Advice, please!

Mindylee143

Hi everybody! My name is Mindy...I'm 35, 5'5 and currently weighing in at 168. A little background - I started my fitness journey at 270 lbs., and hit my original goal weight of 160 in 2013. I decided to try to lose another 10 lbs because I had/have a lot of fat still left to lose...I was relatively successful, and was able to get down to 153 by eating between 1200 and 1500 calories per day. However, this was not sustainable for me, and I've been hovering somewhere around 160 for the past year or so. I knew that something had to change because I was basically "maintaining" at 1500 calories...which is not nearly enough calories for my body/physical activity (I lift heavy 3x per week, with cardio sessions 2-3x per week).

I decided to "rip the bandaid" and start eating at my estimated TDEE, which was around 2300. I ate at TDEE for 6 weeks and my weight rose to 168 and stayed there.

I started my cut 2 weeks ago at 1800 calories. My weight at the end of the first week was 166, which I was happy with. However, my weight at the end of week 2 is back up to 168. I'm hoping that it's water weight, because I feel so super heavy and squishy!

I guess I'm just kind of wondering what to do now...I thought that I was heading in the right direction, but I'm not so sure anymore. I do have a tendency to retain a lot of water (even though I drink a gallon of water a day). I started taking creatine monohydrate about a month ago...could this be causing me to retain even more than usual?

Any help/advice would be appreciated!

XavierNusum

It sounds to me like you shorted yourself on the TDEE. Lifting 3x wk and 3x wk cardio sounds like 5-6 hours and that's not counting life outside of just workouts. Do you have a dog, kids, standup job? But just with the workouts Scooby gives you a 2600 TDEE and 20% cut of 2000-2100.

You might need to do a full reset where you increase calories and find your own TDEE.

heybales

So you were eating at 1500 and not gaining or losing - so that was your TDEE then. Was it potential or suppressed?

Then you ate around 2300 and weight stayed there - so that was your TDEE then. Potential or suppressed?

So how did you know that 1500 was not your real potential TDEE - since you maintained weight there?

Wasn't it proved out by the fact you ate at 2300 and outside some likely initial fat and water weight gain - weight stayed the same?

So how do you know that 2300 is actually your potential TDEE?

Just some reasoning behind Xavier's comments about your TDEE.


Also, as a woman 2 weeks isn't long enough to discern anything anyway - your BMR literally changes through the month.

And, 6 weeks is hardly a reset.
From the weight gain and potential slow increase to daily burn during that time, it easily could have been mostly fat gained outside 1-2 lb water weight.

6 lbs x 3500 / 42 days = 500 cal surplus if 6 lbs was fat gained.

You started out with about 800 cal surplus, which slowly lowered depending on how fast body sped up.

How far in to the 6 weeks did the weight increase stop?
And since lifting, are you weighing on morning after rest day eating normal sodium levels, not sore from last workout?
Otherwise you'll have expected known water weight fluctuations.

Mindylee143

Thanks so much for the comments...to answer some questions:

Xavier/Heybales - my workouts are only between 30-40 minutes per day. I have a desk job, and while I do have a child, he's almost 12, so no need to run after him. I chose the "moderate" activity level on Scooby (weighing 160 at the time) and it gave me a TDEE of 2302. I also used HeyBales' spreadsheet, and it gave me around the same number (I think it was 2262, or something like that). I started eating 2300 the next day. Weight went from 160 to 164 in 2 weeks. 164 to 166 at 3 weeks. And topped out at 168 at week 4, where I stayed without gaining/losing for 2 weeks.

What did I do wrong? And what should my next steps be from here?

heybales

So eating at it appears an 800 cal deficit to potential TDEE with no actual weight loss - meaning your body slowed down to the amount you ate.

And eating at that 1500 (or less) for a year or more.

And you hope body is going to recover in 6 weeks, and 4 of those weeks it appears body was still speeding up.
So in reality it's only been burning at perhaps full-steam for 2 whole weeks.

That's the problem - thinking this is going to be fast.
Again - how long eating 1500 exactly with no weight change?

Why the need for fast change to weight now?

You appear not to have fooled your body.
It sped up, you went down in eating again - it went down too probably, just as fast, because it knew what was going to happen.

Best bet - eat at TDEE for much longer, actually give time to notice your workouts improving, not only in performance - but also your body.

Mindylee143

Thanks so much for taking the time to help me!

