I never thought I’d say this, but I’m losing too much too fast

weedspot · October 2020

Hi!

I started my diet around a month ago. I was at 80kg (176lbs). My goal is to be at around 70kg (154lbs).
My BMR is 1733 and with my 3-4 weekly workout sessions my maintenance level would be 2382. So I started eating at a deficit, around 1800 calories a day in order to lose 500 (1lbs) per week. For the first 3-4 weeks I lost 3kgs (6lbs).

Except that now, I’m losing more than that. I lost 2 pounds since Monday. And I’m scared that I’ll lose muscle mass. Which is the exact opposite of what I want since I just want to lose fat while building muscle.

Is this normal ? Will it slow down eventually or plateau ? Should I bump up my caloric intake to mitigate my weight loss ?

Dante_80 · October 2020

Don't worry too much about very rapid weight fluctuations. You cannot lose muscle from one day to the next.

sijomial · October 2020

If your weight trend is out of line with your desired rate of weight loss then adjust your calories. After a month you should be seeing your trend reasonably well. From your graph your trend does show a faster rate of loss.

Your calculations are merely an estimate and that estimate may or may not be accurate for you, it really is just a start point and not written in stone. Adjusting based on results and trends (not short term fluctuations) is enitirely sensible.

Deviette · October 2020

Often people find that they drop a lot of scale weight in the first few weeks and then it slows down (especially if they're lowering the amount of carbs they're eating, idk if this applies to you.)

Give it another week or so to see if it levels out or not. If it doesn't, try upping the number of calories you're giving yourself. Remember that the value you're giving yourself is just an estimate based on estimated numbers. If you're underestimating your activity (or the equation is) or over estimating the amount of calories you're eating, then you'll lose weight faster than you want to. Don't go mad adding in more calories, just a 100kcals or so at a time. Give it at least a week to see if it makes any difference.

And if you do get a sudden slow down or stop for the next week or so, don't panic either. As you've said you've lost a lot of weight very quickly, it might just be your scale weight catching up with the fat loss.

AnnPT77 · October 2020

I'd reinforce what sijomial said: MFP or other calculators just give you a research based statistical average, as your goal. Most people are close to average, a few are a bit off (high or low), and a rare few are surprisingly far off.

If you've adopted a low-carb food plan, it's not unusual to see an extra big scale drop in the first couple of weeks mostly from changes in water retention (not mostly fat changes). But, as a male (who needn't worry about water retention weirdness women can experience related to menstrual cycles), at the 3-4 week range you should be starting to see your reliable pattern. Sure, there'll be ups and downs, but you have a pretty strong down trend going there!

I'm personally one of the "not so average" people calorie-wise. I don't really know why it's so, but I've been logging carefully for over 5 years now (during loss for a year, then maintenance), and I maintain my weight at (shockingly) around 500 calories daily higher than MFP thinks I would. When I first joined MFP, I started losing weight quite fast, and adjusted, but not in time to avoid some weakness and fatigue (that took a few weeks to recover from - no one wants that).

The calculators, like the one built into MFP, aren't magical oracles of truth. They just give you a good starting point, and your results will help you adjust from there, once you have enough enough data to see the trend and not just the random fluctuaions.

If I were you, I'd start eating more - certainly enough more daily right away to pull the expected loss rate back into the realm where you'd expect, based on your own results, to be losing no more than1-1.5 pounds/week. From there, you can accumulate a little more experience, and decide whether to adjust down a bit again, or up even more to get to the more sensible pound a week or slower level. What's the worst that can happen? Maybe slowed loss? (Gain is unlikely.)

Losing weight too slowly can be frustrating. Losing weight too fast can create increased health risk. If a person is morbidly obese, sometimes fast loss is a better risk to take than slow loss. You're not anything even remotely close to morbidly obese. If I were you, I'd eat more now, 500+ calories more, even.

(As I said, I'm a mysteriously good li'l ol' calorie burner. For several months now, I've been losing a few vanity pounds ultra-slowly, half a pound a week or a bit less, eating 1850 calories plus all carefully estimated exercise calories - so 2000+ actual intake most days, more than you're eating . . . as a 5'5", 125 pound, 64 year old woman. While my loss rate has no direct implications for you individually (nor does anyone else's), I'm saying this to illustrate that outliers do exist. Any individual is *unlikely* to be an outlier . . . but it's possible, even with accurate logging.)

Just my opinions, based on experience.

Best wishes!

lgfrie · October 2020

I basically agree with the above comments.

In addition, two thoughts.

First, a lot of people lose weight VERY fast for the first 4-ish weeks, and still pretty fast for another 1-2 weeks after that. Then around week 6, everything levels out and slows down. I lost 19 lbs in my first month, 13 lbs in month 2, and then 7-8 lbs thereafter, doing the same calories and exercise. The "why" is certainly up for debate, but regardless, it happens. For this reason, many say, and I 100 % concur, that for the first six weeks you should just plug away at the target calorie deficit, not bother much trying to interpret the results, and then see what happens starting in week 7-ish.

More importantly, I don't know why you're basing anything on BMR. That's a theoretical construct which is the number of calories you'd burn if you were in a coma. In reality, your "maintenance" is usually around 1.2 - 1.5 x your BMR, depending on your activity level. "Sedentary" = 1.2 x BMR. I believe "lightly active" = 1.4 x BMR. If you sit around watching TV all day and occasionally get up to eat food, that's sedentary, not BMR. You get a 1.2 multiplier just for not being in a coma.

So let's run some numbers.

Your BMR = 1733. Therefore, if you are "lightly active", your break-even calories excluding any workouts you do, AKA your "NEAT", would be 2425. Now add in another, let's say, 200 per day average for your workouts. This is your TDEE, i.e. your actual maintenance calories inclusive of your workouts. 2625.

And voila, an explanation for why you're losing more weight than you expected. At 1800 calories, you've got an 825 calorie per day deficit. Which would total to 1.65 pounds per week. Which is around what you're losing, it sounds.

Now I want to be clear I am not saying these numbers are "accurate". These are just ballpark, generic numbers, and don't account for your age, gender, activity level, etc. etc. These are wild guesstimates, nothing more.

But they illustrate the salient point: you are losing more than you expected because you estimated your "maintenance" calories too low, because you based it on BMR. Very likely, your TDEE (actual maintenance calories inclusive of everything - all your workouts, etc.) is probably in the 2500-2600 zone.

But to sum up, I'd say, enjoy your rapid weight loss because, being in week 4, you are most likely within 2 weeks of starting the long slog when you will look back wistfully on the early days of rapid weight loss as you grind through it day after day. You're in the halcyon days of your weight loss right now. They don't last. Savor the moment.

I never thought I’d say this, but I’m losing too much too fast

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