Why is weight loss so slow?
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CactusCat58 wrote: »That's great progress. Toward the end of my loss phase, I was happy with 1 pound a month.
Toward the END of your loss phase it's normal for the loss to be slower, but in the beginning when you've gone from an unhealthy diet and sedentary lifestyle to religiously working out and eating healthy the expectations should be quite different
But not 40 Lbs in 6 weeks...5 -
rikkejanell2014 wrote: »today is day 25 of my weight loss Journey I have exercised every single day for 1-2 hours a day. I do cardio and weight training. starting w is 207 current weight is 198. I guess I just figured that I would lose way more than what I have so far. there are some days the scale doesn't move for a few days. and yes I log everything I eat and I stay in my calorie deficit every day. I heard about losing inches. I guess I just thought that with the 30 day workout challenge I would lose my weight loss at the beginning. after my 30 Day Workout challenge I'm going to go for 5 days a week working out my goal is to lose a total of 60 pounds.I would like to be 140 by November 2017.
You lost 9 lbs in 25 days! That is spectacular!
Note that 2lb/week is extremely aggressive and not something a body can do unless extremely obese. 1lb/week is much more practical and while November 2017 seems far away, it will get here closer than you think. You will also find it more difficult to lose the closer you get to your goal weight, so prepare yourself for the plateaus (which aren't real) and other mental blocks you've established.
What you are really trying to do is lose fat. You body can only metabolize this at ~1lb/week, hence the 500 cal/day deficit (500 cals x 7 days = 3500 cals/lb = 1 lb/week loss). Think marathon - not sprint.
I lost ~60lbs over a year. Never eliminated anything, I simply ate within my budgeted goals.
You got this.1 -
CactusCat58 wrote: »That's great progress. Toward the end of my loss phase, I was happy with 1 pound a month.
Toward the END of your loss phase it's normal for the loss to be slower, but in the beginning when you've gone from an unhealthy diet and sedentary lifestyle to religiously working out and eating healthy the expectations should be quite different
How tall are you?
I'm older as well, and had quite a bit to lose myself. I was never able to set the world on fire with my rate of weight loss, but never expected to after 50. The fact that I'm short meant that I could only create so great a deficit, and that meant that my rate of loss was only so much.
Time is going to pass no matter what you do.
Time passed for me and now I've lost 94 pounds. One pound at a time. I never looked at this as a race, because it's never over. Fitness and weight management will be lifelong pursuits. The losing weight bit is just phase one. Don't stress over how long it takes.4 -
There is light at the end of the tunnel. It may be a long 100 mile tunnel, but you'll get there in the end, whether you pedal to the metal through it (which could end up in disaster) or putter along at the recommended speed limit
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GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »CactusCat58 wrote: »That's great progress. Toward the end of my loss phase, I was happy with 1 pound a month.
Toward the END of your loss phase it's normal for the loss to be slower, but in the beginning when you've gone from an unhealthy diet and sedentary lifestyle to religiously working out and eating healthy the expectations should be quite different
How tall are you?
I'm older as well, and had quite a bit to lose myself. I was never able to set the world on fire with my rate of weight loss, but never expected to after 50. The fact that I'm short meant that I could only create so great a deficit, and that meant that my rate of loss was only so much.
Time is going to pass no matter what you do.
Time passed for me and now I've lost 94 pounds. One pound at a time. I never looked at this as a race, because it's never over. Fitness and weight management will be lifelong pursuits. The losing weight bit is just phase one. Don't stress over how long it takes.
All of this! It's taken me 23 months to lose 91 lbs which may be an average of 1 lb a week, but it was actually about 65 the first year and 25 this year. I never once complained about losing too slowly because the results were there! And I'm 58!4 -
Tacklewasher wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »Tacklewasher wrote: »CattOfTheGarage wrote: »Anyone who says they lost 15lb in a month is either making it up, or they're taking about the first month in which they shed 6 or 7lb of water weight. 4lb in a month would be a usua, healthy rate of loss, or 8lb if you're very heavy. You are losing weight quickly.
Don't mean to sidetrack, but those with a lot to lose can lose a lot. First three months I lost ~15 a month. From ~330 to 285. It's slowed down now that 10 a month looks like a tough haul and I have a target of 8 going forward, but I was done with pure water weight long before I hit 285.
Sure, if you eat that way. If your maintenance is 3500 and you eat 1700, you're going to lose a pound roughly every other day to get to 15 a month and if you got a lot of fat that is going to be from fat mostly.
