How many calories do you reduce your daily intake, to speed up your weekly weight loss?

andrewshelley1 · February 10

Hello, when I joined about 3 weeks ago , I asked the program to help me lose 2 lbs a week. I was given 1500 calories. The first week I lost 3 lbs, I did switch my food to a healthier Dash diet ( to lower my blood pressure. ) Next week I lost 0.5 lb and then the next week 1 lb. I reduced 100 calories to 1400. So far I did lose nothing this week. Should I drop it another 100 calories or 200 down to 1300 or 1200? thank you

AnnPT77 · February 10

My perspective: You don't actually know your weight loss rate until you've stuck to one calorie level, eating and activity regimen for at least 4-6 weeks. Women who have menstrual cycles should compare body weight at the same relative point in 2 or more different monthly cycles.

Short of that, one would be over-reacting mostly to fluctuations in water weight and digestive contents. Even fast fat loss is a few ounces a day. Water weight and waste in the digestive tract fluctuate by multiple pounds from one day to the next, playing peek-a-boo on the scale with those much smaller fat changes.

So far, it sounds like you've lost 4.5 pounds in 3 weeks. That's a good loss rate. Don't drop calories further now would be my advice.

Your ID sounds male. Men shouldn't be eating less than 1500 calories daily unless quite short of stature, very inactive, older . . . and with a track record of multiple weeks of needing to eat less than that on average in order to lose. Even then, it's iffy.

IMO, trying to lose more than 0.5%-1% of current weight per week, or cutting calories more than 20-25% below TDEE, is a poor plan unless severely obese and under close medical supervision for deficiencies or health complications.

Fast loss can become unsustainable, limits adequate nutrition, can increase health risks, impair exercise performance, trigger fatigue or weakness, cause hair loss, and more. While bad results aren't guaranteed, odds of negatives increase with low calories. There's no way to get adequate nutrition on too-low calories, among other issues.

Also, guess what? Cutting calories too far stresses the body, and stress can increase water retention. Don't create a cycle of stress, water retention, cutting more calories, causing more stress. That's not a path to thriving.

The big prize in all of this, if you ask me, is not weight loss. It's reaching and then staying at a healthy weight forever. That latter happens when building new, relatively happy (as least tolerable and practical) new habits. Cutting calories repeatedly or deeply for fast loss isn't very compatible with finding those long-term new habits.

For now, I'd suggest you go back to MFP's original calorie recommendation (unless it targets a faster than sensible weight loss, 2 pounds isn't right for everyone). Hang in there, being consistent, for 4-6 weeks, then look at average losses to adjust, based on the assumption that 500 calories a day is a pound a week.

Just for context, where I'm coming from: I lost from obese to a healthy weight at age 59-60, while severely hypothyroid (medicated for it), in a bit less than a year after having been overweight to obese for around 30 years previously. I've been at a healthy weight for around 8 years since. That's the experience and perspective that leads me to give the advice above.

I'm wishing you success: It's worth the effort.

Corina1143 · February 10

It's early to start guessing. Celebrate what you've done so far. Don't make it hard.

jjjsroach · February 10

You can calculate all you want, but if you want to lose 2+ pounds per week, go to 1200 calories per day and stay there. Exercise if you want to (optional), but don't add back any exercise calories. I have been losing 2+ pounds per week doing this for months.

Lietchi · February 10

jjjsroach wrote: »

You can calculate all you want, but if you want to lose 2+ pounds per week, go to 1200 calories per day and stay there. Exercise if you want to (optional), but don't add back any exercise calories. I have been losing 2+ pounds per week doing this for months.

Most people want to lose fat when they say they want to lose weight.
For most people 1200 is way too low, even more so for men (OP's username suggests male) and when exercising.
It's a 'great' way to lose muscle mass and also risk health complications depending on the specific situation.
For many people, losing 2+ lbs per week is also a bad idea. Again: risk of muscle loss and other health issues. Generally, 0.5-1% of body weight per week is the recommended rate, so for 2lbs per week to be appropriate, the person needs to weigh over 200lbs.

Corina1143 · February 10

Very Generally speaking people who weigh over 300 can safely lose 3 pounds or a little more each week. People who weigh 200 may be able to lose 2 pounds a week safely. If you weigh less, you may want to slow it down a little, for your own good. Good health is important.
I dont think the OP gave us stats.

AnnPT77 · February 10

jjjsroach wrote: »

You can calculate all you want, but if you want to lose 2+ pounds per week, go to 1200 calories per day and stay there. Exercise if you want to (optional), but don't add back any exercise calories. I have been losing 2+ pounds per week doing this for months.

Not everything that is possible is a good idea to do.

I say that as someone who lost too fast for a while by accident. It wasn't good.

You do you, but this is terrible advice to others, especially as generic advice to someone who's probably male, and about whom we know no demographic details.

andrewshelley1 · February 10

Ok sorry I'm male was 212 when I started 207 now. Another question do you guys eat the extra calories that MFP gives you for exercising? I workout almost every day, nothing great. 30-40 minutes walking on treadmill and about 30 minutes weights.

tomcustombuilder · February 10

3 weeks is not enough time to judge what a weekly calorie amount is doing. Give it 3 more weeks and then adjust accordingly

AnnPT77 · February 10

andrewshelley1 wrote: »

Ok sorry I'm male was 212 when I started 207 now. Another question do you guys eat the extra calories that MFP gives you for exercising? I workout almost every day, nothing great. 30-40 minutes walking on treadmill and about 30 minutes weights.

I've eaten every delicious, carefully-estimate exercise calorie through just under a year of loss, and around 8 years of weight maintenance since. It's worked fine for me.

I experience at least 2 benefits:

1. I care about my exercise performance, and fueling it adequately is the best way to support it. Underfueling limits fitness progress.

2. I'm pretty old (59-60 when losing, 68 now) but quite active. Periodically during those 9 years, I've had situations where I couldn't work out, at least not on my normal schedule. (Examples: Illness, recovery from injury or surgery.) Because I've learned to estimate exercise closely enough to be workable, I know how to adjust my maintenance calories so that I don't gain during those no/low exercise times, but I do get adequate calories to support healing. I like that.

Do be sure you've set your MFP activity level based on your activity level before intentional exercise (stuff like job and home chores, so you don't double-count exercise calories. If you sync a tracker to MFP, turn negative adjustments on so that you get a more reasonable calorie adjustment should you happen to have a low-activity day.

Also, as mentioned previously, run a 4-6 weeks trial of any new calorie intake level, to make sure your calorie needs are close to the estimate. (MFP and other sources just give you a number that's the average for people demographically similar to you. Most people are close to average, but it's possible - though rare - to be surprisingly far off, either high or low.) Once you have a multi-week average loss rate from experience, you can adjust your calorie goal if necessary.

How many calories do you reduce your daily intake, to speed up your weekly weight loss?

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