Upping my diet to 1500Cal
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If your diary is to be believed you seem to be logging well, I only went back a few days but can't see any issues. Some days you ate under but it seemed counteracted by days you went over.
F, 20, 68kg ...what's your height and activity level and what have you set as your goal loss per week
What's your weight loss over the last month? You say a kg lost ...what time period
Are weighing at the same time and under the same conditions?
If you've recently changed up your exercise and aren't logging it that could result in water retention, as could sodium of hormones
If you are exercising you need to log and eat back 50-75% ...MFP is a NEAT method for calorie allowance0 -
Someone mentioned that if you are not losing at 1200 cal/day, how do you expect to lose at 1500 cal a day, which is probably the first thing you should look at. I've seen people have perfect diaries, but they are fiction because they aren't truly accurate.
Are you weighing and measuring your intake? Even without exercising, a consistent deficit of 800 cal a day, which is what 1200 cal is, will put you in weight loss of over 1 1/2 lb a week at the beginning.
1lb loss/wk = 3500 cal
2000 cal/day = approx. maintenance for people in general.
-500 cal (deficit)/day x 7 day/wk = -3500 cal/wk (1lb) = 4lb/month
And while it's not all math, because our bodies are not machines, this really works if you are honest with yourself.
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I get the impression that you are weighing most of your food. Nobody is perfect about it, though.Thorsmom05 wrote: »Get a food scale, weigh and measure everything you consume and then log it accurately. If you weren't losing at 1200, likely it's because your eating more then you think.
As said above I do weigh and measure everything on my food scale
christinev297 wrote: »Have you worked out your bmr and tdee
I have done my BMR previously I think I am 28 (Can't remember off the top of my head)
I don't know what TDEE stands for?
In order to reach your calorie goal you can eat anything you like, just eat it in moderation.
Upping your calories will cause you to lose weight slower, but I believe slower is better because it's more sustainable.
TDEE stands for total daily energy expenditure. It's the amount of calories to maintain your weight. If you go over that amount on a consistent basis you will gain weight. If you eat less than this amount, you will lose weight.
How much are you trying to lose? The bigger you are, the more you can eat and still lose weight.
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So much information to go through here.
MFP gave me 1700 as my usual daily calorie thingy and then gave me a 500 defecit (The most it could give me because that takes me down to 1200 calories)
I know MFP is one where you are meant to eat back calories which I was doing on 1200, as I said above my friend told me to bump up to 1500 and stop eating back the calories I work off.
I am serious that I weigh and measure everything as accurately as I possibly can.
I lost that 1kg over two months. At one stage I put on a kilo and at another I had dropped two but the 1 is the only one that has stuck.
I work at a desk, drive to work because it is too far to walk and far too hot. However for everything else I work to try and burn extra calories. So I think that still counts as a "sedative" life style by MFP standards, as I live in a small town it is never far to walk anywhere I need to go (apart from work)
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christinev297 wrote: »TimothyFish wrote: »If you aren't losing weight at 1200, you won't lose anything at 1500 either. You should be looking for inaccuracies in your calorie counting.
Yeah I have to agree. How can you lose weight by upping your calories further? Did your friend explain his reasoning behind his suggestion?
He calculated it himself (Not sure how I was not physically with him when he did it)
And I questioned him immediately about why he was upping me like that and his explanation was for one I am not allowed to eat back calories and I don't record a lot of the exercise I do. (Which is true I usually only count my walks and sometimes my weights. I don't count my sword fighting practice or my shorter walks)
Oh! forgot to add my personal thoughts (I haven't asked if he agrees) but because I tend to eat under 1200 I am probably not losing because my body is not getting enough calories.
If your body was not getting enough calories you would be losing weight rapidly. It can't store calories it's not getting. The main reason people increase their calories from 1200 is because they have found slower weight loss easier to stick to and are less likely to binge.
