Stuck and looking for advice
bendblake
Posts: 7
I have hit a plateau that I cannot seem to break through. Hoping the community might have some valuable input.
I have been stuck at ~236#'s for the past 6 weeks.
I exercise everyday M-Sat and take Sunday's off completely to recharge the batteries. For exercise, I typically walk 2+ miles twice a day at a ~19min/mile pace.
Since I have been stalled, I have joined MFP and have logged my food religiously. If I smell it, I log it. I really thought that I must have been consuming more calories than I am burning, but with my calorie tracking that doesn't seem to be the case. I have even bought a kitchen scale to weigh my food and a new Withings bathroom scale for my personal weight.
Something is truly amiss, but I can't figure it out. BIG thanks in advance for your input and advice!
Blake
I have been stuck at ~236#'s for the past 6 weeks.
I exercise everyday M-Sat and take Sunday's off completely to recharge the batteries. For exercise, I typically walk 2+ miles twice a day at a ~19min/mile pace.
Since I have been stalled, I have joined MFP and have logged my food religiously. If I smell it, I log it. I really thought that I must have been consuming more calories than I am burning, but with my calorie tracking that doesn't seem to be the case. I have even bought a kitchen scale to weigh my food and a new Withings bathroom scale for my personal weight.
Something is truly amiss, but I can't figure it out. BIG thanks in advance for your input and advice!
Blake
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Replies
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Open your diary.0
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Do you weigh everything that goes into you mouth? sauces? do you count/measure liquids and beverages? what do you have your calories set at? you're either eating too many calories or over estimated your calorie needs0
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over estimate calories always
dressings and sauces are more calories the thicker they are
ranch dressing ex, - 50c tbsp ..... italian -30c
I dont weigh anything, never have. If I am out I estimate, over estimate, never does me wrong... It would help you if you study the accuracy and probably estimations of fooods, dairy, wheat, ect then you always have a range to shoot at if you are uncertain
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Well i don't know what your calculated calorie burn is but i'd suggest its wrong and that you are eating too much. The calories you are aiming for are wrong. Eat less!
You should feel a tiny bit hungry when you go to bed at night. Not hungry enough to make you want to eat but you should not feel perfectly satisfied at that stage of the day.
I had a look at your profile where you helpfully note that you are a diabetic. Why didn't you mention that before. You know that diabetics tend to lose weight at a slower rate than other people.
I suggest if you are not doing it already, that you significantly reduce your carb foods, not vegetables, just the white carbs. Keep it under 150 to start with. Eat more protein, a lot more vegetables and when you choose carbs, make them LOW GI carbs.
If you eat sweets at all, eat them at the same time as you eat a meal and never separately.
Any other carbs except fruit, eat them only at the same time as you eat vegetables.
For instance don't eat bread and peanut butter. Eat bread and salad. This slows down the energy release and means the glucose gets taken up out of your blood more slowly, which is what you want. When its taken up more slowly, you have more time before it gets converted to fat. This is another reason to reduce carbs overall. Less carbs, less fat accumulation and more fat burning.
To compensate for the reduced amount of carbs, eat more fat. Yes it does have more calories but you still need the same amount of energy to get through your day and if carbs are not giving you enough, it must come from somewhere. Over time, your body will produce enzymes enabling more efficient burning of body fat. In the meantime while your body is getting to that stage, it will convert some of the protein you consume into energy but this is not an efficient process and the protein you eat is mainly needed for other jobs.0 -
Sorry, I assumed the diary was already public. Fixed!
Even if I overestimated by 10%, I STILL should be losing some weight. I have studied each item before I add it to see if it matches what the box says. Knowing that the stated labels can be wrong also, I am still avg 500 calories under my daily goal.
Patttience - I have doubled checked my calculated calorie burn on a few different websites and I am always within 30 calories per workout.0 -
It looks like you need to tighten up on your logging - specifically weighing as much as you can (even packaged foods).
I don't necessarily think you should eat less. Your average cals of about 1800-2000 are fairly low for a male. But until you weigh your food consistently for a while it is hard to say how much you are actually eating.
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First entry I looked at...Elk burger with 413 calories but 116g of carbs, 15g of fat, 39g of protein.
I trust I don't have to spell it out.
(Hint: those macros equate to 755 calories. Way more than "10%" off.)
