Eating Numbers: Can I have your thoughts please guys?

I would say you are aiming to lose too fast, you should be aiming to lose no more than 2 lbs/week, you risk a larger % of your loss coming from muscle if your deficit is too large.

Your numbers indicate to me that you are taller than me. My BMI at your current weight was only .4 lower than your starting BMI.

Your current weight is just about when I started tracking on MFP several months into losing weight.

I started tracking because I realized that yes, I was losing weight. But I was doing so in a way that was not likely to result in long term weight management.

Sure I was eating "healthy" "diet" foods like I was supposed to. And losing fast (at times). And (thankfully) alternating with periods of maintenance due to pre planned trips.

But, I just *knew* deep down inside that as soon as I let go of the diet mindset I was going back to old habits because what I was doing and the way I was eating were just not long term options for me.

So I started on MFP and learned a couple of things by reading
the stickied posts and lurking in the forums (and subsequent to that reading the occasional research paper) and went on to lose to the top of normal BMI over the next 12 months. While eating over 2500 Cal a day on average and creating a 695 Cal a day effective deficit.

And learning about myself.

I didn't get to the high 200's by accident. There were long periods of overeating that took place to get there.

If you asked me 10 years ago if I was an emotional eater I would have genuinely laughed at you. Of course not.

And yet, invariably, when I'm pissed during a phone conversation I pop M&M's (or nuts, or crackers, or chips, or... ) while trying to set the *kittens* straight!

And, often, when I'm done working on something and ready to get up from my chair I discover that I'm hungry. In part because I've been too absorbed to worry about eating and food is overdue. In part because of the reward, relaxation, and social aspect. By not allowing myself to get too hungry I can partially short circuit this.

And I also discovered after a full year on MFP losing weight (plus the previous 11 months of increasing activity and then starting to try and lose weight) was that even 1.5lbs a week for a year was almost too fast for my little brain to keep up with!

I spent another 12 months losing just over 11 lbs and bringing me well within the higher end of normal BMI (23.x to 24.x). And it was only during this time that I finally stopped worrying whether my second leg would fit in my pants. Or disbelieving that my t-shirt would fit. Or that the other person could fit in the doorway with me.

Point being that I think, as I believe I've said before, that you're going too fast.

You need to discover new foods, strategies to control and handle and work around the situations that cause(d) you to overeat. You should put in place new habits and structures around movement / activity and exercise.

These things take time. And the time is not, in my opinion, once your suppressed hormones trigger rebound overeating at the end of a hard restriction. But rather while your hunger is relatively suppressed during an extended restriction.

Slow down and profit from your time losing weight to set yourself up for weight maintenance and management.