What am I doing wrong?
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MFP often over calculates calories burned from exercise. My advice, don't log your exercise until the end of the day. Eat within the calorie count given without any recorded exercise.
Also, weigh you food on a digital scale; don't estimate your portions. A serving is a lot less than we Americans think it is.0 -
I strongly suggest you open your diary. Logging sounds simple in theory, but it is not always so easy to get right in practice. Opening your diary will get you help in debugging your issue....0
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Resurrecting an old thread...
To answer a few questions, I'm 5'4" and 33 years old. This is my 33rd day logging, and I've lost 2 pounds, but it has fluctuated between 349 and 355 seemingly from day to day, even after having waited out monthly water retention.
I don't generally eat back all my exercise calories, but when I say I come in under goal, I mean just from food, not including any exercise.
My percentages goals for carbs/fat.protein are carbs: 44%, fat: 34%, and protein: 22%, and I've been staying pretty darn close to those.
I did notice that I was pretty low in the protein for awhile, so I started adding a couple scoops to protein powder to breakfast now and then, and that's helping bring me up to my protein goal for the day.
I'm still weighing my food, but I'm confused on how I could be underestimating my calorie intake, when I'm being so careful and still coming in several hundred below my daily goal (not including exercise). Let's say I underestimate and eat 5oz of chicken instead of 4, that's what? A 60 calorie difference? I should still be losing when I'm coming in 800 calories below goal that day, even with a small discrepancy like that, right?
Anyway, I just wanted to update everyone. I'm still discouraged, but sticking with it, hoping that my body will have a lightbulb moment and start losing. I feel better in the sense that I'm more aware of what I put into my body, but as far as weight and the fit of my clothes, nothing much has changed.0 -
Like everyone else has said, weight fluctuations are natural and nobody has an actual weight -- you have a range. Did you weigh yourself regularly before you started trying to lose? A 6-pound range sounds reasonable for your size, but you should be seeing some kind of downward trend by now.
At your size and calorie target, a 2-pound loss over 4 weeks is relatively small, so it seems like something's not right. Would you be comfortable opening your diary so people can take a look?
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When you begin to lose weight, as you lose fat, you gain muscle. And since muscle weighs more than fat, it may not seem like you lost any weight although you are getting healthier. Try to increase your protein along with more fruits and veggies and see if that helps.0
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Nope. That's not even a little bit accurate.When you begin to lose weight, as you lose fat, you gain muscle. And since muscle weighs more than fat, it may not seem like you lost any weight although you are getting healthier. Try to increase your protein along with more fruits and veggies and see if that helps.
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You have been doing this for 33 days now and you have only lost 2 pounds. At 350 pounds you should be losing 8-10 pounds per months. This is not just normal fluctuations. You are eating just below maintenance to only have lost a half pound per week at your weight. If you think about it you have to cut another 750 calories per day from what you are actually eating right now. People may not like to admit it but it is strictly about the math. There is no reason you shouldn't be dropping weight easily at your current weight. If you are weighing all your food double check the entries you've been choosing on the MFP data base. There are a lot of huge descrepancies. I've seen eight ounces of chicken be as low as 180 calories to as much as 700 calories. If you choose the wrong one you will be giving yourself more calories to eat than you should. Double and triple check everything. The bottom line is your body knows better than you how many calories you're actually eating. And right now it's telling you that you are eating too much.0
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Like everyone else has said, weight fluctuations are natural and nobody has an actual weight -- you have a range. Did you weigh yourself regularly before you started trying to lose? A 6-pound range sounds reasonable for your size, but you should be seeing some kind of downward trend by now.
At your size and calorie target, a 2-pound loss over 4 weeks is relatively small, so it seems like something's not right. Would you be comfortable opening your diary so people can take a look?
No, I didn't weigh myself regularly before, so I don't know what my range is. As far as opening my diary, how do I go about doing that? (sorry, still a noob as far as navigating the site). Is it possible to open it only to individuals, rather than the general public?
I do take meds for depression, but my doc and my own research said that it's weight-neutral. That's the only other thing I can think of, other than that my scale is wildly off or...? I do eat out a lot (and try to make healthy choices when I do), and input the nutritional information from the restaurant websites, and I know there can be discrepancies there, but I also rarely finish my whole meal, either.
