Trying to lose weight

BlackBartBlues wrote: »

It is calories in, calories out.

Go to tdeecalculator.net and find out what your maintenance calories are. This is the amount of calories you need to eat daily to maintain your current weight. The tool also gives you the calorie deficit you need to reduce 0.5lbs a week (which is 3500 calories total, 500 per day). You can then adjust accordingly based on your activity levels.

That said, 7 lbs a month is great weight loss. That is like a 1000 calorie deficit a day. You are doing it right in my opinion. When the weight loss slows, just increase the intensity of exercise and you should still stay on track.

I think you have a typo(s).

3500 calories is roughly a pound, yes. So:

0.5 pounds a week is a 250 calorie daily deficit (7 days x 250 calories = 1750 calories = 3500 / 2)
1 pound a week is 500 daily deficit (7 days x 500 calories = 3500 calories)
2 pounds a week is (yes) 1000 daily deficit (7 days x 1000 calories = 7000 calories = 3500 x 2)

I'd also point out that using a TDEE calculator averages your planned exercise into your daily calorie goal, whereas the calculator built into MFP does not include exercise in base calories. If one uses a TDEE calculator, they should not manually log and eat back exercise exercise calories. If one lets MFP calculate base calories, they should manually log and eat back exercise calories (or a reasonable chunk of them if worried that the exercise is over-estimated). Using a 24x7 fitness tracker is another option.

Some people like eating the same number of calories every day, and are good about actually doing their planned exercise. A TDEE calculator is a good solution for those people. Other people have more variable exercise, and prefer to eat more when they actually do the exercise. The standard MFP method is a good solution for those people. People get confused (and have difficulties) when they mix up the methods.

Regardless of TDEE calculator vs. MFP calculation, a good approach is to follow the target pretty consistently for 4-6 weeks, then evaluate actual losses compared to goal loss rate. The calculators (TDEE or MFP) only estimate. They're close for most people, but further off for a few.

OP, your current loss rate is about the fastest I'd suggest you be trying to lose, at your current size. There's only so much fat a body can metabolize per day, per pound of fat we have. Losing too fast creates health risks, including risk of losing unnecessarily large amounts of lean tissue (including muscle) alongside fat loss, something we as non-adolescent (heh) women we can ill afford. Keeping protein intake on the high side will also avoid this latter risk. Beyond that, certain health conditions become bigger risks if we lose fast, including things like gall bladder problems, to name just one.

I lost too fast for a while (almost 2 pounds a week at 150-something pounds, for me). I felt fine, until I suddenly didn't, and became weak and fatigued. I was lucky nothing worse happened. Though I corrected quickly, it took several weeks to regain normal strength and energy. No one needs that.

The implication is that as we get lighter, loss should slow down. One common rule of thumb suggested here is to lose no more than 1% of current body weight per week, at most, unless severely obese and under close medical supervision, and slower than that is suggested once within about 25-50 pounds of goal weight.

I know we all want to lose weight fast and get it over with, but not only are there reduced health risk with slower loss, and potentially higher energy levels, but it also gives us better ways to experiment with methods that will help us stay at a healthy weight permanently, because we don't need the truly extreme habits that might be required for fast loss. I started at about your weight (183), though taller (5'5") and older (59-60 at the time, now 64). Even being more conservative in loss rate, I still lost 50 pounds in well short of a year. It adds up! (And yes, I'm still maintaining a healthy weight now, 4+ years later.)