Does this sound right? Bit confused

goatelope · July 2019

Hi all,

I am 38 years old, female, recovering from an injury so not able to move much / exercise. I weigh 182.6 lbs (devastated) and I am 5 feet 4 inches. I want to lose 2 lbs a week but MFP seems to be suggesting I eat 1200 a day which will only result in 1.3 lbs per week loss? Terrified I wont lose weight.

tinkerbellang83 · July 2019

MFP won't go any lower than 1200 as it's the lowest recommendation for a woman.

As long as you're in a calorie deficit you'll lose weight, you can do that with food alone, you don't actually need exercise (although some form of activity would be good for your health if you doctor gives you the ok) 90% of the battle is a sustainable way of eating, faster isn't necessarily better. If you set it to a pound a week, you'd reach a health weight range (140lbs) within the year and probably find yourself sticking to it rather than being miserable and feeling restricted, being less restrictive will also help you move into maintenance.

At the stats given your BMR (Amount needed for your body to carry out basic functions at rest) is 1491. MyFitnessPal then multiplies it by an activity factor, for sedentary this is 1.25 to determine your NEAT (Calorie burn without exercise - your NEAT will be around 1863 calories.

So as long as you eat less than that amount you will lose weight, if you already calculated that it's 1.3lbs per week loss, why do you think you won't lose weight?

yirara · July 2019

Think of it this way: you should never be eating less than 1200kcal to get proper nutrition.
If you're not heavy enough you simply won't be able to lose 2lbs per week.

To lose 1lbs of weight you need to eat 3500kcal less.
To lose 1lbs per week you thus need to eat 3500kcal less per week, or 500kcal per day
To lose 2lbs per week you thus need to eat 7000kcal less per week, or 1000kcal per day.

Say your body needs 2000kcal per day to neither lose nor gain weight. Then eating 1000 less would leave you at 1000kcal of food per day. That's too low and hence not something this website recommends.

This website http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/#charts gives you about 1880kcal per day to neither gain nor lose weight. MFP uses a similar methodology. 1880-1000 = 880kcal. Even small children need a lot more food than that. So you see it's not possible for you to lose so quickly.

goatelope · July 2019

Thank you very much to both of you!
It helps just to get a bit of moral support.
It sounds right, what you’re saying.
I really am very sedentary so I am going to stick at 1200 per day, keeping it healthy and nutritious. And I will weigh again in a week or two. Thanks again.

tinkerbellang83 · July 2019

goatelope wrote: »

Thank you very much to both of you!
It helps just to get a bit of moral support.
It sounds right, what you’re saying.
I really am very sedentary so I am going to stick at 1200 per day, keeping it healthy and nutritious. And I will weigh again in a week or two. Thanks again.

I do think you should perhaps consider the post @cmriverside made in your other thread regarding your recovery, it's probably best to eat at maintenance for a couple of weeks, the body needs energy to heal, particularly if it was a big surgery. Maybe just focus on nutrition for the next couple of weeks rather than calories?

LyndaBSS · July 2019

I started off at 2 lbs per week and didn't do well sticking to 1200, so changed to a 1 lb loss per week, which upped my calories to 1370 and the weight is flying off.

heybales · July 2019

If you were correct on Activity level, and you logged your food right - yes you'd lose 1.3 lbs weekly.

That would be reasonable if you had close to 30 lbs to lose to healthy weight.
Reasonable rate of loss means body that won't adapt and backfire on you for sustaining and maintaining.

Now - what's reasonable now while recovering from an injury?

No diet actually - unless you just want to drag out recovery longer and potentially make some re-injury easier to accomplish.

Eating at maintenance would be wisest.
Your body will use food eaten to do extra repair on itself, and some extra fat will be lost just from that.

But for eating at maintenance when you have small range of activity - need to read the stickies on how to correctly log what you are eating.

Now's not the time to withhold what the body needs. Later, when fully recovered, pick a rate of loss that matches how much to lose.
Over 50-60 lbs - 2 lbs weekly reasonable.
30-50 - 1.75
15-30 - 1
under 15 - 1/2 lb weekly is reasonable.

Ellevated · July 2019

Hi there. I hope you recover soon! When my goal was slimming down, my results did not reflect even 1lb a week sometimes. (I didn't weigh myself every week but the maths works out that way.) It's achievable. You might be scared you're not going to slim down by doing it this way, but doing nothing probably won't help either. Just take it a day at a time. You have a whole community cheering you on, through good days and not-so-great days! Feel free to add me, if you like.

carold · July 2019

I was in your position a few years ago ( 5'4'' and 183 lbs) I was unable to exercise due to medical problems. I was on 1200 cals a day. Some days I would only have 1000 cals and was able to get down to 140 lbs in about 6 months. Hope this helps

Does this sound right? Bit confused

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