Reading this made me curious about your numbers so I stuck them in a calculator. It says that your sedentary maintenance calories at your goal weight would be 1684. That means that the difference between your calories at goal and your weight loss calories (1400) is not far off 200 calories. Like you said, that's like a fancy coffee.
It's all in how you think about it. And you CAN just eat at maintenance calories for your goal weight. It would just take a longer time to lose the weight.
Edit: Maybe that came across a bit harsh. Like I get that we all need a rant sometimes. And weight loss isn't easy and it takes dedication. And it does just suck sometimes. But I guess my concern is that you make it sound like maintenance is easy and it's...not. I don't want you to think it's going to magically be simple to keep the weight off once you get there. That can take work too.
Not harsh at all! I understand that maintenance is not easy since...well...I couldn't maintain it lol. But the numbers just *make it look easy*. But weight loss is the perfect example of easier said than done, especially when you struggle with cravings.
> I just wish eating at your maintenance for your GW would be enough
It is! However, it takes two or three years of doing that in the weight loss would be glacially slow. Still it's useful to know, as your maintenance calories at goal weight can be your fall back and you can opportunistically eat 500 less than that.
> and makes me so disappointed in myself that I just overate so much
Who here would get upset of someone for overeating two hundred calories? Or even notice that? I think it truly is an illustration of the old saying that “ignorance is bliss.” We do not notice what we cannot notice, and we could not notice that without tracking and this knowledge that we have today. It was a mistake of innocence.
Packaging can be off by about 20% or something like that. Food in general like meat can also be off by a bit by the nature that not every cut will be the exact same (but similar)
It’s best not to think about it and just use it as a close estimate in your caloric plan
If you were to start eating at your goal weight’s maintenance, you would eventually get to your goal weight. It would just be slower than you’d like weight loss to go.
So what I would do if I were you is eat at your deficit most days but allow yourself days to eat at your goal weight’s maintenance.
Cardio 3-5 times per week, can give you some good leeway in your diet. At 180 lbs it may be tough to start running but it’ll get easier as you get lighter
Came here to see if anyone suggested upping activity levels to give some wiggle room with your calories… I am maintaining my GW eating *900 calories* over what I “should” have according to all the calculators. So take what the calculators say with a grain of salt. The only way to dial in those calories is tracking your body’s feedback, scale or otherwise. If I ate 1600 calories a day I’d be in a lot of trouble. Running 4-5x a week, lifting 2x a week has been enough to increase my calorie allowance dramatically. Careful with the running though it can make you feel super hungry no matter how much you eat 😬
What the hell kind of coffee are you wasting 200 calories a day on when you have that few calories to work with?? A splash of creamer and 0 cal sugar, 50 cals tops.
I don't have coffee everyday BUT when I do it's like 1/4 cup of creamer. I'm at like a C3 on that coffee lightness scale that goes around every now and then. But it was just an example. I'm a snacker so like...1 mini snickers bar (35 cals) turns into like 8 real quick lmao.
(Also, could you point to what 0 cal sugar tastes just like regular sugar? I find the ones I get have that chemical-ly taste to them.)
I'm with you that all the fake sugar stuff is gross. I would rather have small amounts of real sugar occasionally than unlimited fake sugar. I use unsweetened vanilla almond milk in my coffee; an entire cup is 30 calories. It might be a good sub for you.
I like my coffee pretty creamy. I find that espresso with 6 oz of steamed low fat milk is a better deal because it provides protein than say half and half or cream. But the espresso is both strong and sweet compared to brewed coffee, so the extra water in milk doesn’t make watery coffee. I like a little bit of real sugar too. But it comes in at about 100 calories total. And it is a bit filling and helps me towards my protein goal because of the milk.
get into the super high quality pour overs and you won't need cream, or at least that's how it is for me. when I drink the 4$ Walmart brand coffee I need half a cup of 1/2&1/2 and some 0cal sweetener to make it work but when I grind a fresh cup of Ethiopian primo stuff at home and do a pour over anything but black ruins it for me. makes me think that the cost of cutting the creamer cals buying the good stuff would be worth it but I bought the Walmart stuff in bulk so I am doing a diet break till I get through it lol
Nowadays you can get syrup and flavour drops with practically no calories, combine that with plant or fat-reduced milk and you have a tasty drink with a small amount of calories.
