How aggressive is your deficit and how much do you want to lose?

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Replies

  • gabrielleelliott90
    gabrielleelliott90 Posts: 854 Member
    I love food have about 28 pounds to lose so my deficit is 250cal a week.
  • nickisa28
    nickisa28 Posts: 116 Member
    Being a short girl and barely even 'lightly active' I'd struggle to get a deficit of more than 350 a day without going below the 1200cal minimum :( so I have to workout a lot!! On workout days 3-4 a week I manage a 1000 deficit and on non workout days I get 300 ish.

    I didn't have too much to lose. Lost 14lb last year, gave up and gained 7lbs so came back on 3 months ago looking to lose 14lbs. I've done that but now I've decided to get another 5lbs off so I have 'buffer pounds' and to see if I can lose that bit of tummy I still have. I'm really struggling to lose this last bit. I go to Ibiza with the girls in exactly 5 weeks so that's my deadline.
  • adamyovanovich
    adamyovanovich Posts: 163 Member
    I am between 1300-1500 deficit, i make sure to eat over 1750, but under 2000. I needed to lose 160 pounds to get to 200, then more im sure. But 200 is my "get the bulk of the weight off" goal. Losing 3-3.5 lbs a week, %1 of my weight.
  • ryry_
    ryry_ Posts: 4,966 Member
    15-20 to go...1 lb per week is the goal but I'm not stressing if its a little more or a little less.
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,575 Member
    I don't know what my deficit is but it's small. I lost very slowly (<1 lb per month). Been maintaining for a while but now trying to another 10 lbs or so, which I expect will come off just as slowly.
  • arditarose
    arditarose Posts: 15,573 Member
    jemhh wrote: »
    arditarose wrote: »
    The only time I did well was when I was still fat and relatively aggressive.

    I know that feeling.

    Sometimes I wish I didn't care so much about maintaining muscle so I could cut really aggressively even now. I do wonder, realistically, how much muscle I'd lose if I dropped to 1200 for a couple of months.


    Not months, but weeks...sure. Why not. I am really not afraid of a bit of an aggressive calorie deficit for a short period. I lift heavy and eat all the protein.
  • SusanMFindlay
    SusanMFindlay Posts: 1,804 Member
    edited September 2016
    Aiming for 500 cals/day. Losing 2 pounds/week (averaged over the month) steadily for a month and a half. If this keeps up, I'll increase my activity level from "lightly active" to "active" because it appears that my burn is being underestimated. I'm giving it another month before I do that though to make sure it isn't just water weight.
  • Farhana1107
    Farhana1107 Posts: 8 Member
    gothchiq wrote: »
    only 200 cals because I eat 1200 and only burn 1400. It's painfully slow. I have 5 more pounds to go.

    I am a little bit confused here. My maintenance is 1800. I am eating 1200 and I am burning near 150 by regularly walking. Am I doing it right? A clear explanation will be very much appreciated.
    Thanks in advance.

  • ashjongfit
    ashjongfit Posts: 147 Member
    500-750 cals, 66 lbs to go :)
  • OhMsDiva
    OhMsDiva Posts: 1,073 Member
    I have no idea. I just know how much I need to eat and exercise to continue losing weight. I guess I could figure it out, but I know I am in a deficit every week by what I eat and what the scale says. I also exercise enough to give me some cushion for the week.
  • TeaBea
    TeaBea Posts: 14,517 Member
    Farhana1107 wrote: »
    gothchiq wrote: »
    only 200 cals because I eat 1200 and only burn 1400. It's painfully slow. I have 5 more pounds to go.

    I am a little bit confused here. My maintenance is 1800. I am eating 1200 and I am burning near 150 by regularly walking. Am I doing it right? A clear explanation will be very much appreciated.
    Thanks in advance.

    1400 is her calorie burn for the day. Perhaps she wears an activity tracker.

    If your maintenance is 1800 (it should include the 150 calories of walking already).....and you are eating 1200, so your deficit is 600.

