Need some help advice please

Lindyxx

can some one help please, 3 weeks ago I went away for a weekend, to my partners house, where I mostly stayed on plan sticking to my calories, and doing my exercise, came back and put 4lb on! Now I may of went over calories a little but no way I went over that much to put 4lb on, then week after I lost a 1lb and now this week put half a pound on, I just dont know what Im doing wrong, Im eating 1410 cals a day, which mfp as calculated for me, and I eat any exercise calories back, which is usually anywhere in between 300-600cals (depending on how much exercise I do that day)
Just dont know what to do anymore, Im 39, 5'1 height, and weigh 177lb. Can anyone tell me if Im eating too much or too little please? Just feel like giving it up and stuffing my face lol I stick to my daily calories and exercise everyday, just dont know what else I can do.

Lindyxx

Can anyone offer any advice at all please?

HollisGrant

Hi Lindy. It would help people give you suggestions of you could make your diary public. I believe how many calories per day depends on your activity level. Weight also fluctuates during the day and during the week. My own weight fluctuates several pounds a day, which worried me at first until I realized this is normal and happens to everybody. Do you weigh at the same time every week? The best time is in the morning before you eat or drink anything.

Editing to add people say MFP sometimes overestimates the calorie burn, so you might take that into account when you are calculating how much to eat back.

palmerar

You should probably make your diary public if you would like advice on your diet. Seeing what those 1410 calories consist of will give people a better idea of what you're doing right or wrong.

Make sure you are measuring/ weighing everything you eat, are logging absolutely everything and are not overestimating exercise calories or underestimating food intake.

I go by the TDEE method so I eat the same amount everyday and do not log or eat back exercise cals because they are worked into my daily allowance already...if interested search the topic in the forums for more information.

Lindyxx

Hi Lindy. It would help people give you suggestions of you could make your diary public. I believe how many calories per day depends on your activity level. Weight also fluctuates during the day and during the week. My own weight fluctuates several pounds a day, which worried me at first until I realized this is normal and happens to everybody. Do you weigh at the same time every week? The best time is in the morning before you eat or drink anything.

Thanks for reply, I et roughly the same amount of calories everyday 1410, which mfp as calculated for me, then I exercise every day, currently doing the befit 30 exercises, which is for 20 mins a day, sometimes I do it twice, I always eat these calories back. I weigh every weds morning when I get up.

CGBUN

It could be salt; I did that once and my niece pointed out that I'd gone over with salty stuff and to drink lots of water, and I did and that helped. It also depends on where you are in the month, that matters too. and don't let it freak you out, weight fluctuates, I've had times when I was up but then it came back down; just keep doing what you're doing.
How much did you put in that you wanted to lose a week? 1410 isn't a lot of calories and it's hard to stick too; maybe recalculate to lose less each week, that gives you some wiggle room and just makes life more comfortable. And if you're exercising 300 of the 1410, even with eating it back you're still very low on calories; you body may actually need a little more fuel in order to burn it off, rather than think it's starving and go into hoard every calorie mode.

Koldnomore

Hi Lindy,

Looks like you have managed to lose a little on your own since starting. Have you changed anything recently? more/less exercise?

Your calories seem like they should work for you assuming you continue to eat back your exercise. I'm leaning more towards the side of you are UNDER estimating your burn. Have you tried upping your calories a little or have you always been around 1400?

SuMcP

Just check your accuracy. Weigh / measure all your food so you know your intake and invest in a body monitor or heart rate monitor so you know your calorie burn. MFP greatly over estimates exercise burns. Stick with it, it is worth it x

DocMarr

Weight is not the only measure of success - and it is also notoriously unreliable on a micro level. I have been weighing myself every morning since I got my Aria wifi scales at Christmas - I am currently on maintenance and my weight has been pretty stable at 67 kilos for around 10 months - however although I say 'stable' it does go up and down in cycles. It hasn't gone up above 68 kilos and hasn't gone below 66 kilos - but that is a 4 pound difference and it fluctuates up and down between those points - some days it's at the top end and some days at the bottom end - so many things affect it depending on hormonal time of month, how much food I ate the day before, how much exercise I've done, whether or not I've eaten salty food (water retention) etc etc etc. If you weigh only once a week then you might just be catching it on an 'up day'. Weighing really is only useful for measuring long term trends and not short term, as it fluctuates too much.

Do you measure yourself at strategic points? I once went for 12 weeks without losing any weight on the scale but I lost inches from my waist, bust, hips etc - so things were changing even though it wasn't being recorded on the scale - and then suddenly my weight dropped again. So it might be that things are going on in the background and measuring your fat ratio or inch measurements might reassure you that progress is being made.

Do you weight all your food? Especially the calorie dense foods - pouring a bowl of cereal, for example, I might pour a bowl of flakes that looks like 60g but weighing it shows it to be 72g - that's only 12g, but a difference of 68 calories. An estimate of 120g of chicken breast might actually be 160g, which makes another 68 calories adrift. Two or three underestimates of food in a day, coupled with a couple of overestimates of exercise, could make the difference of several hundred calories. So check that you are weighing accurately while you are still in weight loss mode.

