Why am I not losing any weight or body fat?
Replies
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Well, you were given the reason for the emphasis on weighing food. It's your choice as an adult to act on, or not, that reason.Ok, I watched it. Semantics but I'd call that cup of oats a heaping cup, not a level one. ;-P And I underestimate PB but I take the point, more or less. Still not sure I'm willing to deal with a food scale right now.
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A "small" gala apple is 154g, but the smallest apple I've had is 160g and they are typically closer to 180g. That means a "small" gala apple is off by (180/154-1)*100=16.8%, which we'll round to 17%.
On a 1200 calorie diet, a 17% error (not in your favor) is an extra 204 calories. An extra 204 calories/day is 0.4 lb/week that you could have been losing instead of maintaining/gaining.
That is assuming your error is within 17%, it could be 30% off or more, causing you to gain weight instead.0 -
Ok, I watched it. Semantics but I'd call that cup of oats a heaping cup, not a level one. ;-P And I underestimate PB but I take the point, more or less. Still not sure I'm willing to deal with a food scale right now.
It takes no more time to weigh food than it does to measure it. And you can be quite far off in more dense foods by measuring them and be hundreds of calories off by the end of the day. Even for oatmeal - when I checked the difference between measuring and weighing - a level cup of oatmeal was about 50 calories higher than the weighed serving size on the nutritional panel. A level two teaspoons of peanut butter is also more calories than the weighed serving size. How about a banana? Weigh the banana and you know exactly how many grams it is and can log your calories. If you don't weigh it, how many calories is it?
A food scale costs about $15.0 -
fightingformyhappiness wrote: »- 1 cup organic honey + warm water and lemon
help.
Ummmm, yeh - that's what it says: 1 cup honey. That's over 1,000 calories right there. That can't be what you mean.
But yes, measuring makes a difference. If you just pour some honey into the water and lemon, you have no idea if you're getting 75, 150, 300 or more calories. Small amounts add up. +100 calories at one meal isn't much, but if you do that at every meal, that would produce weight gain.
See what we're saying?
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Apples and bananas vary wildly and our personal interpretation of small also varies wildly.
Using a scale seems like a lot of hassle but it's really not, it just becomes part of normal food prep. If you're not prepared to address where the problem clearly lies (and it pretty much is always in food consumption being overestimated) then you're just not in a place to really commit and lose weight. I'm sorry if that sounds harsh but that's the crux of it really.0 -
The smaller a deficit you have, the more important this is.So I'm an idiot and just restarting here. Why the emphasis on weighing food? If I'm eating a small gala apple for snack, I'm using the DB for foods here and selecting small gala apple to add to my log. Is weighing it really going to make that much of a difference for it?
If I called a 500 gram apple small, it doesn't suddenly have less calories, as much as I might feel like calling it small. I think I'd rightly be called silly and/or wrong for calling that much a small apple. So where does a small apple stop, and medium or large apple start? The difference could be 100-200 calories, and if you're close to goal and losing .5 pounds a week, your deficit needs to 250 calories, which means you don't have room to be wrong by 100 calories. Being wrong about 100 calories 3 times means you'll be in a surplus, not deficit.
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So I'm an idiot and just restarting here. Why the emphasis on weighing food? If I'm eating a small gala apple for snack, I'm using the DB for foods here and selecting small gala apple to add to my log. Is weighing it really going to make that much of a difference for it?
I NEED to measure better for dinners and weekends, I can see that already from my log. But my dinner last night included steamed veggies (the basic corn, carrots, peas and beans mix) and the default serving was 2/3 cup, per the bag. My serving was close to that but would weighing have really made a difference?
I figure I'm doing good just by tracking what I'm eating at this stage (see first sentence) and as long as I'm close in portion size and making better choices, for me, that's fair game because the act of tracking is tends to stop me from pigging out on snacks.
Everyone's experience is different, but when I began using a scale I realized that I was eating much more than I thought I was -- sometimes as much as 200-300 calories a day more in things like fruit, vegetables, and grains. When we begin losing weight, "good enough" will often do the trick. But as we get closer to goal, our deficit is smaller and we have less room for error.
And calorie counting already has some unknowns built-in (I may eat a snack at a party or have dinner out and use my best guess for the calorie counts on those). I want to save my "buffer" for true unknowns and make everything else as known as possible. That way if I hit an unexpected stall or weight gain, I know what is causing it instead of trying to guess.0 -
The smaller a deficit you have, the more important this is.So I'm an idiot and just restarting here. Why the emphasis on weighing food? If I'm eating a small gala apple for snack, I'm using the DB for foods here and selecting small gala apple to add to my log. Is weighing it really going to make that much of a difference for it?