I was eating at 1500 for about 10 months...I'm not really in a rush. But honestly frustrated as hell from being stuck for so long (I feel like it's starting to drive me crazy!) But I'm seeing that the only real way out of this is to take more time.

How will I know when I'm ready to cut? I don't want to jump the gun again.

MandaLeigh123

I ate at 1200-1500/day for six months and I was working out a lot. Actual TDEE was closer to 2800! Eek! Ended up doing a metabolic reset for about 4 months including the month it took to increase. Gained some weight, but mostly water. Started a cut a few weeks ago and am having success losing weight now :-) I have had a lot of activity changes and dealing with injury so had to recalculate my TDEE multiple times and take a cut from the new number, but all is going well here.

For me. I kind of waited until I seemed mentally ready. Like, I had finally stopped weighing every day. I would go weeks without weighing- that was huge. I had stopped panicking about pants getting tight and stuff. I stopped obsessing about my workouts and my food. I no longer freaked about the scale going up two pounds overnight. I took it as a time to mentally reset, not just metabolism. Reading a lot of stuff about self acceptance, and feeding to fuel your workouts. Once I got to that point in my head where I was calm about food again and had my new, lower activity with an injury TDEE figured out, I started a cut. This is not the sciencey answer, but it's what worked for me.

Mindylee143

Thanks MandaLeigh...it helps to hear your story!! I think I'm going to do another reset...this time, much much longer.

I appreciate the help, and I'll be back to update!

MandaLeigh123

Good luck! I definitely didn't intend to restart for that long… Even eight weeks seemed like "too long" and I didn't want to stop losing weight. But once I got a couple months into the reset journey, I realized how much my workouts were improving and how mentally draining my diet mentality had been. Resetting gave me a chance to see what a healthy maintenece diet was like. I've done maintenece in the past, mut my metabolism was so surprised that if I went over 1200 cals fot awhile or started skipping workouts, I would start gaining.

When working on health, I want to see some sort of improvements. It used to be the scale number going down & I based success f/that. Now, I look at things in a more rounded way. Successes I include and value:
-cardio times faster
-weight training stronger
-stretches more flexible
-dining out and really enjoying
-not feeling the urge to do a make-up workout when I simply at maintenece calories
-not obsessively weighing myself

I still logged everything because I didn't want to eat over maintenance but it was just such a nice and relaxed time. I feel like I am in less of a rush now to get this last bit of fat off. Still working on it, but feeling less stressed about it!

Mindylee143

I definitely have some fears about doing an extended reset...I was obese all of my life. I finally am so close to where I want my body to be, but I feel like I'm just stalled! I know that a high calorie deficit is not sustainable forever, nor is it healthy for my body. I just don't want to be the "fat girl" again...not when I've worked so hard to get to this point.

I had promised myself that I wouldn't gain the weight back, and that I wouldn't let the "old" me back, because I love who I've become - not just physically, but mentally. I know that I need to do this reset the right way if I'm ever going to have true, long-lasting success. Because what's the point of getting to my ultimate goal weight if I can't sustain it without starving myself? I don't want to have to constantly be stressed out by this.

I started eating at estimated TDEE on August 1st...which is 2300 calories. I'm thinking of getting a FitBit soon, as I think it may help me find an accurate TDEE. Honestly, I'm a little confused about the process of figuring out my actual or potential TDEE...I just entered my info in Scooby calculator and grabbed on to that number. How will I know if it's the right number? If my weight stays the same?

XavierNusum

That's the hardest part of following the EM2WL principle. Getting over that mental hurdle of "eating more is what caused the problem in the first place". The difference we have to make in our heads is that "eating more" is not necessarily "over eating". It's completely understandable and you are not the only one to go through this. @MandaLeigh123 and many others, including myself, can tell about our struggles with this process. I mention her because she has mentioned hers in many of post to this group so you can look those up. You can do this, you are not going to go back. You know too much now. You can trust yourself to do what is necessary for your continued success!

Now as far as TDEE. The very best way to find TDEE is to increase calories weekly until sustainable weight loss is seen in a good weigh in. Good weigh-in meaning same time of day, clothing (or lack there of) and water consumption.

So you increase calories by 200 a day for a week. You will probably see a glycogen and or water bump of 2-4 lbs. Not real weight gain, way too fast. You continue this weekly until you see about 0.5lb increases in weekly weight-ins because 200/day gets you 1400/wk which should be about half a pound. Once you've reached that point. The calorie level just before the weight gain would be your TDEE.

