Maybe I'm Maintaining?
traxless2009
Posts: 13 Member
On June 17, 2019, I was 198-200 lbs at 6'. I'm a 73 years old male. I've been at 173-174 lbs. for three (3) weeks which has been my goal. My daily calorie goal has been 1,700 (which I established) with a sodium goal of 1,500 mg. I've been under my weekly calorie goal nearly every week by as must as 300-500 calories because of exercising and insufficient daily intake. So I'm thinking that one of the following must explain my maintenance.
1. I'm not accurately counting or measuring calories?
2. I don't need as many calories as MFP suggests because of my age and a slowing metabolism?
3. Three (3) weeks at the same goal weight is only temporary and I will continue to lose weight?
I'm certainly feeling better with slightly increased stamina, but I have lost some strength as measure by the bench pressure (-10%).
I'd be grateful of any insights.
1. I'm not accurately counting or measuring calories?
2. I don't need as many calories as MFP suggests because of my age and a slowing metabolism?
3. Three (3) weeks at the same goal weight is only temporary and I will continue to lose weight?
I'm certainly feeling better with slightly increased stamina, but I have lost some strength as measure by the bench pressure (-10%).
I'd be grateful of any insights.
5
Replies
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Sometimes we need to reassess our goals (after weight loss) which changes our Calorie intake. Sometimes we don't eat enough and our body goes into survival mode by storing food as fat. There will be experts on mfp who know a lot about this and be able to help you understand it better. Good luck & well done so far! 👍😊2
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At your height if you were taking in only 1700 cals you would be still losing.
You can monitor your weight for several more weeks yet before making any adjustment. I calculated your TDEE on an online app, your maintenance is at least 1900, thats based on being sedentary and that takes into account your age.
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The strength metric concerns me a bit - is it a temporary thing perhaps brought about by not enough rest/recovery between sessions or changes in your lifting routine? Is it under-fueling? Another thought I had was to look at the content of what you are eating as well as what your calorie estimate is. There's good data that suggests that we older folks need more protein and that we do best when it's spread throughout the day.1
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Did I understand correctly?
If you’re only undereating by 300-500 a week, it might take 7 to 12 weeks to lose a pound.
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corinasue1143 wrote: »Did I understand correctly?
If you’re only undereating by 300-500 a week, it might take 7 to 12 weeks to lose a pound.
I meant to say 300-500 calories a day. My mistake.
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Your loss was very fast.
You said you're at goal weight?
Therefore... why are you still trying to keep to a deficit so as to lose?
You can choose to increase your calories slowly or fast.
In both cases you can expect small temporary weight increases that should stabilize in short order.
You've also mentioned your weight in ways that make me think you're not using a weight trend app.
You may want to use one and backfill old weigh in data.
It is highly likely your fast weight loss has caused some adaptation which are likely to substantially reverse when you resume eating at maintenance for a long enough period of timem
You're also extremely likely (due to the fast and significant weight loss) to see some significant rebound hunger over the next few months.
Try to control that as best you can while strength training using an established progressive overload program to recover your strength.
If you're still trying to lose, conduct a good 2-3 week diet break and then resume with a -250 level deficit.9 -
I'm old, too.traxless2009 wrote: »On June 17, 2019, I was 198-200 lbs at 6'. I'm a 73 years old male. I've been at 173-174 lbs. for three (3) weeks which has been my goal. My daily calorie goal has been 1,700 (which I established) with a sodium goal of 1,500 mg. I've been under my weekly calorie goal nearly every week by as must as 300-500 calories because of exercising and insufficient daily intake. So I'm thinking that one of the following must explain my maintenance.
1. I'm not accurately counting or measuring calories?
2. I don't need as many calories as MFP suggests because of my age and a slowing metabolism?
3. Three (3) weeks at the same goal weight is only temporary and I will continue to lose weight?
I'm certainly feeling better with slightly increased stamina, but I have lost some strength as measure by the bench pressure (-10%).
I'd be grateful of any insights.