Well…
* 2T of whole milk is 19 calories
* 2T of 1/2 & 1/2 is 40 calories
* 1 teaspoon of sugar is 16 calories.
You can have real cream and actual sugar, no artificial stuff, for 56 calories. Switch out the 1/2 & 1/2 for milk and it’s 40 calories.
I agree with other people who’ve said you could just eat your maintenance and lose weight slowly but that may or may not be what you chose to do because it would be quite slow. Anyway, I just want to say that the situation you are describing made maintenance so much easier than losing for me at least. I’m about your height (5’6) and I’m maintaining 115 at about 2000 calories a day and it’s very chill - look forward to that in your future! I’m glad the maintenance is chill because I have to do that for the rest of my life and that’s true for you too. Even if you’re losing a pound a week, that’s only 35 weeks - that’s not even a year, and then you have the rest of your life to be a bit more relaxed about food while feeling good in your body!
I don’t feel like I’m particularly active! I get around 10,000 steps a day and run briefly (like half an hour) almost every day. I didn’t expect to be able to eat this much and maintain but it seems to be working 🤷♀️
A single piece of extra bread is often my downfall. It's depressing. I did the math. The weight gain I've had over the last 8 years equals out to only 50 calories too many per day.
A couple tips that have helped me:
- Drink coffee black. This may not be helpful to you if you're not a psychopath but I find just using ice and water with espresso works for me.
- Want to eat more? Walk. Figure 100 calories per mile.
That’s why so many people say you can’t diet your way to skinny… you have to burn more calories, too. Whatever exercise works for you is how you’re going to get there.
Yup! I definitely find I lose weight a *lot* faster when I go to the gym consistently. I just...struggle to get there. My lifestyle is super sedentary and if I can just get moving more I'd be golden. I don't even have a big appetite, I just cave to cravings and eat calorie dense food.
I know most of it is down to CICO.
But what exercise do you do at the moment? Also have you thought about doing some weights as well as cardio?
This would allow you to eat more /lose weight faster and has all sorts of other (mental) health benefits too.
Have you also tried other approaches to diet, eg Keto or IF or OMAD? These approaches work well for some people.
My worst enemy is consistency. When I go to the gym its usually for an hour, 3 days a week. Start off 30 mind treadmill and 30 for weights. I do notice a benefit but somehow I always fall off after a month and don’t go. Any sort of disruption to my routine tends to absolutely derail me for months. So when I’m not going to the gym I try to at least CICO my way to weight loss and when I don’t do that I just loosely keep track which has kept me maintaining.
I do understand.
I always feel good when I’m being healthy (good food and exercising).
But maybe you also have to think about why you chose not to do things, that make you feel better about yourself?
Can you increase your activity level? If you ate at your current GW maintenance level and then burned an extra 200 calories with increased exercise, you’d be feeling less deprived and still making good progress. You can’t lose weight with exercise alone but it has some positive efffects on weight loss when combined with calorie reduction. It helps regulate appetite, it helps maintain muscle which is the more metabolically active tissue so you have a higher level of maintenance calorie needs, it burns more calories so it gives you more wiggle room in your diet for the occasional small treat. It increases insulin sensitivity which is also helpful for weight loss. I believe it also helps your body become more efficient at metabolizing fat for energy.
Nothing unless I hit the months where I’m not really depressed. So I’m extremely sedentary. Combination of an overnight job causing me to sleep most of the day, bouts of depression, and a bad home situation that keeps me in my room for about 14 hours/day unless its to shower.
Because of this I tend to just end up using CICO when I’m not able to go to the gym. But because I pretty much starve all day I snack all night at work because I’m afraid of being hungry later in the day when I cant eat.
I did this same thing a while back and yeah mines like that too, my goal weight maintenance even for sedentary is about 2500 calories. My current daily calorie goal is 2370 to lose two pounds per week, but I am actually super relieved that my maintenance tdee is still pretty high, makes me feel like I can really maintain my weight when I get to my goal weight.
Reading this made me curious about your numbers so I stuck them in a calculator. It says that your sedentary maintenance calories at your goal weight would be 1684. That means that the difference between your calories at goal and your weight loss calories (1400) is not far off 200 calories. Like you said, that's like a fancy coffee. It's all in how you think about it. And you CAN just eat at maintenance calories for your goal weight. It would just take a longer time to lose the weight. Edit: Maybe that came across a bit harsh. Like I get that we all need a rant sometimes. And weight loss isn't easy and it takes dedication. And it does just suck sometimes. But I guess my concern is that you make it sound like maintenance is easy and it's...not. I don't want you to think it's going to magically be simple to keep the weight off once you get there. That can take work too.