MandaLeigh123

Some people swear by FitBit but personally, it had my calories wayyyy too low. There were way too many things in my daily life that FitBit couldn't account for and I didn't have time to enter them in manually. So FitBit was telling me my TDEE was something like, 1600-1700 per day but my actual TDEE ended up being roughly 2800. Scooby said my TDEE was 2500 I think if I remember right.

The only way to truly know your TDEE is to keep increasing by 250 until you start gaining. Gaining slowing over the course of a couple of weeks. Not gaining in one day, people don't gain a pound of fat in a day. 250 calories over maintenance per day, it would take 14 days to gain 1lb of fat slowly. It's math. 1 pound of fat = 3,500 calories. 250 calories x 14 days = 3.5000. I see people in this forum particularly say, "My weight has been 2lbs up for the past 3 days. Does that main I am over maintenance?"

No, if your weight spikes up 2lbs suddenly, that's water. You wait and look to see that the weight gain is sustained. Then you make sure your sodium levels are in check, so that it's not water retention. If you go over a ton with sodium ( I am guilty of this), drink lots of water and flush the sodium out. The water weight will flush out with the sodium. You look at training. Did you weight train the day before? Because you'll retain water a couple of days after that, so that's not gaining fat, that's water retention. Is your period soon... because that's water weight.

There is no easy answer to the question, how will I know if my numbers are right. This is part of the process that is the most difficult for people who have been restricting so carefully. Restricting that much is a lot about control. Feeling in control of your weight. When you start increasing your calories, your weight starts bouncing around and it feels out of control and it's scary.

All I can say is this, I increased and I was scared. There was one day my weight went up 7lbs over night. Not even kidding. I ate chinese food and movie theater popcorn the same day and didn't drink much water. The weight was gone by the end of the week. It's a good example of the scale not being your friend and the scale not telling the whole story. I take my measurements once a month. So even if the scale was up a couple of pounds, I could see my inches were the same.... and one month my weight was up and my inches were down! Take your measurements always.

I stayed at maintenance for 4 months. I bounced around with the number. When my activity level went down, I lowered my maintenance accordingly. It was really hard because I went from very active to pretty sedentary (besides my set workouts). So my maintenance level went from 2800.... down to 1800 * wah wah *. To figure out that lower number, I kind of looked at my number of active minutes per week and used my FitBit (I use it basically as a step counter only) and could tell I had to drop a ton of calories. Injury plus summer vacation has had me sitting a ton. Anyway... In that time, I only ended up gaining about 5lbs. At least a couple of those were purely water weight, because when I started my calorie cut, they dropped away withing two days and haven't come back. Fat doesn't drop that fast. That was water.

So starting weight back in February was approximately 147.... weight during most of maintenance 149-152. Current weight after a month at smaller caloric cut, 148. I don't really have a goal weight anymore. I do know I want to lose some more fat. I don't know how many pounds that will equate to.

Most of this battle for me was mental. People want exact answers for questions like:
How do I know my activity level?
How do I know if my metabolism is suppressed?
How do I know if I am gaining weight?
How long do I reset?

If you read enough, you'll find great guidance for all of these questions but a lot of really comes down to trial and error. Maybe in your reset time, you'll start to calm down your fear about becoming fat again. You look strong and you look healthy! Trust your past successes and keep you nose to the grindstone trying to do the right thing with a reset. I would so at least three months at a full reset and then go from there. Keep with those measurements so if your weight bounces around, you can calm yourself with measurements. Take pictures in undies for yourself. Drink lots of water and be amazing at how much strength and endurance you gain your workouts.

Eat more to weight less also has their own website with forums if you feel like you want more people to chat with since its a little quite here right now.

retirehappy

^^^^ This should be a stickie post.

Mindylee143

You guys are freaking awesome!!! Sometimes I feel like I'm in a good mental place with all of this, and sometimes I have moments of panic...lol Thanks for validating my feelings and reassuring me I'm on the right path!

While I'm in the process of figuring out my true TDEE, should I weigh every day? That way I can see the fluctuations when they occur? If I'm understanding correctly, I eat at my estimated TDEE (from Scooby) of 2300 for 2 weeks. At that time, I increase to 2550 for 2 weeks, and so on...until I notice a small, steady gain...right?