If I called a 500 gram apple small, it doesn't suddenly have less calories, as much as I might feel like calling it small. I think I'd rightly be called silly and/or wrong for calling that much a small apple. So where does a small apple stop, and medium or large apple start? The difference could be 100-200 calories, and if you're close to goal and losing .5 pounds a week, your deficit needs to 250 calories, which means you don't have room to be wrong by 100 calories. Being wrong about 100 calories 3 times means you'll be in a surplus, not deficit.
That makes more sense to me. Thank you.0 -
Ok, I watched it. Semantics but I'd call that cup of oats a heaping cup, not a level one. ;-P And I underestimate PB but I take the point, more or less. Still not sure I'm willing to deal with a food scale right now.
So don't
It's your decision
But if you don't lose / stop losing that will be one of the obvious areas you can correct
I would say you shouldn't rely on the MFP database to be accurate without double checking ..google / pack nutrition etc ...because a large number of entries,including the verified ones, are totally whack0 -
nordlead2005 wrote: »A "small" gala apple is 154g, but the smallest apple I've had is 160g and they are typically closer to 180g. That means a "small" gala apple is off by (180/154-1)*100=16.8%, which we'll round to 17%.
On a 1200 calorie diet, a 17% error (not in your favor) is an extra 204 calories. An extra 204 calories/day is 0.4 lb/week that you could have been losing instead of maintaining/gaining.
That is assuming your error is within 17%, it could be 30% off or more, causing you to gain weight instead.
Are tiny apples in the database? Not sure what's up, but that's what the store had. They all vary between 80-100g. Minuscule. I've been eating 2 per lunch because my small apples are typicall 130-160g. The variances do add up.0 -
janejellyroll wrote: »So I'm an idiot and just restarting here. Why the emphasis on weighing food? If I'm eating a small gala apple for snack, I'm using the DB for foods here and selecting small gala apple to add to my log. Is weighing it really going to make that much of a difference for it?
I NEED to measure better for dinners and weekends, I can see that already from my log. But my dinner last night included steamed veggies (the basic corn, carrots, peas and beans mix) and the default serving was 2/3 cup, per the bag. My serving was close to that but would weighing have really made a difference?
I figure I'm doing good just by tracking what I'm eating at this stage (see first sentence) and as long as I'm close in portion size and making better choices, for me, that's fair game because the act of tracking is tends to stop me from pigging out on snacks.
Everyone's experience is different, but when I began using a scale I realized that I was eating much more than I thought I was -- sometimes as much as 200-300 calories a day more in things like fruit, vegetables, and grains. When we begin losing weight, "good enough" will often do the trick. But as we get closer to goal, our deficit is smaller and we have less room for error.
And calorie counting already has some unknowns built-in (I may eat a snack at a party or have dinner out and use my best guess for the calorie counts on those). I want to save my "buffer" for true unknowns and make everything else as known as possible. That way if I hit an unexpected stall or weight gain, I know what is causing it instead of trying to guess.
True!!!!!
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https://youtu.be/vjKPIcI51lU also a very good video. . couldn't get it to embed for some reason. . . grrr
this is why it makes a difference.0 -
Ok, I watched it. Semantics but I'd call that cup of oats a heaping cup, not a level one. ;-P And I underestimate PB but I take the point, more or less. Still not sure I'm willing to deal with a food scale right now.
Are you struggling to lose? If so, and you're "not willing to deal with a food scale," then you will probably continue to struggle. It's up to you.0 -
Love MFP. 5 pages of people arguing and the OP hasn't come back since page 1.0
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Bro, I can partly answer your question and keep in mind I'm trying to be respectful in my delivery.
It's not pretty and sugar-coated in its delivery but I would professionally say that your diet is jacked-up as well as the advice from your guru! I hope that you are not paying for this person's disservice to you. As far as the workout goes and aside from running, I've seen beauty pageant girls in pre-competition with better routines than the one prescribed for you.
Advice:
1. All of the exercises you are doing have absolutely nothing to do with weight control, building lean muscle or fat loss and are in the entire scope of things irrelevant..... so.... give them up and Ctrl-Alt-Del yourself (reset) and start afresh.
