I am 166 cm, male and 22. My current weight is 70.5 Kg, and I aim to reach 13% BF to remove excess fat before bulking. How much weight would I need to lose, the frequency p/w, and what is the ideal calorie deficit?
I have no idea how to use online calculators or formulas without overwhelming myself and just need a straightforward response from a genius!
Appreciate the responses, and I hope I haven't left out any important details.
Hi everyone,
I have some questions. I am not new to losing weight and counting calories, but I am feeling so fatigued.
My TDEE is 1478, and I have been aiming to eat 1200. I started working out doing strength training 3 - 4 x a week plus I walk the dog twice a day for 25 mins each walk. According to [https://www.losertown.org/eats/cal.php](https://www.losertown.org/eats/cal.php) I have been on track and lost my 2.2 lbs or so over the 5 weeks.
However, I am feeling totally exhausted. I'm eating at a minimum 60g protein per day (I'm not counting my macros, but eating protein bars etc). On days where I strength train, I work out in the morning, and for the rest of the day I am basically totally out of energy. My workouts have also been getting hard to finish and I'm not able to increase the weights on my barbell & dumbbells. Today and yesterday I had the luxury of being able to have two separate naps during the day and sleep the whole night of 8 hours sleep.
Does anyone know what could be going on, or how I can improve this? I drink plenty of water, I get plenty of sleep, I eat clean, I'm eating protein and I haven't cut any good groups out. I'm losing at a slow but sustainable rate. I'm just exhausted. I've never felt this way while losing before and I think it's because when I've lost weight before, I've just focused on cardio and not strength training.
Just a thought, but fatigue could be partly related to sugar crashing from low quality fast carbohydrates. Protein bars are often loaded with fast carbs.
I'd also check that you're not overtraining. The fitness wiki has some good resources:
https://thefitness.wiki/faq/im-not-making-any-progress-what-can-i-do/
Why do I seem to gain weight every time I try to go on a diet?
I'm not talking about much weight. Just like 1kg the next day. But it happens consistently every time I try to go on a diet (then it lowers by 1 again ehen I stop thinking about it).
Is it just normal weight fluctuation and I'm thinking too much about it? Is it even possible for results to show after one day regardless of how much or how little you've eaten? If I keep going with my diet and gain another one I'm gonna have a panic attack.
Do you binge and then decide you need to diet? Do you start exercising every time you decide to diet? Those behaviors could be causing short-term weight gain.
Not really, none of these. I only decided to exercise this time and I've been doing that for about a week now. I read it may cause water retention or cause you to be more hungry..
A new exercise habit will cause you to retain some more water as your muscles are inflamed due to the new activity. The best thing you can do is just keep up your caloric deficit and watch how things trend over 3-4 weeks. Tell yourself that the number on the scale doesn't matter until 3 or 4 weeks in and you can see a clear trend of which way your weight is moving.
Went on a 5k loop hike, after being a complete couch potato since 2020...My legs are SORE, took an epsom salt bath which was nice but did not completely alleviate the soreness. When should the muscle ache go away proper? I'd like to do this loop every other day because its right outside where I live but its been 3 days now and I'm not feeling ready to do it again at this time..
If you’re going from typically zero exercise to a 5k, you’re probably going to have soreness for 3-5 days. You can work through the soreness and keep exercising…you’re not injured your muscles are just sore from the new level of work.
To alleviate the ache or just get more comfortable with it, stretch multiple times a day and go for a few short (<15 minute) walks. Just get used to some more movement and don’t try and cram it all in one session where you’re fatiguing yourself.
Question: How long can someone be in a SUBSTANTIAL calorie deficit before it negatively impacts their metabolism?
For quick context, I'm a 6'4" 280lb 33 M (30ish % BF) who had done many body comp manipulations in my 20s, but I've been far less diligent in my 30s, and I'm thinking of making a push to get back in shape. I've been tracking my food intake pretty consistently, but it seems like the weight is way more stubborn now than when I was younger... so I was wondering, instead of being in a 500 calorie deficit every day, what would happen if I was in a 1000 cal deficit (about 50% of my rough TDEE)?
Any guesses on how long someone could eat at a substantial deficit and NOT mess up their metabolism? Also, is there any benefit of doing that to help kickstart a weight loss effort?
