Accelerating Weight Loss?

DJMayes2016 · July 2016

Hi all;

I've been using MFP for a month now. I expected my rate of weight loss to gradually decrease over time as I got closer to goal. However, I'm experiencing (and slightly concerned by) the exact opposite - the rate is accelerating!

I started (male, 5ft9 or 10) at around 90kg and have been experiencing drops of 1-1.5kg (2-3 lbs) per week. Over the past few days, weight has been falling off increasingly quickly - from 85.6 on Wednesday to 84.5 this morning. I weigh every morning (though use Wednesday as my reporting day) and it's been dropping by around 0.3 kilos a day this week which I am concerned is a little too high.

For perspective, I have my calories set to lose 0.5kg per week for a sedentary lifestyle, so am on around 1700 per day. I exercise (alternating between swimming laps and Freeletics Aphrodite, 150 each of burpees, Situps and squats, which is intended to be HIIT) though don't have a HR monitor (investing soon don't worry) to estimate these calories properly so don't try to explicitly eat them back.

I don't feel like I am undereating (over the course of the day I have a large bowl of cereal, an apple, toast, 600-800 cal dinner, a 138 cal biscuit before bed and room for a random treat or a larger dinner).

My scales are likely fine (other people are also using them) and as far as I am aware I am not I'll.

Is this a short term thing? Are there any measures I should be taking to curb it or to ensure that muscle isnt lost? I have been (almost paradoxically it seems) hoping for it to slow down the past few days.

dmt4641 · July 2016

1. Are you truly sedentary outside of exercise? If not, change your setting.
2. You need to estimate your cals burned on mfp and eat back 50-75% of them.

Between those two issues you could be under eating by 500+ calories a day.

And of course there is always the question of whether you are tracking accurately with a scale or just guesstimating. Most people that eyeball food under report how much they eat, but of course there are some people that over estimate how much they eat.

TheHungryHorsie · July 2016

After being stuck at the same weight for a couple weeks i changed my diet this week and I've lost 5kg in the last 5 days. I've been doing intense cardio and weight training as well But the only loss I'm noticing is on the scales.

RoxieDawn · July 2016

OP several things:

It is possible you have you deficit setup too aggressively and three things come to mind:

1) Is your activity level set too low?
2) Are you not eating back exercise calories (a portion at least)? You should be NETTING your calorie goal. You most likely burn a lot of calories in exercise as you listed above.

For example: if you eat 1700 calories and burn 500 calories then you are really only netting 1200 calories a day.

You should be eating like this for example:

2200 (calories consumed) - 500 (exercise) = 1700 NET GOAL.

3) Are you underestimating how much you are eating each day? Based on what you said you eat (cereal, toast, 600 - 800 calories for dinner), does not sound like 1700 calories to me, and with exercise, definitely not hitting your NET calorie goal.

This does not seem probable in your case but yes, the other thing is if you have a lot of weight to loose, you can potentially loose a good bit in the beginning weeks of weight loss, a lot of it will be water at first (minimal fat loss) and then this does taper down to slower weight loss.

DJMayes2016 · July 2016

RoxieDawn wrote: »

OP several things:

It is possible you have you deficit setup too aggressively and three things come to mind:

1) Is your activity level set too low?
2) Are you not eating back exercise calories (a portion at least)? You should be NETTING your calorie goal. You most likely burn a lot of calories in exercise as you listed above.

For example: if you eat 1700 calories and burn 500 calories then you are really only netting 1200 calories a day.

You should be eating like this for example:

2200 (calories consumed) - 500 (exercise) = 1700 NET GOAL.

3) Are you underestimating how much you are eating each day? Based on what you said you eat (cereal, toast, 600 - 800 calories for dinner), does not sound like 1700 calories to me, and with exercise, definitely not hitting your NET calorie goal.

This does not seem probable in your case but yes, the other thing is if you have a lot of weight to loose, you can potentially loose a good bit in the beginning weeks of weight loss, a lot of it will be water at first (minimal fat loss) and then this does taper down to slower weight loss.

1) As said, I have it set to sedentary. As I am exercising 6 days a week (and walking the dog twice at 20-30 minutes a time) this is probably not strictly true but at the time of setting it I didn't want to accidentally set it too high and find I didn't have a sufficient deficit.

2) At present I don't log a lot of my calories for the simple reason that I don't have a way of accurately measuring them, so am never sure what the correct amount to eat back is and subsequently don't really eat them back. I am investing in a HR monitor to attempt to get a more accurate idea of this though.

In terms of whether I'm hitting my goal, I believe everything is perfectly logged except for perhaps breakfast, which I perhaps overestimate. I am reasonably sure it is 1700 calories but no it is certainly not at my exercise goal.

THe thing that worries me at present isn't the amount I'm eating though - I have been doing this for a month and enjoying it. I have switched some of the usual food I eat for lower calorie alternatives (e.g. One portion of fried chicken for two of grilled chicken which I like more) and still have room saved to treat myself each day. The concern is that this week I seem to be dropping more despite that diet having remained constant.

VeronicaMedina1 · July 2016

So how are you loosing? I want to loose pounds too

Amandajs232 · July 2016

My weight CB vary by 1-2kg throughout the week - just a variance on hydration and how food is working its way through my digestive system. When you complete diary each day with exercise roughly but conservatively guesstimated what weight loss does it predict in 5 weeks? If weight is dropping off you at a significantly higher rate than MFP suggests over a number of weeks then go to the doctor but I am sure you are just seeing a natural fluctuation and benefits of exercise.

ogtmama · July 2016

DJMayes2016 wrote: »

Hi all;

I've been using MFP for a month now. I expected my rate of weight loss to gradually decrease over time as I got closer to goal. However, I'm experiencing (and slightly concerned by) the exact opposite - the rate is accelerating!

