? about recommended rate of loss and, uh, motivation
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Idea is that if you can do that 250/day level, it is nothing to transition to 0/day, to do it for ever... rather than trying to go from a 750/day level for 6 months to 0/day the next....
But realistically, toss the per day stuff.... What you want is to look at it as two averages.... What is your average over 7 days, and over 28 days.... This means you can go over the top on the weekend, and then tone it back the other 5 days... and that if one week gets away from you, hey, you got 3 weeks to make it up.
Puts a lot less stress on the day to day stuff, and rewards you for being under by letting you go over some other time.
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It took me exactly ONE year to lose the last 15#. But it wasn’t like 1# per month, it was up 5, down2, up 4 down 6.3
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I'm going to try to word this in the most objective, non-snarky way I can... because I really don't mean it to be snarky. I mean it as a legit question.
A little background, fwiw...
I'm 41, male.
I've been as high as 190lbs, as low as 160lbs. Currently at 181.
I've been at this MFP thing for, I dunno... 8ish years.
I typically cut/lose during the spring and summer, then bulk/gain during the winter (intentionally).
I understand why people suggest/recommend slower rates of loss for people with less to lose. Cognitively, it makes sense. But how do you balance that realistically with the ability to stay focused and motivated? If someone told me that I should plan on a year to lose my 15 vanity lbs, I'd probably quit right then and there. Grinding this out, day in and day out, for a year... just for 15 vanity lbs??? The mental effort it requires for me to stay on track is not worth it (to me) for ~.3-.5lbs week loss.
Am I the only one that struggles with that?
Again, logically I get it. But emotionally... how do people come to terms with that?
I can really only speak to my own thinking but for me, this is so much more than just losing weight. That's not particularly hard to do. It's much more about keeping it off for good. That's a lot harder because it never ends. I'm never going to be finished.
Most people try to use motivation to lose weight and that's a fundamental flaw in their plan. Motivation is fickle and won't last. If I'm trying to stay motivated I'm going to lose that motivation sooner or later. If instead I'm working on making easily manageable lifestyle changes that are sustainable over time, it's not work or a struggle. It's just the way I want to live.
I also think the whole idea of a time frame for losing weight is trouble waiting to happen. It says that all I'm focused on is getting the end when I'm finished losing weight. Who cares how long it takes to lose the weight? I'm going to be living like this for many, many years to come. So what does it matter? The weight will come off when it comes off.4 -
FWIW, just as a clarifier... health has nothing to do with this for me. So the whole "lifestyle for the rest of my life" mentality doesn't really come into play (for me).0
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I lose 1-2 pounds, sometimes 3-4, a week when I diet. That's the only way I can stay motivated, and I know I also lose some muscle in the process. I exercise near daily, and lift weights but never feel like I get malnutrition or weaker despite losing weight fast "too fast".
In my eyes, I am not healthy when I am fat, so why should I be concerned if losing weight too fast is also not healthy? I feel like losing the weight fast and then maintaining a balance diet afterwards is healthier than just staying fat. Plus, it's my body.
Counting the calories close enough to lose only .5 pounds/week gets tedious to me, and it can take WEEKS to even see if it's working. I lose motivation before I even get started. I love being able to step on the scale every 2-3 days and see a slightly lower number each time.5 -
Because I compete in a sport that requires a high level of fitness (to compete at the level I want to anyways), losing weight would be nice, but fitness is far more important. I've got fat to lose - about 25 pounds of it to honest. I'm losing at about .5/lb/week. That's slow.
A few years ago when I decided I wanted to try to compete at higher levels racing, I knew I'd have to work on my fitness. My weight at that time was about 10 pounds above where I'm at now. To keep up my "motivation" my mantra became "embrace the suck." I knew it was going to suck. It was going to suck getting back into shape (especially the first few months), it was going to suck not seeing the scale drop very fast, and even how my clothes fit was going to suck for awhile. That was too bad, and I'd just have to "embrace the suck."
That mantra worked well for me.
Having to use it again now as I'm finally able to return to "regular" workouts after a badly broken leg and subsequent four surgeries over the past year. I put on a fair bit of the weigh I had previously lost (lost a bunch at first with the leg, but then my appetite came back but my activity couldn't come back).