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Mr Knight, I trust you are typically more helpful. One meal, even being 500 calories off isn't the issue. But thanks for your insight and great advice.0
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The problem probably lies in your definition of what a tablespoon is or a what a cup is. For me, a tablespoon of peanut butter is as much as I can fit on the spoon as physically possible. I am probably fitting 4-5 REAL tablespoons in that one scoop. I see you have, "Homemade - Peanut Butter Sandwiches, 1.75 sandwiches". Do you do what I do and pound 500 calories worth of peanut butter onto one sandwich?
I also see, "Homemade - Grilled Cheese Sandwich, 1 sandwich" listed at 300 calories. If I were to make a homemade grilled cheese I'd have 4+ table spoons of melted butter, 2 massive pieces of bread, chunks of different types of cheese, and some yummy pickles in it. Are you really only using 2 slices of bread and one slice of cheese to get that 300 calories sandwich?
You are doing a great job logging what you are eating. You just need to make sure are logging the proper quantity.0 -
I am not an electrical engineer so my analogy can only go so far here, but if you were to build a circuit (your body) and only estimated the size and setup (quantity) of the resistors, capacitors, inductors, and diodes (calories, carbs, sodium, fiber)...would you get the outcome you are looking for? Would the circuit work? No of course not. You can't be estimating things when you want a specific outcome.0
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Mr Knight, I trust you are typically more helpful. One meal, even being 500 calories off isn't the issue. But thanks for your insight and great advice.
You asked for help. You'll need to keep an open mind for this process to work. When we find even one or two items, we point them out. It is up to you to research what caused that item to be off. Some people might come back and say, oh yeah, my Mom makes a lovely dinner every other night. Which clearly means a large portion of items they are logging might be unknown. Or you just might be using the wrong item from the database - either just the once, or on a more regular basis.
There are two stickies at the top of the forum, Calorie counting 101 and something along the lines of accurate logging you are eating more than you think. Please read and try to understand them. Unless your stated medical condition is somehow getting in the way of this, there's no mystery here. If you're not losing weight, you are consuming more calories than your body burns
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Ooof. And on the same day, restaurant serving of French fries, 219 calories. This actually hits me close to home because I was hungry coming back from the mall yesterday and decided to get mcdonalds small fries to tide me over till dinner. The serving was so tiny I almost cried. Dude, I'm guessing that's not what they served you at your restaurant? Also, any dipping sauces or anything, those have calories too. Depending on how much you used, could be significant. I logged 230 calories of French fries and I think another 50 of honey mustard dipping sauce, plus 40 cals from coffee creamer
Reviewing your diary myself I came to many of the same conclusions:
A lot of "home made" items. If these are not your own recipes, you may wish to stop using them. Instead, either make your own, or list the items individually.
For restaurants, go to the specific restaurants website if you can to get their nutritional info. You've done the right thing by getting a food scale. This actually helps me with estimating restaurant food when I have to. If I have prepared, weighed and logged something similar, I have a better idea how many calories it might be
The exercise calories. I don't know if walking a dog changes the walking calories burned formula, but one I've seen floating around the interwebs for "net" calories burned is:
0.3 X distance (miles) X body weight (lb)
Based on that formula you can pretty much slash your exercise calories listed by half
In addition to the stickies, this post on accurate logging may help clarify some things for you:
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1234699/logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide/p10 -
Instead of looking at the food part - why not change the exercise. Your body has probably gotten used to 2-4+ miles of walking 6 days a week, so it's time to change it up0
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How long have you been stuck?0
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harlequin0318 wrote: »Instead of looking at the food part - why not change the exercise. Your body has probably gotten used to 2-4+ miles of walking 6 days a week, so it's time to change it up
Weight loss is about calories in<calories out. If someone isn't losing weight, the problem is on the calories in side most of the time (though often both, if they overestimate burns).
OP, I agree with what everyone else said. Take a few weeks to log everything accurately by weighing everything you eat. Read the thread Janei linked to show you how it's done. Only eat back 50-75% of your burns to account for overestimations. Everything should start to work.0 -
harlequin0318 wrote: »Instead of looking at the food part - why not change the exercise. Your body has probably gotten used to 2-4+ miles of walking 6 days a week, so it's time to change it up
Altough I agree with the general advice of getting more active your body doesn't get used to an exercise to the point that it becomes less efficient and less effective. However, most people miscalculate their exercise since they should be concentrating on gross rather than net calories burned and normally we see gross calories burned when we add them in. For example, if I enter 60 minutes of 3.0 MPH walking into the exercise calculator on MFP I should only see 150 calories but it shows 260. That means it will over estimate 660 calories if I walk 6 days a week. If my food intake is underestimated by even 100 calories per day that's over 1300 calories difference in that week (i.e. I will think I have a greater deficit than I actually do). That can really add up.0 -
This last post was the most helpful for me. I don't completely understand it, but I get the jist.
