knowledgeable people, and changed her tactic based on said feedback. That shows a reasonable amount of maturity as well as more intelligence than you seem to be displaying.
  • MarciBkonTrk
    MarciBkonTrk Posts: 310 Member
    If you've had weight loss surgery then your daily caloric goal is reasonable and a 4 pound a week loss is reasonable. If not I fear that at that rate you will be setting yourself up for failure thus reverting to overeating and creating a yo-yo circle. But only you truly know what is right for you. I agree with another poster. If you had to ask you pretty much knew the answer.
  • MarciBkonTrk
    MarciBkonTrk Posts: 310 Member
    JudithNYC wrote: »
    Starvation mode is bogus, if it were so anorexic people would not get so fearfully thin and even die, people do lose weight at 800 calories BUT unless something really scary is going in with your mind there is no way you can keep it up for more than a short time and even then you are putting your health in jeopardy. Not to mention that you will be crazy with hunger and eat all the food in sight soon.

    Please, please aim for a slower weight loss, eating at least 1200 calories a day and making sure you get the nutrients that your body needs. At the same time you can up your exercising (to a healthy level, don't go overboard on exercise either.)

    I am old and when I first wanted to lose weight the diet program I joined put me on 900 calories a day (I did not even need to lose weigh, but I was young and stupid.) I lost the 10 pounds I wanted to lose but by that time I was so starved that within months I gained it all back plus some extra pounds for insurance.

    An so on and on and on for forty-plus years, crash diet to lose certain number of pounds, gain them all back soon afterwards plus five or ten more until I ended up at 220 pounds of flab. I am lucky enough to not have any health issues, but still that is A LOT of weight.

    So, OP, look at this as a cautionary tale: take it easy and lose the weight you need or want to lose while gaining new healthy eating and exercising habits. You don't want to work so hard at losing the weight just to gain it all back because the way you chose to do it is not sustainable or because you really had not changed your way of relating to food.

    Best of luck.

    I don't get where some people on here say that starvation mode is a myth. Why don't you do a little actual scientific research instead of what you read in some weight lifting magazine!

  • MarciBkonTrk
    MarciBkonTrk Posts: 310 Member
    By the way, I am a nurse who worked on the eating disorder unit of a major regional medical center.
  • kk_inprogress
    kk_inprogress Posts: 3,077 Member
    JudithNYC wrote: »
    Starvation mode is bogus, if it were so anorexic people would not get so fearfully thin and even die, people do lose weight at 800 calories BUT unless something really scary is going in with your mind there is no way you can keep it up for more than a short time and even then you are putting your health in jeopardy. Not to mention that you will be crazy with hunger and eat all the food in sight soon.

    Please, please aim for a slower weight loss, eating at least 1200 calories a day and making sure you get the nutrients that your body needs. At the same time you can up your exercising (to a healthy level, don't go overboard on exercise either.)

    I am old and when I first wanted to lose weight the diet program I joined put me on 900 calories a day (I did not even need to lose weigh, but I was young and stupid.) I lost the 10 pounds I wanted to lose but by that time I was so starved that within months I gained it all back plus some extra pounds for insurance.

    An so on and on and on for forty-plus years, crash diet to lose certain number of pounds, gain them all back soon afterwards plus five or ten more until I ended up at 220 pounds of flab. I am lucky enough to not have any health issues, but still that is A LOT of weight.

    So, OP, look at this as a cautionary tale: take it easy and lose the weight you need or want to lose while gaining new healthy eating and exercising habits. You don't want to work so hard at losing the weight just to gain it all back because the way you chose to do it is not sustainable or because you really had not changed your way of relating to food.

    Best of luck.

    I don't get where some people on here say that starvation mode is a myth. Why don't you do a little actual scientific research instead of what you read in some weight lifting magazine!

    It doesn't come from weight lifting magazines. Read The Biology of Human Starvation. It's been scientifically proven that starvation does not cause weight gain.
  • Liftng4Lis
    Liftng4Lis Posts: 15,151 Member

    I don't get where some people on here say that starvation mode is a myth. Why don't you do a little actual scientific research instead of what you read in some weight lifting magazine!
    Because most of us have read the Minnesota starvation experiment. Metabolic adaptation however, does exist, but would usually only affect athletes or people on long term VLCD's.
  • melimomTARDIS
    melimomTARDIS Posts: 1,941 Member
    By the way, I am a nurse who worked on the eating disorder unit of a major regional medical center.
    I think starvation mode is real, but these are people who have subsisted on a VLCD for a long time. Definitely not your average joe.
  • kk_inprogress
    kk_inprogress Posts: 3,077 Member
    By the way, I am a nurse who worked on the eating disorder unit of a major regional medical center.
    I think starvation mode is real, but these are people who have subsisted on a VLCD for a long time. Definitely not your average joe.

    What are you considering as "starvation mode?" Because what people are talking about here is the myth that your body will store fat and you will gain weight on a low calorie diet. If you're subsisting that way for a long time, we can all agree weight gain will not be the result!
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  • Brandei
    Brandei Posts: 119 Member
    Hi Sweetie, I have not read through the pages and pages of comments and so on....so pardon me if I am repeating what others have said. I just recently obtained my personal training certification through NASM and it was repeated there as well, that a diet lower than 1200/day should be done only under medical supervision. As far as losing 4lbs a week, it is possible, but it depends on what weight you start at and what you are eating/exercising. Good Luck
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  • melimomTARDIS
    melimomTARDIS Posts: 1,941 Member
    kkenseth wrote: »
    By the way, I am a nurse who worked on the eating disorder unit of a major regional medical center.
    I think starvation mode is real, but these are people who have subsisted on a VLCD for a long time. Definitely not your average joe.

    What are you considering as "starvation mode?" Because what people are talking about here is the myth that your body will store fat and you will gain weight on a low calorie diet. If you're subsisting that way for a long time, we can all agree weight gain will not be the result!

    Yes you are right. I was thinking about a person post starvation, like the kids in africa eating plumpy-nut butter to restore their weights. Or an anorexic person who is going through weight restoration.

    I think in those cases the individual has some unusual symptoms while in recovery. Maybe even changes in metabolism.

  • MarciBkonTrk
    MarciBkonTrk Posts: 310 Member
    Anorexics actually eat nothing. Maybe they don't eat at all, maybe they throw up what they eat, maybe they eat and then spit out what they are chewing. Those anorexics actually begin to have the same metabolism as a child starving. That's how they end up looking the way they do. But for the rest of us who eat very low calories our bodies adjust to burning calories so that we don't lose that precious fat (that when we first became people) that gets us through the winter. And because we usually to revert to our regular way of eating now we are dealing with a higher set point for losing weight.
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