I am 166 at 5'5" 24 years old

kaillasue
kaillasue Posts: 10 Member
edited November 23 in Health and Weight Loss
Hey guys i need some help!

About 3 years ago i was in great shape and super active weighed about 130 and was very happy with my weight.

Over the last 3 years i have slowly been putting on weight and now weigh 166. I'm sick of feeling this way and am determine to lose the weight.

I have a food journal that i have calorie counted the food i am consuming ( around 1,000-1200 calories). I do find myself being full (just need to stay away from the cravings!)

I work a desk job but i have started going to the gym 5x a week and burn 600-700 calories at the gym.

How fast should i see the weight come off. I have a trip in 5 weeks i'm hopping to be down 15 pounds!

Thanks for all you advice in advance:)

Replies

  • tcunbeliever
    tcunbeliever Posts: 8,219 Member
    As a general rule you can only lose about 1% of your weight in body fat in any given week. So that's about 1.6 lbs per week for you.

    So if you do lose 15 lbs in 5 weeks, then about half of the weight lost will be muscle.

    Is that really what you want to do?

    If your goal is to look good, then keeping the muscle and just losing actual fat will probably give you the look you want.
  • ayalowich
    ayalowich Posts: 242 Member
    Without knowing what you are doing at the gym or how long you are doing it for, I'd be careful about calorie #'s if you are using machines. Those are substantially higher than reality
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,342 Member
    malibu927 wrote: »
    You should be expecting, and aiming for, a pound a week. Set your goal to that and eat the calories given plus half of your exercise calories. 1200 is quite low and 1000 is too low.

    Yes, This
  • kaillasue
    kaillasue Posts: 10 Member
    I have started eating a whole grain English muffin (fiber one brand) with reduced fat Jiff peanut butter with sliced banana on top in the morning. ( i use this as my carb for the day) Is this bad to have a English muffin everyday.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    kaillasue wrote: »
    I have started eating a whole grain English muffin (fiber one brand) with reduced fat Jiff peanut butter with sliced banana on top in the morning. ( i use this as my carb for the day) Is this bad to have a English muffin everyday.

    An English muffin is fine. You lose weight by creating a calorie deficit and that can include English muffins if you want.
  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,562 Member
    kaillasue wrote: »
    I have started eating a whole grain English muffin (fiber one brand) with reduced fat Jiff peanut butter with sliced banana on top in the morning. ( i use this as my carb for the day) Is this bad to have a English muffin everyday.

    Why would it be bad unless you have a problem with gluten or carbs?
  • HellYeahItsKriss
    HellYeahItsKriss Posts: 906 Member
    no problem with every day until you get absolutely sick of it... i did that for the longest time with toast, guac, fried egg and cheese.. couldn't get enough of it.. now.. its been months and months.. just can't do it lol
  • Rickster1967
    Rickster1967 Posts: 485 Member
    Have you done the set up?

    You might try 1lb per week loss to begin, learn to weigh and log properly, eat back half your calorie burnt in the gym

    1200 looks unnecessarily restrictive at first glance, you don't need to rush
  • kaillasue
    kaillasue Posts: 10 Member
    Any advice for staying away from cravings? I love pizza and love red wine ( part of my problem). How do you stay motivated to stay away.
  • DananaNanas
    DananaNanas Posts: 665 Member
    kaillasue wrote: »
    Any advice for staying away from cravings? I love pizza and love red wine ( part of my problem). How do you stay motivated to stay away.

    Ahh! A girl after my own heart!

    These are two of my favorite things in the world. I limit pizza to once a week and reduce my portions (I dont' need to eat as much as my husband to be full!) Just make sure you're tracking. Measure 5 oz. of wine and log it with your food. I measure 5 oz. of water and pour it into my wine glass and I have these dry-erase markers I use to make a 5 oz. line on my wine glass and only fill it up to there (and make sure that you count each time you fill it up!)

    Don't forget its possible to lose weight and still eat (and drink!) the things you love!

  • ianjchadwick
    ianjchadwick Posts: 7 Member
    I'm not a nutritionist, so take my advice with a grain of salt. However, in my opinion you should be careful about trying to lose too much weight too fast. At your weight,15lbs is almost 10% of your entire body weight... It might be really tough to lose that much in a little over a month and it might not be that healthy for you in the long term.

    1200 calories is not that much food, but you can get a pretty decent amount of food depending on what you eat. Carbs have a lot of calories, but it's all about finding the proper balance of macronutrients.

    English muffins are one of my favorites, they are relatively low cal (100 or so for a whole one) but make sure you're measuring how much other stuff you put on it to get accurate info to put into MFP. I'd recommend a little more balance by adding some kind of protein. A hard boiled egg is only about 70-80 calories.

