Need assistance
joannastanmfp
Posts: 14 Member
Hello! I am trying to lose weight without much success. I have some chronic pain issues and do try to exercise 1-2 times per week. My calories needed a day to lose weight are about 2688 and 2833 for maintenance. For the past year, I've only had 5 days that have gone over 2800. My weight is staying the same and is not coming off. Should I lower my calorie intake? Not sure if I am eating th wrong foods. Thanks in advance!
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Replies
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Just a few starter questions... how tall are you, what do you weigh and how much are you aiming to lose? Do you weigh all your food on a digital scale / measure all your liquids with measuring spoons etc? Is your diary open? 2688 calories a day to lose weight does seem quite generous. You could try cutting it by 200 or even up to 500 calories a day for a month and see what happens, then reassess. Even on 2188 calories you could eat enough to not be hungry, but if you find you are then add a few more.4
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A couple thoughts:
Your calories sound high. (answering SLLeasks questions above will be helpful in pinpointing your needs more exactly) Just for comparison, I am a 200lb 5'6" female, 29 y/o. My maintenance with light daily activity is 2300-2400 calories. If you are including some sort of exercise routine in your calorie target that could be accounting for your higher goal?
2833-2688= 145 calories/ day deficit. *7 days/week = 1015 calories/week / 3500 calories/lb of fat = 0.29lbs/ week of fat loss. When you have a loss rate this small it becomes essential to be logging as accurately as possible. It is incredibly easy to erase this deficit by just underestimating a handful of nuts.
So you have 2 options at this point. The handy part is you have a pretty good idea of how to maintain your weight since you have been doing it for about a year. If you want to do a bunch of investigation you may be able to figure out why your calculations are off and really tighten up your logging. Or, you can just do what you have been doing, and lower your calorie goal from where it currently is.
Most likely changing the types of foods you eat without changing your calorie intake will not make you lose weight. Most people experience success from changing the types of food they eat (i.e. low carb, low fat, cutting out soda or junk) because it causes them to have a lower calorie intake. If that is a strategy you want to use go for it, but it is not necessarily required. It would be wise to continue tracking and make sure you are not just replacing those calories with others if that is a route you want to take.6 -
You are clearly eating at maintenance. Drop calorie intake by 300kcal more.5
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Just a few starter questions... how tall are you, what do you weigh and how much are you aiming to lose? Do you weigh all your food on a digital scale / measure all your liquids with measuring spoons etc? Is your diary open?
This. Tighten up your logging and try eating 2200 for a while, then cutting back gradually as you lose. Good luck!
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Especially given your chronic pain issues, you might want to separate exercise from weight loss in your mind. Exercise is certainly important to health, but its impact on weight loss is often much overstated. Focus on your logging accuracy and on finding ways to reduce your intake. I am all for not jumping to a big deficit at once (I've been losing at 2400-2000 for months) but given how common accuracy issues are, you are likely eating at maintenance and should work to reduce your target calories. You just have to be patient and trust that the system works! Once you get into a modest deficit, you'll know because that scale will start moving. You can do it!5
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Double check your maintenance/TDEE calories - they seem quite high for a woman.
http://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/
To lose about a pound a week, you'd want to eat at a daily 500 calorie deficit. So if your TDEE is 1800, you'd need to eat 1300 calories a day to lose a pound in a week.2 -
your calories are wayyyyy to high.1
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If you are not sure about the foods you are eating, open your diary and ask if someone has the time to review it.0
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If that's you in your profile picture, and you're only working out one or two days a week, that calorie requirement is way too high. I mean, I'm smaller than you, yes, but even on my 10-mile or half marathon days, I'm not hitting anywhere close to 2700 calories needed.2
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joannastanmfp wrote: »Hello! I am trying to lose weight without much success. I have some chronic pain issues and do try to exercise 1-2 times per week. My calories needed a day to lose weight are about 2688 and 2833 for maintenance. For the past year, I've only had 5 days that have gone over 2800. My weight is staying the same and is not coming off. Should I lower my calorie intake? Not sure if I am eating th wrong foods. Thanks in advance!
Right or wrong foods doesn't matter, straight up weight loss comes down to calories.
As others have said, those calories seem really high. If you weren't eating much, there would be a lot of variables to consider, but since your calories are so high, the short answer is - yes, lower your calories.
If you want to look deeper, I'd ask - Where did you get that calorie goal? What is your activity setting and why did you choose it?
If your maintenance is 2833 and your goal is 2688, that's only a deficit of 145 cals per day, which would cause you to lose less than half a lb per week. How much weight do you have to lose?6 -
Calories will determine loss or gain. Food choices may help, or hinder, your short and long term ability to stick to your caloric budget.
As a 5ft 8" obese and overweight male I lost (and currently maintain at a normal weight) by eating in the range you described. I was/am also averaging 18-20k steps during the various time periods.
How much weight have you lost in total? If you had some success earlier, did you ever adjust your calories as you lost weight?
Absent more information about your stats, and knowing maintenance is achieved at about 2688 based on how you measure... go through your logs for month or two and see where you can shave ~500 Cal....
If making different food choices makes that easier for you by all means experiment! However firmly jeep in mind that the overall caloric balance is what will determine your rate of loss1 -
Walk. Eat less -- Calories In. Burn More -- Calories Out.0
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I made my food diary public. The reason my calories are very high is because I am 6'2 tall
I reduced my calorie goal to under 2000 cals to start. I also wear a FitBit daily to track my activity. I need to lose 100 lbs to reach a healthy BMI for my height and gender. In total I lost 120 lbs and have been at this weight for about one year. 8 -
If you haven't lost weight in 1 year, you are eating at maintenance. Reduce your intake by 500 for a 1lb per week loss. Or 1000 for a 2lb per week loss. Good news is that you know what your maintenance intake is.4
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joannastanmfp wrote: »I made my food diary public. The reason my calories are very high is because I am 6'2 tall I reduced my calorie goal to under 2000 cals to start. I also wear a FitBit daily to track my activity. I need to lose 100 lbs to reach a healthy BMI for my height and gender. In total I lost 120 lbs and have been at this weight for about one year.
Wait, you've already lost 120 lbs! That's AWESOME!!!
Based on your height and guessing your approx current weight based on what you've posted, yes your TDEE would be @ 2600-2800 cals. To lose 1 lb per week you would need to be in a daily deficit of 500 cals. So 2000 should work fine for you. It would not be a bad idea to pick up a digital kitchen scale and start getting in the habit of weighing out your portions, because as you get closer to goal, you will have less and less wiggle room. But I think your current stall has been more about your goal being too high.7 -
And awesome success losing the hundred and twenty pounds and managing to maintain for a year which frankly may have been a fortuitous break for you as the longer you maintain the loss, the less likely you are to swing back the wrong way!
Sounds that even though mfp has updated your maintenance calories, it has not updated your deficit Target calories.
At this point of time suggest a 500 Cal deficit I.e. ~20% of your 2600 tdee... And keep on going on!4 -
Thanks everyone! I put my calories at 1950 a day so it's not too low to where I would feel severely hungry and I can adjust smoothly.
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