I need help about my metabolism please (weight loss)

dexter_lamens · August 2020

Hi,

So i've been dieting for about 9 weeks now and lost about 1.5kg per week.
I eat very healthy and weigh my food and write everything down.
I eat around 1200 to 1300 calories a day.
I'm 30 years and started at around 95-96 kg.
My height is 193 cm so my ideal weight is somewhere in between 69 and 93 kg.
My goal is to stay at around 12% bodyfat and also work on my abs, which i train about 20 minutes every day.
So right now i'm at about 82 kg and i need to get to around 75 kg for +- 12% bodyfat.

This is my problem:
If i keep eating say 1200 calories a day until i reach 75 kg.
And from there start eating 2500 calories again every day, i think that won't be a good thing for my goal and metabolism.
I read alot about gaining weight after a slow metabolism but i'd like to know how fast i can get my metabolism up again.
If it even changed after 3 months of 1200 calories a day dieting. (please tell me if you know more cause i have no idea)
Lets say i start eating 1900 calories at 77 kg for about a month until i hit 75 kg and after that start eating +- 2500 calories again.

Will that be insufficient or is there no slow metabolism to begin with.

I just want to say that i have no problem eating healthy so that won't be a problem after dieting.
I only ever drink water since i'm 18 and i really love healthy food, it not only tastes great but also makes me feel good.

Please help me.

harper16 · August 2020

Why does your post day that you're both 30 years old, and 18 years old?

dexter_lamens · August 2020

Thank you for replying harper.
I feel pretty good doing this diet tbh.
And i mean i only drink water for 12 years now since i started drinking only water at 18.

harper16 · August 2020

dexter_lamens wrote: »

Thank you for replying harper.
I feel pretty good doing this diet tbh.
And i mean i only drink water for 12 years now since i started drinking only water at 18.

The minimum a sedentary male should be eating is 1500 calories a day. Set your activity level before any added exercise, log any exercise separate and eat back those calories. Set your weight loss goal at 1 lb a week.

dexter_lamens · August 2020

Well that doesn't help with my problem tho.

harper16 · August 2020

dexter_lamens wrote: »

Well that doesn't help with my problem tho.

I think it would help you out in the long run if you ate more calories. Hopeful an expert of metabolism will weigh in with a response. How are you determining your body fat percentage?

@annpt77 I'm going to tag you because you always give such great advice.

dexter_lamens · August 2020

I use several calculators. Watched alot of videos and seen alot of pictures of percentages.
Also looked at myself and my guess is that i started at 30%+ body fat and now i am at 21%.
Everything falls in place mostly so i believe i'm at 21% now give or take ofcourse. http://fitness.bizcalcs.com/Calculator.asp?Calc=Body-Fat-Navy

Lietchi · August 2020

You need to start eating more, now.

Losing 1.5kg (3.3lbs for non decimal people) per week is a clear sign that you are not eating enough, it's much too fast for someone who is now already at a healthy BMI of 22. You are losing muscle mass as well as fat, that's pretty much guaranteed at this speed of loss.

Going to 75 would give you a BMI of 20. I'm not convinced that's a good idea, that's pretty low. Personally I would recommend not losing any more weight and focusing on recomposition (maintaining weight while losing fat and gaining muscle).

But if you really want to lose some more weight, choose a weight loss rate of 0,25kg per week and eat the calorie number that gives you. Perhaps don't increase your calories from one day to the next, increase it over a few days, but you should start eating more in the very near future.

Geneveremfp · August 2020

Lietchi wrote: »

You need to stay eating more, now.

Losing 1.5kg (3.3lbs for non decimal people) per week is a clear sign that you are not eating enough, it's much too fast for someone who is now already at a healthy BMI of 22. You are losing muscle mass as well as fat, that's pretty much guaranteed at this speed of loss.

Going to 75 would give you a BMI of 20. I'm not convinced that's a good idea, that's pretty low. Personally I would recommend not losing any more weight and focusing on recomposition (maintaining weight while losing fat and gaining muscle).

But if you really want to lose some more weight, choose a weight loss rate of 0,25kg per week and eat the calorie number that gives you. Perhaps don't increase your calories from one day to the next, increase it over a few days, but you should start eating more in the very near future.

