How to stop amount of weight loss from decreasing?

meharmahshahid · July 2020

As you know, the amount of weight loss we have eventually slows down. Are there any helpful tips you guys have up your sleeves that can maximize the amount of weight lost even after like, four or five months of constant dieting? And please add any tips that you know fastens the metabolism permanently too if you have any?

Shortgirlrunning · July 2020

Your weight loss is going to slow no matter what as you get closer to your goal. The size of deficit you can reasonable create is going to get smaller because the number of calories you need to maintain a smaller weight is lower. It’s not about how fast or slow your metabolism is. It’s just math.

Patience is a really important part of weight loss. When you lose weight slowly through sustainable lifestyle changes you are much more likely to reach your goal and keep it off. Don’t worry about how to speed it up.

nanastaci2020 · July 2020

The rate of loss slows down because a smaller body uses less energy. So in the long run, if you keep calories in the same and calories out goes down: your rate of loss slows.

SO your options include increasing your calories out (moving more, increasing intensity of your workouts) or decreasing your calories in (dropping from 1500 to 1300 for example).

You could exercise longer or harder or some combination of the two in order to increase calories out. You can look for active hobbies. You can look for ways to increase activity in your daily life. Such as using the stairs instead of the elevator or getting off the bus one stop early and walking the rest of the way.

meharmahshahid wrote: »

As you know, the amount of weight loss we have eventually slows down. Are there any helpful tips you guys have up your sleeves that can maximize the amount of weight lost even after like, four or five months of constant dieting? And please add any tips that you know fastens the metabolism permanently too if you have any?

janejellyroll · July 2020

Instead of looking at it as a bad thing, why not embrace the positive? It's easier for people with more weight to lose to lose quickly. As you get closer to your goal, it's harder to healthily create the deficit needed for rapid weight loss. This is good because *you're closer to your goal*.

I'm not aware of any tricks that will fasten your metabolism permanently. But if you want to use more calories, making more activity part of your permanent lifestyle will accomplish that. Without my activity, I would need to eat about 1,430 calories a day to maintain my current weight. But with my activity, I'm usually eating about 2,100. That's a lot more!

cmriverside · July 2020

What they said ^^

I would add though - good nutrition makes it easier. By that I mean if you get all your macros and micro-nutrition needs met, it's easier to withstand a deficit at the end.

It was hard for me to even maintain a 250 calorie per day deficit at the end. Really hard. The last 15 pounds took me nine months because I was seriously struggling to stay in that deficit. I can't imagine trying to eat less.

GeneralSTpower · July 2020

Theres actually no way to maintain the rate of weight loss, you had at the start. Its simple, at first your body had larger calorie requirements ,so it was easy to hit that deficit, but as you lose weight this requirement will get lower, and it will become hard to hit a deficit. So yeah, the latter will definitely take more time than the first. But do focus on good nutrition, that is what will prove most vital. And yes, add in more movements.

HeidiCooksSupper · July 2020

Also, the "first week whoosh" can make it look like you've slowed down a whole lot. That first week loss of an inordinate amount of pounds is usually due to water loss as most diets have us switch from a higher sodium consumption to a lower one. Replace, for example, a cup of mac'n'cheese with a cup of green beans and not only have you eliminated a few hundred calories but you've also eliminated several hundred mg of sodium from your diet.

kshama2001 · July 2020

That's not a realistic goal, and everyone I know who maintained fast rates of loss ended up with health problems and/or gaining the weight back.

AnnPT77 · July 2020

From your other thread, I think you told us that you were losing 2 pounds a week or more, at 5'5" and from something like 147 to 139 pounds, since June 1, with a goal of 117-120, so maybe another 20-ish pounds to lose (which would put you at the bottom of the BMI range for our height)?

I would not be trying to keep going at that weight loss rate, frankly.

Staying healthy and strong and energetic, while getting good nutrition, makes the metabolism as fast as its going to be, realistically. Maybe focus on that?

meharmahshahid · July 2020

AnnPT77 wrote: »

From your other thread, I think you told us that you were losing 2 pounds a week or more, at 5'5" and from something like 147 to 139 pounds, since June 1, with a goal of 117-120, so maybe another 20-ish pounds to lose (which would put you at the bottom of the BMI range for our height)?

I would not be trying to keep going at that weight loss rate, frankly.

Staying healthy and strong and energetic, while getting good nutrition, makes the metabolism as fast as its going to be, realistically. Maybe focus on that?

thank you so much! I'm trying to lose as much weight in this quarantine as my schedule otherwise is very packed, but maybe i should slow down a bit.

Strudders67 · July 2020

Also consider what and how much you're going to be eating after this quarantine period ends. Take the time to learn what's sustainable for the longer term otherwise, if you just go back to your old habits, you'll put the weight straight back on.

