Just a small Rant
gregsbabe12
Posts: 18 Member
I started the beginning of March, weighed in at 279 pounds. Today I am 269 pounds. Cut out all excess sugars, lower carbs, cardio 4 days a week. I am losing but Really slow. I eat about 1500-1600 calories a day. I see people that have a lot less to lose, lose like 20 pounds in a week. Wish that were me lol I have weighed the same for a week now, hoping to have a big loss soon. I cant eat much less, well I can but then I am starving. Any thoughts?
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Replies
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Well, first of all - no one is losing 20 pounds a week unless a large amount of that is just water weight.
Second, are you logging all your food - even on days when you may eat too much?
Third, comparison is the thief of joy. Do the next right thing most of the time and the weight will come off.14 -
Not one single person has lost 20lb in a week. And you've lost (conservatively) 0.76lbs per week since you 'started'....That's great.11
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Are you weighing and measuring your food, it's important to be accurate? How did you get your calorie goal? I don't think you're eating enough. I weigh about 10p pounds less and aim for 1500 calories a day.1
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A pound a week! Aim for that. You did not gain 20 lbs in a week, and you will not lose 20 lbs in a week! Just keep going. If you get frustrated and give up, you will end up gaining back all of your accomplishments, right where you began. Just keep plugging along, logging every single bite. Use a scale for measuring exactly how much you're eating. You've cut out sugar, cut out some carbs and are exercising so you want it to happen very quickly because those are all huge changes. When I was losing, I didn't specifically cut any one food group. I just made sure it fit in my calories for the day. Of course, sugar is calorie intensive as are breads, so those became less so I could eat more other food. Hang in there and keep going.6
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Where in the world are you seeing people lose 20 lbs a week besides Biggest Loser? Which is extremely unhealthy, by the way, and not the way normal people lose weight. Make sure you are actually eating the calories you think you are, by weighing your food in grams so you know the actual calories.5
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Comparing yourself to what other people are doing/achieving/saying is going down the rabbit hole. Set a realistic calorie target for YOU .. one based on your age, current weight, and losing a moderate amount ... cause you are not going to want to have your calories too low .. just low enough to lose a little ... Remember, as your weight goes down, your calorie allowance will also decrease .. and you don't want to find yourself on so low an amount that your end up going hungry to satisfy the low calorie diet ... that's a recipe for jumping ship.2
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The most I have ever lost in one week was 8lbs - from a violent tummy bug. I projectile vomited and crapped every single thing out of my body, ended up dehydrated and on a drip and I still “only” lost 8lbs. Most of which was water by the way, so was regained when I rehydrated.
Reconcile yourself to losing c1lb per week, you will maintain muscle mass (your heart is a muscle) and won’t starve yourself and then binge. You won’t feel exhausted, lose hair, wreck your immune system or mess up your appetite. Trust us - those 20lbs per week people are either a) super morbidly obese and on a doctor supervised low calorie diet where the risks are outweighed by risk of imminent death from obesity b) for TV and totally not sustainable or c) lying.
There are lots of people on here who have lost significant weight safely and kept it off - they are the truly inspirational people.9 -
westrich20940 wrote: »Not one single person has lost 20lb in a week. And you've lost (conservatively) 0.76lbs per week since you 'started'....That's great.
I mean a MONTH not a week, sorry about that!!5 -
This reminds me of when I would join a lose-weight group, like at the Y or at work or at a gym ... and the leader would ask how much weight I wanted to lose in a month and I'd say '20 pounds' ... truth of it was though, that I'd be lucky to lose 8 pounds! ... and more often than not, those 4 weeks would fly by and my weight might have only changed by 2-4 pounds ... and that could be either way! ... So easy to miscalculate how much I was eating or what the true caloric intake was .. until I started weighing and measuring everything I ate and accurately logging and checking nutritional labels. Yeah, those labels ... be careful of how many servings a package of anything contains ... the nutritional value is for one serving but the package will likely contain more than that.3
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People do often lose enormous amounts of weight very quickly at the beginning of a diet...water weight.
Basically, keep doing what you are doing and if you lose 0.5-1lb per week, you're doing great, and should keep doing what you are doing.1 -
gregsbabe12 wrote: »westrich20940 wrote: »Not one single person has lost 20lb in a week. And you've lost (conservatively) 0.76lbs per week since you 'started'....That's great.
I mean a MONTH not a week, sorry about that!!
That's still massively fast loss, really aggressive.
What does it take to lose 5 pounds a week? You have to eat 2500 calories fewer than you burn per day on average.