Op however is neither 330 pounds nor a guy like you, meaning her maintenance is nowhere close that and she'd have to severely limit her food intake to get to that amount of weight loss and it certainly wouldn't be mostly fat anymore, risking malnutrition and lean mass loss.
I get that I'm not like the OP. Just though it wasn't right to see "Anyone who says they lost 15lb in a month is either making it up....." without some clarification. It is possible, but not for the OP. And it is not sustainable. Unfortunately.
Fair enough. Let me adjust my wording:
Unless they started out very obese , anyone who says they lost 15lb in a month is either making it up or talking about the first month, in which they lost a lot of water weight.
It's not a healthy rate of loss for anyone who is not very obese. Rates of loss scale down with your bodyweight, so the smaller you are, the slower you should aim to lose.0 -
WinoGelato wrote: »CactusCat58 wrote: »rikkejanell2014 wrote: »today is day 25 of my weight loss Journey I have exercised every single day for 1-2 hours a day. I do cardio and weight training. starting w is 207 current weight is 198. I guess I just figured that I would lose way more than what I have so far. there are some days the scale doesn't move for a few days. and yes I log everything I eat and I stay in my calorie deficit every day. I heard about losing inches. I guess I just thought that with the 30 day workout challenge I would lose my weight loss at the beginning. after my 30 Day Workout challenge I'm going to go for 5 days a week working out my goal is to lose a total of 60 pounds.I would like to be 140 by November 2017.
Sounds like we're in the exact same boat....I'm 58 and need to lose about 120 lbs. I started Nov 1st doing 45 min of water aerobics followed by 90 minutes of lap swimming 5 days a week. I'm logging all my food and staying well within my calorie deficit. I even passed on all the delicious, high fat/high calorie goodies on Thanksgiving and still managed to lose only 6 lbs. in the month of November.
Here I am in the 3rd week of December and have only lost about 4 lbs even though when I finish logging all my meals and exercise MFP tells me I should have lost about 40 lbs in the past 6 weeks! I started working with a personal trainer this week and am hoping that the weight training in addition to the cardio will help build more lean muscle and spark my slow metabolism to burn more. There are metabolic and thyroid issues at play here and I'm doing my best to figure out the formula that will trigger faster weight loss but it's beyond frustrating. Don't give up or give in..... and feel free to friend me if you'd like to take this journey together.
Losing 40 lbs in 6 weeks would not be remotely healthy. Where did you get that estimate from?
It sounds like you're making good progress, losing a little over 1 lb/week. With 120 to lose, it could reasonably be up to 2 lb/week, but losing 1 lb/week consistently is great! There are lots of threads about how to ensure you lose at the appropriate rate, most often if you are not losing at the rate you selected it comes down to logging errors. Are you using a food scale? Eating back those exercise calories?
1 year0 -
rikkejanell2014 wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »CactusCat58 wrote: »rikkejanell2014 wrote: »today is day 25 of my weight loss Journey I have exercised every single day for 1-2 hours a day. I do cardio and weight training. starting w is 207 current weight is 198. I guess I just figured that I would lose way more than what I have so far. there are some days the scale doesn't move for a few days. and yes I log everything I eat and I stay in my calorie deficit every day. I heard about losing inches. I guess I just thought that with the 30 day workout challenge I would lose my weight loss at the beginning. after my 30 Day Workout challenge I'm going to go for 5 days a week working out my goal is to lose a total of 60 pounds.I would like to be 140 by November 2017.
Sounds like we're in the exact same boat....I'm 58 and need to lose about 120 lbs. I started Nov 1st doing 45 min of water aerobics followed by 90 minutes of lap swimming 5 days a week. I'm logging all my food and staying well within my calorie deficit. I even passed on all the delicious, high fat/high calorie goodies on Thanksgiving and still managed to lose only 6 lbs. in the month of November.
Here I am in the 3rd week of December and have only lost about 4 lbs even though when I finish logging all my meals and exercise MFP tells me I should have lost about 40 lbs in the past 6 weeks! I started working with a personal trainer this week and am hoping that the weight training in addition to the cardio will help build more lean muscle and spark my slow metabolism to burn more. There are metabolic and thyroid issues at play here and I'm doing my best to figure out the formula that will trigger faster weight loss but it's beyond frustrating. Don't give up or give in..... and feel free to friend me if you'd like to take this journey together.
Losing 40 lbs in 6 weeks would not be remotely healthy. Where did you get that estimate from?
It sounds like you're making good progress, losing a little over 1 lb/week. With 120 to lose, it could reasonably be up to 2 lb/week, but losing 1 lb/week consistently is great! There are lots of threads about how to ensure you lose at the appropriate rate, most often if you are not losing at the rate you selected it comes down to logging errors. Are you using a food scale? Eating back those exercise calories?
