Will this work?

Taleciab94 · July 2022

Do you think eating 1600 calories a day and walking 10,000 steps a day only will help me lose weight.

I am a 28 yr old Female 5'5" and 187 lbs been overweight my whole life. I struggle with sticking to a diet especially the exercise part so I wanted something simple.

Do you think this will help me? I have been researching seriously for the pass couple of weeks and settled on this.

cmriverside · July 2022

Try it. It sounds reasonable enough.

Calories are the determining factor in weight management. What you're proposing is what I did for the last 20 pounds of weight loss. I set my calories to 1500 then walked 10,000ish steps and ate 300 more on those days I walked. I am 5'7" and I was retired in my fifties when I did it. I also used a digital food scale and logged food as accurately as I could and I prepared 12 out of 14 of my own meals per week. That part may or may not work for you - but logging is critical for me for many reasons.

Do your Plan for 4-6 weeks. That way you'll have a good idea how your weight will respond to your method. Understand that you may or may not lose weight every week. Hormones, sleep, stress, salty meals, heat, travel, all affect water weight fluctuation.

At the end of 6 weeks you can adjust if your weight is not shifting. I would say you could probably lose one pound a week safely and your 1600 + 10,000 might just get you there. It's a very individual experiment we all have to run for ourselves.

Keep us posted!

AnnPT77 · July 2022

I started out about where you are (5'5", 183 pounds, female), but much older (59 at the time). I lost most of 50+ pounds eating 1400-1600 plus all exercise calories, so I'd predict you'd be likely to lose at a decent clip eating 1600 and doing all that walking, plus much younger. (Unless I take intentional walks, I'm usually only 2500-5000 or so steps daily. I do other exercise, and ate al those exercise calories.)

Good overall advice above from riverside about how to proceed. I just wanted to add the personal anecdote from someone of similar size.

Keeping it simple and manageable is a really good plan. I hope you're doing that on the eating side, too: Figuring out how to make it manageable, practical, and even reasonably enjoyable to eat your 1600 calories (vs. doing some trendy, restrictive eating plan).

Best wishes!

westrich20940 · August 2022

Seems like a decent place to start. I'd say fairly confidently that you *could* eat more than that and still be in a deficit. But start here and see how you feel and what your results are. If you feel like it's not maintainable...then up it to 17/1800 and go from there.

Tblackdogs · August 2022

My only suggestion is that instead of going by steps, you consciously take actual "walks." I say that because the steps around your house and to and from the car count but aren't getting your heart rate up at all. So maybe make a goal of walking a couple of miles a day or three long walks a week in addition to your regular "steps."

Will this work?

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