Idk what to do. I guess just keep trying to eat less and see if more severe restriction works.0 -
If you've just started exercising, pay attention to your measurements as well. I know 2 weeks isn't a lot of time but you'll be surprised sometimes when your weight doesn't change but you've lost half an inch off your waist.0
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Periods do indeed cause water retention so you can always expect a gain over that time and often just before it.
Salty food will cause water retention. eg asian food, junk food, and so on.
Try to keep a lid on your white carbs. and processed food in general.
If you have been exercise hard adn have sore muscles you will also have muscle inflammation which will retain water.
Yes the weight really does bounce around a huge amount. When you eat few carbs, you will lose a lot of water, when you start eating them again, you will starting retaining more. This is because carbs are stored in the muscles first as a liquid which needs the water. If you try to eat a good amount of protein and plenty of fruit and vegies in lieu of so many carbs, you will not only hold less water for the excess glycogen but you will be training to eat more healthy. Yes vegies and fruit are also carbs but they are also full of vitamins and minerals and other micronutrients. and are filling and slow to release energy.
If your calories are close to but under your daily goal you will surely lose actual fat at a steady rate. If you are pre-diabetic or diabetic it may be a bit slower and then the carbs become even more important.0 -
You have been doing this for 33 days now and you have only lost 2 pounds. At 350 pounds you should be losing 8-10 pounds per months. This is not just normal fluctuations. You are eating just below maintenance to only have lost a half pound per week at your weight. If you think about it you have to cut another 750 calories per day from what you are actually eating right now. People may not like to admit it but it is strictly about the math. There is no reason you shouldn't be dropping weight easily at your current weight. If you are weighing all your food double check the entries you've been choosing on the MFP data base. There are a lot of huge descrepancies. I've seen eight ounces of chicken be as low as 180 calories to as much as 700 calories. If you choose the wrong one you will be giving yourself more calories to eat than you should. Double and triple check everything. The bottom line is your body knows better than you how many calories you're actually eating. And right now it's telling you that you are eating too much.
This is so true! I just started a week ago and have to be really careful about what I'm selecting when choosing my foods.
OP I really suggest dropping your calories. I've lost weight in my first week. I started at 302lbs. I have a public diary. I don't stop myself from eating things I like. I just eat less and smarter. If I want something "bad" then I figure out what the rest of my day looks like so I can "afford" it. I'm on a max of 1700 calories a day but for the most part I'm staying around or under 1500.
My worst date was a travel day and it included SMALL amounts of fast food. The calorie numbers were shocking. Won't be nibbling on my kids fries again!
I also changed to diet soda and crystal lite. I don't snack on the same things. Today I had a big breakfast, shared a bubble tea slush at lunch, had a few snacks in the afternoon, including part of a chocolate bar, and then wasn't hungry for dinner.
The biggest thing for me has been being honest with myself about what I'm eating. Any time something goes in my mouth I track it. Stole a goldfish cracker from my one year old? Track it. Finished off the crusts of my daughter's sandwich? Track it. Don't be kind to yourself about the potential calories. Because really you're just stealing from your goal.0 -
If you haven't seen your doctor about this, you might want to clear with them that everything is on the up and up with your body. Certain thyroid problems for example can make losing weight more difficult.
I know it's hard, but try not to be discouraged. You are doing amazing to be making these changes!0 -
To open your diary, go to this page and select public: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings
Read this to double check your logging if you have not already: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1296011/calorie-counting-101/p10 -
You can set it to be open to friends only, or lock it with a key that you can provide to some people. You could also just open it for a short period of time so we can take a look, then close it again afterward.Like everyone else has said, weight fluctuations are natural and nobody has an actual weight -- you have a range. Did you weigh yourself regularly before you started trying to lose? A 6-pound range sounds reasonable for your size, but you should be seeing some kind of downward trend by now.
At your size and calorie target, a 2-pound loss over 4 weeks is relatively small, so it seems like something's not right. Would you be comfortable opening your diary so people can take a look?
No, I didn't weigh myself regularly before, so I don't know what my range is. As far as opening my diary, how do I go about doing that? (sorry, still a noob as far as navigating the site). Is it possible to open it only to individuals, rather than the general public?
I don't remember if you told us this or not -- how are you measuring your food (food scale/measuring cups/eyeballing)?