It doesn't work for everyone, but I'm eating the same stuff as I was before, but with smaller portions of the calorie-dense things like potatoes, rice and pasta. I still have them though. It means I haven't had to radically rethink my shopping or meals, I just cook smaller quantities or cook larger quantities and bag it in to smaller portions to put in the freezer.

springlering62 · July 2020

meharmahshahid wrote: »

,...four or five months of constant dieting?

My best suggestion would be to get out of this mindset altogether. If you are thinking of it as a “constant diet”, that implies that it’s a struggle, an effort and unenjoyable, that you’ve already subconsciously made the decision to revert back to old habits once the “constant” is over.

Make it a lifestyle change. It has to be to stick. And put yourself in the mindset that it’s enjoyable, sustainable, a desire to continue.

There’s foods I want, and certainly can’t control myself around, but I’ve replaced them with other things I found that I enjoy equally, so it’s not a po’ po’ pitiful me look what I can’t eat, it’s more of a wow! I get to eat all that?!!!!

Lietchi · July 2020

springlering62 wrote: »

meharmahshahid wrote: »

,...four or five months of constant dieting?

My best suggestion would be to get out of this mindset altogether. If you are thinking of it as a “constant diet”, that implies that it’s a struggle, an effort and unenjoyable, that you’ve already subconsciously made the decision to revert back to old habits once the “constant” is over.

Make it a lifestyle change. It has to be to stick. And put yourself in the mindset that it’s enjoyable, sustainable, a desire to continue.

There’s foods I want, and certainly can’t control myself around, but I’ve replaced them with other things I found that I enjoy equally, so it’s not a po’ po’ pitiful me look what I can’t eat, it’s more of a wow! I get to eat all that?!!!!

10 times this.

I've been 'dieting' since August last year, 11 months in a row.
Except that I haven't really been dieting, I've been eating more or less the same foods I was eating before, just at different quantities. And perhaps (gradually) making slightly different choices to stay within my calorie goal, but I'm not depriving myself of anything. The only thing that will change as I reach maintenance, will be the number of calories I can eat.
Similar thing for my exercise: I might be exercising a bit more now than I will for maintenance, to stay within my calorie goal for weight loss, but my exercise regime is not something temporary I'm doing while losing weight. It's a habit I've built to ensure my good health and fitness and that I will maintain my goal weight after reaching it.

So whether it lasts 4 months, 11 months or 18 months is pretty irrelevant for me.

PS: my weight loss rate hasn't slowed since I started, because I chose a weight loss rate of 0.5lbs per week from the beginning. My calorie goal has gone down of course, since a smaller body burns less calories, that's inevitable. But my activity level has gone up in such a way that I'm still eating the same number of calories on average despite weighing 40lbs less.

lgfrie · July 2020

The above posters have nailed things well, but here's my two cents, FWIW.

When you lose weight, for every pound you lose, your body burns approximately 5 less calories. So, when you've lost 10 pounds, you burn 50 less calories per day. If you lose 50 pounds, you will burn 250 less calories per day. And so on. This number can vary from 4.8 to 5.6 calories per pound depending on various factors (your age, weight, height, etc), and can be observed by heading on over to TDEEcalculator.net, banging in your own stats, and then running different scenarios with your weight decreased (or increased) 1, 10, 20, etc. pounds.

For this reason, the only way you can maintain the same rate of weight loss is to decrease your intake of food (or ramp up the amount of exercise).

I would strongly caution against chasing this "constant rate of weight loss" rabbit down the hole. My sister lost 80 pounds but became obsessed, frustrated, and discontent with her much slower rate of loss. She kept decreasing and decreasing her calories - which were already not high at 1600 - until she reached the psychological breaking point. You know how this story ends. Today, she is much heavier than the original starting point when she began dieting. Like at least 50 or 60 pounds heavier - I don't know, since she won't discuss her weight anymore. So she has - easily, conservative estimate - gained 130-140 pounds since her diet collapsed. Not all that long ago.

I bring her up to illustrate in a very real way the fundamental problem with trying to hold on to that initial, first-few-months rate of weight loss. There is indeed a way to do it - eat less and then over time less and then still less and then less still - but the problem with that is that you are extremely likely to rebel and regain the weight, and possibly binge your way to a new high weight. Cutting calories in the middle of a diet is very punishing - you are essentially punishing your own success - and I can't think of any one thing that'd be worse to do mid-stream.

Conversely, if you have found a calorie level that works for you, you can just stick with it alllllll the way to maintenance, though of course this will entail a gradual slowdown in weight loss. This is the better course.

How to stop amount of weight loss from decreasing?

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