You need resistance training and you need to perform the compound muscle exercises that use the larger muscle groups. Give up on sit ups, flutter kicks and the like because they will not get rid of fat... let your diet and cardio do that for you. I do not do any of those things as a primary exercise but have substituted them in favor of the dead lift as well as other exercises that actually work and build core strength. The more the larger body muscles are worked the greater the calorie burn... abs are a complex but relatively small grouping of muscles in comparison. An effect of growing muscle is a reduction in body fat. This works for nearly everyone absent some medical problem.
2. You are here on MFP. Are you not using this program? I have a kitchen scale and everything that goes into my mouth is weighed, measured/portioned and logged into MFP prior to eating/drinking it. You need to be a fanatic about this in order to straighten up your diet to get your desired results.
3. You can use MFP right here and learn about calories.... they are not all created equal.
4. Learn how the body gets its fuel.
5. Break the friendship with the God of Moderation! Moderation when you're trying to get to your goal is no good and if you want to live a healthy lifestyle, then throw moderation based thinking out the window completely. Otherwise, just have an ounce or two of gasoline to wash down your baked fish and greens if one thinks moderation is good for you! The American diet and the American way of eating is a killer!
6. Exercise all the time! If you want to have a night out with friends and partake (cheat) a bit with Buffalo Wild Wings flatbreads (1000-1400 calories per various items) and maybe a beer or two or three while watching the fights on a Friday or Saturday night, then you can. Don't confuse what I'm saying here in this point with point # 5! But don't call it cheating.... call it relaxing. I also do the same from time to time when there is a good MMA fight shown there! HOWEVER, when I do such a thing I increase my workout prior to going out. When I do this I engage in a slow fat burning pace usually on a treadmill for about an hour to 70 minutes but also incorporate HIIT and intense weight lifting and machine workouts. I can burn sometimes between 1500-2000 calories on a Friday or Saturday at the gym before I "relax" with friends and this does not include the after burn effect from doing certain exercise systems. I eat good and clean all of the time except for the couple of beers and flatbread at the aforementioned location usually twice per month.
7. Days off don't have to be in a state of total relaxation. Those days are good for stretching and doing those crunches and leg lifts you like to do.
Bro, don't think that I'm pointing my finger at you because I have 3 fingers pointing back at me and I do practice every day what I am preaching here! I'm 54 years old and almost have the body I did when I was a 22 year old athlete!
Stay strong, eat clean and live long! And at times "relax" with your friends but then eat clean again.0 -
Love MFP. 5 pages of people arguing and the OP hasn't come back since page 1.
I don't even bother with most posters with less than 20 posts. They start a thread, don't like the answers and don't come back. Or they come back with a new name. There should be a rule where you can't post a new topic until you have at least 25 posts in other topics.
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Bro, I can partly answer your question and keep in mind I'm trying to be respectful in my delivery.
It's not pretty and sugar-coated in its delivery but I would professionally say that your diet is jacked-up as well as the advice from your guru! I hope that you are not paying for this person's disservice to you. As far as the workout goes and aside from running, I've seen beauty pageant girls in pre-competition with better routines than the one prescribed for you.
Advice:
1. All of the exercises you are doing have absolutely nothing to do with weight control, building lean muscle or fat loss and are in the entire scope of things irrelevant..... so.... give them up and Ctrl-Alt-Del yourself (reset) and start afresh.
You need resistance training and you need to perform the compound muscle exercises that use the larger muscle groups. Give up on sit ups, flutter kicks and the like because they will not get rid of fat... let your diet and cardio do that for you. I do not do any of those things as a primary exercise but have substituted them in favor of the dead lift as well as other exercises that actually work and build core strength. The more the larger body muscles are worked the greater the calorie burn... abs are a complex but relatively small grouping of muscles in comparison. An effect of growing muscle is a reduction in body fat. This works for nearly everyone absent some medical problem.
2. You are here on MFP. Are you not using this program? I have a kitchen scale and everything that goes into my mouth is weighed, measured/portioned and logged into MFP prior to eating/drinking it. You need to be a fanatic about this in order to straighten up your diet to get your desired results.
3. You can use MFP right here and learn about calories.... they are not all created equal.
4. Learn how the body gets its fuel.
5. Break the friendship with the God of Moderation! Moderation when you're trying to get to your goal is no good and if you want to live a healthy lifestyle, then throw moderation based thinking out the window completely. Otherwise, just have an ounce or two of gasoline to wash down your baked fish and greens if one thinks moderation is good for you! The American diet and the American way of eating is a killer!