I don't know how old or tall you are, but if in the average range of age/height, and at 269 pounds, you'd be expected to burn something around 2700ish calories per day, give or take, including your cardio. The implication is that in order to lose 20 pounds a month, you need to eat 2700 minus 2500 calories, or 200 calories daily.
Of course, you could also ramp up exercise to a brutally punitive frequency/duration/intensity, and eat a little more than that. Maybe 500 calories of food? 800 at the outside? We're talking eating something like one peanut butter sandwich on hearty bread, daily, for manyMany weeks.
Does that sound reasonable? Compatible with a normal daily life and energy level? Likely to preserve good health?
Does that sound like something you could keep doing long enough to lose the total amount you want to lose, which I'm guessing could be 100 pounds or more?
This is why we're telling you your expectations are unrealistic. At 1500-1600 calories, you'd probably lose a bit over 2 pounds a week, but that would be on average over many weeks. That's still a little aggressive, but not off the charts. Whether or not its sustainable for you long enough to lose the total amount you want to lose remains to be seen. (For sure, you'd need to slow down the loss rate as you got thinner.)
Honestly, patience will serve you better here than "weight loss hacks".
On another thread here, someone posted this quote from James Clear (author of "Atomic Habits"):
"Most big, deeply satisfying accomplishments in life take at least five years to achieve. This can include building a business, cultivating a loving relationship, writing a book, getting in the best shape of your life, raising a family, and more. ... Five years is a long time. It is much slower than most of us would like. If you accept the reality of slow progress, you have every reason to take action today. If you resist the reality of slow progress, five years from now you'll simply be five years older and still looking for a shortcut."
That's pretty on point here. Take it slower, find some tolerably happy new habits that are practical for you, that gradually lead you to a healthy body weight, and help you to stay there permanently. This "lose fast" nonsense doesn't work.
Bona fides: I lost from obese to a healthy weight 6+ years ago, and have stayed at a healthy weight since, after several previous decades of overweight/obesity. I'm no oracle, but it's possible that I might know at least something.
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gregsbabe12 wrote: »westrich20940 wrote: »Not one single person has lost 20lb in a week. And you've lost (conservatively) 0.76lbs per week since you 'started'....That's great.
I mean a MONTH not a week, sorry about that!!
1. Thanks for the clarification because that was CRAZY.
2. Still - my conservative calculation of your weight loss rate is great. There's no need for you to want it to happen faster than that. I know that's what most people want --- fast fast fast, as fast as possible....but that's not usually the best way.1 -
I think the problem is impatience. It seems like the weight went on in no time, so it should come off in no time and then we focus on it and obsess over it and it moves even slower... So we look around at other people who have perhaps been doing it longer and are already shedding quite rapidly and compare and feel like things are going even worse.
I'm steadily loosing between 1-2lb a week it's melting off of me right now and it seems like I'm putting in very little effort and it's just happening... I'm 58lbs into this weight loss journey and have a set routine.
My weight loss halted temporarily when I added a 20 mile cycle route to my weekly routine as I built muscle and then I lost very quickly. It's not a regular weight loss, but a reduction in water retention alongside regular weight loss that made it look like I was loosing loads at once.
When I started I was lucky to loose a pound a month. But it's not a race, it will come off with healthy changes. It will come off slowly at first. That's good... it just doesn't feel like it.5 -
gregsbabe12 wrote: »westrich20940 wrote: »Not one single person has lost 20lb in a week. And you've lost (conservatively) 0.76lbs per week since you 'started'....That's great.
I mean a MONTH not a week, sorry about that!!
Even 20 Lbs of fat in a month would be extremely fast and would be pretty dangerous outside of medical supervision. What most of those people are experiencing is a large drop in water weight...usually by doing keto or low carbohydrate diets. After the first 2-3 weeks of water weight drops, it evens out to a normal level of weight loss which is generally around 1 Lb per week and up to 2 Lbs per week with an extremely aggressive (and often unsafe) calorie deficit.
You're losing at a completely normal rate...you just have unrealistic expectations. Weight loss is a slow process.5 -
I’ve been one of those people who lost quickly but then gained it back quickly. It is NOT what you want to do!
The way you’re doing it is the best. Yeah- it will take a year to lose 40 lbs. But if you think of this as a lifestyle change rather than a get leaner-faster routine, it will serve you much better.
