Calorie restriction and exercise question

seanbrown5
seanbrown5 Posts: 2 Member
edited November 2024 in Health and Weight Loss
I have a simple question. I am restricting my calorie intake to 1500 Calories a day, as suggested by myfitnesspal for losing 2lb a week, and have done since early January. Between January and early June, I lost about 45lb so almost kept the expected pace of 2lb a week.

Since June, I have lost only 15lb, sometimes not losing anything in a particular week, and it hasn't been steady. July I only lost about 3lb, August, maybe 5lb, but in September I had one week were the scale said I lost 3lb in one week, then none in the following two.

I tried restricting further to 1200, but that didn't help. As in I did not lose any more weight on 1200 than 1500.

Now I do also use an exercise bike. This isn't new. I also used it while I was losing at the expected clip, but I've been using it for longer and at a higher intensity. My FitBit says I burned through about 600 Calories this morning for example.

While I can enter that into MyFitnessPal and have it add those calories to my daily allotment, I never did. So I've been using the exercise bike burning between 300-600 or so Calories but keeping to the 1500 Calorie budget.

In trying to figure out why basically suddenly I'm not losing weight like I was I started to wonder if I really should be eating at least some of what it looks like I'm cycling off. Should I add the exercise calories to my daily budget and not worry about eating up to the new allotment on days I use the exercise bike (1500+600)?

Honestly I'm within 12lb of my goal and there's only a little bit of unwanted fat in a few places left. It would be great if I could figure out how to get my body to behave again.

Replies

  • ashliedelgado
    ashliedelgado Posts: 814 Member
    Your body IS behaving. The closer you are to goal, the slower the rate of loss. At 12lbs, you can expect it to be more like 1/2lb per week.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    If you're within 12 pounds of your goal, it's likely that 2 pounds a week is too aggressive a goal. You don't weigh enough to safely have a 1,000 calorie deficit and that's why you aren't losing 2 pounds a week.
  • seanbrown5
    seanbrown5 Posts: 2 Member
    janejellyroll wrote: »
    If you're within 12 pounds of your goal, it's likely that 2 pounds a week is too aggressive a goal. You don't weigh enough to safely have a 1,000 calorie deficit and that's why you aren't losing 2 pounds a week.

    So from this it sounds like what I really do need to consider now is eating up to the new diet+exercise level. Taking today as an example, that would be 1500 + 600 = 2100 so I should really make sure to eat between 1800~2000 which would leave a little fudging room in the exercise estimate.

    Maybe that would get me back to at least regular weight loss, even if it was half to 1lb a week. Honestly that was the most annoying part, weeks of no weight loss.
  • jemhh
    jemhh Posts: 14,261 Member
    seanbrown5 wrote: »
    janejellyroll wrote: »
    If you're within 12 pounds of your goal, it's likely that 2 pounds a week is too aggressive a goal. You don't weigh enough to safely have a 1,000 calorie deficit and that's why you aren't losing 2 pounds a week.

    So from this it sounds like what I really do need to consider now is eating up to the new diet+exercise level. Taking today as an example, that would be 1500 + 600 = 2100 so I should really make sure to eat between 1800~2000 which would leave a little fudging room in the exercise estimate.

    Maybe that would get me back to at least regular weight loss, even if it was half to 1lb a week. Honestly that was the most annoying part, weeks of no weight loss.

    Eating too little can cause a dip, sometimes a great dip, in NEAT, or non-exercise calorie output. That decrease is not always noticeable. It is very possible that you increased your biking time/intensity and then in the rest of your life you have downgraded activity considerably. Upping your eating can help you feel better and have more energy, which in turn ends in you being more active in the rest of your life, and thus burning more calories.
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,011 Member
    seanbrown5 wrote: »
    janejellyroll wrote: »
    If you're within 12 pounds of your goal, it's likely that 2 pounds a week is too aggressive a goal. You don't weigh enough to safely have a 1,000 calorie deficit and that's why you aren't losing 2 pounds a week.

    So from this it sounds like what I really do need to consider now is eating up to the new diet+exercise level. Taking today as an example, that would be 1500 + 600 = 2100 so I should really make sure to eat between 1800~2000 which would leave a little fudging room in the exercise estimate.

    Maybe that would get me back to at least regular weight loss, even if it was half to 1lb a week. Honestly that was the most annoying part, weeks of no weight loss.

    Are you using a food scale? When you have more to lose and have more "wiggle room", you can get away with eyeballing portions and choosing random entries in the database. But now that you are in the home stretch, accuracy and consistency is key if you aren't seeing progress.

    Set your goal to no more than 1 lb per week, double check that the entries you are using in the database are accurate (don't use generic entries, recipe-style entries you didn't create, etc), and make sure you are logging everything, even if it seems inconsequential. 1500 cals is the absolute minimum a man should be eating, so unless you are very short or underweight, you should have been losing at that level, so you are probably eating more than you think!

    Also it's normal to have a week here or there where no loss shows up on the scale, so try not to sweat it too much. Good luck!
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    Also, the minimum for a male is 1500...pretty much no male on the planet should be eating 1200 calories...that is for short, sedentary women. All you're going to do with that is jack your hormones up...especially T which would make losing weight a *kitten*...
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