Fast Weight loss

So based on this calculator. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/how-many-calories-per-day#calculator To lose weight fast I'd have to eat 1,243 calories. Which is not alot of food. I could make it work but the thing is, how exactly fast am I getting?

Replies

  • uspblu2162
    uspblu2162 Posts: 3 Member
    Thanks for that link! Mine shows 1,134c per day. I have been trying really hard to maintain a 1,200 for a while now and I am losing (again). and hope it stays off this time :-(
  • tomcustombuilder
    tomcustombuilder Posts: 2,210 Member
    HimeYin wrote: »
    So based on this calculator. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/how-many-calories-per-day#calculator To lose weight fast I'd have to eat 1,243 calories. Which is not alot of food. I could make it work but the thing is, how exactly fast am I getting?
    You won't know until you try that amount for 4 weeks. There are variables that will come into play. How accurate is your calorie counting and tracking? How active are you both in and out of the gym? After 4 weeks you can review the outcome and adjust accordingly.

  • HimeYin
    HimeYin Posts: 5 Member
    HimeYin wrote: »
    So based on this calculator. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/how-many-calories-per-day#calculator To lose weight fast I'd have to eat 1,243 calories. Which is not alot of food. I could make it work but the thing is, how exactly fast am I getting?
    You won't know until you try that amount for 4 weeks. There are variables that will come into play. How accurate is your calorie counting and tracking? How active are you both in and out of the gym? After 4 weeks you can review the outcome and adjust accordingly.

    So no one would just like know off the bat?
  • tomcustombuilder
    tomcustombuilder Posts: 2,210 Member
    HimeYin wrote: »
    HimeYin wrote: »
    So based on this calculator. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/how-many-calories-per-day#calculator To lose weight fast I'd have to eat 1,243 calories. Which is not alot of food. I could make it work but the thing is, how exactly fast am I getting?
    You won't know until you try that amount for 4 weeks. There are variables that will come into play. How accurate is your calorie counting and tracking? How active are you both in and out of the gym? After 4 weeks you can review the outcome and adjust accordingly.

    So no one would just like know off the bat?
    It would be a wild guess at best.

  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    HimeYin wrote: »
    HimeYin wrote: »
    So based on this calculator. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/how-many-calories-per-day#calculator To lose weight fast I'd have to eat 1,243 calories. Which is not alot of food. I could make it work but the thing is, how exactly fast am I getting?
    You won't know until you try that amount for 4 weeks. There are variables that will come into play. How accurate is your calorie counting and tracking? How active are you both in and out of the gym? After 4 weeks you can review the outcome and adjust accordingly.

    So no one would just like know off the bat?

    No, because individual calorie needs vary. Fast weight loss would be 2 Lbs per week which requires 1,000 calorie deficit per day from what you need to maintain your weight. Calorie needs vary by an individual's stats (sex, height, weight) as well as activity (general and exercise).

    Unless you are very overweight, 2 Lbs per week is very aggressive...which is why you barely get anything to eat. It could quite possibly also be very unhealthy if you don't have the requisite fat stores. Very overweight people can do this more safely and reliably because they are by nature going to have much higher maintenance requirements and thus can get a significantly higher calorie target to maintain a 1,000 calorie per day deficit. This also varies by sex...I could maintain a 1,000 calorie per day deficit as a male who is moderately active on around 1800-2000 calories per day which is well above the minimum recommendation of 1,500 calories per day for an adult male. The minimum recommendation for a sedentary female is 1,200 calories per day...anything less is going to be considered a VLCD and should only be done under medical supervision.
  • tomcustombuilder
    tomcustombuilder Posts: 2,210 Member
    As Ann mentioned, fast isn't always good. If you're obese then your doctor may tell you getting the weight off quickly is more important than remaining obese for much longer. Under normal conditions, too fast and then there's potential for the weight rebounding later. Lose about 1% of your weight per week, get in enough protein and do some type of resistance training.

    Good luck
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,237 Member
    People appear to be able to tolerate weight losses in the range of 0.5% to 1% of their body weight per week fairly well for, generally speaking, dismal overall values of success. More longer term adherence at the bottom end of the range than the higher. Faster is not always better. This is one game where the long term matters.

    As to how much you will lose, the answer depends on how large of a deficit you will effectively create and on how well you will be able to measure that deficit and your results.

    Your scale weight TREND, not individual weigh-ins, is what matters. Because weight varies for many reasons, not all of them associated with fat loss.

    Your ability to estimate the calories you're ingesting is going to be a learning curve and will substantially improve over time. Your chances of accurately doing on your first couple of tries are... iffy.

    Your ability to pre-guess how many calories you're going to spend is also... iffy. Again observation of your results over sufficient time will provide you with a good approximation.

    The base energy expenditure estimates are derived by multiplying your energy expenditure at rest by an activity factor. That base energy expenditure shows a difference of more than 10% for a good 25+% of the people who have a BMI above 30. And that's the best equation available for predicting the energy expenditure of people with BMI above 30. That's not even tackling the multiplier. Your source's reference claims that their study got NOTHING on that.

    So, yes, variance and errors exist everywhere and you won't know till you give it a good try and sufficient time.

    Speed is not necessary at all. Rather it is an artificial constraint potentially impacting your ability to succeed which will be mostly predicated based on your ability to adhere to your long term plans.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    Trying to lose weight fast can backfire. See: https://www.aworkoutroutine.com/1200-calorie-diet/

    1vrnj6rr6eo6.png
  • tomcustombuilder
    tomcustombuilder Posts: 2,210 Member
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    Trying to lose weight fast can backfire. See: https://www.aworkoutroutine.com/1200-calorie-diet/

    1vrnj6rr6eo6.png
    And that graph represents the “ I only eat 1,200 calories a day and can’t lose weight” posts.

  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,411 Member
    edited January 2023
    What they all said.

    Online calculators are only as good as the accuracy of the input of the user.

    Here is the myfitnesspal explanation of how they calculate your weight loss calories. I did a TL;DR version below it:
    https://support.myfitnesspal.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032625391-How-does-MyFitnessPal-calculate-my-initial-goals-
    1. So - unless you're obese, set up your Goals on myfitnesspal to "Lose 1 pound per week," (like it suggests) If you are obese, you can choose to lose more if you really want to, but it comes with much lower calories and it is harder to accomplish a daily low calorie intake without having a big uncontrolled/I'm starving blowout day at some point. Slow and steady is better.
    2. Input your General Daily Activity Level (as per the listed suggestions for whatever it is you do every day - waitress, teacher, mail carrier, sedentary, whatever.)
    3. When/if you do purposeful additional Exercise, enter the exercise in the Exercise tab on that day and eat whatever additional calories the tool suggests to compensate for that amount of exercise on that particular day.
    4. Weigh or measure all your foods and log them as accurately as you can.

    Do that for 4-6 weeks. Adjust at the end of that time depending on your results from that experiment.

    It is what we all had to do.

    Good luck.