    Use a TDEE calculator (include exercise) & eat that number to lose OR use MFP and get a calorie deficit before exercise. Then eat MFP's # + 150. 2 different models.
  • tiffkittyw
    tiffkittyw Posts: 366 Member
    I'm at a 250 calorie deficit. Lifting heavy weights, eating 0.9 x weight in protein and trying to keep what's left of my muscle while reducing my body fat.
  • MommyMeggo
    MommyMeggo Posts: 1,222 Member
    250-500 daily deficit.
    I have 25lbs to lose.
  • angrydads
    angrydads Posts: 162 Member
    Currently 200ish..... And sometimes none at all. Come March it will move up to 400-600 for some good cutting as summer draws near again.
  • workinonit1956
    workinonit1956 Posts: 1,043 Member
    250 with less than 20 left to lose.
  • Nikion901
    Nikion901 Posts: 2,467 Member
    edited September 2016
    Found for me to stay on track long term the cut needs to be no more than 500 ... but I don't eat back exercise calories so, depending on how much cardio exercise I do in a day, that deficit is expected to be up to another 250 a day ... so about 750 total.
  • theclaw900
    theclaw900 Posts: 321 Member
    Between 500-700 depending on how hard I trained that day and how many beers I had.
  • fr33sia12
    fr33sia12 Posts: 1,258 Member
    I don't know what my deficit is as I don't know how much I burn. I've been losing 2lb a week so my deficit must be 1000 cals. I've lost 38lb since April and have 12lbs to lose.
  • tomteboda
    tomteboda Posts: 2,171 Member
    Ie lost 90 lbs successfully with a 500 calorie deficit. Then I switched to a 250 calorie deficit and have lost a further 12 lbs. I intend on losing another 4 -8 lbs at this slower rate because my tolerance for hunger is already pushed to the limit.
  • CasperNaegle
    CasperNaegle Posts: 936 Member
    I stay in about a 20% deficit, which for me is around 600 calories. Mostly trying to lower body fat, I expect the scale will be around 10-12 pound lower when I get where I want. Down 40 so far.
  • jadorade91
    jadorade91 Posts: 119 Member
    I set my goals up for losing 2 lbs a week, so I must be at a 1000 deficit...I eat close to 1200 a day and burn about 300 cals on average with daily exercise. I'm currently 155 lbs and 5'1, so I don't need to eat as much--thankfully 1200 is more than enough for me to feel full with, as long as I'm choosing the right foods.
  • daleis49
    daleis49 Posts: 6 Member
    500/day with 10-15 to lose.
  • Angierae75
    Angierae75 Posts: 417 Member
    I have another 40 pounds to lose, and I'm at a 500 cal per day deficit because any more than that and I find it hard to stick with. I'd rather lose slower and consistently than faster but burn out and be miserable.
  • TeaBea
    TeaBea Posts: 14,517 Member
    edited September 2016
    jadorade91 wrote: »
    I set my goals up for losing 2 lbs a week, so I must be at a 1000 deficit...I eat close to 1200 a day and burn about 300 cals on average with daily exercise. I'm currently 155 lbs and 5'1, so I don't need to eat as much--thankfully 1200 is more than enough for me to feel full with, as long as I'm choosing the right foods.

    Not likely a 1,000 calorie deficit. At lightly active this calculator puts your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure....maintenance) at 2,053. http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

    MFP will only go down as far as 1200. So whether that's really a 500 calorie deficit or a 853 calorie deficit.....that's MFP's bottom number.....before exercise.

    At 155 pounds a 2 pound a week goal is very aggressive. Fast(er) weight loss often results in a higher % of lean muscle mass loss. Hunger (or lack of) is not really going to tell you anything about adequate nutrition. Google skinny-fat.
  • sllm1
    sllm1 Posts: 2,130 Member
    5 pounds to go - 250
  • jdb3388
    jdb3388 Posts: 239 Member
    I eat at about a 1500-1600 deficit. I am only 5'5'' and weighed almost 300lbs when I started. I want to lose 140 which would put me at 150.
  • CoffeeNCardio
    CoffeeNCardio Posts: 1,847 Member
    edited September 2016
    I'm set to 1200 calories as a safety measure to balance out inaccurate logging. we do a lot of out eating during the day, and I don't have my scale, and I'm not gonna be a total stress case about it, so I just set the goal a little lower than it otherwise would be, am as flawless as possible when I can use my scale and get that great accuracy, and now I don't have to worry about the bite of this here or the taste of that there. And if I net a little higher than goal a few days out of the week, it certainly isn't showing on the scale, so this works really well for me. Setting to 1430 just gave me anxiety about making sure every little morsel was spot-on and in my diary. Now I stress a little less, and eat probably more than I'm saying, but clearly not by that much because I'm still losing at a reasonable pace. And if ever I stalled or something, I would just pick back up on making sure every little tiny calorie is accounted for and get right up off it:)

    ETA: I have 28.8 lbs to go....ish.
  • medic2038
    medic2038 Posts: 434 Member
    fascha wrote: »
    VintageFeline wrote: »
    About 500 per day. Sometimes a little more, usually a little less because after 18 months of losing I'm a little more, um, free with my goals! As long as I hit 0.5lbs per week on average at this point I can live with it and my health hasn't been brilliant this year so I have to make allowances for that. 50lbs lost so far, 20-30lbs to go. No real end goal, it's aesthetic for me so will know in the mirror not on the scale.

    Yeah I don't have a goal weight per se I just know I need to lose fat and in order to do that I need to be in a deficit. Wondering how much of my lean mass I'm risking running higher deficits since 800 feels like I'm getting into dangerous ratio territory for each lb I lose. I'd obviously like to minimize my lean mass loss lol

    Depending on how accurate you know your LBM, there's some evidence your maximum deficit should be 32*lbs of fat.

    Here's a link to another forum explaining it:
    http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=109897051&page=1

    Here Lyle actually says a little different:
    http://forums.lylemcdonald.com/showthread.php?t=11933



    I do 500/day here now, but I could do a maximum of about 1000
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