When the alarm goes off and I'm still tired, or I'm choosing broccoli to go with my burger instead of fries, I just mumble to myself "embrace the suck" and do it anyways.2 -
I lose 1-2 pounds, sometimes 3-4, a week when I diet. That's the only way I can stay motivated, and I know I also lose some muscle in the process. I exercise near daily, and lift weights but never feel like I get malnutrition or weaker despite losing weight fast "too fast".
In my eyes, I am not healthy when I am fat, so why should I be concerned if losing weight too fast is also not healthy? I feel like losing the weight fast and then maintaining a balance diet afterwards is healthier than just staying fat. Plus, it's my body.
Counting the calories close enough to lose only .5 pounds/week gets tedious to me, and it can take WEEKS to even see if it's working. I lose motivation before I even get started. I love being able to step on the scale every 2-3 days and see a slightly lower number each time.
Ok, so you know it’s unhealthy, why post it for others looking for help? Is your advice really just get the weight off as quickly as possible, consequences to your body and mind be damned?3 -
There are two factors at play.
First of all a 15% to 20% deficit is just about as fast as you can go to get the least negative reactions from your body in terms of lean mass lost and adaptation over time (as far as I've been able to determine to this point of time), unless you have available fat levels usually associated with being obese, in which case 25% deficits of off TDEE are possible.
Secondly, by setting yourself up for a period of restriction and then change you're overtly acknowledging that you're doing something different now as compared to later. But what is it that you're doing later? Maintaining? Were you maintaining before this period of restriction? What tools do you have to maintain with? Are you going to be mindful for a few weeks and then joyfully frolic into your effortless maintenance?
Yes, some people have trouble losing in the first place. But a LOT succeed.
Out of that LOT, only a very few MAINTAIN one, two, five years down the road.
For most of my life I remained overweight or obese because I knew that it was useless to try and lose weight! I'd known a lot of people IRL who had lost weight. NONE of them had managed to maintain their losses long term.
Not one of them had lost their weight using smaller deficits, longer time frames, and sustainable life changes.
When I decided that my health gave me no option but to try, I started on the traditional dieting route.
You know the one? Go go go as much as you can with exercise; eat as little as you can without killing anyone.
After coming to the conclusion that there was no way in **kitten** that I would be able to sustain that WOE long term, and thus i would be condemned to immediate regain, I desperately looked for a better solution and found MFP.
Soon after joining MFP I dropped my deficits to less than 25% average the first year while obese and much lower (to nothing, i.e. maintenance) afterwards.
Looking back I see:
-45 to -50lbs in the year before joining MFP and
afterwards:
-72.5lbs (21.35% deficit),
-11.1 (3.51% deficit), and
~ -2lbs (~1% deficit)
I will let you know, in a few years, how it went ;-)
YMMV.
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Even if we ignore the negative implications, such as losing more lean mass than necessary, what would you do once you lost your 15 lbs of vanity weight? Wouldn't you want to maintain that through the summer, until your intentional winter bulk? How is it so much more of a grind to do whatever you need to do to lose half a pound a week than to do whatever you need to do to ensure you maintain for the months that follow until it's time for your bulk?7
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There are two factors at play.
First of all a 15% to 20% deficit is just about as fast as you can go to get the least negative reactions from your body in terms of lean mass lost and adaptation over time (as far as I've been able to determine to this point of time), unless you have available fat levels usually associated with being obese, in which case 25% deficits of off TDEE are possible.
Secondly, by setting yourself up for a period of restriction and then change you're overtly acknowledging that you're doing something different now as compared to later. But what is it that you're doing later? Maintaining? Were you maintaining before this period of restriction? What tools do you have to maintain with? Are you going to be mindful for a few weeks and then joyfully frolic into your effortless maintenance?
Yes, some people have trouble losing in the first place. But a LOT succeed.
Out of that LOT, only a very few MAINTAIN one, two, five years down the road.
For most of my life I remained overweight or obese because I knew that it was useless to try and lose weight! I'd known a lot of people IRL who had lost weight. NONE of them had managed to maintain their losses long term.
Not one of them had lost their weight using smaller deficits, longer time frames, and sustainable life changes.
When I decided that my health gave me no option but to try, I started on the traditional dieting route.
You know the one? Go go go as much as you can with exercise; eat as little as you can without killing anyone.
After coming to the conclusion that there was no way in **kitten** that I would be able to sustain that WOE long term, and thus i would be condemned to immediate regain, I desperately looked for a better solution and found MFP.