I’ve read like a million posts on here and spoken to many people and also lost over 100 lbs myself. Slow but steady definitely wins this race because the prize doesn’t disappear a short time later2 -
I started at 272 about a year and a half ago, I am now down to 220 the most important thing for me was sleep. In order for me to lose at a steady rate was to get at least 7 to 8 hours of sleep a night. If I didn't then I would stay the same. Losing water gain overnight will let you see actual fat weight loss on scale.0
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If you are losing, you are successful! No matter how slow.5
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Hi Gregsbabe...I can only speak for myself but I find that exercise makes a HUGE difference. Even walking just a little bit each day helps me lose. Can you move around more?1
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You're doing great! That's a very healthy rate of loss. Seems to me like you are doing well. I don't want to think about what I would have to do to lose 20 lbs in a month. Yikes!
I've been on my journey since the beginning of January and I am averaging a loss of about 6 lbs per month. I'm no expert but if you want to bump up your loss a bit I think you will need to increase your calorie deficit a bit, either by eating less calories or increasing your exercise. Not knowing your age or height it's more difficult to estimate. Maybe try doing net calories of 1400-1500 per day for a week or 2 and see what happens?
Just using my own experience as an example, I am 5'4", 60 years old and started at 230 lbs. When I set up my profile and goals I put my desired rate of loss at 1.5 lbs per week, so my calorie base was set at 1200 per day. I do low impact cardio 6-7 days per week for 30-60 mins per day and do light strength training 3x per week for about 15 mins per session. It took me a couple months to work my way up to my current exercise level. When I started I had to stick with seated workouts and slow walking. I eat back about 50-75% of my exercise calories so I average between 1350-1400 calories per day. I keep my carbs around 40% of my daily calories. So far I'm on target, averaging 1.5 lbs per week. I expect that to drop off one of these weeks as my BMR continues to decrease.
The first month was the hardest. Now I rarely feel hungry but when I do I snack on plain non-fat greek yogurt mixed with berries, veggies with hummus, or a veggie salad with some type of lean protein.
Wishing you all the best with your journey! Keep up the excellent work!4 -
Just like how it takes MONTHS to gain weight, it takes MONTHS to lose weight PROPERLY. DON'T compare yourself to others, COMPARE AGAINST YOUR PREVIOUS SELF!2
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Not reading everyone's responses but I firmly believe in slow and steady win's the race because you are going for a lifestyle change not a quick fix. The one thing I would recommend possibly is increase your protein - not as in Keto or anything like that but just increase your protein. I've found for me, it's helped the scale keep going and also has helped me overall.
Just remember it's okay to slip up as along as you refocus. Sometimes a bad day can restart your weight loss.1 -
gregsbabe12 wrote: »I started the beginning of March, weighed in at 279 pounds. Today I am 269 pounds. Cut out all excess sugars, lower carbs, cardio 4 days a week. I am losing but Really slow. I eat about 1500-1600 calories a day. I see people that have a lot less to lose, lose like 20 pounds in a week. Wish that were me lol I have weighed the same for a week now, hoping to have a big loss soon. I cant eat much less, well I can but then I am starving. Any thoughts?
Weight loss is never linear it goes up and down and plateaus. What matters is the overall trend. January 21st I was 237lbs and at my last PCP appointment on May 20th I weighed in at 216. Since then I've gone down a few pounds and up a few but over all my trend is down. What is more significant is my BP normalized keeping me off meds and I lost visceral fat during this process. I can definitely see a difference in my body composition, I went from a very tight two loops from the end of my belt to loose four loops from the end of my belt. My energy levels are high and my mood is so much better that it has been in the past few years. I sleep a lot better and no more GERD. Weight is just one part of the whole picture so I don't put a lot of stock into it if everything else is getting better.
I went LCHF and cut out sugar as well to help reverse pre-diabetes as well as other issues. I've had to give myself time and space to get back to health. I plan on keeping up with what I am doing so eventually I will hit my ideal weight and I hope that will bring back health I haven't seen for decades.
Some people lose a lot of water weight when they go LCHF in the beginning but it tapers off which is normal. I don't compare my journey to others since everyone is at a different place and everyone is different.
So just keep on keeping on. Celebrate your non-scale victories (NSV) and remember the pathway to health is life long and the path you take needs to be sustainable.3 -
I'm probably late to this thread, but
> cardio 4 days a week
My humble opinion is that this is probably not enough depending on the intensity. If all you're doing is walking, you need to do pretty much every day. If you're not covered in sweat and/or out of breath, you need to up the intensity. ANY sort of strength training (push ups, sit ups even) will go a long way towards helping ramp up your over all metabolism and energy levels as well.