That said, your goals are confusing me. Are you into bodybuilding or weight loss? The two are very different. Bodybuilders have 32" waists, but weigh 220 pounds. Skinny guys have 32" waists, but weigh 160.
Using the scale instead of the tape measure seems to be the easiest (re: lazy) for me, but not the best idea.
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traxless2009 wrote: »On June 17, 2019, I was 198-200 lbs at 6'. I'm a 73 years old male. I've been at 173-174 lbs. for three (3) weeks which has been my goal. My daily calorie goal has been 1,700 (which I established) with a sodium goal of 1,500 mg. I've been under my weekly calorie goal nearly every week by as must as 300-500 calories because of exercising and insufficient daily intake. So I'm thinking that one of the following must explain my maintenance.
1. I'm not accurately counting or measuring calories?
2. I don't need as many calories as MFP suggests because of my age and a slowing metabolism?
3. Three (3) weeks at the same goal weight is only temporary and I will continue to lose weight?
I'm certainly feeling better with slightly increased stamina, but I have lost some strength as measure by the bench pressure (-10%).
I'd be grateful of any insights.
OP, it sounds to me like your question is: It looks to me like I've been eating at a deficit for 3 weeks, but I haven't lost any weight, why is that?
Unfortunately, all three of your possible answers are, well... possible. A TDEE calculator set at "sedentary" says your TDEE would be around 1880 cals. I would guess that a combo of logging errors and over-estimating exercise calorie burns would explain a lot. If the exercise is new, it could also be water retention for muscle repair. It's also possible your fairly aggressive weight loss is also causing some water weight swings, not to mention a bit of a metabolism hit, both of which should slowly regulate I think.
I'd suggest logging super accurately for a couple of weeks (food scale for all solids, double check the entries you are using in the database have the correct calories, make sure you log beverages condiments cooking-oils nibbles everything) just to see if your calories are a bit higher than you thought. It's possible your appetite has increased in response to the weight loss, and you've been eating more without realizing it.
Also, understand you have a maintenance range - your weight will bounce up and down naturally, so don't panic if you see it go up a couple of lbs. Settling into maintenance can be a tricky transition. Make sure you are fueling your workouts.
Congrats on getting to goal!2 -
Personally i dont add exercise as it can be easily misjudged especially as the more fit you become the less calories you burn doing the same activitt. Are you weighing and recording all your food or guesstimating? It could be your metabolism has slowed slightly due to many factors. You could try either upping activity daily or lowering your calorie intake slightly1
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Also if your happy its staying where it is then your doing everything right and ignore the exercise and dont log it. Whatever your calorie intake is its right0
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@lokayshelokaylokayshelokay wrote: »Personally i dont add exercise as it can be easily misjudged especially as the more fit you become the less calories you burn doing the same activitt. Are you weighing and recording all your food or guesstimating? It could be your metabolism has slowed slightly due to many factors. You could try either upping activity daily or lowering your calorie intake slightly
I think you are confusing that if a heavy person and a light person do exactly the same (weight bearing) exercise then yes the heavier person would burn more calories.
But actually as you get more fit you don't tend to do the same exercise - you run further, you lift heavier, you cycle longer, your intensity and duration goes up.
Typically a fit person burns MORE calories than an unfit person. Even in every day life and not just purposeful exercise - stairs not lifts/elevators, walking or cycling not driving a car.....
Personal example: for an hour on a stationary bike my calorie expenditure is up 30% despite being lighter because I'm fitter.
If you think there's some efficiency at play from doing the same exercise then you are massively over-exaggerating the degree, it's so miniscule for most exercise it's an irrelevance.
Not taking exercise into account is an absolute guarantee your estimate is wrong, it's simply not a requirement that exercise estimates have to be precise, reasonable is perfectly good for purpose.
Your BMR estimate, your activity multiplier estimate, your food estimates all have degrees of inaccuracy but you are happy to accept that but not for exercise?6 -
I’d like to thank people for their generous help. I’m reviewing and thinking about all this valuable information. Thank you.3
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I'm impressed with your sodium levels. I struggle to keep mine under 3500.0
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