Having trouble levelling out weight loss

2»

Replies

  • MadisonMolly2017
    MadisonMolly2017 Posts: 10,953 Member
    sofrances wrote: »
    psychod787 wrote: »
    sofrances wrote: »
    Did anyone else have trouble levelling out weight loss when starting maintenance?

    I'm consuming 2600 calories per day, and although I have the occasional hungry day, many days I have to force myself to eat more to reach this target.

    It seems kind of perverse for a person with my history of weight issues to be forcing themselves to eat when my body is saying "I'm full!"

    However, if my current trends continue, I'll bottom out of my maintenance range in a week or two.

    I know this sounds like a good problem to have, especially when I have entertained the "will dieting wreck my metabolism" worry. And I may look back on this post with envy if and when things get more difficult.

    I'm determined not to let free sugars back into my life (apart from a big piece of carrot cake when my birthday swings around :smile: ), so i can't just eat a bucket of ice cream, and although I'm exercising a lot in terms of absolute minutes, most of it is only moderate intensity, and much of it i enjoy, plus its good for me for reasons other than weight.

    Did anyone else find themselves in the same boat at the start of maintenance?

    There is some evidence that as you start increasing calories, NEAT increases accidentally, if so CONGRATS! you are a hyper responder.You get to eat more. There is also a second option and a third. You could be slightly hyper-metabolic post weight loss and tdee will normalize or you might not be tracking accurately. Not intentionally, but errors in picking data entries. You might also might be more active than you realize. I'm just shooting in the dark here, best wishes!

    Hope its the NEAT thing. Its definitely easier to get off the couch when I'm lighter. Plus sitting down is less comfortable with less padding! :smile:

    I'll prepare myself for the possibility of my TDEE stabilising and me having to cut calories down again a bit though. Thanks for the heads up.

    @sofrances Sitting down is totally comfortable again now after strengthening butt muscles which surprisingly are key to balance :)
  • MadisonMolly2017
    MadisonMolly2017 Posts: 10,953 Member
    sofrances wrote: »
    There's no way I can eat more than 3600 cals of healthy food every day. I guess I will have to try reducing the exercise a bit.

    I am doing between 1 and 2.5 hours every day, most days close to 1.5, although most of that is walking, so not particularly strenuous. Its a shame, walking with a podcast or audiobook has rapidly become my favourite part of the day.

    My dr specified 10K steps a day every day - rest of my life. The health results have been amazing.
    I average a little under 2 hours now.
    Is there a reason you don’t want to add healthy olive oil, walnuts (I eat unsalted), or avocado. These foods have nutrients that are recommended for health.

    I know you will find a solution that works for you... it’s all very individual & can be a fun, creative process of discovery...

    For ex I don’t like oils or avocados
    So I eat unsalted nuts (I’ll overeat salted but not unsalted, I learned) And peanut butter, some cheese and some 82% dark choc

    You will find your ideal solution!!
  • MadisonMolly2017
    MadisonMolly2017 Posts: 10,953 Member
    sofrances wrote: »
    I'm 6 foot 1 (187cm), male and I'm not even technically a healthy weight, but I'm a long way from where I started and want to maintain for a while to prove I can and to let my body get used to the changes. I'm currently 91.3kg or 205 pounds. I have been adding calories for a while, since I started with a budget of 2000. 2600 isn't prior to exercise its just the point I have reached so far, experimentally raising my budget every week or two. The app gives me 2440 before exercise at my current weight. I have been using libra to track trends since I was on 2000.

    @sofrances A Great Plan!!
    I maintained for 1-2 weeks every 10 lbs because I didn’t want to go lower than I could maintain.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,530 Member
    Ok so there is less of a panic.

    Glad to see you're looking into sustainability.

    There are two aspects to that: sustaining your eating habits and sustaining your exercise regiment.

    I love audiobooks/podcasts. Sometimes they have to be put aside due to life. You could experiment with a forced rest day

    Healthy eating is great. But there will exist restaurant meals post COVID. There will also exist family outings and friends. Getting a handle on things like that while still losing may be helpful for the long term.

