Would welcome your advice

Karihappy

Hi all. I'm a 52-year-old woman, 5'1", and weigh 180.7 as of today. I started at 200 pounds on July 27th. I am happy I've lost almost 20 pounds, but I am stymied as to why I have not lost more. I am keeping my calories to less than 1500 a day and walking almost two hours per day for over 500 calories. Just the walking alone should be allowing me to lose a pound per week, and I thought for sure keeping below 1500 with that much exercise would cause closer to two pounds lost per week. This week I lost a measly .6. I eat clean, no junk food. My diary is open, so I would welcome any comments as to what I'm doing wrong.

cdudley628

You're going to get a lot of responses telling you to weigh everything you eat. Other measurements are not as accurate as measuring what you eat in grams. You may very well be eating more calories than you think.

vivmom2014

Do you use a food scale to weigh all the food you eat?

"Clean" and "no junk" are really ambiguous terms. Eat food that you love & enjoy. But it needs to be kept at a caloric deficit.

lorrpb

20 lbs in 3 months is great! You're prob not burning as many calories as you think and your logging can prob be tightened up. There are lots of people here who wil give you detailed advice on these things. But really, you are off to a great start. Congrats!!
SW 301
CW 187
GW 150

Karihappy

Yes, I weigh and measure everything and try to be as precise as possible, to the point of crying the other day because I couldn't figure out how to split up and measure the popcorn I popped the other day. I drive my poor husband crazy.

Thanks, Lorrpb. I am definitely happy that I have lost 20 pounds, but I just thought, with being so big to begin with, that it would come off faster, at least in the beginning. I shudder to think how slow it will come off once I get down to a more "normal" size.

cdudley628

"6 medium strawberries" "1 link" "0.5 container" and a bunch of things measured in tablespoons. I may be wrong, but it does not seem like you are weighing everything. It's your choice whether or not to weigh your food, but you may be going over your calorie goal without knowing it, which could be hindering your weight loss.

Also, if you're eating back your exercise calories, they might be overestimated and it is suggested to only eat 50-75% of the exercise calories back if you are using the calories that MFP calculates for you.

fi_b

There are a few different reasons why people plateau and it can happen at any point in your health adventure. My first question is usually how did you work out your macros to start with? I personally find that my body doesn't deal too well with carbs, so I lean more towards a higher protein and fat diet - but that's just me. I would suggest making a couple of small changes to your macros and see how that goes for a couple of weeks. As for your exercise, 2 hours per day is a lot! So I can see why you would expect greater results. Do you have days off regularly? It is also possible to over train and your body may need a couple of days of recovery time.
Feel free to send me a message if you'd like to chat about macros, or you can do a bit of reading here if you like;
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/macro-math-3-keys-to-dialing-in-your-macro-ratios.html
I promise it's not actually a terrifying website, despite the name
Most importantly - don't give up!! You can get over this hurdle and you will reach your goal.

AnvilHead

Your body isn't a machine or a math equation and weight loss isn't linear.

Lots of things can skew the scale reading - sodium/water retention, hormones (time of the month for females), hydration, elimination, etc. Sometimes you'll go two or three weeks without losing a pound on the scale, then all of a sudden experience a "whoosh" of 2 or 3 pounds. If you've lost 20 pounds in less than 3 months, you're trending downward at a rate of almost 1.7 pounds per week.

Orphia

0.6 lbs is nothing to sneeze at.

vivmom2014

I understand your husband being a bit over it, but hey this is your decision and choice. Good for you! Personally I haven't worried a bit about macros, except to get some respectable protein numbers (I'm still always under, but sometimes close) because of the strength training I do. I adore carbs. My bottom line is always the calorie count.

Stay with it. Take each day as it comes and eat a variety of food that you enjoy. Weight loss never needs to equal misery.

Karihappy

Thank you all. It's so wonderful being part of this community. I am definitely staying with it, and I'm not going to get down that I'm not losing at the rate I think I should. As long as the trend is down, all is well. I am really not dieting at all, but eating like I intend to eat for the rest of my life, so the weight that does come off should stay off for good this time. Got a little crazy yesterday after my weigh-in and had way more calories than I should have and didn't exercise, but today is a new day, and I'm off for my walk.

zoeysasha37

Don't even worry. Weight loss isn't linear. Some weeks we lose 1.5 but others no loss at all!! So make a chart of your weightloss and track the downward trends.
People have already mentioned using a food scale for everything , so that's already been covered
Also taking measurements of your body can be a useful tool as to tracking your progress

Karihappy

Just wanted to update all of you that since the scale wasn't really registering what I wanted, I decided to try on some pants that I had tried on a couple months ago and couldn't even come close to getting the zipper closed, was like five inches apart. Well, they zipped up this time! Tight, but zipped up! So, yes, scale is not the be all end all, for sure. There are better ways to monitor progress.

RodaRose

Congrats on the weight loss! Take measurements and photos for more NSVs.

Kalikel

Could the scale need batteries?

Someone else kept complaining that the scale wasn't budging and that they'd dropped a clothing size and a poster suggested changing the batteries. OP came back and had lost like seven pounds with the battery change, lol.

Orphia

Karihappy wrote: »

Just wanted to update all of you that since the scale wasn't really registering what I wanted, I decided to try on some pants that I had tried on a couple months ago and couldn't even come close to getting the zipper closed, was like five inches apart. Well, they zipped up this time! Tight, but zipped up! So, yes, scale is not the be all end all, for sure. There are better ways to monitor progress.

Yay! Happy for you!

Remember to take progress photos too.

The scale is not the only way to measure success. Our family, our friends, the mirror, photos, tape measure, and the way we feel all give us reports on how much we've changed.

TracyeS4

I think that you are doing awesome! I am 5'2" and it took me a year to lose 40 pounds. I think you should celebrate the success. Your loss will probably start to slow down, so don't stress too much.