This this this this!

Please don't lose any more muscle. Your 1.5kg a week will probably include a chunk of muscle and it takes a lot of hard work to rebuild muscle so its really not worth it whilst trying to lose fat.

Some people with more experience of this will tell you that when you eat too little you feel fine until suddenly you don't feel fine at all.

dexter_lamens · August 2020

I build muscle and have very high protein intake.
Again not the answer i asked about.

dexter_lamens · August 2020

What is this talk about what happened and what i should have done.
I'm asking for something that i need help with going forward cause i lost 1.5kg each week for 9 weeks.
And all i hear about is stuff i have no use for right now plus i don't agree with most of it after reading tens of hours of articles online.
You can easily lose more then 250 grams a week healthy.
Plus Lietchi thinks a bmi of 20 is not a good idea? While my bmi can even go to 18.5 and still be healhy. All this talk about the past and what i have no use for. Just nonsense and incorrect facts as well.

Some advice, answer peoples question or just don't reply.

janejellyroll · August 2020

dexter_lamens wrote: »

I build muscle and have very high protein intake.
Again not the answer i asked about.

You're not building muscle on 1,200 calories a day.

BMI is population level information. There is no guarantee that you will personally be healthy at 18.5 or that it is necessarily a good weight for you. Even if a BMI of 18.5 is healthy for you personally, that doesn't mean it is healthy for you to undereat in order to get there.

kimny72 · August 2020

dexter_lamens wrote: »

What is this talk about what happened and what i should have done.
I'm asking for something that i need help with going forward cause i lost 1.5kg each week for 9 weeks.
And all i hear about is stuff i have no use for right now plus i don't agree with most of it after reading tens of hours of articles online.
You can easily lose more then 250 grams a week healthy.
Plus Lietchi thinks a bmi of 20 is not a good idea? While my bmi can even go to 18.5 and still be healhy. All this talk about the past and what i have no use for. Just nonsense and incorrect facts as well.

Some advice, answer peoples question or just don't reply.

You asked how to protect your metabolism. That has been answered. The answer is to dramatically slow down your rate of loss.

Losing aggressively fast when you don't have much weight to lose causes muscle loss. Your body can only burn so much fat at one time, so if you lose too fast it will burn muscle for energy. This will happen regardless of what you eat or how you work out. And lower muscle mass means you burn less calories. Eating more now to slow down your rate of loss will help regardless of what you've done in the past.

Also, undereating over an extended period of time can cause adaptive thermogenesis, meaning your body learns to get by burning less calories.

If you continue on the course you are, once you get to goal, the way to "repair" your metabolism will be to spend months and possibly years slowly reverse dieting, rebuilding the muscle you lost, and dealing with unpredictable water weight swings and bouts of fatigue as your body attempts to repair itself.

lorrpb · August 2020

There is a lot of myth surrounding your metabolism. It’s a great way for companies to make $. Follow the wise advice from fellow MFPers above about making sure you’re eating enough right now. The future will sort itself out when you get there.

heybales · August 2020

dexter_lamens wrote: »

I build muscle and have very high protein intake.
Again not the answer i asked about.

You aren't building muscle mate.

Not eating 1200 - which is minimum for a sedentary female.
You a sedentary female?

Now - it could be that your logging of food calories is just terrible and you are in fact eating much more.

Really doesn't matter if you are making a large % of that 1200 protein - for a male at your weight your body is already adapted to try to protect from this foolishness.

Do any of the sites you get this "info" from site study references for information that is actually true and tested?

For instance - you mention wanting to work on your abs - so you do 20 min a day on them.

Do you mean lose fat there, and so you think there is spot reducing possible?
If that is the kind of information you have gained to make you think that is possible - you have likely been mislead on many more things.

Yes - you should slowly start increasing your calories each week to a reasonable level right now to stop losing muscle mass.

For some people in a study, where their body has suppressed their metabolism - it took over a year to get it back to the point it could have been at.

The kicker is - you really never had to get to that state anyway.
Fast weight loss is the recipe for the majority that fail to keep lost weight off - setting up a terrible yo-yo diet routine with less and less muscle mass each time.

