Losing weight too fast

monso06
monso06 Posts: 20 Member
edited December 19 in Health and Weight Loss
Hello!

My weight is decreasing faster than anticipated, not sure why... I must be doing something wrong.

Plugging in the numbers (male 35 yo / 178cm / 85kg) gives me a BMR of 1800 kcal/day. After reading this forum, I decided not to go any lower.

A light activity (gym 3 times a week) gives me a caloric need of 2400 kcal/day.

So I should have a deficit of 600 kcal/day which amounts to 2kg per month (or 18,000 kcal since 1kg of fat = 9,000 kcal).

Well I bought a scale that performs Bio-electrical Impedance Analysis, and although I doubt that the daily variations are completely accurate, it still shows a weight loss of 4 to 5kgs in 3 weeks. Which is way too fast and probably unsafe.

I use a kitchen scale to weigh all my food, and double check that the numbers on food labels match the entries in MFP...

Could I be overestimating my caloric intake somehow?

Replies

  • tiptoethruthetulips
    tiptoethruthetulips Posts: 3,371 Member
    Could be just the initial water weight. How much did you lose the first week and then week two and three? Was there a big week one weight loss with weight loss decreasing in week two and three?

    If you are not using scales it is possible you are over estimating calories.
  • RoxieDawn
    RoxieDawn Posts: 15,488 Member
    Could be initial water weight loss as stated above as long as your goal is set up correctly in MFP.

    Is your activity level based on exercise? MFP expects you to set your activity level based on what you do during the day outside of exercise. So if you have a desk job for example you would set it to sedentary and add your exercise separately.

    This how to handle your exercise in MFP

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10503681/exercise-calories-do-i-eat-these-a-video-explanation/p1
  • Deviette
    Deviette Posts: 978 Member
    From what you've said it sounds like you have started this new regime in the last 3 weeks. This that's the case I will agree that it's probably just water weight. It is very common to drop a reasonable amount of water weight within the first couple of weeks (especially if you have started limiting carbs, but also otherwise).

    Otherwise, if you're 100% sure that you're logging correctly, it could be that you're underestimating your burn. If you're gyming 3 times a week then depending on the intensity and the length of the sessions, you could very well be in the active band (I'm assuming you're using TDEE calculators for this part, so I'm running off those numbers).

    There's nothing wrong with using TDEE calculators to give you a calorie estimate for your daily burn, but I will talk about the MFP method briefly as well.

    If you're using MFP's calorie estimates, then you should be logging the exercises that you do, and how long you're doing them for. It'll give you an estimate as to how many calories you're burning and the app is designed to eat back those calories. For activity levels on the app, you put in how active you are not including intentional exercise (so ignoring the gym, everything else). This basically mean how active is your job. If you sit at a computer all day, you're probably sedentary, however if your job involves lots of manual labour like if you're a builder, then you'd put it as very active. The rest is a sliding scale.
  • NovusDies
    NovusDies Posts: 8,940 Member
    You are wise not to trust the scale other than total weight.

    This most likely answer is inflated results due to initial water weight losses which can happen during week 1 and 2 as @tiptoethruthetulips suggested.

    It is also possible you are either more active than you entered or the calorie numbers are simply wrong for you. The numbers you get are based on averages and there are exceptions.

    It is less likely it is logging errors but not impossible.

    It takes some time for under-eating to be really bad for you. Unless you are feeling symptoms like being weak or dizzy you can wait until you have 3 weeks of data (because you are male) that do not have big water drops to determine your rate of loss. If you are feeling symptoms you should increase your calories.
  • monso06
    monso06 Posts: 20 Member
    edited January 2019
    Yes I started 3 weeks ago. Sometimes my weight doesn't change for a few days, and sometimes the scale drops a whole kilogram overnight. I hoped a diagnostic scale would be more consistent than the cheap ones. Hopefully it's alright for longer periods.

    For example this is the last week:

    z3AB6lS.png

    There's a big drop in the last few days. Even averaging with the beginning of the week, it's still a couple of kgs suddenly gone. That has me a bit worried.

    I don't input the gym in the app. Subtracting burned calories just to increase my food intake (and eat them back), had me confused.

    So the way I see it, I just eat the same amount every day (my BMR) and exercise to burn more than I eat. @Deviette Maybe that's not a good method?

    At the gym I typically spend 1 hour of cardio (moderate to intense) and 30 mins of light lifting. The machines are a bit inaccurate but I think a session should be around 500kcal. Maybe that's more than light activity?

    Outside of the gym I pretty much sit at a computer all day so I didn't bother counting my daily activities.

    To be honest I do feel a bit dizzy at times, but mainly when I eat too late. On schedule, I eat plenty of low calorie food and feel fine.

    Anyway, I plan on having a checkup after one month to look for deficiencies. Thanks for any tip!
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