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Okay, if you're not losing at 1200, why would you lose by eating more? It doesn't work this way.0
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My suggestion would be to keep logging the way you do, bump your intake to 1500 and not "eat back" the exercise calories as you are planning to do, for a month or 6 weeks. That will give you some good data. It may be that before, you were over-estimating the calories you could eat back, and at a 1500 firm daily intake you will create the deficit you are aiming for. If you DON'T show a loss, or you show a gain, then you can adjust accordingly.0
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So much information to go through here.
MFP gave me 1700 as my usual daily calorie thingy and then gave me a 500 defecit (The most it could give me because that takes me down to 1200 calories)
I know MFP is one where you are meant to eat back calories which I was doing on 1200, as I said above my friend told me to bump up to 1500 and stop eating back the calories I work off.
I am serious that I weigh and measure everything as accurately as I possibly can.
I lost that 1kg over two months. At one stage I put on a kilo and at another I had dropped two but the 1 is the only one that has stuck.
I work at a desk, drive to work because it is too far to walk and far too hot. However for everything else I work to try and burn extra calories. So I think that still counts as a "sedative" life style by MFP standards, as I live in a small town it is never far to walk anywhere I need to go (apart from work)
I'm saying screw it and go for it. I've done basically the same recently, what you're saying is that your not really 'increasing' drastically depending on your TDEE. Example: MFP had me set at 1300. I lost 40 lbs, but I have been stuck on my last 20 with only losing 2 lbs in a month. I'm trying to get out of this plateau desperately and calculated my TDEE, and with a large deficit it has me about 1500-1600 calories. (I did this with http://iifym.com/iifym-calculator/ if you want to give it a look yourself). Now I don't log my exercise calories. I'm only a few days in on this so I'm unsure of what to expect, but I also switched my exercise routine to try to help as well.0 -
I know MFP is one where you are meant to eat back calories which I was doing on 1200, as I said above my friend told me to bump up to 1500 and stop eating back the calories I work off.
I think this is key. Your friend might have been concerned that you are eating back more calories than you're actually burning, thus netting more than you think. He's basically recommending a different system than MFP, whereby you factor in exercise in your base calories and then don't eat any extra, no matter what you do that day. Just a different way of accomplishing the same thing. Play around with systems and the calories that you're eating and see which way is the most comfortable and successful for you. Good luck!0 -
Go to iifym. com and work out your calories on that. It is a TDEE calculator ( I think this is what your friend was basing his recalculation on)that includes your exercise level, as opposed to MFP's calculator that doesn't.
Eat at the calories iifym gives you for a month and see what your results are.
Be honest on your exercises.
Cheers, h.0 -
Do you have a heart rate monitor? Thats really the only way to get a more accurate calculation of how many calories you burn in your exercise. But, if you do up to 1500, I guess you wouldnt really have to worry about it since you wouldnt be tracking anyways. I say go for upping the cals, if you are having trouble losing weight now anyways - Try it out for 2 weeks or so and just see what happens. Maybe push yourself a little harder when you exercise, like add 10 more minutes per workout? Also be sure to be as accurate as you can with your calorie intake. I wish you luck!
Also, I have a question, I see SO many times on these forums "eating at 1200 is starvation mode blabla eat more" and now I see many people saying "If you werent losing at 1200, why would you at 1500" Whats up with that?0 -
Vixtris, many people can live on 1200cal, but for most average sized women it is the lowest intake while still maintaining good bodily function. Hence the basic reaction.
With regards to this particular thread;
A few people have misread the information.
The OP was eating at 1200 as per MFP and eating back calories; the friend gave her a TDEE type calorie goal of 1500, that included her exercise burn.
The friends calculation includes a 300cal exercise burn every day. This may be too high for her particular expenditure, but is a valid and reasonable way for it to look like she is eating more, when in actuality she is just counting CICO differently.
Hope that helps
Cheers, h.0 -
^ This person, this person I like
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Also I think people were forgetting that if you eat too little for your body, your body can go into starvation mode. When it does that, it holds on to every calorie you get and you stop losing weigh.
