Advice please! Need to lose inches, not weight

[sarahpuffer]

Hi there.

Looking for advice on losing excess body fat- 

I'm 5'3" and have been 125 for the last 10 years. Most of that time I got VERY little exercise and ate a LOT more than I should. So I assume I must have an okay natural metabolism. But I definitely have some excess fat, and most of it is in the mid-section. Honestly, I feel like I look pregnant sometimes.

In January I started working out every day (Jillian Michael's Body Revolution) but still overindulging in sweets, and not seeing any changes in my body (besides strength-wise).

Got a Fitbit a week ago and learned I was eating about 2300 cals a day on ave, and only burning 1600-ish. 

Can someone help me with a calorie burned/ consumed goal? How much of a deficit do I need to start losing fat? I'm using MyFitnessPal now to log food- so I can also set a fat/ sugar goal, etc. I'd really like to flatten up my abs by June!

[MikeWise]

They say an overall deficit of 7000 calories will give you a loss of 1 kg (2.2 lbs). From looking at my personal data it seems more like 8000, although that might be due to imprecise logging (it is hard to estimate calories).
A standard strategy is to aim for a 500 calorie deficit per day. That should get you about 1 lb a week, but the first ones always go easier. 
If the defiicts are too large your body will go into "starvation mode" and burn less fat (and everything, and get tired, etc), so if you can count calories accurately you shouldn't go much above that.
Not that I follow my own advice. I think I hit about 800 defiict on average. 🙂

[sarahpuffer]

A 500 calorie deficit per day seems pretty extreme, especially when I'm doing metabolic training which makes me HUNGRIER. I've just been aiming for about a 50-100 calorie deficit the last 3 days and have been hungry all the time.

[MikeWise]

Interesting. I have no trouble with a 500 calorie deficit. I actually am skeptical that a 50-100 calorie deficit is achievable because of the low precision of these methods. Obviously it is possible in theory, but in practice there seems to be too much error in both food calorie estimates and in excersize calorie estimates to hit so small a gap consistently. I kind of think 400-500 is the lowest practical gap.
But if it works for you, great. I would like to know how you are tackling the precision problem. Do you always use the same machines and eat only carefully measured portions?

[mistymo]

A pound of fat is 3500 calories, so you have to have a calorie deficit of 3500 per week to lose a pound of fat.  Now you may not necessarily need to cut all those calories from food.  You could cut 250 calories/day then burn another 250 calories more by working out.  What are the Jillian workouts like?  Have you been doing them for a while?  Sometimes if you've been doing the same workouts, your body gets used to them and won't burn calories as efficiently.  You have to mix it up.  You really need to be doing some sort of weight training also.  Hope this helps!

[sarahpuffer]

The workouts I'm doing are similar to P90X- increasing in intensity every 2 weeks, and involve weight training.

I don't have a good measure of how many calories I'm actually burning- I just trust the fitbit, but I am logging what I eat pretty well and yes, eating carefully measured portions.

Maybe I don't understand the calorie deficit thing. For years, I was eating well over 2000 calories a day, and burning maybe 1400-1600 (not working out at all), and I never GAINED any weight.

Right now I'm aiming for burning 1800 cals a day and eating 1700, so I think that's a drastic change for my body. My biggest concern is wrecking my metabolism and having to restrict calories forever..

[Snowflakepdx]

You should see results with Body Revolution. You will not wreck your metabolism by putting on muscle.

[DanPamperin]

My workouts are also similar to P90X (I go to a local fitness boot camp where High Intensity Interval Training is the norm)  My wife and I have both had great success carb cycling.  Ironically, one of the ways I describe it is the "P90X of eating."  Basically, you cycle between high-carb days and low-carb days (and includes a focus on clean eating.)  The plan includes a lot of veggies and you eat five-times per day.  That may sound like a lot, but your body's metabolism will keep "running high" by continually giving it fuel -- it just depends on what your fuel is.

It sounds as though you are in a similar situation as my wife.  She didn't have much weight to lose, but wanted to improve muscle tone.  Following this nutrition and exercise plan (i.e. HIIT), she lost only six pounds.  However, she dropped 3 pants sizes over the course of a couple months.  In my case, I have more body fat to lose, so my weight has gone down despite putting on muscle mass.  Remember lean muscle will burn more calories, so continuing with P90X is good for that.  I see this post is from March, so I'm hoping things have been going well for you!  Let me know if you have any questions!

[Heybales]

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@sarahpuffer wrote:

The workouts I'm doing are similar to P90X- increasing in intensity every 2 weeks, and involve weight training.

I don't have a good measure of how many calories I'm actually burning- I just trust the fitbit, but I am logging what I eat pretty well and yes, eating carefully measured portions.

Maybe I don't understand the calorie deficit thing. For years, I was eating well over 2000 calories a day, and burning maybe 1400-1600 (not working out at all), and I never GAINED any weight.

Right now I'm aiming for burning 1800 cals a day and eating 1700, so I think that's a drastic change for my body. My biggest concern is wrecking my metabolism and having to restrict calories forever..

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Great workouts, great way to engage muscle and get it stronger.

Not a great way to add more, even eating in surplus, it's just not that type of workout.

Don't trust the Fitbit for those types of workout - those are totally non-step based and therefore highly under-estimated.

And no, you don't understand the deficit thing, but mightly close.

If you honestly with accuracy in logging were eating 2000 daily for years and you did not gain - you were burning 2000 daily on average too.

Why do you think you only burned 1400-1600 with no exercise?

Either that estimate is off, or your logging is off. You did not defy the laws of thermodynamics.

Do you weigh all foods that go in your mouth? Calories is by weight, not volume. Measuring is only valid for liquids. Even weighing portions is needed - "about 2 servings" is not accurate, but an actual package weight of 520 grams (though label said 510) divided by serving size of 225 grams is actual servings of 2.3 servings. If that was 250 cal per serving, you just ate 75 more calories than you would have thought otherwise. Do that a few times during the day - poof - deficit gone.

A 150-250 cal deficit is just fine if you have actual weight to lose to be in healthy range.

But if weight is already in healthy range, and you just have fat you want to drop, then you need different workout and eating at maintenance.

You'll get better improvements from exercise eating at maintenance, and that means fat can drop at the same time.

But you have to actually lift weights. That metabolic workout won't cut it for you after a short period of time. The very nature of those workouts is cardio endurance with strength component.

The body's response is not to grow more muscle, it's to increase carb stores so you can go harder and longer.

You need reps in 5-12 range, with heavy enough weight that you are almost failing on last few reps of last set.

The body's response to that is to grow more muscle once existing is tapped out.

So while food goes for that, fat is burned off. It's slow, but it works.

If you do have weight to loss in addition to dropping fat, then keep the minor deficit, but take a diet break every 6 weeks and eat daily what you burn daily.

Confirm your sync with MFP is correct so your eating level is adjusted correctly.

The manual entries for exercises you do can be done on MFP or Fitbit, doesn't matter - just needs to be done.