1 year
Sorry, what? I was asking the other poster some clarifying questions about her post.1 -
You're doing great and will reach your goals. It just likely wont be as fast as you'd like. Adjust your expectations and keep going.
I came here in May with around 30lb to lose and am down 20lb this week. Granted I took 2 months off being imobile and eating maintenance while recovering from injury in the middle. Even still it's been a slow road.1 -
Comparison is the thief of joy. You're doing amazing. Don't let what anyone else may or may not be doing take away your happiness about your fabulous accomplishments. [/quote]
Yes^*^ This.
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WinoGelato wrote: »rikkejanell2014 wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »CactusCat58 wrote: »rikkejanell2014 wrote: »today is day 25 of my weight loss Journey I have exercised every single day for 1-2 hours a day. I do cardio and weight training. starting w is 207 current weight is 198. I guess I just figured that I would lose way more than what I have so far. there are some days the scale doesn't move for a few days. and yes I log everything I eat and I stay in my calorie deficit every day. I heard about losing inches. I guess I just thought that with the 30 day workout challenge I would lose my weight loss at the beginning. after my 30 Day Workout challenge I'm going to go for 5 days a week working out my goal is to lose a total of 60 pounds.I would like to be 140 by November 2017.
Sounds like we're in the exact same boat....I'm 58 and need to lose about 120 lbs. I started Nov 1st doing 45 min of water aerobics followed by 90 minutes of lap swimming 5 days a week. I'm logging all my food and staying well within my calorie deficit. I even passed on all the delicious, high fat/high calorie goodies on Thanksgiving and still managed to lose only 6 lbs. in the month of November.
Here I am in the 3rd week of December and have only lost about 4 lbs even though when I finish logging all my meals and exercise MFP tells me I should have lost about 40 lbs in the past 6 weeks! I started working with a personal trainer this week and am hoping that the weight training in addition to the cardio will help build more lean muscle and spark my slow metabolism to burn more. There are metabolic and thyroid issues at play here and I'm doing my best to figure out the formula that will trigger faster weight loss but it's beyond frustrating. Don't give up or give in..... and feel free to friend me if you'd like to take this journey together.
Losing 40 lbs in 6 weeks would not be remotely healthy. Where did you get that estimate from?
It sounds like you're making good progress, losing a little over 1 lb/week. With 120 to lose, it could reasonably be up to 2 lb/week, but losing 1 lb/week consistently is great! There are lots of threads about how to ensure you lose at the appropriate rate, most often if you are not losing at the rate you selected it comes down to logging errors. Are you using a food scale? Eating back those exercise calories?
1 year
Sorry, what? I was asking the other poster some clarifying questions about her post.
Oh ok0 -
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9 lbs x 3,500 cal/lb = 31,500 calorie deficit over 25 days (31,500/25)=1,260 calorie deficit a day. THAT IS AWESOME!!! you may be losing too fast and starving assuming you aren't working out like a beast to earn that deficit.1
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Carlos_421 wrote: »
Pretty much how everyone feels on here.0 -
trigden1991 wrote: »Carlos_421 wrote: »
Pretty much how everyone feels on here.
Yasss0 -
NeuronsNeuronsNeurons wrote: »9 lbs x 3,500 cal/lb = 31,500 calorie deficit over 25 days (31,500/25)=1,260 calorie deficit a day. THAT IS AWESOME!!! you may be losing too fast and starving assuming you aren't working out like a beast to earn that deficit.
Sadly, that is exactly how the math breakdowns if it's not all fat.
Obviously take out some water for initial weight drop, say a not too extreme sodium diet improved to lower sodium - maybe 3 lbs easy. Especially if you consider body starting increasing water weight elsewhere for all the exercise going on (blood volume, interstitial water, ect)
6 lbs x 3500 / 25 days = 840 cal deficit daily.
That's more reasonable if possible, but how much of that is merely the effect of so much exercise eating so little, so the body is tired otherwise not doing as much as it might normally.
That effect is TDEE went up from exercise, but down from NEAT probably, giving an overall slight increase. Not what it could have been though.
And workouts may not have been as intense from lack of recovery (daily and low food levels).
The other problem with the math is if muscle mass was lost by body just not building up what is normally broken down daily. If amino acids from that used as energy source, no where near cal per lb as fat is.
Sounds like OP is appreciating the points many are bringing out now about sustainability, so it's not repeated next year, and adherence despite seeming progress isn't as fast, stick with a good program anyway.1
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