Something I suggest to people a lot of the times is to join some sort of fitness class (martial arts, crossfit, zumba, whatever), because these classes will push you physically to a place where you are burning significant calories while developing better musculature. Developing musculature to some sort of baseline minimum is absolutely critical. Your weight will always be a general reflection of your over all health in our culture of plenty.1 -
Based on your weight alone, even without cardio, you should have lost more than 10lbs IF you're eating the amount of calories you claim in 3 months.I suspect you're eating more than you think.
I would truly get to weighing food and everything accurately for a couple of weeks and reassess if that's the issue. Also just using a BMR calculator and putting in an average height and age (5'5" and 25 years), BMR is around 1950. So you're eating well below it and just eating BMR alone should have you losing 1lbs a week with even just some moderate physical movement regularly.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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If you're using myfitnesspal's calorie recommendations for weight loss, without getting into details, I think the calculation has quite a serious error. If I set it at losing 1kg (~2lbs) per week, it's recommendations for calorie consumption are more in line with a 0.5 kg (1 lb) loss per week.
For weight loss advice, try RP fitness- they have great, science-based advice. I don't work for them or receive anything from them. Just found excellent, rationale, no-gimmick advice there.1 -
mothesisbackup wrote: »If you're using myfitnesspal's calorie recommendations for weight loss, without getting into details, I think the calculation has quite a serious error. If I set it at losing 1kg (~2lbs) per week, it's recommendations for calorie consumption are more in line with a 0.5 kg (1 lb) loss per week.
MFP has a minimum of 1200 for women and 1500 for men to ensure adequate nutrition. I'm guessing that was the issue, not an error in the calculation of the estimate itself.3 -
mothesisbackup wrote: »If you're using myfitnesspal's calorie recommendations for weight loss, without getting into details, I think the calculation has quite a serious error. If I set it at losing 1kg (~2lbs) per week, it's recommendations for calorie consumption are more in line with a 0.5 kg (1 lb) loss per week.
For weight loss advice, try RP fitness- they have great, science-based advice. I don't work for them or receive anything from them. Just found excellent, rationale, no-gimmick advice there.
Generally, any of these estimates (RP's, MFP's, Sailrabbit's, even estimates based on a fitness tracker) are just averages from studies on large groups of people. Each of us is an individual, not an average (though most people are close to average - small standard deviation, in statistical terms). Assuming people are using the estimate as intended**, there can be a deviation between expectations and results because of:
1. Approximations or inaccuracies in the person's logging practices
2. Non-averageness of the person who's using the estimate (not always obvious why the person's non-average, either)
If I follow MFP's (or many other calculators') calorie recommendations, I'll lose weight a pound a week or so faster than I "should" - exactly the opposite direction from your experience with MFP's estimate. Is MFP's "serious error" inaccurate in both directions, while also being close enough to be workable for quite a few people who comment here?
MFP's method, by the way, is also "science based", using some common formulas from research. They didn't make it up.
Estimates are estimates, not perfect universal predictions. That's why people posting here often recommend that a person treat any estimate (from calculator, fitness tracker, web site, whatever) as a starting point, follow it for 4-6 weeks (whole menstrual cycles for women of that age), then adjust based on personal results.
** Surprisingly many people don't understand that MFP's estimate is not a TDEE estimate, for example.2 -
mothesisbackup wrote: »If you're using myfitnesspal's calorie recommendations for weight loss, without getting into details, I think the calculation has quite a serious error. If I set it at losing 1kg (~2lbs) per week, it's recommendations for calorie consumption are more in line with a 0.5 kg (1 lb) loss per week.
MFP has a minimum of 1200 for women and 1500 for men to ensure adequate nutrition. I'm guessing that was the issue, not an error in the calculation of the estimate itself.
^^This.
Here is the explanation of how Myfitnesspal calculates, and it's different in a few important ways from most calculators: https://support.myfitnesspal.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032625391-How-does-MyFitnessPal-calculate-my-initial-goals-
Then what Ann said: we each need to do an experiment to find our own individual numbers using that very broad and basic "in the ballpark" starting point given by the Goal setup.1 -
I lose around 35 pounds a year (down 70 from my 100lb regain) and I eat 1600 ish *half* the time and more like 2500 the other half due to BED. So while it feels like I’m working so hard and I am, the higher calorie days even out some other days thus my slow rate of loss.
You might find raising your calories will help you to be more consistent and lose at a faster rate although there is nothing wrong with losing slowly.
It’s common for some to drop a lot of water weight at first. A lot of people go from over eating to eating 1200 calories and they can see 10+ lbs of water weight right away.
The most I ever lost in a month was 16 lbs and I wasn’t eating and exercising a few hours a day. Trust me that is hard to keep up and I wasted more time than just going slow.2 -
Congrats on losing 10 lbs!1
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