6. Exercise all the time! If you want to have a night out with friends and partake (cheat) a bit with Buffalo Wild Wings flatbreads (1000-1400 calories per various items) and maybe a beer or two or three while watching the fights on a Friday or Saturday night, then you can. Don't confuse what I'm saying here in this point with point # 5! But don't call it cheating.... call it relaxing. I also do the same from time to time when there is a good MMA fight shown there! HOWEVER, when I do such a thing I increase my workout prior to going out. When I do this I engage in a slow fat burning pace usually on a treadmill for about an hour to 70 minutes but also incorporate HIIT and intense weight lifting and machine workouts. I can burn sometimes between 1500-2000 calories on a Friday or Saturday at the gym before I "relax" with friends and this does not include the after burn effect from doing certain exercise systems. I eat good and clean all of the time except for the couple of beers and flatbread at the aforementioned location usually twice per month.
7. Days off don't have to be in a state of total relaxation. Those days are good for stretching and doing those crunches and leg lifts you like to do.
Bro, don't think that I'm pointing my finger at you because I have 3 fingers pointing back at me and I do practice every day what I am preaching here! I'm 54 years old and almost have the body I did when I was a 22 year old athlete!
Stay strong, eat clean and live long! And at times "relax" with your friends but then eat clean again.
Great thoughts. Bless you sir.0 -
Bro, I can partly answer your question and keep in mind I'm trying to be respectful in my delivery.
It's not pretty and sugar-coated in its delivery but I would professionally say that your diet is jacked-up as well as the advice from your guru! I hope that you are not paying for this person's disservice to you. As far as the workout goes and aside from running, I've seen beauty pageant girls in pre-competition with better routines than the one prescribed for you.
Advice:
1. All of the exercises you are doing have absolutely nothing to do with weight control, building lean muscle or fat loss and are in the entire scope of things irrelevant..... so.... give them up and Ctrl-Alt-Del yourself (reset) and start afresh.
You need resistance training and you need to perform the compound muscle exercises that use the larger muscle groups. Give up on sit ups, flutter kicks and the like because they will not get rid of fat... let your diet and cardio do that for you. I do not do any of those things as a primary exercise but have substituted them in favor of the dead lift as well as other exercises that actually work and build core strength. The more the larger body muscles are worked the greater the calorie burn... abs are a complex but relatively small grouping of muscles in comparison. An effect of growing muscle is a reduction in body fat. This works for nearly everyone absent some medical problem.
2. You are here on MFP. Are you not using this program? I have a kitchen scale and everything that goes into my mouth is weighed, measured/portioned and logged into MFP prior to eating/drinking it. You need to be a fanatic about this in order to straighten up your diet to get your desired results.
3. You can use MFP right here and learn about calories.... they are not all created equal.
4. Learn how the body gets its fuel.
5. Break the friendship with the God of Moderation! Moderation when you're trying to get to your goal is no good and if you want to live a healthy lifestyle, then throw moderation based thinking out the window completely. Otherwise, just have an ounce or two of gasoline to wash down your baked fish and greens if one thinks moderation is good for you! The American diet and the American way of eating is a killer!
6. Exercise all the time! If you want to have a night out with friends and partake (cheat) a bit with Buffalo Wild Wings flatbreads (1000-1400 calories per various items) and maybe a beer or two or three while watching the fights on a Friday or Saturday night, then you can. Don't confuse what I'm saying here in this point with point # 5! But don't call it cheating.... call it relaxing. I also do the same from time to time when there is a good MMA fight shown there! HOWEVER, when I do such a thing I increase my workout prior to going out. When I do this I engage in a slow fat burning pace usually on a treadmill for about an hour to 70 minutes but also incorporate HIIT and intense weight lifting and machine workouts. I can burn sometimes between 1500-2000 calories on a Friday or Saturday at the gym before I "relax" with friends and this does not include the after burn effect from doing certain exercise systems. I eat good and clean all of the time except for the couple of beers and flatbread at the aforementioned location usually twice per month.
7. Days off don't have to be in a state of total relaxation. Those days are good for stretching and doing those crunches and leg lifts you like to do.
Bro, don't think that I'm pointing my finger at you because I have 3 fingers pointing back at me and I do practice every day what I am preaching here! I'm 54 years old and almost have the body I did when I was a 22 year old athlete!
Stay strong, eat clean and live long! And at times "relax" with your friends but then eat clean again.
You might have given some of the worst advice I've seen on here. and I've seen some bad advice.0 -
Alatariel75 wrote: »Break the friendship with the God of Moderation! Moderation when you're trying to get to your goal is no good and if you want to live a healthy lifestyle, then throw moderation based thinking out the window completely. Otherwise, just have an ounce or two of gasoline to wash down your baked fish and greens if one thinks moderation is good for you!