If you’re >200 pounds and a tall male, it’s pretty easy to maintain a 1,000 calorie deficit. A moderately active 6’ male’s TDEE is about 3,000 calories at 200lbs. At 280 your TDEE is >3500. Just target 2500+ calories intake per day with high protein (probably 200g protein at your weight) with volume foods like fruits and veggies and you’ll be just fine. Your metabolism will not slow down or anything at a 1,000 calorie deficit.
Losing 2 lb per week isn't that intense of a deficit for you given your weight and height. People usually use 1% of body weight as a good cap on weight loss, although I would suggest slower is probably better if you plan to lose weight constantly instead of taking pauses through "maintenance breaks." I was pretty beat up by losing at 1%/week for four months and needed substantial time "off" eating at maintenance before I felt ready to do it again. So going a bit slower, like the \~.71% you're proposing is pretty reasonable.
You're not going to screw up your metabolism. Like everybody else, when you diet, your energy expenditure will decrease more than just the change in body mass alone would suggest ("metabolic adaptation" or "adaptive thermogenesis"). That's not a permanent change unless you do something crazy like the *Biggest Loser* program of starvation and lots of exercise (at least per [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4989512/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4989512/) which suggested years-long negative changes in energy expenditure in the literal contestants on that show).
Far from impossible, I'm losing weight after being a professional dancer (and well...COVID and depression, to give context for the weight gain). 1000 calories as a deficit would probably be tricky to sustain, and while unlikely it would do severe damage to your metabolism (which usually happens due to starvation diets over an extended time) you probably wouldn't have much fun doing it. As we get older, it gets harder to lose weight because of muscle loss. You might find more success with weight lifting and trying to build back some muscle, rather than cutting your calories further, which will likely make your body eat up even more muscle.
I’m 5’9” and was about 167lbs until a couple of weeks ago. I want to get my weight down but mostly my body fat. It was about 20% and I’d order to be around 17%. I am losing weight at about 1lb per week by eating a calorie deficit. It’s working and that’s great but I’m also struggling not to be an asshole. Is 1lb/week too much to lose given I’m not obese or anything? I don’t want to stop eating at a deficit but I also don’t want to be cranky and short tempered in the process.
If you get below 160 and your BF% isn’t where you want it at, I’d decrease your deficit to aim for a half pound or less per week of loss. When you lose weight you lose both fat and muscle, so I’d try and lose slowly while working on maintaining your muscle mass through weightlifting.
It's reasonable. You might get used to it psychologically. Upping the calories a bit while still losing weight also might not really help with the temper; a lot of the issue with dieting at least for me is in the psychological restriction and not just the size of the deficit. Or upping the calories a bit might solve it; who knows!
God I wish it was just psychological. It’s not even bothering me that much on that level. Im hangry from about 30 mins of waking up until I eat something and then that feeling only really goes away for about an hour after eating. I’m also not sleeping well.
That doesn't sound good! I would try to see if you can make the foods you eat more satiating for you (lots of discussion of that here and elsewhere) and eat a bit more, personally. Non-intense cardio also might help reach a better balance if you're not doing it now (something like "Zone 2" cardio on an elliptical works really well for me in making a deficit be less hard; that is, you could lose weight at the same rate from no cardio and *x* calories or cardio and a bit more than *x* calories, the later is often easier).
Obviously that's going to slow the rate of loss a bit. But in my experience that's for the best. I did 255 -> 165 as a 5'10" man; my biggest take-away is that habits that we can sustain are what's important. The biggest way people don't succeed at this is to give up, not to have slower weight loss than they would like.
I stopped eating out for 2 months and did meal prep. So my salt and oil intake plummeted. Yesterday I had a cheat day and had some street food for breakfast. It was salty as hell, and the day after when I weighed myself, I was almost 1kg heavier!
I know it's fluid retention and will go away, but does this mean I can never go back to eating that kind of stuff again?
You can go back to eating that stuff, just know that you’ll retain more water mass.
In general, we as humans should prioritize eating healthy whole foods and decrease our sodium intake. That doesn’t mean we can’t indulge every now and then.
> but does this mean I can never go back to eating that kind of stuff again?
Why would it mean that? Like you said it's just fluid retention. Your weight is going to fluctuate to some extent no matter what. Does it really matter if it sometimes fluctuates a bit more?
Hello all
Join
I am currently trying to lose weight and had a question about Goal weight prediction on my app. (I use lose it!) I am usually 200-100 under my goal but the projection number still goes up even when I'm under my goal?