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FWIW, weight bounces around from day to day (hour to hour) for a ton of reasons, not just because of carbs/salt (such as your level of hydration and the amount of food in your system at any given moment). Don't start fear-mongering about carbs or processed food. Unless the OP has a medical reason to restrict a food group (like diabetes or PCOS), she can lose weight just fine while eating carbs and processed food.Patttience wrote: »Periods do indeed cause water retention so you can always expect a gain over that time and often just before it.
Salty food will cause water retention. eg asian food, junk food, and so on.
Try to keep a lid on your white carbs. and processed food in general.
If you have been exercise hard adn have sore muscles you will also have muscle inflammation which will retain water.
Yes the weight really does bounce around a huge amount. When you eat few carbs, you will lose a lot of water, when you start eating them again, you will starting retaining more. This is because carbs are stored in the muscles first as a liquid which needs the water. If you try to eat a good amount of protein and plenty of fruit and vegies in lieu of so many carbs, you will not only hold less water for the excess glycogen but you will be training to eat more healthy. Yes vegies and fruit are also carbs but they are also full of vitamins and minerals and other micronutrients. and are filling and slow to release energy.
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Weight lifting builds muscle which adds lbs to your weight. Definitely keep that in mind when you weigh yourself. The most important thing though is to not get discouraged. Losing 100 lbs is going to take a lot of determination and sometimes you might hit a wall or two. You just gotta bust through those walls with everything you've got and keep moving towards your goal. Also make sure to weigh what you eat so your getting an accurate size when you log it
Not sure if anyone has said this or not, but as a female and her starting weight this will not be the case. In theory, if you're building muscle the muscle will also be burning fat, so what you lose in fat you might gain a lb or two in over time in muscle. This makes you leaner looking, but the overall numbers on the scale may not move as much. Again, with women, difficult to do and in her case since she isn't lifting heavy or power lifting, I'd say not the case.
It's very, very hard for women to build enough muscle to make a big difference **without purposely doing it and/or using supplements or additional what have you to do it ** and it's even harder to do when eating at a deficit - which I'm pretty sure she's doing.
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There are things in all of our diaries that we would prefer that other people don't see. Like the fact we eat fast food a lot or we ate a 22 ounce steak Friday night (yeah that was me
)or that sometimes we don't log every meal. Or maybe those 13 chocolate chip cookies after lunch are a little embarrassing. But really who are you hiding them from....maybe yourself. Maybe a little denial is creeping in. I mean really, any of us that have been +100 pounds overweight has got to have a pretty strong case of the denials to overcome. That's part of the learning curve and getting healthy. We all need to stop making excuses and do what we know we should be doing. I suspect you already have a good idea of what the problem is. When you are ready to address is it....you will. 0 -
When you begin to lose weight, as you lose fat, you gain muscle. And since muscle weighs more than fat, it may not seem like you lost any weight although you are getting healthier. Try to increase your protein along with more fruits and veggies and see if that helps.
No, not at all. Everyone has an amount of their body considered lean mass (muscle, bones, organs, tissue, etc) and an amount which is fat mass.
When people say lose weight, they typically mean they want to lose fat mass because, let's be real, you could cut off a limb a technically "lose weight". To lose fat mass =/= gaining lean mass. You can gain lean mass, and you can lose fat mass - it's very difficult to do both at the same time. To gain lean mass (or build muscle) you usually have to lift heavy (progressive overload) and eat at maintenance or (more commonly recommended) a surplus. To lose fat mass you have to maintain strength, so continue to lift at the same weight or slightly, slightly increase weight lifted and eat at a deficit.
When you are eating at a deficit, but still burning more calories than you consume your body will look for other things to "eat" in order to continue to burn energy. If you lift really heavy, you won't have enough nutrients to properly recover, though. But if you lift lighter than you were, your body will think hey, we don't need as much muscle because we're not being asked to do as much work, so we don't need all this muscle. Lift the same and exercise the same and your body will start to eat excess fat stores and use them for energy.
In short, losing fat =/= gaining muscle (or lean mass)0 -
Don't just weigh yourself, take measurements too. The scale can lie. I did a really awesome bootcamp in January and I thought I wasn't getting results (it was only a month, and I was happy that my weight was maintaining). I went for a dress fitting in February and learned that, although my weight had maintained, I had lost 2 inches off my waist. My weight was the same but I had to have my new dress taken in
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