AM I eating too little

cella_416
cella_416 Posts: 3 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I'm a 43 year old female, 5'5" and 135lbs. (I started at 150 about 6 weeks ago) I started with cutting calories down to the 1200 MyFitnessPal set for me. Then I added walking 30 min to an hour 3 days a week. Now I'm hiking up hills and cross country at least 4 days a week and walking or doing step aerobics 30 minutes the other days. I haven't increased my calorie intake though. I do have a job where I sit most of the day so I figured I'd be safe with the 1200. However, I am stuck at 135 for almost two weeks and I'm starting to feel a little run down. Could it be that I need to adjust my setting from "Sedentary" to "lightly active"? Then a new calorie goal will be set.

Replies

  • KayTeeOne
    KayTeeOne Posts: 122 Member
    My height is also 5'5" and I weigh 128 lbs . So I am quite close to your case . I was 135 lbs couple of weeks ago and I never ate more than 1200 calories no mater how much exercise , workouts or walks I was doing . Because you need to have calorie deficit not equal to what you need and use . Plus it gets harder to lose weight when you don't have much to lose or you are near your goal weight . So need to eat less calories . Don't eat more than 1200
  • blues4miles
    blues4miles Posts: 1,481 Member
    You can't be eating too little for weight loss:
    http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/starvation-mode/

    But you could be eating too little to properly fuel your body, or less than you should, but that's separate from the lack of weight loss.

    First of all, you lost 15 lbs in 4 weeks? That's an extremely high rate of weight loss. Your plateau you are on now for two weeks is perfectly normal. Your body is catching up from the extremely fast loss you just went through. Also, you started adding more activity. So it's possible your muscles are hanging on to extra water in order to repair themselves.

    I'll just restate, 15 lbs in 4 or 6 weeks, however you want to look at it, when you are now at a healthy weight for your height is really good.

    As for calories and feeling tired. Are you eating back exercise calories? MFP is designed that you can set it to sedentary than add back in your walking/hiking. Most people suggest to eat back about 50% of those calories because MFP overestimates calorie burn a little. That's where I would start, make sure you are eating back your calories. You could also experiment with lightly active, eat at that for a couple more weeks and see what happens. It's hard to guess whether the exercise you are doing would make you lightly active or not, you are an experiment of one and will have to try things and give them a chance to succeed.
  • endlessfall16
    endlessfall16 Posts: 932 Member
    One thing I'm not entirely clear about is when you have lost so much weight, do you people go back to MFP and get a new daily calorie number?

    Logic tells me that you should. The body is lighter now. Old number has become too much. No?
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,287 Member
    cella_416 wrote: »
    I'm a 43 year old female, 5'5" and 135lbs. (I started at 150 about 6 weeks ago) I started with cutting calories down to the 1200 MyFitnessPal set for me. Then I added walking 30 min to an hour 3 days a week. Now I'm hiking up hills and cross country at least 4 days a week and walking or doing step aerobics 30 minutes the other days. I haven't increased my calorie intake though. I do have a job where I sit most of the day so I figured I'd be safe with the 1200. However, I am stuck at 135 for almost two weeks and I'm starting to feel a little run down. Could it be that I need to adjust my setting from "Sedentary" to "lightly active"? Then a new calorie goal will be set.

    If you're not eating back your exercise calories, please do - at minimum, 50-75% of them.

    I'm about your size (5'5") but substantially older (60). When I first joined MFP, it gave me 1200, and I did eat back all my exercise calories (which I estimate conservatively, using HRM data and/or information from outside MFP that's more detail-based). Even with that, I started getting fatigued, and increased calories to around 1400 (still eating back exercise calories), still lost weight, and felt much better. (I started at 183, and am a little below goal now (eek), and working on finding a maintenance range up a few pounds.)

    If you've been at the same weight for a couple of weeks, there could be a lot of reasons, most of which boil down to water weight. (Examples of things that could cause water weight: Time of month, change in form or intensity of exercise requiring muscle repair, more salt or carbs than usual in what you're eating (even if still a perfectly reasonable sodium or carb level), and lots more.)

    Also, some people lose in more of a "plateaus & whooshes" mode, holding kind of steady for a couple of weeks, then losing a larger amount rather quickly. I know it's hard, but wait at least 3-4 weeks before deciding that you're in a plateau.

    And if you're feeling dragged out, definitely increase calories. You could even go to estimated maintenance calories for a couple of weeks (which will cause some water weight gain, don't panic) and take a little break from deficit eating.

    You'll get through this!
  • luciroo
    luciroo Posts: 31 Member
    edited March 2016
    For what it's worth - I am your height, started out at 141, and am down to 134.2 in about 6 weeks. My calories are set at 1700 - some days I eat less, occasionally a little more. I lift weights 3X per week and take a 1 hour cardio class(combo circuit training/boxing) 2X week. I don't "eat back" my exercise. You could probably eat more, and would definitely feel better. The weight won't come off as fast as it has, but you will definitely feel better. And still lose.

    Edited to add that I am 51 years old. Also edited to add that I didn't use MFP to set up my calories, I used TDEE and personal past experience, knowing I could eat more that what MFP says I(I would starve at 1200!) and not worry about adding back exercise burn and still lose weight.
  • mitch16
    mitch16 Posts: 2,113 Member
    A couple of things that I would suggest--you've lost 15 pounds and you are now at a normal BMI... Make sure you recalculate your goals in MFP, and chose no more than 0.5 pounds per week as your rate--this will give you more calories per day so maybe you won't feel so run down. Also look to add some level of strength work/lifting to your workout routine.
  • rileysowner
    rileysowner Posts: 8,331 Member
    What is your weight loss goal set at? Since you are not obese, and I don't think you would be categorized as overweight, anything over 1 pound per week is too much. If you have less than 15 pounds or so to lose, even 1 pound per week is likely too much. The problem with having too big a deficit (too big of a goal per week) is that when you don't have a lot of fat to lose, you will end up burning too much muscle. A smaller deficit will minimize this.
  • cella_416
    cella_416 Posts: 3 Member
    I want to thank everyone for the comments. They were very helpful. And I learned a lot from the information. I have not been eating back my exercise calories. I will start to eat some of those back and change my goal to 1lb a week instead of 2.

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