Soon after joining MFP I dropped my deficits to less than 25% average the first year while obese and much lower (to nothing, i.e. maintenance) afterwards.
Looking back I see:
-45 to -50lbs in the year before joining MFP and
afterwards:
-72.5lbs (21.35% deficit),
-11.1 (3.51% deficit), and
~ -2lbs (~1% deficit)
I will let you know, in a few years, how it went ;-)
YMMV.
See? Need the awesome button. I guess I will settle for inspiring
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Would I like to be at goal already because FFS 3 years (not quite that long but will be by the time I'm at goal and 80lbs lost)? Sure. But now I feel like I'm completely equipped to maintain where I will eventually be. It's just a thing I do now. Part of my daily routine. So even though I have my moments of frustration I've never thrown in the towel and never had any significant regain. I can only see that as a win.
Men can typically have slightly more aggressive goals, they have higher lean mass and TDEE so the impact of faster losses will be smaller. As will hormonal changes that come from being in a deficit (women's bodies down regulate and get hormonally funkier than males). So I do think that difference needs to be acknowledged when talking about rate of loss.1 -
Losing weight really slowly is excellent preparation for maintenance. Don't underestimate the effort that goes into maintaining weight once you're at you're goal weight. I lost my weight slowly and I can assure you that losing 1/2 lb per week feels much more like what I am doing now (maintaining 137-138 lbs) than what I did before weight loss (being at 185 lbs).5
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]Counting the calories close enough to lose only .5 pounds/week gets tedious to me, and it can take WEEKS to even see if it's working. I lose motivation before I even get started. I love being able to step on the scale every 2-3 days and see a slightly lower number each time.
I'm much the same way.0 -
FWIW, just as a clarifier... health has nothing to do with this for me. So the whole "lifestyle for the rest of my life" mentality doesn't really come into play (for me).
I’ve been mulling over this comment for a while, then reread your OP, and I think I might be seeing where some of the disconnect here is. You’re talking about an intentional bulk/cut cycle of 10-15 pounds between winter and summer, right? So you’re already at a healthy weight, you just gain some in winter then lose it going into the summer? You don’t say how tall you are, but assuming 180 is a healthy weight for you, I’m guessing you’re on the tall side of average for a man.
Assuming I’m characterizing your position correctly, it sounds a lot like maintenance with a somewhat larger range than many prefer, not what most (?) of us think of or are talking about when we talk about losing weight. When I talk about a lifestyle change, it’s not about developing the perfectly balanced nutritional eating habits, it’s about not regaining weight once I reach my maintenance range. I started this year with 73 pounds to get me to a healthy BMI. I do not want to ever be that obese again if I can avoid it, thus the “lifestyle change.” I get that weight will fluctuate, although as a short woman, gaining and losing 15 pounds every year would really be a bit much. But there really is something different about losing a large amount of weight for health, and an annual bulk/cut (especially for a larger, healthy, presumably athletic male). The “take it slow and be patient” advice doesn’t make sense for you because it’s not targeted at you.
So am I in the ballpark here, or have I not had enough caffeine yet this morning?4 -
I'm 5' 8" tall. 180lbs is definitely overweight by most measures. For me, it's basically the high end of what I can hide under my regular clothing, so it's the top of what I'll allow for myself.0
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MegaMooseEsq wrote: »
To look better.0 -
MegaMooseEsq wrote: »
To look better.
Well, I guess if gaining and losing the same 15 pounds every year so you look better (presumably duing bathing suit weather) works for you, and if health truly doesn’t come into play, then I suppose I agree that slow and steady doesn’t apply here.0 -
Forever or just the season?1
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I'm right with the OP. Honestly, I've settled into a 0.5 lb loss per week as my maintenance number with the expectation that a less strict approach to tracking will result in more or less steady state. It's been working thus far.
My perspective is likely skewed because I'm a relatively tall male and have a pretty healthy calorie base, but during my loss cycle I refused to target less than 2 pounds per week. This still gave me a pretty generous amount of calories (~1700 per day) and allowed me to get the weight loss 'over with' in a pretty efficient manner (50lbs in 6 months).
I honestly don't see how anybody can stay in loss mode for much longer than that. It's a bit of a grind and honestly, the only thing that kept me going over even the short period I was losing was the ability to see meaningful results on the scale each week (sometimes every day). Half a pound per week isn't worth the effort to me.2
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