    The equation is simple.... you will have to continue to adjust till you stop losing.

    On the plus side, being at overweight and having room to move down means that you can do a humongously long intro to maintenance (losing at -250 or less a week). This gives you option to TRY things while you remain focused on slow slow loss and may help you weather some likely appetite related storms you may encounter
  • sofrances
    sofrances Posts: 156 Member
    edited August 2020
    PAV8888 wrote: »
    Healthy eating is great. But there will exist restaurant meals post COVID.

    I never ate out much anyway, to be honest. Weekly Sunday lunches with the extended family, on the other hand, may prove more of a challenge. Since there's no hope of accurately calorie counting it, my plan was to either fast the rest of the day or have a bowl of porridge to tide me over in the afternoon.

  • Strudders67
    Strudders67 Posts: 978 Member
    I was out for a Sunday lunch today. I also couldn't accurately count, but I came up with a reasonable estimate using entries I already have in my diary for similar things that I've cooked in the past (ie I already had a roast potatoes entry, a roast lamb entry and a cauliflower cheese one). The amount of oil, cheese etc will not be identical, but the serving sizes are probably similar so it's going to be a good approximation. I then had to guesstimate the amount of other veg that I put on my plate and used the largest Yorkshire Pudding entry I could in the database! We had birthday cake too - but the cake was so big that we each got given an additional slice to bring home - which meant I could weigh it at home and have a reasonable idea as to how much I ate earlier.

    I ate something for breakfast, but haven't eaten since lunch (and am now about to go to bed). I was also slightly under my cals for the last few days in anticipation of a big lunch today.
  • sofrances
    sofrances Posts: 156 Member
    edited September 2020
    On 2800 calories now, but still losing. The good news in I am almost a healthy BMI. The bad news is I only meant to get to under 27! I may have to try increasing calories by a large amount just to see if I can put a stop to the loss. Hope its not all a scale malfunction, anyway!
  • Strudders67
    Strudders67 Posts: 978 Member
    Do you know what rate you are losing weight at? Look at your figures for the last few weeks and work out what your rate of loss is. Add the corresponding number of calories on to the number of calories that you've been eating and you should find that you start maintaining that weight.

    2lb / 1kg a week is a 1000 calorie deficit. 1lb / 0.5kg is a 500 calorie deficit and 0.5lb / 0.25kg is a 250 deficit.

    I got to maintenance just as lock down started - and suddenly lost another couple of kg without trying. For a couple of weeks, I even changed the set-up in MFP to 'Gain weight' in order to stop me losing any more. After that, I went back to 'maintain current weight' and have stayed where I was for last few months. However, I now aim to eat slightly over the number of calories that MFP gives me, rather than ever being under.
  • sofrances
    sofrances Posts: 156 Member
    edited September 2020
    According to Libra I'm losing 1kg per week. But even with exercise MFP puts me at a defecit of less than 500 most days. My assumption has always been that these apps overestimate exercise calories. Also, i have been scaling back exercise a bit recently...
  • mylittlerainbow
    mylittlerainbow Posts: 822 Member
    I'm going to let my scale help me decide, too. I had gained back most of my weight after maintaining for a number of years (retiring and starting to eat meals out and travel a lot was not a good thing!) and was heavier again for three years, but I've just gotten back to the top of my goal weight range in the past few weeks.

    I next spent 2 weeks at 100 calories per day higher than my reduction phase limit and am now in a 2-week period at 200 calories per day higher than my reduction phase. I have one more stint of that (my calorie limit was calculated at several places to be somewhere between 1322 and 1430, depending on which calculator you go by) and then I'll be at what is supposed to be my maintenance range.

    But I'll continue weighing myself weekly and will tweak it up or down depending on how that goes. (I left myself a cushion when I went into this transitional mode by being at the TOP of my goal range so that I can lose a few more pounds during this 6 weeks, as I expect and as has already been happening, without worrying about getting too low.) And I don't eat back any of my exercise calories, so it's more a matter of keeping active and keeping my metabolism high and tautening my skin a bit and I don't really worry about the accuracy of MFP.

Categories