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coachscoop wrote: »This last post was the most helpful for me. I don't completely understand it, but I get the jist.
If you would like me to clarify anything just PM me and I can give you some links to get your started.0 -
You might be overestimating your exercise calories. I would cut down by 100 calories a day and see how that goes.0
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Many of the items in your dairy are incorrect (as in, the macros add up to being WAY more calories).
Food
Saturday, Nov 1:
-Homemade Grilled Cheese Sandwich. You have 300 calories. Did you create that entry? 2X1 slice of 75-150 calorie bread, plus cheese 50-300 calories, plus butter in the pan 10-50 calories. You may be close to accurate if you used packaged sliced bread and cheese but you still would need to weigh the butter.
-Fish - Tuna salad, 1.25 cup: It's hard to level goopy solids, like tuna salad, and be accurate. It's likely that you had much more.
-Fritos: I used to count out tortilla chips. One serving for that brand was 13 chips. I later got a food scale and found that 13 chips could be 25-30% more or less than a serving, depending on the chips.
-Planter's peanuts: A serving of nuts is miniscule AND extremely high calorie, which means that overdoing it by even a small handful could be an extra 100-200 calories.
Friday, Oct 31st:
-Vegan - Buckwheat Pancakes , 3 pancakes: What brand? Did you make these from scratch? Is this someone else's homemade entry?
-7.5 saltines: Really? You broke one exactly in half?
-Kelloggs miniwheats: cereal, like nuts, is extremely hard to measure with a measuring cup. It's higher calorie, so if you're wrong, you can be very wrong. Cereal doesn't measure flat.
-Many of your items have macros that don't add up to the final calories. Subway cookies: 420 cals (60 carb, 20 fat, 4 protein). Sooo.. 60*4+20*9+4*4 = 436 calories, and that's if they were exactly the same number of grams as the cookie used to measure the macros. If the macros don't add up, there's a good chance the entry is completely wrong.
I just wrote about 2 days, but I saw the same problems (measuring high calorie foods with measuring cups, incorrect entries, homemade meals, and a lot of guessing). I also noticed that you eat a LOT of sodium. This doesn't prevent fat loss, but it does cause water retention.
Exercise
2 miles 2X a day at ~3 mph (do you use a GPS? are you sure it is a mile? do you time yourself for pace?), I'm assuming level terrain is going to burn you 400-500 calories, max.
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Mr Knight, I trust you are typically more helpful. One meal, even being 500 calories off isn't the issue. But thanks for your insight and great advice.
It's not one meal - your log is riddled with errors.
But hey - with an attitude like that, you can find the rest of them yourself.
Good luck.
Cheers.
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uconnwinsnc1 wrote: »The problem probably lies in your definition of what a tablespoon is or a what a cup is. For me, a tablespoon of peanut butter is as much as I can fit on the spoon as physically possible. I am probably fitting 4-5 REAL tablespoons in that one scoop.
A tablespoon is a very specific measurement standard. And there is a standard method of measuring dry (and wet) ingredients. I'll give you that most measuring cup and spoon sets aren't highly accurate, and that in general weight is preferable, but the inaccuracy, if measured the way you should is not off by multiples or orders of magnitude. More like 10% either way.0 -
uconnwinsnc1 wrote: »The problem probably lies in your definition of what a tablespoon is or a what a cup is. For me, a tablespoon of peanut butter is as much as I can fit on the spoon as physically possible. I am probably fitting 4-5 REAL tablespoons in that one scoop.
A tablespoon is a very specific measurement standard. And there is a standard method of measuring dry (and wet) ingredients. I'll give you that most measuring cup and spoon sets aren't highly accurate, and that in general weight is preferable, but the inaccuracy, if measured the way you should is not off by multiples or orders of magnitude. More like 10% either way.
Using a tablespoon doesn't work for measuring peanut butter. I promise you.0 -
uconnwinsnc1 wrote: »uconnwinsnc1 wrote: »The problem probably lies in your definition of what a tablespoon is or a what a cup is. For me, a tablespoon of peanut butter is as much as I can fit on the spoon as physically possible. I am probably fitting 4-5 REAL tablespoons in that one scoop.
