Controlled crash weight loss.

[Michael Skinner]

Hi,

I'm twenty two stone. I want to loose about five stone as rapidly as possible then taper the weight lose to not so rapid.

I know that it's not sensible to loose weight too quickly because it'll just pile back on and more. But I feel that a decent exercise regime will be a lot easier when I'm less heavy, I do cycling. At the moment I go out on my bike and even the slightest uphill gradient is so bad and I keep snapping spokes in the back wheel of my bike.

So is there anyone else in a similar situation or anyone who is knowledgeable about the human physiology. Is it sensible or possible to vary the rate of my weight loss like this. My plan was to loose the five stone between now (March 2015) and the end of this autumn, while I've got the motivation, then change the rate of my weight loss to less rapid over winter, when I the seasonally affect low mood starts getting on top of me.

Thanks in advance.

 

[clouddog]

Sounds good, you sound like you know what you are doing!

 

[Stackhead]

It does not sound good. It sounds like an awful idea.

Weight loss is 80% diet and 20% exercise (if not even less contribution from exercise!) so if you don't feel comfortable exercising at the beginning stages of weight loss, then don't. Or make it less intensive, go for a walk instead of a run.

If you crash diet you damage your metabolism so that when you stop crashing the calorie level for maintenance will be much much lower than average MEANING that when you then start to loose weight at a smaller rate you'll struggle immensely because you'll have to eat so much less than someone who didn't crash.

In my opinion you'll be setting yourself up for massive failure and doing yourself damage in the process.

5 stone in 5 months is a massive rate of loss, only really acheivable on a VLCD, and even then not guaranteed. My advice would be that if you're going to do it, follow a proper VLCD plan to the letter, including the steps up. Don't do it on something you've developed yourself. Check out the VLCD forums here, Cambridge, Exante, Lighter Life etc... and canvas opinion on your plan as they'd be more knowledgeable on rate of loss etc.

 

[Michael Skinner]

Thanks for the reply, yes I realise it doesn't sound good and I as I was typing the OP and seeing on the screen I realised. It's just that I believe in being physically active more than anything else because it's the periods of my life when I've been regularly active that have been the healthiest in terms of weight control.

Ten years ago I was a thirteen and a half stone racing cyclist, so it's taken me ten years to put on eight and a half stone. Now that I think about it, I'm not bothered if it takes me ten years to loose that same amount of weight. Even if I loose less than a kilogram a month I'll still be gratified by the weight going down instead of up.

 

[Bella-slimmer]

Hi Michael,

You may have quite a high metabolic rate due to your gender and having a bit of weight to lose so it might be relatively easy to lose quite a lot quickly to begin with. Try this BMR calculator Health-calc - Energy expenditure adv. to see how many calories you need to stay the same weight (the bottom number) and then minus 500 per day to lose 1lb per week and 1000 per day to lose 2lbs, if you can manage to eat even less you may lose more

Cycling with help to burn calories and tone up but depending on how far you go, it may not burn as many calories as you might imagine.

 

[Michael Skinner]

Thanks for the link it's useful.