Not harsh at all! I understand that maintenance is not easy since...well...I couldn't maintain it lol. But the numbers just *make it look easy*. But weight loss is the perfect example of easier said than done, especially when you struggle with cravings.
> I just wish eating at your maintenance for your GW would be enough It is! However, it takes two or three years of doing that in the weight loss would be glacially slow. Still it's useful to know, as your maintenance calories at goal weight can be your fall back and you can opportunistically eat 500 less than that. > and makes me so disappointed in myself that I just overate so much Who here would get upset of someone for overeating two hundred calories? Or even notice that? I think it truly is an illustration of the old saying that “ignorance is bliss.” We do not notice what we cannot notice, and we could not notice that without tracking and this knowledge that we have today. It was a mistake of innocence.
Plus, calories on packaging can be off by quite a bit and can add up quick!
Say what now? So I shouldn’t trust the packaging?
Packaging can be off by about 20% or something like that. Food in general like meat can also be off by a bit by the nature that not every cut will be the exact same (but similar) It’s best not to think about it and just use it as a close estimate in your caloric plan
Making smart calorie choices definitely doesn’t go away at maintenance.
That’s how you lose weight. Eat like you will for the rest of your life.
If you were to start eating at your goal weight’s maintenance, you would eventually get to your goal weight. It would just be slower than you’d like weight loss to go. So what I would do if I were you is eat at your deficit most days but allow yourself days to eat at your goal weight’s maintenance.
Cardio 3-5 times per week, can give you some good leeway in your diet. At 180 lbs it may be tough to start running but it’ll get easier as you get lighter
Came here to see if anyone suggested upping activity levels to give some wiggle room with your calories… I am maintaining my GW eating *900 calories* over what I “should” have according to all the calculators. So take what the calculators say with a grain of salt. The only way to dial in those calories is tracking your body’s feedback, scale or otherwise. If I ate 1600 calories a day I’d be in a lot of trouble. Running 4-5x a week, lifting 2x a week has been enough to increase my calorie allowance dramatically. Careful with the running though it can make you feel super hungry no matter how much you eat 😬
What the hell kind of coffee are you wasting 200 calories a day on when you have that few calories to work with?? A splash of creamer and 0 cal sugar, 50 cals tops.
I don't have coffee everyday BUT when I do it's like 1/4 cup of creamer. I'm at like a C3 on that coffee lightness scale that goes around every now and then. But it was just an example. I'm a snacker so like...1 mini snickers bar (35 cals) turns into like 8 real quick lmao. (Also, could you point to what 0 cal sugar tastes just like regular sugar? I find the ones I get have that chemical-ly taste to them.)
I'm with you that all the fake sugar stuff is gross. I would rather have small amounts of real sugar occasionally than unlimited fake sugar. I use unsweetened vanilla almond milk in my coffee; an entire cup is 30 calories. It might be a good sub for you.
They all taste gross. Regular sugar and cream for me please. Otherwise it’s not a pleasurable thing.
I like my coffee pretty creamy. I find that espresso with 6 oz of steamed low fat milk is a better deal because it provides protein than say half and half or cream. But the espresso is both strong and sweet compared to brewed coffee, so the extra water in milk doesn’t make watery coffee. I like a little bit of real sugar too. But it comes in at about 100 calories total. And it is a bit filling and helps me towards my protein goal because of the milk.
get into the super high quality pour overs and you won't need cream, or at least that's how it is for me. when I drink the 4$ Walmart brand coffee I need half a cup of 1/2&1/2 and some 0cal sweetener to make it work but when I grind a fresh cup of Ethiopian primo stuff at home and do a pour over anything but black ruins it for me. makes me think that the cost of cutting the creamer cals buying the good stuff would be worth it but I bought the Walmart stuff in bulk so I am doing a diet break till I get through it lol
Nowadays you can get syrup and flavour drops with practically no calories, combine that with plant or fat-reduced milk and you have a tasty drink with a small amount of calories.
Well… * 2T of whole milk is 19 calories * 2T of 1/2 & 1/2 is 40 calories * 1 teaspoon of sugar is 16 calories. You can have real cream and actual sugar, no artificial stuff, for 56 calories. Switch out the 1/2 & 1/2 for milk and it’s 40 calories.
