Currently I’m eating about 1700 to 1800 calories a day. For the past couple months, I’ve maintained a weight loss rate of about 2lbs per week (with a stumble or two along the way). If I can maintain this rate, I should be hitting my target weight sometime in December (7 months from now).
Will I have to decrease my caloric intake as I lose weight to maintain my rate of 2lbs per week?
Right now, I’ve got things in pretty good balance. I’m never stuffed and I don’t get hungry until about an hour before I’m supposed to eat again, so it never feels like I’m starving myself.
I’m afraid that if I have to reduce anymore, it might start to feel that way.
I assume that there must be some break even point. That is, I can’t keep losing weight forever.
Pretty much. As you lose weight, the amount of energy your body needs decreases, so your basal metabolic rate goes down. At some point you will reach an equilibrium, hopefully around your goal weight. At 1700 to 1800 calories a day you should be doing fine, though. Most people have a BMR in the 1500-calorie range. (Before you panic, that’s the energy requirement of your body staying perfectly still the whole day. Add all your daily physical activity to that to get your actual maintenance requirement.)
Second the above, plus, your body will be your guide. You’re tracking your calories and your weight, so once you’ve hit target, if you’re still losing, you can add some calories back and adjust as necessary.
This is also where exercise comes in. If you slowly increase exercise as you lose weight, your smaller body will run at a “higher RPM” so to speak all day long and burn more fuel than it otherwise would.
So the reduction in needed food intake will be less.
As well, after awhile you just get used to eating less. So you won’t feel hungry eating 1/2 of a restaurant meal, whereas before you ate the whole thing *and *wanted dessert.
Guidelines about how many calories a person needs to eat to maintain a constant, healthy weight vary widely depending on the individual’s age, exercise regimen, and just whatever their body decides to adjust its metabolism to, based on those previous two. An 18 year old will burn through 2000 calories a day just sitting around playing video games. That same person at 40 years old might only be eating 1500 and still need to jog 5 miles every day to keep from growing a belly.
You’ll just have to keep on as you are and see if you can start predicting where the loss will start to plateau at the current calorie intake. Any sort of hard number you get will almost certainly be wrong. And your body might shift again at some point, so that you’ll have to adjust again to something new. It’s better to just accept that it’s an individual, mildly floating value and you’ll need to do what your body has decided for itself.
Consider using a weight loss app- they make it really easy to keep track of things. I’ve been using a free app called “Lose It” and after I put in my starting weight, target weight and lbs per week I want to lose, it’s been automatically lowering my daily calorie allowance as I lose weight. And it subtracts exercise calories from the daily total, which gives me motivation to exercise more! I imagine most weight loss apps work similarly.
Congratulations, Shadowfyre. Losing weight isn’t easy*, but that it gets easier after the first few months once you settle into new habits of eating and exercise.
Also, good job on focusing on a long term goal. Everything I’ve heard or read says that gradual weight loss is not only healthier and feels better, it also gives your skin (and other organs) time to shrink to fit your smaller size (so you don’t have as much drooping).
The short answer is probably yes. Your body likes to hold onto fat as a survival mechanism, so your body will likely adjust some of its metabolic settings to conserve energy as you continue to lose weight. Additionally, when you lose 20 pounds you are burning fewer calories since you don’t have to maintain or haul that extra weight around. Thirdly, not all the weight you lose is fat. Unless you are exercising very regularly, you are losing muscle too as a result of your diet. Even if you are exercising, you might still be losing some muscle. Your body does this because muscle is expensive to maintain compared to fat, caloriewise. Kudos to you for choosing a sensible diet that encourages slow weight loss over a protracted period of time. That minimizes this effect.
The most important thing you can do to help your success is to exercise regularly. Not only does this burn calories and help you lose weight, it discourages the muscle loss and forces your body to keep its metabolic rate up. Don’t be discouraged and feel like you have to do cross fit or sign up for a marathon. Do whatever you like that you are comfortable and able to do, just do it consistently.
Is this completely true? I agree that BMR slows down but it can only slow down so much and eventually the calories aren’t enough to keep the body alive. My understanding is that anorexics can die from heart attacks or immune deficiencies because they don’t have enough calories.
It’s possible that 1700 Calories/day will never be enough to prevent either weight-loss or complications (depending on the individual, of course).
I recently hired a trainer (for the gym), I was blown away when she told me I may be retaining weight because I wasn’t eating enough calories per day. Her explanation was that when you’re only eating once or twice a day (like I was), your body doesn’t bother burning calories (or as many calories), it just automatically takes that food and stores it as fat because the body has basically gone into starvation mode.
If you want to loose weight and still keep your muscle mass, you have to zero out your calories. For me, on non gym days, I try to consume around 1600 calories; on gym days I amp it up to 1800 - 1900 depending on my work out.
It’s also important to snack two or three times a day.
As far as tracking my calories along with my exercise, I like Myfitnesspal.com.
So far I’ve been having pretty good success. I’ve lost 8 pounds in six weeks. and that’s with me still knocking back a more beers than I should on the weekends. Also, still haven’t given up “Steak Fridays”, I need to work on that too.
