Day 50 of the journey - Question about calories in/out

Wise MFPeops said wise things to OP.

The last one was there just to beat up on the dastardly @AnnPT77 because three simple ascii characters are less verbose than three emoticons!

Err.... to the OP. You're asking. This means you're thinking. The honeymoon period is running to a close. That's probably good!

In 50 days you haven't found a new lifestyle yet. But you're correct in that you needed to think. And you need to keep on thinking about sustainable, incremental, changes that are going to be easy to adhere to. Changes that when taken together will keep pushing you towards a normal as opposed to an obese weight. Changes that don't depend on white knuckling your losses or on being "rewarded" by the scale for the "work" you do. You want to start "naturally" thinking like a thin person.

And yes, you should be planning on several year for this new YOU project. Not several years of suffering; but, several years of some level of mindfulness. At the very least, your YOU project should probably become one of your main hobbies over the next few years. Hobbies can be fun. But you do have to put a little bit of effort into them. So making sure you continue to have fun is a big part of the new hobby. Things that are too painful or too hard are seldom fun. Experimenting with adding satiating and satisfying, good value for your Calories, things to your daily menus? Now THAT is fun! So you do need to be eating enough to be able to experiment with all the goodies you get to try now so that you can have a good arsenal available to you when you get to maintenance!

I prefer to view 1% as a limit, not a goal. Sure as a morbidly obese person you can probably exceed 1%, maybe even hit as high as 1.5% for a short time period without major body composition side effects. However this doesn't mean that there will be NO side effects in the hormonal and behavioural department. And I don't like to deliberately increase the possibility of unwanted side effects!

Your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) comes to around 3400 (1600 you eat, 1800 for your losses). I am of the opinion that a deficit equal to 25% of TDEE is an aggressive level of weight loss even for a person in your position. 1000 Cal deficit our of 3400 would still be more than 25%. And aiming for a 2lb a week loss would yield a good 100lbs in a year. That's not exactly minor. Or slow. Or too far from your goal weight probably. BTW 2500-2600 is an "average" intake for an "average" male. Is there something wrong with aiming to be... "average"?

You have the great advantage of youth right now. You can choose to make this a one time long term transition. Or you can spend the rest of your life fighting with weight regain and loss and regain and loss and regain....

A lot of the weight loss and maintenance for formerly obese people is played out in the head. Keeping that head in the game long term is what it will take for you to win.

I've added things that I enjoy and that promote where I want to be. I did end up dropping some things I enjoyed that didn't promote where wanted to be. TV time is now zero; MFP forum time is, err, ... high. Book reading is almost zero. Audio-books are loads of fun when walking outside!

<PS: I love the range of 2500-2600. It was my average intake during my first 12 months of logging on MFP. I lost 72.5lbs during that year from 240.6 to 168.1 (5ft 7.8", age 50). My deficit was 695 Cal a day or 21.35% on average, I used trendweight to evaluate my weight level changes.>

slowregal661 wrote: »

Thanks for all this information, you bring up alot of good points, and yes, 2lbs a week is 100lbs in a year, which is an amazing feat.

After weighing myself this morning, I have lost another pound in 3 days and that puts me at 44.6lbs to lose to reach my "initial weight goal" of 240 pounds. Once I reach the 240 pounds goal, i'll set another one, probably somewhere between 200 and 215 pounds.

What you're saying about being young, and making a decision to reach a healthy weight right now and maintain it for another 40-50 years is also very true. I have, for a long time, been putting weight loss on the side with the excuse of "Ah i'm still young, and I still have a few more years to lose the weight" but honestly, that is a very bad mindset, and right now i'm on the right track. All I need to do is to be consistent, and if that requires eating more, I will.

That being said, after 50 days of eating roughly 1600 calories a day, I find it somewhat difficult to eat the extra 400. I'll have to grab something I really enjoy eating to consume that extra 400 each day.

Anything calorie dense but not too filling can help, especially as you adjust: Nuts, nut butter, more olive oil on salad or veggies, full fat dairy instead of low/non-fat. But non-nutrition-dense, calorie-dense treats are fine, too, once all the nutritional boxes are checked.

Great question.

As someone who has gone from obese to normal weight to obese again, I am a cautionary tale, and I'm approaching my weight loss TOTALLY different this time.

When I lost the weight, and got extremely close to a normal weight for my height, I lost it at a rate of 1.5 lbs per week.

This was way. Too. Fast. My body did not adjust to this, I didn't give it time to. And when I entered maintenance when I got to a Normal BMI, my body DID NOT want to maintain. I was doing extremely unhealthy things just to try to maintain a normal body weight at that point.