MandaLeigh123

I think that's right. Eat at 2300 for two weeks and if you maintain, go up to 2550. You'll usually always see a little bump in weight right when you increase the cals, but it's often just water, like xavier said. If you want to weigh every day to see whats happening, you can. I did it. A lot of people recommend not doing it. For me, I actually had to do it bc I was so scared of increasing. I needed confirmation that I wasn't gaining a million pounds. Once I found my TDEE though, I put a stop to that bad habit. It can be interseting though, if you really want to keep track of weight fluctuations and then try to link them up to why you think your weight is lower or higher that day. A lot of people start notice trends and I think that's cool to notice that stuff. Like, 3lbs up after strength training (muscles repairing themselves). Or 2lbs down after a heavy work out day (often dehydration! not fat loss....). I'm finally for the first time trying to keep check on my sodium. I just didn't every worry about it before because I love salt! But I'm on a new medicine that can make me retain water even easier and I don't want to be Bloaty McBloaterson all the time

And take your measurements. And take a picture. So if you happen to have a freak out day, you can take your measurements.... or take your picture again and compare it to the first one. I also had a pair of pants that I used to help me gauge what was going on. I could get them on but barely. So I knew that if I started actually getting bigger, those pants would get too small.

I'm not perfect at this Eat More 2 Weigh Less stuff but I'm trying to get healthy.

Mindylee143

MandaLeigh - I think I'm going use the scale daily while finding TDEE, and then hide it while resetting. I'm planning on taking at LEAST the rest of this year to fully recover my body and get my metabolism up to full speed.

You guys have really been so helpful - I'll be back to update here over the course of this journey, and I'm sure I'll have more question along the way!

heybales

During this time of stronger workouts eating at maintenance or close to, you'll also probably discover that your body shape is causing you to realize goal weight may not need to be that low number.

Part of Mandy's whole description of letting go of a number.

Daily scale use may not be great, unless you perhaps do it 5 x daily - just to see how ridiculous it is attaching any emotion to a number that floats all over the place anyway.

Besides, I'm betting not too many see you standing on your scale naked in the morning to read the number - but they do see you as a person rest of the day, without the number.

You really need it weekly on valid weigh-in day during reset too in order to confirm what level you are eating - that and several measurements.
During the increase of calories you should hide it, not during reset.
If you can separate stat from emotion, then it is interesting if willing to spend the time thinking about why big or small increases, looking at prior day's diet or exercise, ect. Can be very telling.

That 2 week 250 test should cause a slow 1 lb weight gain - confirming the prior number was indeed potential TDEE.

And if lifting - that 1 lb gain won't even be all fat.

kmac1196

I have to chime in and second Mandy's sentiments. The first time I tried a reset, I wasn't mentally there. I was doing it to help me lose weight. This time (just started week 8) I'm doing it for the mental break and I've also let go of all numbers. No scale weight bugs me...no pants being tight.....I'm just over it. I have faith in myself that I won't be obese again. I know what to do and why and the reasons for bingeing are gone....I eat. I enjoy....


I went on vacation for a few days with friends and still chose salads and chicken and fruits and egg whites. Because I wanted to and it makes me feel good physically and I didn't HAVE to splurge since it was vacation. I did, however ,eat dessert both nights. LOL Guilt free. There's no beginning or end per se. This is just life.

Come over to this side. It's really nice here.

Mindylee143

@heybales I have an app on my phone that will show me how my weight is trending for that week (or month) and also lets me enter notes for each day. I plan on weighing first thing in the morning and entering in the amount of calories eaten, info about exercise session the day before, and just how I'm feeling in general. I'm going to detach from the number and focus on the mirror, pictures, and my clothes. You are so right about others not seeing the scale number - people just see ME, and I can live with that. I'll probably use Thursdays as my "official" weigh-in days...Thursday is a rest day for me, and I usually do cardio on Wednesdays instead of weight training, so I'm thinking that should work.

@kmac1196 I think I'm beginning to really understand and embrace the whole journey...just wish I had found this group and gained this knowledge when I first started my weight loss journey! Better late than never, I guess!

XavierNusum

Mindylee143 wrote: »

@kmac1196 I think I'm beginning to really understand and embrace the whole journey...just wish I had found this group and gained this knowledge when I first started my weight loss journey! Better late than never, I guess!