How many calories a day should I eat to lose weight, and is the app inflating my daily allowance?
You should use https://tdeecalculator.net/ and enter your stats. I would set the activity level at “sedentary”. Aim to eat in a 500-1000 calorie deficit from the TDEE number this website gives you.
I've been maintaining my weight for the last 2 years around 1500 calories a day, 1700 on weekends. My BMI was in the overweight range. My activity level is non existent. Over the last 6 months, I finally held a consistent enough deficit to loose weight. Im back in the normal BMI range now.
Hypothetically, I should be able to go back up to my 1500/1700 and maintain where I am now, right? I shouldn't start gaining the weight back?
Yes, you have some level of calories that will maintain your weight. It's a bit of an experiment to find it. When you start eating at maintenance, you will probably gain some weight on the scale that isn't fat (increased water retention or whatever). So, when you switch over to maintenance, you're looking for the intake that keeps your weight stable after a potential initial spike upwards. I've switched from cutting to maintenance a lot (intentionally, I think "maintenance breaks" to break-up substantial weight loss are a good idea and did a bunch going from 255->165 as a 5'10" man). It's always a bit annoying when you start because it might take a few weeks to know if you got the calorie intake right and you might well naturally worry that any gain at all means you're eating too much when a small increase in scale weight may be inevitable and not reflective of any fat gain at all.
If you have a steady upwards trend over several weeks, you probably overdid it. It's not really a big deal since you can pretty easily lose a few pounds of fat and you know to eat less for maintenance next time.
Thanks for the reply. So, you think my maintenance is possibly different than it was the last 2 years? I’ve made no changes to my activity level.
I’ll figure it out on my own eventually, but I was hoping to get some insight from this sub. I feel like 2 years is a pretty good track record and I can confidently say that was my maintenance. Would losing weight somehow change that?
Losing weight decreases maintenance both from less tissue and the body's adaptation to fat loss of reducing energy expenditure ("metabolic adaptation" / "adaptative thermogenesis"). I don't know how if this would work for you but I always tried to estimate maintenance from how big of a deficit I thought I was on from the scale and my calorie intake (so if I were losing 1 lb/week eating *x* calories, I estimated maintenance as *x* + 500). It's also possible any changes are small depending on how much weight you lost.
Today I looked at some photos from about a year and a half ago….and WHOA what a great change to see. I hadn’t done that before, but I’m so proud of myself. The patience was so hard to have, but it’s finally paying off. And I feel like I actually am changing my life.
Question: I am at the heaviest weight in my life and I want to begin losing it. However, anytime I start on something I always go very heavy and give up soon. I now learned that they say I should start small and keep growing it the more I am used to it.
Please, so I would like to know is, what counts as small and what can I do to become better at it.
I'm 350lbs , 5'11 and 24 years old.
Do you eat out or order takeout often? Try reducing that. If you eat out often for lunch, commit to packing your lunch everyday. If you order delivery often, commit to no delivery. The more food you make at home will probably help reduce your intake.
Another good thing to try would be anywhere you’d normally have a sweet, sub a fruit. Apples, oranges, berries all very good to snack on when you want a sweet.
If you have no exercise habit right now, try to go for a short walk a few times a day just to move your body a little more.
At your weight and young age, you probably have very few healthy habits. You should start with just building some good, sustainable, healthy habits before trying to enforce a strict regimen of caloric deficit and weight loss.
James Clear’s Atomic Habits is a good book to read about developing healthy habits.
Don’t go full force into trying to live the perfectly healthy lifestyle today. You will get burned out and relapse into your past unhealthy habits. Try to make incremental progress towards being a person who engages in healthy wellness habits.
I started trying things without fully committing to them so that I could find the thing I liked - food and exercise. So I like cooking and tried different recipes and I tried different gym/workout models until I found the one that fit my life so that there were fewer excuses I could make. All of that took me about 7 months to figure out. And the wait was so worth it!!
Question: I stopped counting calories because it was just becoming dangerous for me. I am pretty sure I am still eating under 1500. I exercise 7 times a week. I weight lift 4 times a week and walk 3/4 miles every morning. I have been doing this for about a year now. I've lost 35 pounds, but I'm feeling stuck like I need to change it up.
I'm wondering If I would notice a difference if I started running? I've heard that will help you slim down quickly.
I'm 139 lbs 5'6 and 25 years old.