That is literally one of the stupidest things I've ever read.
Yup. I mean, it's not like moderation got me this bod. Oh, wait...
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Nony_Mouse wrote: »Alatariel75 wrote: »Break the friendship with the God of Moderation! Moderation when you're trying to get to your goal is no good and if you want to live a healthy lifestyle, then throw moderation based thinking out the window completely. Otherwise, just have an ounce or two of gasoline to wash down your baked fish and greens if one thinks moderation is good for you!
That is literally one of the stupidest things I've ever read.
Yup. I mean, it's not like moderation got me this bod. Oh, wait...
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So I'm an idiot and just restarting here. Why the emphasis on weighing food? If I'm eating a small gala apple for snack, I'm using the DB for foods here and selecting small gala apple to add to my log. Is weighing it really going to make that much of a difference for it?
I NEED to measure better for dinners and weekends, I can see that already from my log. But my dinner last night included steamed veggies (the basic corn, carrots, peas and beans mix) and the default serving was 2/3 cup, per the bag. My serving was close to that but would weighing have really made a difference?
I figure I'm doing good just by tracking what I'm eating at this stage (see first sentence) and as long as I'm close in portion size and making better choices, for me, that's fair game because the act of tracking is tends to stop me from pigging out on snacks.
I had some apples that I weighed and compared to what a "large" was listed at. They ended up being 25-30 calories more than if I had just logged it by size. It might not seem like a big difference, but over a time period of a day or a week, those little inaccuracies can add up and really make a difference on the other scale.0 -
Alatariel75 wrote: »Break the friendship with the God of Moderation! Moderation when you're trying to get to your goal is no good and if you want to live a healthy lifestyle, then throw moderation based thinking out the window completely. Otherwise, just have an ounce or two of gasoline to wash down your baked fish and greens if one thinks moderation is good for you!
That is literally one of the stupidest things I've ever read.
He kinda has a point.
Excellence at most things comes from a lack of moderation.0 -
Alatariel75 wrote: »Break the friendship with the God of Moderation! Moderation when you're trying to get to your goal is no good and if you want to live a healthy lifestyle, then throw moderation based thinking out the window completely. Otherwise, just have an ounce or two of gasoline to wash down your baked fish and greens if one thinks moderation is good for you!
That is literally one of the stupidest things I've ever read.
He has a point.
Excellence at anything comes from a lack of moderation.
There's hyperbole, and then there's outright nonsense. To equate moderation with poison is ridiculous and utterly unhelpful to someone already struggling with basic concepts of weight loss. And hell, even excellence can and does come with moderation - moderation =/= complacency.0 -
1 cup organic honey + warm water and lemon That is a LOT of calories right there, and all it will do is make you GAIN weight....... That is 1065 calories right there...with a whopping 553g of sugar......
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Nony_Mouse wrote: »Alatariel75 wrote: »Break the friendship with the God of Moderation! Moderation when you're trying to get to your goal is no good and if you want to live a healthy lifestyle, then throw moderation based thinking out the window completely. Otherwise, just have an ounce or two of gasoline to wash down your baked fish and greens if one thinks moderation is good for you!
That is literally one of the stupidest things I've ever read.
Yup. I mean, it's not like moderation got me this bod. Oh, wait...
I'm curious - were you diligent in your calorie counting, or did you calorie count with "moderation"?
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Nony_Mouse wrote: »Alatariel75 wrote: »Break the friendship with the God of Moderation! Moderation when you're trying to get to your goal is no good and if you want to live a healthy lifestyle, then throw moderation based thinking out the window completely. Otherwise, just have an ounce or two of gasoline to wash down your baked fish and greens if one thinks moderation is good for you!
That is literally one of the stupidest things I've ever read.
Yup. I mean, it's not like moderation got me this bod. Oh, wait...
I'm curious - were you diligent in your calorie counting, or did you calorie count with "moderation"?
Considering you know exactly how moderation works when it's been explained on here many times, that question is unnecessary to respond to.0 -
I'm pretty sure she meant a cup of warm water with a spoon full or two of honey.1 cup organic honey + warm water and lemon That is a LOT of calories right there, and all it will do is make you GAIN weight....... That is 1065 calories right there...with a whopping 553g of sugar......0 -
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This thread has been vastly entertaining only to be outdone by teaching 7th graders how to fill out their agenda and mark off completed homework. All in a day.0
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This discussion has been closed.
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