A tablespoon is a very specific measurement standard. And there is a standard method of measuring dry (and wet) ingredients. I'll give you that most measuring cup and spoon sets aren't highly accurate, and that in general weight is preferable, but the inaccuracy, if measured the way you should is not off by multiples or orders of magnitude. More like 10% either way.
Using a tablespoon doesn't work for measuring peanut butter. I promise you.
It sure doesn't...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVjWPclrWVY
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Perhaps your body has become accustomed to the workouts. Sounds like you've been doing the same workout for a while. Besides getting a little more accurate with logging, try switching up your workouts to incorporate high intensity. 2+ miles at a 19 min/mile pace isn't going to get a good cardio burn in. If you cannot push faster to get your heart racing, perhaps do a slight incline (1-3 %) and even at that pace, you'll notice a difference. Switching up to a running speed with Interval training or weight training should help push you past your plateau.0
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I have hit a plateau that I cannot seem to break through. Hoping the community might have some valuable input.
I have been stuck at ~236#'s for the past 6 weeks.
I exercise everyday M-Sat and take Sunday's off completely to recharge the batteries. For exercise, I typically walk 2+ miles twice a day at a ~19min/mile pace.
Since I have been stalled, I have joined MFP and have logged my food religiously. If I smell it, I log it. I really thought that I must have been consuming more calories than I am burning, but with my calorie tracking that doesn't seem to be the case. I have even bought a kitchen scale to weigh my food and a new Withings bathroom scale for my personal weight.
Something is truly amiss, but I can't figure it out. BIG thanks in advance for your input and advice!
Blake
From the sound of it, you may have hit a maintenance phase. The point where yoru calories in equals calories out. I'd recommend lowering your caloric consumption by about 100-200 every day. Also, as what everyone else states, measure your food.
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I have hit a plateau that I cannot seem to break through. Hoping the community might have some valuable input.
I have been stuck at ~236#'s for the past 6 weeks.
I exercise everyday M-Sat and take Sunday's off completely to recharge the batteries. For exercise, I typically walk 2+ miles twice a day at a ~19min/mile pace.
Since I have been stalled, I have joined MFP and have logged my food religiously. If I smell it, I log it. I really thought that I must have been consuming more calories than I am burning, but with my calorie tracking that doesn't seem to be the case. I have even bought a kitchen scale to weigh my food and a new Withings bathroom scale for my personal weight.
Something is truly amiss, but I can't figure it out. BIG thanks in advance for your input and advice!
Blake
Blake,
All of the numbers pertaining to your diet are estimates. Pick a target calorie quantity that you feel comfortable with and see what happens. You should get a feel for what is going on within a couple of weeks. Make adjustments as you see fit.
As far as the food logging thing, someone mentioned to overestimate a little - that might help. Weighing as much as possible for a little while will give you a better eye for what stuff actually weighs too.0 -
In addition to tightening up on your logging, I would take a look at the high amounts of sodium you consumed on many of the days you did log.0
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I would take a look at the high amounts of sodium you consumed on many of the days you did log.
I don't usually weigh in on these kinds of threads, but I did look at the OP's log for a few days and this was my initial reaction as well. It's different for everyone but for me (again, important words there: for me) high levels of sodium are a huge roadblock to my weight loss progress.0 -
Hi MFP Community,
Some really great info and advice. I very much appreciate all the help.
This is a great learning experience and the biggest take-away is that I have to be a LOT more accurate in my food logging. I have been trying to over estimate on my consumption to compensate for inaccuracies. An example would be the Subway cookies, they were from a local small bakery, but figured if I used the "fatter" Subway brand I would be overestimating a bit. But as the consensus states, it has to be an issue with the calories in.
To answer a couple of questions: These walks are measured with an accurate GPS and also timed. I am sure the time and distance is correct. The area is fairly hilly (hiking trails in Oregon) and I have an overall elevation change of 150' on a typical walk. As for the calorie burn, I use Map My Walk (hike, etc) and have double checked their #'s against the Mayo Clinic and others and they match up +/-5%.
The most confusing part for me, is that I dropped the first 15 lbs in half the amount of exercise and truly not watching/logging a single item. But for the past 6 weeks, I've doubled the amount of walking and "thought" I was logging my intake accurately. But haven't lost a pound in that time period. As I've read, it is a pretty easy formula - Calories in vs Calories burned. Since I am very confident about the Calories burned, it has to be the Calories in.
Again, thanks to all for the help, advice and sharing your experiences.0
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