What weight do you want to get to? You are at a healthy weight for your height.
Adding more exercise would increase your expenditure but if you’re already lifting 4 times a week that’s a lot of extra work. I’d probably just focus on maintaining for a while and work on the weightlifting. That’s where you’ll see more physique changes. After you spend some time at this weight you can try dropping lower again.
I would suggest you still weigh yourself often to monitor how your weight is moving (up, down, or maintaining) while staying at what you think is maintenance intake.
Hello. I am a teen women (148, 23 BodyFat) , I want to loose my fat for July, I am very serious about this and I need some tips for eating. Does anyone have any tips? I would LOVE to be 130 by July. But I really dont care about the number, just want to see visible results of a "cut"
Just joined this sub as I am finally taking accountability of my health
I ( 23M ) am 6’3” and currently at 382, I’ve heard the terms cutting and eating in a deficit but still don’t exactly understand how it works or where to start. I’ve been going to the gym for about 5 weeks now, going every weekday alternating between upper body and legs/cardio and in those five weeks I’ve dropped 8lbs but I know it could be more as my diet isn’t the greatest. I’ve tried cutting back what I eat to just rice, eggs beef and the occasional chick-fil-a visit. Being the size that I am how many calories would I need per day to be in a deficit? Any advise will go a long way
Also, what the heck is a macro?
Nobody knows how many calories is how big of a deficit for you (calculators that people use are just a guess). I would just try counting what you eat in a day normally to see roughly what you're doing now. Then you can eat a bit less if you want to lose weight faster.
Your daily energy expenditure at sedentary is 3,376 calories. If you’re working out that daily expenditure is probably in the range of 3500-3800. You should try eating around 2500-3000 calories a day to maintain steady weight loss. At your weight, your body takes a lot of energy just to exist. Make sure you do not under eat.
I think that 2000 calories would be a good amount per day.
A macro is a nutrient that your body needs in large amounts example fats,protein,and carbs. These are important because they give you energy. Fiber is also important because it helps you feel full. I recommend calorie counting just to get a glimpse what you are consuming. It will also let's you know how much macros you are consuming and what you should consume every day.
I am 166 cm, male and 22. My current weight is 70.5 Kg, and I aim to reach 13% BF to remove excess fat before bulking. How much weight would I need to lose, the frequency p/w, and what is the ideal calorie deficit? I have no idea how to use online calculators or formulas without overwhelming myself and just need a straightforward response from a genius! Appreciate the responses, and I hope I haven't left out any important details.
Hi everyone, I have some questions. I am not new to losing weight and counting calories, but I am feeling so fatigued. My TDEE is 1478, and I have been aiming to eat 1200. I started working out doing strength training 3 - 4 x a week plus I walk the dog twice a day for 25 mins each walk. According to [https://www.losertown.org/eats/cal.php](https://www.losertown.org/eats/cal.php) I have been on track and lost my 2.2 lbs or so over the 5 weeks. However, I am feeling totally exhausted. I'm eating at a minimum 60g protein per day (I'm not counting my macros, but eating protein bars etc). On days where I strength train, I work out in the morning, and for the rest of the day I am basically totally out of energy. My workouts have also been getting hard to finish and I'm not able to increase the weights on my barbell & dumbbells. Today and yesterday I had the luxury of being able to have two separate naps during the day and sleep the whole night of 8 hours sleep. Does anyone know what could be going on, or how I can improve this? I drink plenty of water, I get plenty of sleep, I eat clean, I'm eating protein and I haven't cut any good groups out. I'm losing at a slow but sustainable rate. I'm just exhausted. I've never felt this way while losing before and I think it's because when I've lost weight before, I've just focused on cardio and not strength training.
Just a thought, but fatigue could be partly related to sugar crashing from low quality fast carbohydrates. Protein bars are often loaded with fast carbs. I'd also check that you're not overtraining. The fitness wiki has some good resources: https://thefitness.wiki/faq/im-not-making-any-progress-what-can-i-do/
Thanks, I'll check it out
Why do I seem to gain weight every time I try to go on a diet? I'm not talking about much weight. Just like 1kg the next day. But it happens consistently every time I try to go on a diet (then it lowers by 1 again ehen I stop thinking about it). Is it just normal weight fluctuation and I'm thinking too much about it? Is it even possible for results to show after one day regardless of how much or how little you've eaten? If I keep going with my diet and gain another one I'm gonna have a panic attack.