Now, even though I am obese and can healthily lose 1 lb+ per week, I refuse. My strategy for the first 30 days of MFP logging was to *maintain* my obese weight. I did that, with no fluctuations. Once I 100% knew what my maintenance calories were (about 2000 per day), I reduced them by 200 to 1800 per day and I'm doing light exercise (walking / yoga) daily. I lost about 2 lbs in the first two weeks, but I attribute that to water weight fluctuations.

Currently I'm on day 44 and aiming for a 0.5 lb a week loss AT MOST. I'm also keeping my goals realistic, not thinking about "ultimate goal weight!"

Every 5 lbs I lose, I am going to re-evaluate my intake/burn rates and adjust MFP accordingly to make sure I don't lose faster than that.

Apologies for writing a book, but I truly believe that slow and steady "wins" the race 🐢

slowregal661 wrote: »

Update : Day 95, 46 pounds down!
I've gotten used to the new eating habits, and the weight is dropping by itself, feeling/looking much better.

One thing i'm not sure about, is once i'm down to my desired weight, (about 30 more pounds), how will it be to maintain the weight? Will it just slow down and be alot more manageable? I'm currently eating about 1800 calories a day, and still dropping 2 pounds a week.

Can any1 share a weight loss + maintaining story?

Right now, I know I will reach my weight, there is no doubt, and it doesn't matter how long it'll take, i'm more worried about maintaining it later on.

Thanks!

If you're eating 1800 and averaging 2 pounds a week loss, your TDEE is around 2800 now. It won't decline dramatically with 30 more pounds loss just from the lighter body (can't speak to fatigue effects).

It won't slow down automatically, except insofar as either fatigue, or lighter body, slow it down, if you keep eating at 1800.

Everyone's maintenance transition story is different (and you'll find some threads about that over in the Maintaining part of the forums).

Personally, I thought an intentionally slowed weight loss was a better plan as I got lighter, so I was gradually increasing calories over a period of months to slow down the loss intentionally. Even once I got to goal weight, I intentionally added back calories gradually, 100 or so daily at a time, with a week or so between adds (for a variety of reasons).

In that kind of setting, transition to maintenance was easy: Just add that last small tweak, no big change in eating habits, hunger, energy, exercise or anything else. Throughout loss, other than the calorie deficit, I'd been eating pretty much how I planned/expected to eat in maintenance. Ditto for exercise.

And maintenance has been fine since, staying well within a healthy weight range for 4+ years now. The only change I've seen is that in the last few months to a year, in the cases where I decide to eat indulgently, my capacity/appetite isn't as high in that scenario as it was in early maintenance.

I have no idea what it would've been like if I'd kept losing at breakneck pace all the way, but I see others have commented on that.

Best wishes!

If you can eat above minimum (which is 1500 for guys) and still have a 1000 calorie deficit daily while feeling satiated/fueled/energized by what you are eating: you are fine.

The adage around MFP that if you have only a little weight to lose then you should aim for slower weight loss is a numbers thing. Many people close to goal weight, especially women, do not burn enough in a day for a 750-1000 calorie per day deficit.

As for what comes next: eventually you'll need to be in the habit of eating more in order to maintain. Perhaps when you get down to 10 pounds left, increase your daily intake by 500. Then monitor your progress over the next 2 months. Then increase by another 300 or so. It will take some trial & error to get the right # to aim for ultimately.

You may choose to decrease your cardio - especially as it sounds like you are particularly focused on building muscle. Decreasing cardio means you would not need to increase your calories as much as if you kept up your current activity.

You may shoot past your goal slightly. It can be mentally hard to jump from eating 1800 cals daily to 2800-3000. If that happens, it just means more trial & error to find the right combination of activity & food.

It sounds like your healthy weight (220 I think is what you're aiming for?) for a fit, active male will still mean a pretty high TDEE. My husband is 5'9" and presently well over 200 and without trying he burns 2500 in a day. When he is active & exercising its more like 3500-4000. When he is focused, he can drop pounds at a rate that I never could. A super active/busy day for me would 2200-2300 calories burned while my normal is 1650-1750.

slowregal661 wrote: »

Yep im def doing things faster than that. I realize it's too fast, but can't help it lol. What do you think is more likely to happen once I reach my goal? I've been doing so much excercice, gym in the morning, cycle at night, eat lots of protein, I was stuck at 258 pounds for almost 3 weeks, and then dropped 4 pounds in a week, without changing anything.

All I know, is i've never been in a better shape and I feel great.

Thanks!