The FastDay Forum

Reviewing people's progress in the latest 3 month challenge made me aware of how few of us really understand the way that weight loss slows as we become successful with our diets. The result of this is that we set unrealistic goals and then, when we can't meet them, we feel that we have "failed" when in fact we have done very well for someone of our weight and at our stage of dieting.

You can see some data about what real world dieters lose based on some challenges that were conducted on the old alt.support.diet.low-carb newsgroup a decade ago. What's useful here is that the data is broken down by how long the dieter has been on the diet and what their starting weight was when they started dieting.

http://www.phlaunt.com/lowcarb/19057960.php

Though this data is from low carb dieters, I suspect it pretty much matches what fasters experience. If you keep these findings in mind while setting goals for your next weight loss challenge, it might help you come away feeling more successful when, inf act, you really are successful.

[carorees]

@P-JK's program that predicts your weight loss is another way to get a more realistic idea of how your weightloss will progress as it adjusts to your lowering TDEE as your weight decreases.

Find it here: http://insightmaker.com/insight/9320

I've been using @P-JK's calculator for quite a while, but I find that the only way I can get it to match my actual weight loss is to increase the physical activity constant a bit more every month, even though I am, if anything, decreasing my physical activity. (Several severe deteriorated discs in neck and spine, which have been acting up, have made it impossible to do much of anything lately, which is one reason I spend a lot of time on forums. I can't sit at my computer long enough to do real work .)

To map my actual weight loss since February I now have to use a 1.5 activity constant. It was 1.4 a few months ago. In fact, I'm this close to being rock-like sedentary. I think this is because the formula used to compute TDEE is generic and doesn't adjust for build. I do have the proverbial "big bones" as wrist and shoe size will attest. And a few years ago, I logged my food for a long time to determine my actual daily maintenance calories which definitely are higher than the Mifflin St. Jeor formula would suggest.

Which is good, because right now that formula tells me I would have to eat 1300-something calories a day to maintain, which is not feasible. In reality, I seem to get by fine with another 150-200 calories a day. I'm eating around 1650 on non-fast days, sometimes higher. And the Libra graph is still trending down.

Using the 1.5 activity factor that predicts my loss from February to now, I should be 1 pound below my ultimate goal by Christmas, for a loss of another 3.3 lbs, but I will be very surprised if that is the case since I am now below a major setpoint. It will be very interesting to see if this can keep up.

I'm fine if it doesn't. If someone had told me I'd be 138.0 lbs exactly 7 months after starting this diet last February I would have been delirious with happiness. Heck, I would have been thrilled knowing I could get back to 145! Losing weight at age 66 when you are only 5'3", have blood sugar issues, and can't exercise is not for sissies.

BTW, is there any way that @P-JK could put up a version of the simulator that works in pounds and inches. The conversions make it very tedious for me to use it.

Hi @peebles,
Nice to learn that some are using the calculator (that really started as an experiment to try to understand the software used on the site, for which I needed an example 'to work on'). As indicated, it is a very simple model, using some general ( not very recent) formulas that might not work that well when you are not the average 'John' or 'Mary' in terms of length or build.
On the units: I am aware that most users that come to the calculator through our website might prefer inches and pound, but kg and cm were a lot more easy to calculate for me (used to the metric system). It should be possible to make a version with 'imperial' units (need I say more? ), but I will need to find some time to do that. One of the reasons why this has not been one of my priorities is that I feel using the metric system, that most of the non-English speakers are accustomed to, is a nice compensation for the fact that we are aready using English as the 'lingua franca'on the site