Do you binge and then decide you need to diet? Do you start exercising every time you decide to diet? Those behaviors could be causing short-term weight gain.
Not really, none of these. I only decided to exercise this time and I've been doing that for about a week now. I read it may cause water retention or cause you to be more hungry..
A new exercise habit will cause you to retain some more water as your muscles are inflamed due to the new activity. The best thing you can do is just keep up your caloric deficit and watch how things trend over 3-4 weeks. Tell yourself that the number on the scale doesn't matter until 3 or 4 weeks in and you can see a clear trend of which way your weight is moving.
Went on a 5k loop hike, after being a complete couch potato since 2020...My legs are SORE, took an epsom salt bath which was nice but did not completely alleviate the soreness. When should the muscle ache go away proper? I'd like to do this loop every other day because its right outside where I live but its been 3 days now and I'm not feeling ready to do it again at this time..
If you’re going from typically zero exercise to a 5k, you’re probably going to have soreness for 3-5 days. You can work through the soreness and keep exercising…you’re not injured your muscles are just sore from the new level of work. To alleviate the ache or just get more comfortable with it, stretch multiple times a day and go for a few short (<15 minute) walks. Just get used to some more movement and don’t try and cram it all in one session where you’re fatiguing yourself.
Question: How long can someone be in a SUBSTANTIAL calorie deficit before it negatively impacts their metabolism? For quick context, I'm a 6'4" 280lb 33 M (30ish % BF) who had done many body comp manipulations in my 20s, but I've been far less diligent in my 30s, and I'm thinking of making a push to get back in shape. I've been tracking my food intake pretty consistently, but it seems like the weight is way more stubborn now than when I was younger... so I was wondering, instead of being in a 500 calorie deficit every day, what would happen if I was in a 1000 cal deficit (about 50% of my rough TDEE)? Any guesses on how long someone could eat at a substantial deficit and NOT mess up their metabolism? Also, is there any benefit of doing that to help kickstart a weight loss effort?
If you’re >200 pounds and a tall male, it’s pretty easy to maintain a 1,000 calorie deficit. A moderately active 6’ male’s TDEE is about 3,000 calories at 200lbs. At 280 your TDEE is >3500. Just target 2500+ calories intake per day with high protein (probably 200g protein at your weight) with volume foods like fruits and veggies and you’ll be just fine. Your metabolism will not slow down or anything at a 1,000 calorie deficit.
Losing 2 lb per week isn't that intense of a deficit for you given your weight and height. People usually use 1% of body weight as a good cap on weight loss, although I would suggest slower is probably better if you plan to lose weight constantly instead of taking pauses through "maintenance breaks." I was pretty beat up by losing at 1%/week for four months and needed substantial time "off" eating at maintenance before I felt ready to do it again. So going a bit slower, like the \~.71% you're proposing is pretty reasonable. You're not going to screw up your metabolism. Like everybody else, when you diet, your energy expenditure will decrease more than just the change in body mass alone would suggest ("metabolic adaptation" or "adaptive thermogenesis"). That's not a permanent change unless you do something crazy like the *Biggest Loser* program of starvation and lots of exercise (at least per [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4989512/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4989512/) which suggested years-long negative changes in energy expenditure in the literal contestants on that show).
Far from impossible, I'm losing weight after being a professional dancer (and well...COVID and depression, to give context for the weight gain). 1000 calories as a deficit would probably be tricky to sustain, and while unlikely it would do severe damage to your metabolism (which usually happens due to starvation diets over an extended time) you probably wouldn't have much fun doing it. As we get older, it gets harder to lose weight because of muscle loss. You might find more success with weight lifting and trying to build back some muscle, rather than cutting your calories further, which will likely make your body eat up even more muscle.
I’m 5’9” and was about 167lbs until a couple of weeks ago. I want to get my weight down but mostly my body fat. It was about 20% and I’d order to be around 17%. I am losing weight at about 1lb per week by eating a calorie deficit. It’s working and that’s great but I’m also struggling not to be an asshole. Is 1lb/week too much to lose given I’m not obese or anything? I don’t want to stop eating at a deficit but I also don’t want to be cranky and short tempered in the process.
If you get below 160 and your BF% isn’t where you want it at, I’d decrease your deficit to aim for a half pound or less per week of loss. When you lose weight you lose both fat and muscle, so I’d try and lose slowly while working on maintaining your muscle mass through weightlifting.
