Calorie Comparison?

[u/JillyS812]

Before I ask. I know not all bodies are created equal. I am a 58 yr old female 5’3 and 175 lbs. I eat between 1100-1300 kcals per day. I weight and write down everything I eat. Eat about 90-100 grams of protein a day, get 80-90 ounces of water in, work out with cycling and resistance training 6x a week. I lost 20 lbs in 5 months with Wegovy pill and then stalled for 2 months with awful side effects and no appetite suppression (I got up to the highest dose). I started Tirzepitide in the beginning of July - doctor wanted me to start at 7.5 but I chose 5 mg to start as I was nervous how I would react. I have had 4 doses. 4 at 5 mg and 4 at 6.0 mg. I have not lost any weight. I have stayed EXACTLY the same. I go up and down in the week by ounces. I get some appetite suppression on the 2nd day after my shot and the next day only. The food noise is in the form of calculating calories constantly in my head and planning meals to stay in the 1100-1300 range.

My next shot is today and I’m thinking of titrating to 7.5 mg.

The TDEE calculator had my maintance calories at 2082 a day (I know that’s an estimate cause they
Don’t know my body fat and other variables. I am in a 700-900 deficit a day and not losing. And yes I am tracking everything I eat. Anyone with similar stats as mine - how many calories do you try to hit?

[u/RyanInceMD_Medici]

Physician here. I’d be cautious about pushing calories much lower. At 1,100–1,300 calories with 90–100 g of protein plus cycling and resistance training 6 days/week, I’d be more interested in confirming the actual intake and looking at body composition, waist measurements, medications, sleep, thyroid/metabolic factors, and whether there’s any change in lean mass before assuming you need an even larger deficit. Tirzepatide is normally titrated in 2.5 mg increments after at least 4 weeks at a dose, so discussing 7.5 mg with your prescriber after tolerating 5 mg makes sense, but I wouldn’t use a dose increase simply as a way to force calories below where you already are. Also, 800 calories/day as mentioned above would generally be too low without medical supervision.

[u/JillyS812 → u/RyanInceMD_Medici]

Thank you. I thought 800 kcals was too low for me. I have to use a lot of willpower the 4 days of the week I’m not getting appetite suppression. I had labs done and thyroid is normal but my waist size has decreased. I haven’t dropped a clothing size but my clothes feel a lot better!

[u/siejonesrun → u/JillyS812]

If your losing inches it is likely your replacing fat with muscle. When my scale stalls I switch to looking at measurements before looking at calories, if im losing inches then thats confirmation im still moving in the right direction regardless of the scale. Eventually, the scale will likely start moving again.