Do you have 'over' and 'under' days in a week? I'm not talking about bingeing on rubbish (like a so-called 'cheat day') I am saying that some days I purposely eat more than I expend and other days under what I expend. If you eat the same amount and exercise the same amount then your body becomes used to the status quo and can plateau. Eating over and under can keep your metabolism on its toes. It also reassures your body that there's not a constant deficit and can let go of its fat stores. I just make sure that over the week I end up balancing out, so my overall intake is under for the week. I tend to be 5 days just at or just under my goal and two days I go over (by 300-400). If your body has plateaued then that can kick start it into losing again.

If you are doing all of the above then don't worry - just keep on doing what you are doing and it will change eventually. Your body is not a machine and you didn't get overweight overnight - it will take time to lose it. I know it is frustrating though, but keep on keeping on and you'll get there. The slower it comes off, the more likely you'll keep it off, as you'll have learned the skills you need to keep it balanced.

good luck!

Just an edit to add that I have a FitBit that I wear every day and it records my movement and steps and gives me a pretty good estimate of my daily calorie burn - this allows me to get a more accurate picture of what I actually burn in a day and I can adjust my intake to match it. Definitely worth the investment, I'd say.

Lindyxx

Hi Lindy,

Looks like you have managed to lose a little on your own since starting. Have you changed anything recently? more/less exercise?

Your calories seem like they should work for you assuming you continue to eat back your exercise. I'm leaning more towards the side of you are UNDER estimating your burn. Have you tried upping your calories a little or have you always been around 1400?

At first I was doing Slimming World but seem to come to a stand stil doing that and I was sick of counting syns, When I first started mfp, I had my daily calorie intake at 1200 and then was eating my cals back, and I lost 10lb in frst 4 weeks, then after reading through forums, I thought maybe I wasnt eating enough, so changed mfp to lose 1lb a week, that gave me the 1410 calories a day. And since then I dont seem to be getting anywhere.

Lindyxx

Just check your accuracy. Weigh / measure all your food so you know your intake and invest in a body monitor or heart rate monitor so you know your calorie burn. MFP greatly over estimates exercise burns. Stick with it, it is worth it x

I already use a heart rate monitor

Lindyxx

Weight is not the only measure of success - and it is also notoriously unreliable on a micro level. I have been weighing myself every morning since I got my Aria wifi scales at Christmas - I am currently on maintenance and my weight has been pretty stable at 67 kilos for around 10 months - however although I say 'stable' it does go up and down in cycles. It hasn't gone up above 68 kilos and hasn't gone below 66 kilos - but that is a 4 pound difference and it fluctuates up and down between those points - some days it's at the top end and some days at the bottom end - so many things affect it depending on hormonal time of month, how much food I ate the day before, how much exercise I've done, whether or not I've eaten salty food (water retention) etc etc etc. If you weigh only once a week then you might just be catching it on an 'up day'. Weighing really is only useful for measuring long term trends and not short term, as it fluctuates too much.

Do you measure yourself at strategic points? I once went for 12 weeks without losing any weight on the scale but I lost inches from my waist, bust, hips etc - so things were changing even though it wasn't being recorded on the scale - and then suddenly my weight dropped again. So it might be that things are going on in the background and measuring your fat ratio or inch measurements might reassure you that progress is being made.

Do you weight all your food? Especially the calorie dense foods - pouring a bowl of cereal, for example, I might pour a bowl of flakes that looks like 60g but weighing it shows it to be 72g - that's only 12g, but a difference of 68 calories. An estimate of 120g of chicken breast might actually be 160g, which makes another 68 calories adrift. Two or three underestimates of food in a day, coupled with a couple of overestimates of exercise, could make the difference of several hundred calories. So check that you are weighing accurately while you are still in weight loss mode.

Do you have 'over' and 'under' days in a week? I'm not talking about bingeing on rubbish (like a so-called 'cheat day') I am saying that some days I purposely eat more than I expend and other days under what I expend. If you eat the same amount and exercise the same amount then your body becomes used to the status quo and can plateau. Eating over and under can keep your metabolism on its toes. It also reassures your body that there's not a constant deficit and can let go of its fat stores. I just make sure that over the week I end up balancing out, so my overall intake is under for the week. I tend to be 5 days just at or just under my goal and two days I go over (by 300-400). If your body has plateaued then that can kick start it into losing again.

If you are doing all of the above then don't worry - just keep on doing what you are doing and it will change eventually. Your body is not a machine and you didn't get overweight overnight - it will take time to lose it. I know it is frustrating though, but keep on keeping on and you'll get there. The slower it comes off, the more likely you'll keep it off, as you'll have learned the skills you need to keep it balanced.

good luck!

Just an edit to add that I have a FitBit that I wear every day and it records my movement and steps and gives me a pretty good estimate of my daily calorie burn - this allows me to get a more accurate picture of what I actually burn in a day and I can adjust my intake to match it. Definitely worth the investment, I'd say.

Yes I weigh everything, and like you said sometimes I do go under my calorie goal and somedays I go over, When I exercise I wear a HRM. Also on the inch thing, I do measure myself regularly (have been doing this a while now)but I havent lost any inches in the past 4 weeks.