I think uping your calories to 1500 and not eating back your exercise calories is a good idea. Good luck!0 -
According to the bible of MFP Starvation mode does not exsist.
And to be fair it doesn't exist in the way most people perceive it.
My understanding is what we call "Starvation mode" is just metabolic slow down. Which hinders weight loss but happens over a fair period of time and is what usually happens when people go on starvation diets. (It's why they gain the weight back so quickly afterwards)0 -
Haven't read through thread BUT, some problems I saw with your log:
Eggs - Scrambled (whole egg), 97 g -- no. Weigh or just log how many eggs you used and then log the oil/butter. This entry coudl easily be off... are you weighing it cooked? Raw?
Beef Sausage - Local Butcher, 97 g -- this seems super generic. Did you match up the calories and macros to the info on your meat?
Continental - Cucumber Raw, 90 g -- calories on this are wrong. USDA entry for cucumber yields almost 20 cals, not 7. And your mushrooms are also off a few cals.
My Cellery - Cellery, 60 g
Didn't look at all the others, only food I've eaten before. So other entries could be off. Cross-check with USDA. This is why I created my own private database, I can always know that something is accurate without having to double check every time.
And yesterday you ate lots of KFC. So you easily could have been over by hundreds of cals, plus you were already way over your normal goal. This has happened many times. Also quick add calories (I do this sometimes too, but I know that it's either a blind guess or I am writing cals from a package). You have logged like 500 on some days too. This makes me think you didn't log everything.0 -
Haven't read through thread BUT, some problems I saw with your log:
Eggs - Scrambled (whole egg), 97 g -- no. Weigh or just log how many eggs you used and then log the oil/butter. This entry coudl easily be off... are you weighing it cooked? Raw?
Beef Sausage - Local Butcher, 97 g -- this seems super generic. Did you match up the calories and macros to the info on your meat?
Continental - Cucumber Raw, 90 g -- calories on this are wrong. USDA entry for cucumber yields almost 20 cals, not 7. And your mushrooms are also off a few cals.
My Cellery - Cellery, 60 g
Didn't look at all the others, only food I've eaten before. So other entries could be off. Cross-check with USDA. This is why I created my own private database, I can always know that something is accurate without having to double check every time.
And yesterday you ate lots of KFC. So you easily could have been over by hundreds of cals, plus you were already way over your normal goal. This has happened many times. Also quick add calories (I do this sometimes too, but I know that it's either a blind guess or I am writing cals from a package). You have logged like 500 on some days too. This makes me think you didn't log everything.
Eggs - Weighed raw and scrambled without butter, oils etc.
Sausage - Bought from a butcher shop by my housemate for me so no clue about any of it
Fruits & Veg I have used USDA a few times but not every time. - That being said I also doubt that a few extra calories of veg will kill my weight loss haha.
I have started my own data base with some things, I plan to keep adding to it
Yes I ate KFC, it happens, it is life so I will give that on that day I was probably far more over. But that happens and that does not happen every day
I haven't missed a log since I went away and I think that was the only one I missed for several weeks before that. I usually put a note in there saying I was traveling. I don't tend to log when I travel because I am out of reception zones and really could not care less about calories when I am in the middle of woop woop that being said I don't eat junk either when I am traveling. It's usually fruit and cheese. I was on the train that weekend and just had some cheese, fruit, and pasta that they served for dinner.
But disregarding all that, this is not what the thread was even supposed to be about.
I have upped to 1500, no longer eating back exercise calories and now after speaking to my friend's girlfriend who is a healthy food chef person and seriously the skinniest and fittest person I know I am now going to be trying some new things anyway. (Like dying from eating all the food she has recommended.)
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Haven't read through thread BUT, some problems I saw with your log:
Eggs - Scrambled (whole egg), 97 g -- no. Weigh or just log how many eggs you used and then log the oil/butter. This entry coudl easily be off... are you weighing it cooked? Raw?
Beef Sausage - Local Butcher, 97 g -- this seems super generic. Did you match up the calories and macros to the info on your meat?