    I find that chicken breast (don't use any oil to cook it), fish (tilapia is good), are good ways to get filling food without too many calories. Also, mushrooms with yellow onion, garlic sauteed in olive oil put over quinoa is actually really tasty and filling as well.

    That being said, just watch your macros and percentages... There are some that say a calorie is a calorie, but I have noticed that my weight loss journey is easier if I limit certain kinds of foods (for me it's processed grains).

    Here are some resources that might help:

    http://www.ontheregimen.com/2013/10/15/how-to-count-your-macros-a-comprehensive-guide/

    https://www.shape.com/weight-loss/tips-plans/how-much-weight-can-you-lose-month

    Good luck!
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    ianjchadwick wrote: »
    I'm not a nutritionist, so take my advice with a grain of salt. However, in my opinion you should be careful about trying to lose too much weight too fast. At your weight,15lbs is almost 10% of your entire body weight... It might be really tough to lose that much in a little over a month and it might not be that healthy for you in the long term.

    1200 calories is not that much food, but you can get a pretty decent amount of food depending on what you eat. Carbs have a lot of calories, but it's all about finding the proper balance of macronutrients.

    English muffins are one of my favorites, they are relatively low cal (100 or so for a whole one) but make sure you're measuring how much other stuff you put on it to get accurate info to put into MFP. I'd recommend a little more balance by adding some kind of protein. A hard boiled egg is only about 70-80 calories.

    I find that chicken breast (don't use any oil to cook it), fish (tilapia is good), are good ways to get filling food without too many calories. Also, mushrooms with yellow onion, garlic sauteed in olive oil put over quinoa is actually really tasty and filling as well.

    That being said, just watch your macros and percentages... There are some that say a calorie is a calorie, but I have noticed that my weight loss journey is easier if I limit certain kinds of foods (for me it's processed grains).

    Here are some resources that might help:

    http://www.ontheregimen.com/2013/10/15/how-to-count-your-macros-a-comprehensive-guide/

    https://www.shape.com/weight-loss/tips-plans/how-much-weight-can-you-lose-month

    Good luck!

    Many people do find it easier to maintain a calorie deficit if they limit certain foods, but this doesn't mean that a calorie isn't a calorie. It means that calories are just one data point about food and other things (macro- and micronutrients, fiber content, volume, etc) should also be considered when deciding what to eat.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    edited December 2017
    This content has been removed.
  • MarylandRose
    MarylandRose Posts: 239 Member
    DananaNanas wrote: »
    kaillasue wrote: »
    Any advice for staying away from cravings? I love pizza and love red wine ( part of my problem). How do you stay motivated to stay away.

    Ahh! A girl after my own heart!

    These are two of my favorite things in the world. I limit pizza to once a week and reduce my portions (I dont' need to eat as much as my husband to be full!) Just make sure you're tracking. Measure 5 oz. of wine and log it with your food. I measure 5 oz. of water and pour it into my wine glass and I have these dry-erase markers I use to make a 5 oz. line on my wine glass and only fill it up to there (and make sure that you count each time you fill it up!)

    Don't forget its possible to lose weight and still eat (and drink!) the things you love!

    Yup! I lost twenty pounds over the span of ~1 year and I still ate pizza occasionally and I am a wine club member at five wineries...which means I went to probably 12+ pickup events plus weekend afternoon "let's go get wine" adventures over that time span. I just didn't drink wine during the week, and I stuck to only one glass after the tastings were done at any given vineyard.
    As much wine as we own, it's been easy for me to give up wine during the week because I can see easily in MFP that adding a glass of wine means removing a delicious meal component during my day. I'd rather have the food. On the weekends, I aim for maintenance instead of my weekday slight deficit.
  • lucerorojo
    lucerorojo Posts: 790 Member
    Put your stats in MFP and follow it for a .5 lb. weight loss per week. 15 lbs. in 5 weeks is too agressive--that is for someone who is over 300 lbs. All sorts of problems can arise from trying to lose weight too fast when you are not that overweight, one of them being that you can't keep it off.