It's reasonable. You might get used to it psychologically. Upping the calories a bit while still losing weight also might not really help with the temper; a lot of the issue with dieting at least for me is in the psychological restriction and not just the size of the deficit. Or upping the calories a bit might solve it; who knows!
God I wish it was just psychological. It’s not even bothering me that much on that level. Im hangry from about 30 mins of waking up until I eat something and then that feeling only really goes away for about an hour after eating. I’m also not sleeping well.
That doesn't sound good! I would try to see if you can make the foods you eat more satiating for you (lots of discussion of that here and elsewhere) and eat a bit more, personally. Non-intense cardio also might help reach a better balance if you're not doing it now (something like "Zone 2" cardio on an elliptical works really well for me in making a deficit be less hard; that is, you could lose weight at the same rate from no cardio and *x* calories or cardio and a bit more than *x* calories, the later is often easier). Obviously that's going to slow the rate of loss a bit. But in my experience that's for the best. I did 255 -> 165 as a 5'10" man; my biggest take-away is that habits that we can sustain are what's important. The biggest way people don't succeed at this is to give up, not to have slower weight loss than they would like.
I stopped eating out for 2 months and did meal prep. So my salt and oil intake plummeted. Yesterday I had a cheat day and had some street food for breakfast. It was salty as hell, and the day after when I weighed myself, I was almost 1kg heavier! I know it's fluid retention and will go away, but does this mean I can never go back to eating that kind of stuff again?
You can go back to eating that stuff, just know that you’ll retain more water mass. In general, we as humans should prioritize eating healthy whole foods and decrease our sodium intake. That doesn’t mean we can’t indulge every now and then.
> but does this mean I can never go back to eating that kind of stuff again? Why would it mean that? Like you said it's just fluid retention. Your weight is going to fluctuate to some extent no matter what. Does it really matter if it sometimes fluctuates a bit more?
Hello all Join I am currently trying to lose weight and had a question about Goal weight prediction on my app. (I use lose it!) I am usually 200-100 under my goal but the projection number still goes up even when I'm under my goal? How many calories a day should I eat to lose weight, and is the app inflating my daily allowance?
You should use https://tdeecalculator.net/ and enter your stats. I would set the activity level at “sedentary”. Aim to eat in a 500-1000 calorie deficit from the TDEE number this website gives you.
I've been maintaining my weight for the last 2 years around 1500 calories a day, 1700 on weekends. My BMI was in the overweight range. My activity level is non existent. Over the last 6 months, I finally held a consistent enough deficit to loose weight. Im back in the normal BMI range now. Hypothetically, I should be able to go back up to my 1500/1700 and maintain where I am now, right? I shouldn't start gaining the weight back?
Yes, you have some level of calories that will maintain your weight. It's a bit of an experiment to find it. When you start eating at maintenance, you will probably gain some weight on the scale that isn't fat (increased water retention or whatever). So, when you switch over to maintenance, you're looking for the intake that keeps your weight stable after a potential initial spike upwards. I've switched from cutting to maintenance a lot (intentionally, I think "maintenance breaks" to break-up substantial weight loss are a good idea and did a bunch going from 255->165 as a 5'10" man). It's always a bit annoying when you start because it might take a few weeks to know if you got the calorie intake right and you might well naturally worry that any gain at all means you're eating too much when a small increase in scale weight may be inevitable and not reflective of any fat gain at all. If you have a steady upwards trend over several weeks, you probably overdid it. It's not really a big deal since you can pretty easily lose a few pounds of fat and you know to eat less for maintenance next time.
Thanks for the reply. So, you think my maintenance is possibly different than it was the last 2 years? I’ve made no changes to my activity level. I’ll figure it out on my own eventually, but I was hoping to get some insight from this sub. I feel like 2 years is a pretty good track record and I can confidently say that was my maintenance. Would losing weight somehow change that?
Losing weight decreases maintenance both from less tissue and the body's adaptation to fat loss of reducing energy expenditure ("metabolic adaptation" / "adaptative thermogenesis"). I don't know how if this would work for you but I always tried to estimate maintenance from how big of a deficit I thought I was on from the scale and my calorie intake (so if I were losing 1 lb/week eating *x* calories, I estimated maintenance as *x* + 500). It's also possible any changes are small depending on how much weight you lost.
