Help! Question about eating more to lose more

Last week I posted about how my loss had slowed to a .5 lb loss, so I increased my calories a couple days and then I lost 1.5 that week.  This week I ate my normal calories and I only lost .5 again.

How do I get back to losing at least 1 lb per week?  Do I have to increase for a day or so every week now?  This is crazy, I am working really hard to lose only .5.

Stats:  42, female, 5 feet tall, start weight 151.5, today 136.5 (15 lb mark!).   I have a desk job but I do some kind of exercise for an hour amost every day.  It could be fast walking outside, elliptical or treadmill at the gym with a  little weights thrown in, or an exercise video.  I'm eating 1200 to 1300 cal per day on which I was losing an average of 1.5 per week since I started on 2/14 up until a couple weeks ago, now it has slowed.

Thoughts?

Once you get closer to your goal weight, your weight loss slows. It is going to be the hardest to get the last 5-10 pounds off. Just keep doing what you are doing!!!!!

Agreed.. You can expect weight-loss to slow as you get smaller.  Typically, 1% of your total body-weight would be a staggeringly good week.  So if you're 136lbs and you lose 0.5-1lb that's a really good rate of loss.

When I lost over 50lbs the first 20lbs went in a couple of months, the next 20lbs took 4 months and the last 10lbs took another 4 months.....

Its true that you often lose a lot slower towards the end, although it also could partly be your metabolism slowing a little as your body gets used to that amount of calories.  Try zigzaging your calories by eating 1200 some days and something more like 1500 or 1600 during a couple days a week, this will push your metabolism up a little and might speed weight loss a bit.

I knew it would slow down when I got close, but I still have 16 lbs to get to my goal of 120.  Maybe its because I'm short.  Also cursed with a slow metabolism.  At 120 I'll re-evaluate and see if I want to/need to/could easily maintain anything lower.

UGH.  I swear when I get there I am never getting fat  again!  This is a pain.  :)

Your body tries to hold on to the last ten pounds or so for evolutionary reasons. In women, particularly, the body tries to provide a "cushion" of fat stores in the event of a pregnancy. In early days, there could be quite a timespan between mastadon kills.

Well, obviously, today many women are not worried about this issue as they have ready access to food should they be underweight and become pregnant. However, our bodies are wired to a certain mindset. Supposedly (I studied all this years and years ago - however if it dates back to prehistoric times, I doubt that it has suddenly changed.)

In my own life, it is VERY true. My body would be perfectly content ten pounds above where my jeans would prefer it to be.

Hang tough,

SUE

Well, I'm a little dissapointed the answer was'nt "Yes, you need to eat more!", hahaha, but I'm choosing to focus on the positives.  Ive gone from size 12 jeans to size 10 and now the size 10s are really loose.  I can paint my toenails without suffocating.  I feel great.  My skin looks awesome (thanks water, I love you!).  My rings are loose.  Etc., you all know. 

Thanks for the support, I will keep plugging away!

My stats are almost identical to yours.  I am 5 even, I started at 152 and have lost almost 20 lbs (just 1 or 2 to go).  I will be 42 in 3 weeks.

I have an office job and do about an hour of cardio 6 days a week and one day of 1.5 hours.  I also do 20-30 minutes of moderate strength training 2 days a week. 

This sounds a lot like you.  However, I calculate my burn at about 2200 cals a day and eat about 1600-1700 cals a day.  I still manage to lose 1-1.5 lbs every week. 

But I usually dont actually realize the weight drop until I look back.  In the short term all I see is -up 1 lbs, down 1 lbs, up 2 lbs, down .75 lbs.  But over time I do see the drop.   I have lost 5 lbs in the last 3 weeks. 

I cant say that you need to eat more for sure but it might be worth really looking at your activity level and try to pin it down.  You might be suprized at how much you really burn every day. 

Also as you get more fit your body just does not have to work as hard at the same activities.  It might be helpful to change what you are doing or try to intensify what you are doing so that your body has to keep working hard.

