Just a small Rant

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Replies

  • hersheythecat
    hersheythecat Posts: 128 Member
    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.
  • Xerogs
    Xerogs Posts: 328 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?

    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.
  • dontlikepeople
    dontlikepeople Posts: 132 Member
    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.
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,454 Member
    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
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    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

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  • mothesisbackup
    mothesisbackup Posts: 1 Member
    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.
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,036 Member
    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.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 31,721 Member
    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.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 33,907 Member
    edited June 2022
    Lietchi 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.
  • ashverdo
    ashverdo Posts: 12 Member
    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.
  • Congrats on losing 10 lbs!