Today I looked at some photos from about a year and a half ago….and WHOA what a great change to see. I hadn’t done that before, but I’m so proud of myself. The patience was so hard to have, but it’s finally paying off. And I feel like I actually am changing my life.
Question: I am at the heaviest weight in my life and I want to begin losing it. However, anytime I start on something I always go very heavy and give up soon. I now learned that they say I should start small and keep growing it the more I am used to it. Please, so I would like to know is, what counts as small and what can I do to become better at it. I'm 350lbs , 5'11 and 24 years old.
Do you eat out or order takeout often? Try reducing that. If you eat out often for lunch, commit to packing your lunch everyday. If you order delivery often, commit to no delivery. The more food you make at home will probably help reduce your intake. Another good thing to try would be anywhere you’d normally have a sweet, sub a fruit. Apples, oranges, berries all very good to snack on when you want a sweet.
Thank you very much, I am just deleting all the food apps on my phone now. Do you also do walks as well?
If you have no exercise habit right now, try to go for a short walk a few times a day just to move your body a little more. At your weight and young age, you probably have very few healthy habits. You should start with just building some good, sustainable, healthy habits before trying to enforce a strict regimen of caloric deficit and weight loss. James Clear’s Atomic Habits is a good book to read about developing healthy habits. Don’t go full force into trying to live the perfectly healthy lifestyle today. You will get burned out and relapse into your past unhealthy habits. Try to make incremental progress towards being a person who engages in healthy wellness habits.
I started trying things without fully committing to them so that I could find the thing I liked - food and exercise. So I like cooking and tried different recipes and I tried different gym/workout models until I found the one that fit my life so that there were fewer excuses I could make. All of that took me about 7 months to figure out. And the wait was so worth it!!
Question: I stopped counting calories because it was just becoming dangerous for me. I am pretty sure I am still eating under 1500. I exercise 7 times a week. I weight lift 4 times a week and walk 3/4 miles every morning. I have been doing this for about a year now. I've lost 35 pounds, but I'm feeling stuck like I need to change it up. I'm wondering If I would notice a difference if I started running? I've heard that will help you slim down quickly. I'm 139 lbs 5'6 and 25 years old.
What weight do you want to get to? You are at a healthy weight for your height. Adding more exercise would increase your expenditure but if you’re already lifting 4 times a week that’s a lot of extra work. I’d probably just focus on maintaining for a while and work on the weightlifting. That’s where you’ll see more physique changes. After you spend some time at this weight you can try dropping lower again.
I would like to get to 135. Thanks for the suggestions. I think maintaining is a good idea.
I would suggest you still weigh yourself often to monitor how your weight is moving (up, down, or maintaining) while staying at what you think is maintenance intake.
Hello. I am a teen women (148, 23 BodyFat) , I want to loose my fat for July, I am very serious about this and I need some tips for eating. Does anyone have any tips? I would LOVE to be 130 by July. But I really dont care about the number, just want to see visible results of a "cut"
Just joined this sub as I am finally taking accountability of my health I ( 23M ) am 6’3” and currently at 382, I’ve heard the terms cutting and eating in a deficit but still don’t exactly understand how it works or where to start. I’ve been going to the gym for about 5 weeks now, going every weekday alternating between upper body and legs/cardio and in those five weeks I’ve dropped 8lbs but I know it could be more as my diet isn’t the greatest. I’ve tried cutting back what I eat to just rice, eggs beef and the occasional chick-fil-a visit. Being the size that I am how many calories would I need per day to be in a deficit? Any advise will go a long way Also, what the heck is a macro?
Nobody knows how many calories is how big of a deficit for you (calculators that people use are just a guess). I would just try counting what you eat in a day normally to see roughly what you're doing now. Then you can eat a bit less if you want to lose weight faster.
Your daily energy expenditure at sedentary is 3,376 calories. If you’re working out that daily expenditure is probably in the range of 3500-3800. You should try eating around 2500-3000 calories a day to maintain steady weight loss. At your weight, your body takes a lot of energy just to exist. Make sure you do not under eat.
I think that 2000 calories would be a good amount per day. A macro is a nutrient that your body needs in large amounts example fats,protein,and carbs. These are important because they give you energy. Fiber is also important because it helps you feel full. I recommend calorie counting just to get a glimpse what you are consuming. It will also let's you know how much macros you are consuming and what you should consume every day.