I started (male, 5ft9 or 10) at around 90kg and have been experiencing drops of 1-1.5kg (2-3 lbs) per week. Over the past few days, weight has been falling off increasingly quickly - from 85.6 on Wednesday to 84.5 this morning. I weigh every morning (though use Wednesday as my reporting day) and it's been dropping by around 0.3 kilos a day this week which I am concerned is a little too high.

For perspective, I have my calories set to lose 0.5kg per week for a sedentary lifestyle, so am on around 1700 per day. I exercise (alternating between swimming laps and Freeletics Aphrodite, 150 each of burpees, Situps and squats, which is intended to be HIIT) though don't have a HR monitor (investing soon don't worry) to estimate these calories properly so don't try to explicitly eat them back.

I don't feel like I am undereating (over the course of the day I have a large bowl of cereal, an apple, toast, 600-800 cal dinner, a 138 cal biscuit before bed and room for a random treat or a larger dinner).

My scales are likely fine (other people are also using them) and as far as I am aware I am not I'll.

Is this a short term thing? Are there any measures I should be taking to curb it or to ensure that muscle isnt lost? I have been (almost paradoxically it seems) hoping for it to slow down the past few days.

You're supposed to eat them back. Otherwise change your activity level.

oolou · July 2016

Keep it simple.

If you are worried that you are losing too fast and may therefore be losing too much muscle mass ... then eat a bit more food each day.

ogtmama · July 2016

VeronicaMedina1 wrote: »

So how are you loosing? I want to loose pounds too

He's eating at his goal, working out and not counting calories burned.

beatyfamily1 · July 2016

This is a rule of thumb that was given to me from a body builder:

If you are feeling good, not really hungry (I'm not talking about cravings for bad foods, I'm talking physical hunger), then faster fat loss is possible and not dangerous if you are starting from a more overweight spot.

If you are dragging energy wise, or can't sleep, or always sleepy, then fast weight loss is usually a bad thing because you're not actually feeding your body enough to run its systems and it is trying to tell you that.

If you are feeling ok but ragingly hungry all the time then fast weight loss is bad because you are not feeding your body enough and it is going to start to ratchet down the metabolism's speed to try to compensate.

If you are really worried about it, you can increase your calories a little bit.

daniip_la · July 2016

I would advise you to eat the calories MFP gives you, including exercise calories. You should be able to have at least some estimation as to what you're burning through MFP's database.

Besides that, I wouldn't worry about losing quickly unless it goes on for several weeks. I had two weeks of rapid weight loss last month, I was losing 1lb every day. Now, I've been stuck at the same weight for over two weeks, but my rate of loss for the last month is still on track. If you're eating as you should, it should even out.

kshama2001 · July 2016

DJMayes2016 wrote: »

Hi all;

I've been using MFP for a month now. I expected my rate of weight loss to gradually decrease over time as I got closer to goal. However, I'm experiencing (and slightly concerned by) the exact opposite - the rate is accelerating!

I started (male, 5ft9 or 10) at around 90kg and have been experiencing drops of 1-1.5kg (2-3 lbs) per week. Over the past few days, weight has been falling off increasingly quickly - from 85.6 on Wednesday to 84.5 this morning. I weigh every morning (though use Wednesday as my reporting day) and it's been dropping by around 0.3 kilos a day this week which I am concerned is a little too high.

For perspective, I have my calories set to lose 0.5kg per week for a sedentary lifestyle, so am on around 1700 per day. I exercise (alternating between swimming laps and Freeletics Aphrodite, 150 each of burpees, Situps and squats, which is intended to be HIIT) though don't have a HR monitor (investing soon don't worry) to estimate these calories properly so don't try to explicitly eat them back.

I don't feel like I am undereating (over the course of the day I have a large bowl of cereal, an apple, toast, 600-800 cal dinner, a 138 cal biscuit before bed and room for a random treat or a larger dinner).

My scales are likely fine (other people are also using them) and as far as I am aware I am not I'll.

Is this a short term thing? Are there any measures I should be taking to curb it or to ensure that muscle isnt lost? I have been (almost paradoxically it seems) hoping for it to slow down the past few days.

You've answered your own question. You're set to lose 0.5 kg per week but are losing 0.3 kilos a day. You're set to Sedentary, exercise, and do not eat back your exercise calories. You need to eat more to account for your Calories Out, which are more than what you have told MFP. You are losing more muscle mass than you want to with your rapid weight loss.

You seem to have fallen into the "perfection paralysis" trap - if you can't measure your exercise output perfectly, you don't measure it at all. But, as you can see from your rapid weight loss, you have to account for it somehow. You could start with eating back 50% of your exercise calories and adjust as needed.

There are lots of entries for Swimming. "Swimming laps, freestyle, light/moderate effort" works for me.

There's no entry for Freeletics Aphrodite. Perhaps someone will come along with a suggestion for that. Or, if you feel as tired after that as you do from swimming, use your swimming entry. I get more calories from gardening than I do from walking, and am correspondingly more tired from an hour of gardening than an hour of walking. All the exercise entries I use balance out like this and match how I feel afterwards. If my gardening isn't as vigorous as usual, I'll put less time than I actually spent.

DJMayes2016 · July 2016

Thanks everyone.

I don't feel like I'm experiencing anything adverse - sleep is actually pretty good at the minute and I don't think I have a lack of energy given the amount of exercise I've been doing.

This all said, I am a firm believer that a problem which can be solved by eating isn't a problem. From now on, after trying it today after swimming, I'm adding a pack of cooked turkey breast chunks to my post exercise snack. It is only 100 calories so not breaking the bank and more importantly has a fair amount of protein so hopefully will help make sure I'm losing the weight from the right places and slightly more slowly.

Accelerating Weight Loss?

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