1000 Deficit for 33 lbs till goal, is that too much stress?

[Bjorn]

Hello everyone,

I'm hoping I can get some responses from our (voted) helpful community members!

My goal is to lose another 33 lbs to get to a normal BMI.

Here is my background information (All of this information is probably available on my profile, too, but I'll write it out here:

I am a 5'9, 37 year old male. Currently, I walk for 2 hours on weekdays. Of those two hours, I'll mix it up with some jogging/sprints averaging 30 minutes jogging per day. During my walk/jog sessions, my heart rate VERY rarely goes over "Cardio";  Each day, during my walk/jog workout, I usually maintain "fat burn" heartrate during walks and "cardio" during the jogs. I'm also doing some dumbell training for upper body strength, but I don't load up the weights and perform reps to failure. On Mondays and Thursdays I'll do 3 sets of 8-12 reps of: Dumbell Bench Presses; Incline Dumbell Bench Presses; One armed dumbell rows; one armed side laterals; dumbell alternate bicep curls. One of those two days per week I do tricep work instead of bicep work.

My ultimate goal is to be around 180 lbs, bodyfat around 16%. (Lower is fine, I'm not really sure how much it should be, honestly...)  I suppose that takes me out of the "normal" bmi range, which I'm fine with if I've got visible muscle definition

Prior to getting my fitbit, I lost about 67 lbs on weightwatcers over the span of 9 months, so counting calories is something I'm very comfortable with. At my current weight, my bodyfat ranges between 18-19%. Around early may, I stopped using weightwatchers and switched to the fitbit food logging module. I've been eating to a 1000 cal deficit over the last month.

So, is a 1000 deficit too "stressful" for my body considering my goals? Should I lower it to 750 until i'm at 20 lbs to goal, then lower to 500? I'd imagine when I'm at 10 lbs to goal I'd lower it to 250... but I'm not sure about any of that. I was under the impressoin 1000 deficit is okay no matter what my weight loss goal is, but reading through many posts here, I'm getting different ideas.

Please provide any input you can. I'm willing to completely change my exercise routine to get the results I want - the only caveat is that I'll want to at least get my daily 10,000 steps in at fat burn heart rate so I no longer need to use blood pressure medicine. My blood pressure has been 120/80 or lower since I started doing 10,000 steps a day, obviating my need for medicine.

Thanks in advance!

[Melissima]

How many calories are you supposed to consume in a day?  If the deficit is from working out, it should be ok. But you have to make sure you are getting your calories and nutrition you need. I use the lose it app on my iphone. I find that very informative. 

[mary0209]

Bj,

If you were on WW then you know what its all about, and it's not about counting cal. I'm a lifetime member and have been for 5 years now. It took me 11 months to lose 50lbs. Yes, I have ups and downs but you have to keep yourself on track. Cutting yourself back to 1000 or even 250 cal is ridulous! You know as well as I do when you lose that weight you will start eating everthing in sight that you have missed. Just keep up with what your doing. Sounds like you've been doing a good job. Why change now? I am off my BP meds ever since I lost my weight and it is staying in control as well. Really think this through before you do it.

A WW friend.

[Bjorn]

@mary0209Thank you for your reply. I don't think I was clear - I'm talking about 1000 calorie deficit. Not 1000 calorie intake. 1000 Calorie daily deficit is recommended for 2 lbs of weight loss per week. (-7000 calories a week.) Maybe you and I had different experiences with ww, but WW to me was all about accurately counting points (or calories, but a simplified version of calories.)

@MelissimaAs of now I think I'm doing okay on my nutritional stuff. Over the last month I've lost around 8 lbs, which is what I would expect from a weekly 7000 calorie deficit. Some days I burn 4000 calories, some days I burn less than 3000 calories, so my intake is 3000 or 2000 calories depending on the amount I'm burning. 

[Heybales · Accepted solution]

That's rather a big deficit for only 33 lbs left.

That's more appropriate for over 60 lbs to go.

You are in the 1 lb weekly or 500 cal deficit - pretty soon to be 250.

Reasonable deficit can help protect muscle mass loss.

Unreasonable encourages it.

Guess which will make maintenance more likely.

[Bjorn]

Thank you, @Heybales. Is it advisable to lose weight to 165 (normal bmi)
before trying to gain muscle size or would it not matter? I'm trying to
determine if maintaining 180 lbs and THEN building muscle is ok to do, or
if dropping to 165 is necessary?

[Heybales]

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@Bjorn wrote:
Thank you, @Heybales. Is it advisable to lose weight to 165 (normal bmi)
before trying to gain muscle size or would it not matter? I'm trying to
determine if maintaining 180 lbs and THEN building muscle is ok to do, or
if dropping to 165 is necessary?

---

Always attempt to start strength training early in the weight loss.

ONLY during the first stages as newbie, with enough fat to lose - can you actually gain muscle mass while losing fat and weight.

That will stop eventually, and when not much fat is left - won't even happen.

Plus, it helps retain muscle mass while losing fat weight.

If you wait until at goal weight, you'll have to recomp, meaning eating at maintenance and doing heavy lifting and keeping weight the same.

The trade time there for a guy could be as high as 1 lb every 6 weeks starting out. After 6-9 months it'll be even slower.

Or you could go to bulk/cut mode, and eat in surplus while heavy lifting, gaining some fat along with it, and then doing the diet all over again to drop just the fat this time.

But why wait to do that - do it now.

And the smaller the deficit - the better the recovery and workouts can be - and the better the body transform can be.

[Bjorn]

Thanks again, @Heybales! I really appreciate your time 🙂

[OneFitTrish]

Thank you @Heybales for your advice. I stumbled across this post, and it makes a lot of sense. It mainly apples more to my husband, as he has 150lbs to lose and I have 50. Best of luck everyone!