Well, yeah. If you don’t eat enough you’ll die. Your BMR is the amount of energy you use just to stay alive. You need more than that to move around and do exercise and stuff. If you regularly consume less energy than your BMR for a long time, you will lose fat and muscle weight and suffer serious health effects up to and including not living anymore.
Medical complications due to diet are primarily because of malnutrition, not energy. As long as you’re getting a reasonable amount of vegetables and proteins, and enough energy to maintain your goal weight, you should be fine
1700 Calories is just speculation on my part but I can imagine that some day laborer can’t stay healthy on 1700/day. The lowest number of calories/day to stay healthy is dependent on each individual and their circumstances.
I guess I’m overly-sensitive to discussions on BMR and its use as an excuse for why people can’t lose weight. One’s body can only do so much to lower its BMR and stay healthy. After that, fewer calories means you continue to lose weight, you become unhealthy, or both.
I try to do 5 days of exercise: 3 days of cardio (to burn the most calories) and 2 days of strength training (to keep my muscle tone). Monday through Friday with the strength days being Tues and Thurs. Once I get to my target weight, I plan to switch them and work on building muscle which weighs more than fat, so I’ll have to keep my calorie intake low enough to lose the fat as fast as I put on muscle.
I’ve pretty much standardized my diet during the week. I’ve found meals and snacks that I can eat every day not get tired of, so my weekday caloric intake is nearly constant.*
I do allow myself one “bad” meal a week. It’s usually breakfast or dinner at a restaurant with my wife. That’s where I get to indulge my cravings for french fries and burgers and bacon and such. But I do my best to not over do it.** I’ve read that this is the biggest reason that people blow their diets - never allowing themselves to enjoy a meal.
I’m not worried that I’ll die of malnutrition. I’m more worried that my weight loss is going to taper off and I’ll have to reduce even more.
I’ve set intermediate goals as well. My first one is the beginning of April and it looks like I’ll hit it. Extrapolating from there, the next milestone should be around the July 4th. Then my 41st birthday in September and finally sometime in December (which will be hard with Thanksgiving).
If everything goes well, I should look like Channing Tatum’s better looking brother by the New Year.
*Sometimes someone brings donuts into work and I’ll have one, but only one. And that only happens once every few weeks.
**I have overdone it a couple times and I paid dearly with horrible stomach aches the next day. I’ve gotten much better.
Using a handy dandy BMR calculator heremy BMR alone is just over 1700, Realistically right now I probably need 2100-2200 to maintain weight given my activity level while the weather is crappy.
I could lose weight on four 467 Calorie Big Mac’s a day. I don;t carry a lot of excess body fat so in the long term starvation would be running neck and neck with the other issues caused by crappy diet to see who killed me first.
If things are going well now, I would recommend against eating even less in order to maintain your current weight loss rate. Rather, let the weight loss slow down a bit. Even if adjusting your eating and exercise to maintain your loss rate works, which is far from a given, then you’re only setting yourself up for a more difficult transition to the weight loss maintenance phase once you reach your goal.
This is a very good point. My concern was that I won’t be able to lower my daily caloric intake even if I wanted to without feeling like I was hungry all the time. Then I know I wouldn’t be able to maintain it and possibly never reach where I want to be.
However, looking at DinoR’s link, I have a BMR of over 2600 calories a day. So I’m thinking I should be good for quite a while.
Playing around with that calculator, if I were already at my target weight, I would have a BMR of 2300. So staying in the 1800 calorie range, I would lose even more weight.
I need to lose about 55lbs to hit my target weight. But even then, according to the BMI calculators, I would still have a BMI of 31 (Obese). I need to lose 105lbs to be at the very top of the healthy BMI range. At that weight, I would have a BMR of 1980. Which means I would be able to use the Ranch salad dressing rather than the vinaigrette I use now.
I remember not long ago my wife lamenting that whereas she had a calorie budget of 1500, mine was 2500, simply because I’m a man. No fair! Not that I’m complaining.
Losing 2 lbs/week is really dramatic! That’ll be great for a while, but if it slows down to 1 lb/week, consider that a good thing. That’s still 52 lb/yr!
I recognize that steadily and quickly losing weight like that is a real morale booster and helps you to maintain your program. But it sounds like you’re pretty comfortable with your program as it is. So, the closer you get to your goal, the more it should be OK to lose less weight per week.
After all, think about it. If you’re comfortable with a program where you lose 10 lbs a year by the time you’re within 20 lbs of your goal, then you hit your goal in about 2 years. Meanwhile, all this time you’re really very close (compared to most Americans, that is.)
I know a lot of people who gained a pound or two per year, consistently, over 40 years. Think how much better off they’d be if they’d lost a pound or two per hear, starting 20 years ago.
Short answer: don’t worry if the rate slows down as you approach your goal, as long as it doesn’t happen way too quickly, and given the numbers you’ve provided, I doubt it would, not unless your target is under say 120 lbs.
Frankly, it looks to me that you are doing everything disgustingly perfect. I might predict that your weight loss might slow down, plateau, or that you might even temporarily gain weight at some point in this process. Be aware that while you are losing fat, under the exercise program you’ve described, you are probably also gaining muscle. So, even if there comes a time when the weight loss temporarily slows or stops, realize that you are still getting thinner , healthier, stronger, sexier etc.
