I heard the bigger you are, the more you lose at first? Do you find this to be true?

It usually works that way, yes. When you're bigger, it takes more calories to move your body through a regular day. If you reduce your calories to the same level as someone smaller, you create more of a deficit that results in more weight loss. It's a lot easier to make a meaningful deficit when you're burning more calories due to being heavier.

Also, often in the first week, you drop a fair bit of water weight. I lost 6lbs my first week!

Yup. Say you start at 300 lbs, theoretically you burn 3000 calories a day just to live. If you cut down to a 1500 a day calorie diet you'll have a 1500 calorie deficit per day.

Now if you started at 200 lbs you theoretically burn 2000 a day, if you went down to a 1500/day calorie diet you'd have a 500 calorie deficit per day

The lower your weight becomes eventually the less calories you burn per day.

Also, the bigger you are, the more you burn with a particular exercise (same principle as the general calorie guidelines above), so if you have two people doing the same aerobic exercise class (assuming done with the same vigor, which might not be valid assumption) the heavier person is going to burn more calories than the lighter person. So you get a benefit there too. That's one of the reasons you have to work out harder/longer as you get closer to goal weight to see the same effect on weightloss.

Another thing most people don't realize is that fat cells are alive and require energy. It's not a lot but it adds up. Every lb of fat uses about 2 calories a day so 100lbs of fat uses 200 calories a day. Weird huh?

Mostly though it has to do with movement and greater weight requires greater energy.

Definitely the more you change what you eat the more you lose I guess. Assuming that pretty unhealthy (high calorie, high fat) food and/or big portions got you there.

"Bigger people lose faster"

and

"Dieters lose most of their weight in the beginning"

Are usually true, but not always. For most of my life, both have been true, but things are a little different this time.

It's made me see they're trends, but not absolutes. Sometimes we treat them as if they're written in stone, and they're not.

Blood sugar and mobility issues have reduced my metabolism to the point that many much smaller women in my TOPS group are losing faster than I am on (seemingly) similar diets. As my health and activity level is improving, so is my weight loss.

You will lose what you will lose. It may be more or less than someone smaller or for that matter larger.

If you start thinking that you "should be" losing more than you are, it can set you up for the kind of frustration that makes quitting tempting. If you focus on the changes, and accept the results (or make more changes), rather than compare them to those of other people, that minimizes that kind of frustration.

At least that's been my experience. For the first time in four decades of dieting, I'm doing so virtually frustration free. It's great, because there's never any temptation to quit.

Thanks everyone, that is the imput I was looking for

Kaplods - I love the way you've stated this! I like reading your responses to posts generally, which are always so reasoned and thoughtful. Man, though, if we could all just do what you suggest above, we'd be better off! (easier said than done sometimes though)

I second that - from the last poster. Kaplods, you always have good answers and explain it so well. I am sure there are many on this forum , including myself, that REALLY appreciate the time you take to respond to our posts.

And John, I look forward to your more "scientific" answers, too.

Thank you both!!

I definitely wish I had learned this earlier, and it's not like it's a totally radical concept. But I think the reason I could never do it very well, is because I never truly accepted it as possible. I tried to "deal with" and reduce frustration, but I never considered the possibility of actually and truly eliminating it. Reducing it, yes - but eliminating it no. I always assumed that frustration and negativity were unavoidable (because I was told so by every diet advice giver). All I could hope to do was minimize and mitigate, not irradicate.


I learned the Serenity prayer when I tried OA in my late 20's or early 30's (Lord Grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference), but I really didn't understand what living it really took (and the first step was seeing it as possible).

I always gave up in the past when I made myself too miserable to continue. I wasn't giving up because I was stupid, I was giving up because it was the logical thing to do under the circumstances I created. I made myself so miserable, that giving up was actually a smart thing to do.

That's what I think we who have yoyo dieted most have to realize. We think our mistake was giving up (so we try again, exactly as we did before), but the real mistake was creating a situation that made continuing unbearable (which if we don't change is just going to happen again, exactly as before).

I found this to be the case with me. I started at 220 on Jan 1st (I'm 5'8") and by Feb 1 I had dropped 14 pounds. By Mar 1st down another 12 then I slowed to 1 -1.5 pound a week lost since then despite increasing exercise. I am now 37 pounds down and weight 183. I expected this slow down and am prepared to keep it up for another 5-6 months to lose the remaining 23 pounds.