    It has taken me months to really understand this by reading lots of testimonies and information on MFP. In my (20s, 30s) I was not overweight but would do these crash diets (whatever the fad was--I wasn't counting calories) in order to lose 5-15 lbs. vanity weight. I realize now that either I was limiting myself to a very low calorie diet, or the diet itself was. I would lose weight pretty fast. However, I would go back to eating normally afterwards and it would come back and then some. I also was very active--ran 4 miles a day, plus swam, ice skating, ballet classes, etc. When I couldn't do that I gained weight but I didn't think to cut back on what I was eating--I had no stats and just not enough information about CICO to know. Back in the day I even knew someone who would purposely lose weight fast with the rationale that she would be thin for a few months but would inevitably gain it back. I was just more ignorant and believed it was going to work.
  • the_prez3
    the_prez3 Posts: 58 Member
    I believe you’re asking the wrong questions. Restricting calories and losing fat is really easy if you have a clearly defined goal that is realistic. 15 lbs in 5 weeks is way too aggressive. Nothing good happens in your body when forcing it to adapt that fast. The more extreme the calorie deficit, the more your body resists the change. Your hormone levels will go crazy, extreme cravings, a slowed metabolism response, moodiness, extreme muscle loss and so on. That is an extreme amount of stress for it and then add to it by hammering it with workouts at the gym. Your body is going to fight back big time and you will lose probably half of your weight in lean tissue. It’s extremely rare to ever need to go below 1400 calories, like in.05% of cases. Set a goal to lose no more than 1lbs a week or so at your weight and height, maybe even .8lbs. This will take longer but you’ll lose less muscle tissue and your weight loss will be a much higher quality one. Be sure to watch monitor your progress by weighing every morning, ignoring the minor weight fluctuations, and only pay attention to the weekly average. If you’re losing more than 1lbs a week then you need to eat more. You’ll feel better, have less cravings and your body won’t fight back as much. And above all else, take the time to learn more. Ignore the fad diets out there, they are complete crap. Hope this helps.
  • MelanieCN77
    MelanieCN77 Posts: 4,047 Member
    If you're hitting the gym each day and eating 1200 cals all in you're going to burn out real fast. As has been suggested, tell us your gym routine as those cal burns you posted (from the machines maybe?) are probably high and confirm if you are eating back any of those cals or not. I started at a slightly higher weight than you, same height, and my base cals were around 1700 to start. There's no need to sprint it, you're unlikely to lose the weight in the time you want, literally because you are going at it in a way a lot of people here have witnessed to be unsustainable.
  • sydnisd183
    sydnisd183 Posts: 247 Member
    OP, I just returned from the land of 1200/day + exercise. I only lasted 11 days. It's not worth it. I'm 5'6" and 155.

    Inability to sleep, restlessness, extreme HANGER, moodiness, the urge to just curl up and sleep the time away....a recipe for disaster. I literally felt like crap the entire time. I'm now at 1500/day, exercising strong and starting to feel human again. My 1500 cals is 1200 as a base, plus eating back 1/2 of my exercise calories (I do an hour long plyo workout which burns about 600 calories). If I get on my stationary bike in the evening (a casual, easy pace just to have something to do besides sitting on the couch) I'll eat half of those calories as well.

    I know some people have to go through it to "get it", but I've done it for you. It sucks and I wouldn't recommend that way of weight loss for anyone.
  • batorkin
    batorkin Posts: 281 Member
    edited December 2017
    kaillasue wrote: »
    Any advice for staying away from cravings? I love pizza and love red wine ( part of my problem). How do you stay motivated to stay away.

    I had to keep my addictions out of the house entirely. You can have them every now and then in smaller servings, but if they are in the house you will likely binge on them soon or later.
    lucerorojo wrote: »
    Put your stats in MFP and follow it for a .5 lb. weight loss per week. 15 lbs. in 5 weeks is too agressive--that is for someone who is over 300 lbs. All sorts of problems can arise from trying to lose weight too fast when you are not that overweight, one of them being that you can't keep it off.

    It has taken me months to really understand this by reading lots of testimonies and information on MFP. In my (20s, 30s) I was not overweight but would do these crash diets (whatever the fad was--I wasn't counting calories) in order to lose 5-15 lbs. vanity weight. I realize now that either I was limiting myself to a very low calorie diet, or the diet itself was. I would lose weight pretty fast. However, I would go back to eating normally afterwards and it would come back and then some. I also was very active--ran 4 miles a day, plus swam, ice skating, ballet classes, etc. When I couldn't do that I gained weight but I didn't think to cut back on what I was eating--I had no stats and just not enough information about CICO to know. Back in the day I even knew someone who would purposely lose weight fast with the rationale that she would be thin for a few months but would inevitably gain it back. I was just more ignorant and believed it was going to work.

    Limiting diets are fine as long as you don't go back to old habits when you are done. Sadly, most people that do those type of diets tend to. The most important thing to do is weight yourself weekly for the rest of your life and try to stay within 5-10 pounds of your goal. When you see yourself get out of that range, you act immediately before it gets out of hand.

    If I stop weighing myself regularly, it tends to fall apart. It's so easy to put on 30 pounds and not even notice.
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