Weight loss help

[Slimjim12]

I started losing weight about 2 months ago. I went from 80kg to 74.4 kg but I’ve been stuck at that weight for a bit of time.  I am a 30 years old make  at165cm  in height.  I have been consuming 101g protein, 117g carbs, 52 g of fat which is about 1341 calories. The calculator I used online said my maintenance calories are 1806 a day  with a BMR of 1505 calories so I’m in a calorie deficit. I put that I was sedentary as well.

I workout 3 days a week , which is mostly body weight exercise but I started incorporating deadlifts into my routine. I mostly do pull ups, push ups, Bodyweight squats, body weight rows, dips, deadlifts, and some ab work. I also try to swim for 2 days on my non workout days if I’m not lazy. I usually swim  the breast stroke for about 45 minutes to an hour  ranging from 700m to 1000 m each time. I know it isn’t the best but I’m new to swimming. I’ve also got into doing yoga at home too which isn’t a everyday thing. I mostly do it on weekends which are my off days. I don’t really walk much on most days so this is the bulk of my exercise.

I track my calories pretty religiously. I eat the same stuff everyday but change up the vegetable and meat source up occasionally. I usually drink a whey protein shake in the morning with banana or blue berries with a little milk, coconut oil and water.  My lunch is usually chicken breast or ground pork with white rice  and veggies or  a sweet potato and veggies. My dinner varies. I could go for another protein shake or I’ll eat more veggies and meat that I cooked for the week. My snacks usually consist of apples and nut butters. I weigh literally everything so I don’t think I’m making tracking errors. Maybe the  cooked weight vs the uncooked weight of the meat might be off but I’m not sure.

I know having a protein shake twice a day isn’t ideal but I make sure it’s within my macros.

I could use some guidance or advice based on the information I gave. I’m new to all this so I’m open to trying anything. I know I could be more active and walk more. I’ve been considering it since the weight hasn’t budged. I’ve also looked at several different TDEE calculators and they all say different things. I was think of trying to up my protein intake since I read that protein is more ideal when building muscle and losing fat. I’ve looked at leangains which I’m thinking of trying. Their calculator has a much higher protein intake which could range from 1g to 3g per lb of body weight , but that sounds too expensive to me.

Thank you for any feedback.

[Glenda]

@Slimjim12  Great job you have done so far losing 12 pounds in 2 months.  Just a guess but I think you need to eat 200 calories less each day to start losing 1 pound a week now.  I just multiplied your current weight by 10 and then subtracted 500 calories from that.  From what I've read that should be a sustainable effort.    As you keep losing weight the numbers would keep changing.   Best wishes 

[Slimjim12]

So I should be eating 1130 calories now? It seems a bit low. What would the macros look like? 

[Glenda]

Most people eat too little protein, but I think you need to google the best amount of protein to eat for your gender, height and weight.  What you are doing now seems out of line to me.  

[Heybales]

Your device is actually a TDEE calculator with 1000's of levels based on what it sees you do, and some calculations.

Each day.

Those TDEE sites are your best guess of 4-5 levels perhaps based on only weekly workouts, not daily activity?

One has much better potential than the others.

If you want to try a sheet that at least lets you pick daily activity and workouts, and specific to them, try this to compare:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1G7FgNzPq3v5WMjDtH0n93LXSMRY_hjmzNTMJb3aZSxM/edit?usp=sharing

Though a device properly tweaked would still be better.

Merely have to eat less than you burn in total.

But are you manually logging any workouts that should not be, and taking the database estimated rate of burn?

Are there some workouts that would be best manually logged than Fitbit estimated calorie burn?

HR-based calorie burn is not a good calculation for intervals or lifting, better to manually log that, small calorie burn but true.

And then what you eat - you said good logging, and by weight. Great.

But cooked vs uncooked meat? Is that the only thing in that category of say frozen or served weight, or pre-mixed and then with water?

Also - how reasonable is your deficit now?

What was reasonable and not a stress to the body will become one, unless starting at minor amount from the beginning.

How close to healthy weight are you?

Like these ranges

over 50 lbs to healthy weight - 1000 cal deficit.

30 - 50 - 750 cal

15-30 - 500

less than 15 - 250 is reasonable.

Make it unreasonable, cause stress on body, increase cortisol, increase water retained. can slowly gain upwards of 20 lbs water weight  that way.

How many weeks of normal scale weight loss would that hide?

10 weeks if you were even losing 2 lb weekly. Over 2 months easily if losing less.

Any diet break eating at maintenance during that 2 months? 

And what is "a bit of time" stuck at same weight, since weight loss isn't linear anyway?

Oh, protein minimum in diet is usually recommended 1.8g/kg a day. So doing pretty good. Need more than at maintenance.

More may help satiety for some people, but won't help with muscles. So it may or may not be a waste for you.

[supercad79]

A pound of fat (or 0.45 kg) is equal to about 3500 calories. If you want to lose 1 lbs a week, you need to reduce your calorie intake by 500 calories per day to hit that 3500 calorie deficit. If you want to lose 2 lbs per week, up it to 1000 calories for the right deficit. You state that you're 74.4 kg, or 164 lbs. It's going to take you longer to lose weight since you won't have enough of a budget to have a 500-1000 calorie deficit. You may only be able to get a loss rate of half a pound per week, which is a 250 calorie deficit each day.

Using your stats, I come up with a BMR of 2,242 calories a day. A 500 calorie deficit will put you at 1742, whereas a 1000 calorie deficit will put you at 1242, which is really low in my opinion. However, you can take the amount of calories you burn in a workout and add half of that burn to your budget to give you some more room. For example, if you burn 400 calories, you can add 200 to your budget so you would be at 1942 or 1442 respectively.

Regarding what you're doing for exercise, you need to incorporate more routines that get you into a higher heart rate zone. Lifting weights isn't good for that by itself because it doesn't last long enough to get the heart rate up enough. I'm not saying that you shouldn't lift weights, but you need to add some cardio aspect to your routine and do it regularly.

I've been on a weight loss path since April of this year and I've lost 92 lbs just from walking and counting calories. Yes, that is literally all I've done. I have over 1600 miles of walking logged and I'm pretty careful about what I eat, but I certainly don't starve myself. My typical calorie intake is between 2400 and 2800 each day, but my burn amount is between 4500 and 5000 with all that I do. I usually have between 150 and 250 active minutes each day because I get my heart rate up enough to be in either a fat burn or cardio zone.

 Also keep in mind that weight loss is a rollercoaster. You're going to have constant ups and downs with the numbers. And there will be days where you go over your budget. Try not to worry about it in the short term and look at the trend over a longer period of time. My weight is always in flux, but it eventually falls off if I stay on my path.

[Heybales]

@supercad79 

Just some clarifications and corrections on your post.

When you said BMR you mean your estimated TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure). You never start the math with BMR to take a deficit from.

BMR is your Basal Metabolic Rate - what you burn sleeping. If you are in a coma and your medical team wants to help you lose weight - they might take a deficit from BMR.

So you got a different TDEE calculated then they did, they may have been using what Fitbit was reporting on average, since daily calorie burn is TDEE. And TDEE includes exercise - Total means total. Deficit comes off TDEE in this case.

Totally agree that this close to healthy weight and the deficit needs to be smaller.

Great reminder weight loss is not only not linear, but not getting stressed about hitting exact number each day. Being willing to go 50 over or under is much less stressful.

Some cardio weekly is great for stress too.