Continental - Cucumber Raw, 90 g -- calories on this are wrong. USDA entry for cucumber yields almost 20 cals, not 7. And your mushrooms are also off a few cals.
My Cellery - Cellery, 60 g
Didn't look at all the others, only food I've eaten before. So other entries could be off. Cross-check with USDA. This is why I created my own private database, I can always know that something is accurate without having to double check every time.
And yesterday you ate lots of KFC. So you easily could have been over by hundreds of cals, plus you were already way over your normal goal. This has happened many times. Also quick add calories (I do this sometimes too, but I know that it's either a blind guess or I am writing cals from a package). You have logged like 500 on some days too. This makes me think you didn't log everything.
Eggs - Weighed raw and scrambled without butter, oils etc.
Sausage - Bought from a butcher shop by my housemate for me so no clue about any of it
Fruits & Veg I have used USDA a few times but not every time. - That being said I also doubt that a few extra calories of veg will kill my weight loss haha.
I have started my own data base with some things, I plan to keep adding to it
Yes I ate KFC, it happens, it is life so I will give that on that day I was probably far more over. But that happens and that does not happen every day
I haven't missed a log since I went away and I think that was the only one I missed for several weeks before that. I usually put a note in there saying I was traveling. I don't tend to log when I travel because I am out of reception zones and really could not care less about calories when I am in the middle of woop woop that being said I don't eat junk either when I am traveling. It's usually fruit and cheese. I was on the train that weekend and just had some cheese, fruit, and pasta that they served for dinner.
But disregarding all that, this is not what the thread was even supposed to be about.
I have upped to 1500, no longer eating back exercise calories and now after speaking to my friend's girlfriend who is a healthy food chef person and seriously the skinniest and fittest person I know I am now going to be trying some new things anyway. (Like dying from eating all the food she has recommended.)
I just pointed these things out because it could still be logging errors resulting in slower losses. I recently went over my first 2 months of logging here nad totally forgot how horrible my logging was! Not just because I didn't even MEASURE, but I also didn't use appropriate entries.
Eggs: Just to clarify though, is the entry your own or from the database? If it's generic then either make your own or just use appropriate size eggs. I make omelets, sometimes fried, sometimes hardboiled, scrambled, etc. and I always just use the same entry for large eggs and adjust the weight accordingly.
sausage: Any info at all? Like the cut of meat that was used? Otherwise for now its' fine to use a close approximation, but it might be off.
Re: vegs just double check the higher cal ones then. But it was more to point out that the entries could be wrong, since a lot of them look like generic stuff instead of USDA-type entries.
KFC is fine. BUt definitely if going over happens a lot (which I saw a handful of times) it definitely will slow weight loss, so if that's a consistent pattern then that could be why you didn't see desired losses at 1200. Also something I didn't mention , but KFC will be lots of sodium. Do you often eat high sodium? That will mask scale losses!
I mentioned all this because earlier in the thread there was discussion about you not seeing results at 1200 and expecting results at 1500 (or deciding to go up to 1500 to see if that helps), and so I thought I'd just browse your diary to see if there were any clues behind not seeing desired results at 1200. However I'm all for eating the most you can while dieting. I do think that it could be possible to have slow losses at a low cal number just by virtue of it somehow effing with your TDEE (moving around less, sleeping/laying about more, putting in less effort at the gym, etc). I've had other people discuss with me (on another forum, probably here too) that upping their cals helped them lose despite not changing anything else. Are you increasing 1500 as your net or TDEE?0 -
I didn't see this mentioned before, but there are other aspects of health to consider when trying to lose weight rather than simply caloric intake/output. Hormonal levels can play a HUGE role in how you gain or lose weight. For example, PCOS is a super common reason that women can have difficuly losing weight. If you're still not seeing results you might consider a trip to a doctor or naturopath to have your hormone levels tested. It's not something to be alarmed about, but it could potentially be an important piece of the puzzle.0
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