Joy, remember it's a marathon, not a sprint. So what if you are "only" losing .5 lbs/week? That's GREAT!!  Because it means you will not have any trouble with maintenance when you get to your goal weight.  Far too many people want to "lose weight fast," but they will inevitably gain it back.  Just keep doing what you are doing, except I wouldn't recommend eating more calories to lose weight faster... that makes no sense. Keep close track of your calories and how much you burn off each day and adjust accordingly to keep losing ... good luck!

madamq, that is crazy how close our stats are!  I do vary my exercise constantly, every day a different body part is sore, haha.  Even down to desk jobs and activity level, except you do more weight training.

I have a question, does CC look at the activity log?  The reason I ask is that when I started it said I burn 1600 a day and to eat 1200.  Now I just checked it and it says I burn 1800 a day and to eat 1300.  I'm not 100% at logging my exercise, but does the burn meter take that into consideration?

I, too, am confused about how many calories I should be consuming when figuring in my activity.  I am 32 years old, 5"10" and currently stuck at 157.  I'd really like to get back down to 145 where I was 5 years ago when I was strength training and doing lots of cardio.  Currently I am eating 1600 calories a day and I burn 300-350 calories 6 days a week on the readmill and do strength training 3 times a week for 30 minutes.  I have a desk job, so I am pretty inactive during the workday, and I go my workouts after work.  Is this enough calories?  I've only lost 1 lb in three weeks.

joyharvath, I dont know about the change in your meter.  But 1200 is sedintary and I know you are NOT sedintary.   For me, when I figure my BMR I use moderately active and get a BMR of 1330-1350.

If you and I really do do about the same activities I suspect your BMR is closer to 1300 at least.  So eating at your BMR is really not leaving your body much to work on and this could cause your body to use conservation measures. 

BUT - eveyone is different.  However, it is worth considering every angle. 

And yes .5 lbs is still weight loss.  But 1 lbs to 1.5 lbs is not a huge drop by any means and still very much in the realm of a healthy pace.  

I think the only thing I do that might be "different" is to eat 5-6 times a day.  I eat "mini" meals that are really regular meals broken into smaller and more frequent mega snacks.  This really helps me avoid eating everything in site.  But I think the fact that I get hungry fast means I am not skipping meals at all.  Eating regularly is very important to keeping your metabolism reved.

I would KILL to lose a pound or more a week. I am 7 or 8 lbs from goal (which is probably lower than I have been in 20 years) and it is excruciatingly slow. And no where near an average of .5 lb per week. And it goes up and it goes down. Ughhhh

I started at 152 but I am 5'6" so it was slow from the get go but now even slower. So I feel your pain. No great words of wisdom but I am trying to stick with it!

I also love this In early days, there could be quite a timespan between mastadon kills. from Strawberry -Roan. I will have to remember that my body doesn't know there is a 7-11 down the street.

Keep at it!

to those of you confused about numbers provided by the cc tools:

i dont use the cc suggestions for burn and eat meter any more. i've switched over to http://www.phord.com/cc to set my intake goals. i find its more realistic, therefore helpful. 

re: pace of loss

at 191, 5'5" i pretty much lose 2 lbs a month. i'm in for the long haul, so i figure if the pounds are dropping, im doing fine. i get nervous if it starts going too fast, because i do believe slow and steady stays off, fast never has in my past. now, good habits are built, one's life style changes, and that all feels just as fine as a new, smaller sized, well fitting pair of jeans! plus, when it moves slowly, i dont have to spend as much money changing out my wardrobe so often! and that really is ok with me. 

re: mastodon for dinner:

my body totally knows there is a little store down the hill that sells chocolate. . . like nuts and berries, only different. 

Mastodon.........tastes like chicken!

Original Post by strawberry-roan:

...In early days, there could be quite a timespan between mastadon kills.

hahaha. This made me laugh. curse the mastadon extinction! I bet that would taste heavenly!

this is a good topic though. I'm also curious about this. I heard that if you eat about 12-1300 every day and then one day out of the week eat about 2500 it will increase metabolism and you'll lose weight? I'm not totally sure though. Can anyone clear that up?

Here's a possibility from Jillian Michaels:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVBHGR3d_RE&am p;feature=PlayList&p=EE8356B32D24A482& ;playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=17