That's most of us @Mindylee , but we can always learn, adapt and change. Especially when it's for the better.

heybales

Actually, valid weigh-in to minimize known expected water weight fluctuations -
morning after rest day eating normal sodium levels, not sore from last workout.

So Thu is not good day, Fri am would be if you eat average normal on Thu. Sometimes that helps make good choices you know you want to make, thinking I want valid weigh-in tomorrow morning - better skip this bag of pretzels.

Wed cardio would effect your glucose stores, if a late good workout, you might never top them back off, therefore false weight loss.
Might also lose a good deal of sweat water not totally made up, again false weight loss.

MandaLeigh123

I second picking a diff valid weigh in day. I always have a big loss day after cardio which I have always chalked up to dehydration bc a- its usually 2lbs b- it doesnt stick.

retirehappy

I decided to do my weigh ins on a rest day, since I take Sat. and Sun off except for my daily steps. I consider Sun. my weigh in day, helps control Friday and Sat. indulgences as well.

XavierNusum

retirehappy wrote: »

I decided to do my weigh ins on a rest day, since I take Sat. and Sun off except for my daily steps. I consider Sun. my weigh in day, helps control Friday and Sat. indulgences as well.

I weight in on Monday morning for that reason.

heybales

Fri and Sat indulgences?

Is this a new ice cream I've not heard of, or more than ice cream?

MandaLeigh123

bahahahah--- I know!

I actually don't have any good consistent weigh-in days. Sat/Sun/Mon my sodium is usually making me retain water. Other days my muscles are often in recovery from either cardio or strength training. So my day changes from week to week. I just try to pick the one where it seems like I am most rested and have the least water retention.

retirehappy

heybales wrote: »

Fri and Sat indulgences?

Is this a new ice cream I've not heard of, or more than ice cream?

For me it is not ice cream, not my thing. I'm in Manda's camp, salt, give me salty crunchy stuff, I can eat that stuff all day and night .

XavierNusum

retirehappy wrote: »

heybales wrote: »

Fri and Sat indulgences?

Is this a new ice cream I've not heard of, or more than ice cream?

For me it is not ice cream, not my thing. I'm in Manda's camp, salt, give me salty crunchy stuff, I can eat that stuff all day and night .

Mmmmm.. so true!

Mindylee143

Back for a little update, and some more help from you guys! I'm kind of feeling lost, and like I'm doing something wrong.

I started my reset eating estimated TDEE of 2300 (according to Scooby, moderate activity level) on August 1st. I weigh in on Thursdays, and my weigh-ins have looked like this:

August 6 170.8
August 13 167.4 (I weighed in the 160s that entire week)
August 20 171.2
August 27 174.8

Looks to me that I'm heading in the wrong direction here, since I'm seeing a pretty steady increase. I did a 6 week reset earlier this summer, and attempted a cut (at 1800 cal) for 2 weeks (which didn't go well) so I decided to reset for a longer time frame...Shouldn't my weight be more leveled out by now? So I went and plugged in my info in heybales' TDEE only spreadsheet and got a TDEE of 2049. So I'm thinking that Scooby possibly overestimated my caloric needs??? Should I start eating around 2000 now and see what happens?

heybales

About 250 cal extra daily would be 1 lb every 2 week gain - plus any water weight stuff going on, which was big increase.

Scooby only has big blocks of suggestions - I wouldn't be surprised if the spreadsheet estimate is still between levels on the 5 rough levels.

And that's the whole point if a rough estimate is used - might be wrong way - need to adjust and spend more time testing.

If honest with daily activity level, and used actual average times in the exercise section (like 3-4 x weekly 60 min is 3.5 x 60, not 3 x 60), then I'd go with better estimate that actually takes in to consideration different types of workouts.

And indeed it shouldn't take weight much to level out depending on how you got to even an exact potential TDEE.
The water weight from extra carbs is taken care of within first 2 weeks, unless workout changes or gets more intense or longer endurance, then more increase of glucose stores.
Other than that is a suppressed daily burn speeding up slowly to match the eating level - so for some period of time really are eating in surplus and gaining fat.
But even that won't be that much, maybe 500 surplus slowly getting lower to nothing. Unless estimated TDEE is higher than reality, then you'd keep gaining.

mymodernbabylon

That one week jump of 3 lbs is not fat gain. Fast gain is water gain. I think you should keep going for more than these few weeks. My guess is that most of this is water weight.