Study at the bottom of this study reference.
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/heybales/view/reduced-metabolism-tdee-beyond-expected-from-weight-loss-616251

scarlett_k · August 2020

You are going to feel very unwell if you continue eating so little.

SuzySunshine99 · August 2020

dexter_lamens wrote: »

I build muscle and have very high protein intake.
Again not the answer i asked about.

You are wanting people to answer a question that is not based in fact.
That's like if you posted..."I am raising unicorns in my backyard. What should I feed them?".
And people responded..."There's no such thing as unicorns."
Would you get mad that they didn't just answer your query and not question the BASIS of what you are asking? There's a lot of good advice here, I hope you follow it.

Watchoit · August 2020

As far as I know, once your muscle mass increases so does your rate of intake.

TeaBea · August 2020

dexter_lamens wrote: »

I build muscle and have very high protein intake.
Again not the answer i asked about.

You are not building lean muscle while eating less the the default minimum for an adult male. You are more likely losing muscle, which means you aren't effectively lower body fat % as much as you can. Google skinny-fat.

Recomposition is what you should be looking into. Eat maintenance calories and strength train (progressive lifting).

DanaDark · August 2020

During a caloric deficit, you don't really make any muscle. Your body is in a catabolic state (break stuff down). During this period, it'll break down fat and muscle in order to achieve its energy needs. By exercising (weight training) during this period, your body notes it actually needs to muscle and will favor the fat more. This helps retain more muscle during weight loss.

At 1.5kg loss a week, that is definitely a super aggressive weight loss regime and it is guaranteed to have lost you some muscle. But so long as you do some weight exercises, this shouldn't be any issue since no matter what, with weight loss there is always muscle loss.

Your question is on metabolism. It is very unlikely anything is wrong with yours. Simply put, as you lose weight, you're carrying around less weight, so you spend fewer calories. Your metabolism didn't change, the amount of work you're doing per day did.

Additionally, any time you start eating more, you will gain weight. A lot of water weight. Water is required to store carbohydrate energy (stored in muscle), required for food processing (intestines), replenishes any dehydration, and offsets sodium intake (more food = more sodium). And we're not talking grams, we're talking kgs/pounds of water.

NovusDies · August 2020

dexter_lamens wrote: »

Hi,

So i've been dieting for about 9 weeks now and lost about 1.5kg per week.
I eat very healthy and weigh my food and write everything down.
I eat around 1200 to 1300 calories a day.
I'm 30 years and started at around 95-96 kg.
My height is 193 cm so my ideal weight is somewhere in between 69 and 93 kg.
My goal is to stay at around 12% bodyfat and also work on my abs, which i train about 20 minutes every day.
So right now i'm at about 82 kg and i need to get to around 75 kg for +- 12% bodyfat.

This is my problem:
If i keep eating say 1200 calories a day until i reach 75 kg.
And from there start eating 2500 calories again every day, i think that won't be a good thing for my goal and metabolism.
I read alot about gaining weight after a slow metabolism but i'd like to know how fast i can get my metabolism up again.
If it even changed after 3 months of 1200 calories a day dieting. (please tell me if you know more cause i have no idea)
Lets say i start eating 1900 calories at 77 kg for about a month until i hit 75 kg and after that start eating +- 2500 calories again.

Will that be insufficient or is there no slow metabolism to begin with.

I just want to say that i have no problem eating healthy so that won't be a problem after dieting.
I only ever drink water since i'm 18 and i really love healthy food, it not only tastes great but also makes me feel good.

Please help me.

Your problem, as you say, originates in the continued practice of eating 1200 calories. You are correct that jumping from 1200 calories to 2500 calories could be a problem. You are incorrect about the reason. The reason it could be a problem is because you are undereating currently. It has nothing to do with your metabolism. Your metabolism will bounce back.

Right now you are losing weight but you are doing so in a way that is leaving a higher fat percentage than you realize because muscle is also being used.

No matter how you look at your problem the answer is to start eating more now and slow down your rate of loss. Even if your faulty assumption about your metabolism was the problem the answer is still to eat more calories.

Oh and you are also wrong about eating healthy. Healthy eating starts with eating enough calories. You can eat all the vegetables you want but if you are not eating enough calories IT IS UNHEALTHY.

I need help about my metabolism please (weight loss)

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