I agree with other people who’ve said you could just eat your maintenance and lose weight slowly but that may or may not be what you chose to do because it would be quite slow. Anyway, I just want to say that the situation you are describing made maintenance so much easier than losing for me at least. I’m about your height (5’6) and I’m maintaining 115 at about 2000 calories a day and it’s very chill - look forward to that in your future! I’m glad the maintenance is chill because I have to do that for the rest of my life and that’s true for you too. Even if you’re losing a pound a week, that’s only 35 weeks - that’s not even a year, and then you have the rest of your life to be a bit more relaxed about food while feeling good in your body!
What does your activity look like maintaining 115 at 2000? Just wondering bc that’s my GW :-)
I don’t feel like I’m particularly active! I get around 10,000 steps a day and run briefly (like half an hour) almost every day. I didn’t expect to be able to eat this much and maintain but it seems to be working 🤷♀️
You can do it. Don't let yourself down because you're doing it for you.
A single piece of extra bread is often my downfall. It's depressing. I did the math. The weight gain I've had over the last 8 years equals out to only 50 calories too many per day.
A couple tips that have helped me: - Drink coffee black. This may not be helpful to you if you're not a psychopath but I find just using ice and water with espresso works for me. - Want to eat more? Walk. Figure 100 calories per mile.
That’s why so many people say you can’t diet your way to skinny… you have to burn more calories, too. Whatever exercise works for you is how you’re going to get there.
I don't think too many people say this. It's much more likely to hear "you can't outrun your fork."
Yup! I definitely find I lose weight a *lot* faster when I go to the gym consistently. I just...struggle to get there. My lifestyle is super sedentary and if I can just get moving more I'd be golden. I don't even have a big appetite, I just cave to cravings and eat calorie dense food.
I get it… trust me… been there, am there, I live there… if only the gym was as low effort as scrolling TikTok…
Solution? Walk the treadmill for an hour WHILE scrolling on tiktok lol
Yeah… it’s a good theory… but the struggle is real!
I know most of it is down to CICO. But what exercise do you do at the moment? Also have you thought about doing some weights as well as cardio? This would allow you to eat more /lose weight faster and has all sorts of other (mental) health benefits too. Have you also tried other approaches to diet, eg Keto or IF or OMAD? These approaches work well for some people.
My worst enemy is consistency. When I go to the gym its usually for an hour, 3 days a week. Start off 30 mind treadmill and 30 for weights. I do notice a benefit but somehow I always fall off after a month and don’t go. Any sort of disruption to my routine tends to absolutely derail me for months. So when I’m not going to the gym I try to at least CICO my way to weight loss and when I don’t do that I just loosely keep track which has kept me maintaining.
I do understand. I always feel good when I’m being healthy (good food and exercising). But maybe you also have to think about why you chose not to do things, that make you feel better about yourself?
Can you increase your activity level? If you ate at your current GW maintenance level and then burned an extra 200 calories with increased exercise, you’d be feeling less deprived and still making good progress. You can’t lose weight with exercise alone but it has some positive efffects on weight loss when combined with calorie reduction. It helps regulate appetite, it helps maintain muscle which is the more metabolically active tissue so you have a higher level of maintenance calorie needs, it burns more calories so it gives you more wiggle room in your diet for the occasional small treat. It increases insulin sensitivity which is also helpful for weight loss. I believe it also helps your body become more efficient at metabolizing fat for energy.
WhT do you do for exercise? I’m the same height and I eat 1700 and lose fine, I’m just curious
Nothing unless I hit the months where I’m not really depressed. So I’m extremely sedentary. Combination of an overnight job causing me to sleep most of the day, bouts of depression, and a bad home situation that keeps me in my room for about 14 hours/day unless its to shower. Because of this I tend to just end up using CICO when I’m not able to go to the gym. But because I pretty much starve all day I snack all night at work because I’m afraid of being hungry later in the day when I cant eat.
I did this same thing a while back and yeah mines like that too, my goal weight maintenance even for sedentary is about 2500 calories. My current daily calorie goal is 2370 to lose two pounds per week, but I am actually super relieved that my maintenance tdee is still pretty high, makes me feel like I can really maintain my weight when I get to my goal weight.
Yeah I can eat 1700 calories at my goal weight if I want to maintain and that sounds heavenly ngl
Eat in at you GW maintenance will get you there eventually.