Lowering Calories Beyond 2lbs/Week Allowance

You could start lower for a couple weeks as a jump start then go up to the recommended amount and add in some heart pumping cardio and weight training!

Jrwalters wrote: »

So I have over 100lbs to lose and right now to lose 2lbs per week I have like 2,600 calories. I know with something like Medifast, it drops your calories to around 1,200 to 1,500 calories. Is it better to leave it at the recommended amount or drastically lower it to something like 1,800?

I would say leave it at what MFP recommended for you to lose weight in a healthy sustainable way.
You will lower your calories as you lose weight.

I would also say, eat at the number of calories you have been given to loose 2 pounds a week and try that for a month. I have a learned this saying.. "those that can eat more and still loose weight wins". This is always better than just dropping to an unnecessary and quite aggressive approach.

Dropping to aggressively only leaves a person with unwanted side effects, loosing muscle mass along with fat and that is never a good idea to me.

Agree more or less with the above poster. If you have to loose 100 lb, a 1lb a week just wont do. Even 2 lb will take you a year. Take off another 1000kcal a day and aim for 1600 kcal a day. With whole foods you get enough micronutrients. After a week you are use to the 1600 kcal and its actually going to be nice to see that scale move down many times a week. Do this as long as you can manage mentally and then go for a bit more 'relaxt' deficit. Remember this diet doesnt have to be sustainable forever, its just to get most of the fat of fast

Jrwalters wrote: »

So I have over 100lbs to lose and right now to lose 2lbs per week I have like 2,600 calories. I know with something like Medifast, it drops your calories to around 1,200 to 1,500 calories. Is it better to leave it at the recommended amount or drastically lower it to something like 1,800?

How much over 100? If you're right around 100, I'd stick with the 2,600 calories. This will help you preserve muscle.

Jrwalters wrote: »

So I have over 100lbs to lose and right now to lose 2lbs per week I have like 2,600 calories. I know with something like Medifast, it drops your calories to around 1,200 to 1,500 calories. Is it better to leave it at the recommended amount or drastically lower it to something like 1,800?

You're in this for the long haul. Unless you have way more than 100 pounds to lose 2,600 is a good number. You want to make changes that you can continue with even AFTER you get to goal. Medifast & plans like that teach you nothing about what your eating habits are VS. what your eating habits need to become.

Drastic plans/lowest possible calories cut out everything. Using MFP (and a fair number of calories) will allow you to have a treat or a snack now and again. That's a good thing because you will practicing portion control.

If you have a significant amount of weight to lose, you can go with more than two pounds per week. I wouldn't go drastic with it - you don't want to start something and then quit because it's too hard or you're too hungry.

I would, personally, go with 2100 if I were you. That's three pounds per week and is still well above the minimum threshold.

You can safely lose up to 1% per week of your body weight without compromising lean mass to any substantial extent. Of course, this is much easier for someone who has a lot to lose...If I tried to lose 1.8 Lbs per week I'd be pretty dang hungry and never be able to stick with it...being smaller and leaner, my TDEE is less so a big deficit like that wouldn't leave me much food.

I would definitely not recommend crashing your diet to 1200 - 1500 calories though...that's going to leave you with nowhere to go down the road when things get tougher. I'd stick with either the recommended or dropping the calories to 2000-2300 or something so long as you're not exceeding 1% of your body weight per week.

What I'd do is figure out how much you'll be able to eat at your goal weight... and to eat that. That way you'll really learn how to eat properly (and your activity will probably increase as you go, so you'll never have to eat less).

I mean, it's what worked for me, and I had 80/85 pounds to lose. I just couldn't imagine starting on 2000 and having to cut more and more as I lost weight. I basically ate 1700 the whole time.

BDonjon wrote: »

RoxieDawn wrote: »

I would also say, eat at the number of calories you have been given to loose 2 pounds a week and try that for a month. I have a learned this saying.. "those that can eat more and still loose weight wins". This is always better than just dropping to an unnecessary and quite aggressive approach.

Dropping to aggressively only leaves a person with unwanted side effects, loosing muscle mass along with fat and that is never a good idea to me.

Roxie,

I'm not sure what side of the fence I fall on; initially I was going to fall on your side.

But there's a part of me that says that--provided you keep your protein up--OP could try out an 1800-calorie diet to see if it's sustainable for him.
The critical understanding is, of course, if he struggles with it he returns to the neighborhood of 2600 cal right away, as opposed to resigning and giving up entirely.

I'm weighing in my head whether to give this a try myself. Outside the supposed wisdom that 2 pounds a week is the maximum healthy weight loss rate (which based on personal experience I do not believe), is there anything important I'm missing here?

I advised to do this for the first month. I should have added, monitor the rate of loss, take body measurements and readjust calories at the next 10 pounds as he looses and see how he feels about dieting in general. What information is not provided by OP, is exercise. I really thought 1800 calories sounded a bit too low for me (but that is just opinion)

If he is doing what makes him comfortable, he has not hungry, no side effects, no need to binge, and happy or not with the rate of loss, he can lower that to a more suitable rate of loss.

I guess we can advise 3 - 4 pounds loss, but emphasize exercise (perhaps strength training with some cardio sprinkled in) and advise an approximate protein to minimize muscle loss through out weight loss.

I knew someone that did this medifast diet in the past, the shakes and the food that he ate, was ole so not pleasing, so this diet already has this diet plan mapped out. So if he is gonna do this particular diet, some of this information we are providing is sort of mute. Because some of those days there is hardly any calories that are consumed at all.

Let me add my two cents. I have been on 1800, more or less, calories since April 2015 and I have lost 150lbs and counting. I was never hungry or starving or had the urge to binge because I eat regularly. I do exercise 6 times per week but I know it is mostly what I consume. I think you have to figure out what works for you and your body.

I couldn't deal with the hunger of 2 lbs/week loss. I dropped to 1 pretty quickly and found that quite sustainable. I didn't get 100+ pounds overweight overnight, I realized it's take some time to get it off safely as well.

At 1 year, 9 months later I'm down 100 pounds. I'm glad I didn't try to starve myself, I feel I would have given up long ago. In fact, memory of how awful 10 lbs/month weight loss was played a huge role in delaying found anything about my weight even though I knew it was getting way too high when I hit 220....that miserable dieing experience from years earlier was in my mind constantly as I piled on more weight. I really didn't want to go through that again.

Pick a rate of loss that works for you. Just remember, if you feel overwhelmed, losing weight does not have to make you miserable or consume your life. It just requires steady perseverance over a long period of time.