My goal was to lose weight not maintain it...

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andygvr96
andygvr96 Posts: 26 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I know my diets not the best but I always try my best to be under my calorie goal... I've been going to the gym 6 days a week for about 2 months and i bike ride everywhere I go( literally everywhere(no car)) What am I doing wrong? My guess is just that the fat is turning into muscle because I have been increasing weight in the workouts I do... But idk... Oh and also I'm going to start doing meal preps on monday.. Hopefully that will help? Any advice? In anything? Even what type of meals I should make? I just bought chicken breast and rice for now...
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  • Michaelg235
    Michaelg235 Posts: 1,093 Member
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    This is kind of a tough thing I'm trying to understand what's happening here do you see any results at all in your body. I just can't understand why nothing is working when you go to the gym 6 days a week.. do you have like the list of food you eat everyday?
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,013 Member
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    andygvr96 wrote: »
    I know my diets not the best but I always try my best to be under my calorie goal... I've been going to the gym 6 days a week for about 2 months and i bike ride everywhere I go( literally everywhere(no car)) What am I doing wrong? My guess is just that the fat is turning into muscle because I have been increasing weight in the workouts I do... But idk... Oh and also I'm going to start doing meal preps on monday.. Hopefully that will help? Any advice? In anything? Even what type of meals I should make? I just bought chicken breast and rice for now...

    Losing weight is about diet - you have to eat less calories than you burn. Are you logging your food? Do you use a food scale? You have to get your "calories in" straight. Focus on logging your food, choosing accurate entries, using a food scale and see how many calories you're really eating and go from there.
  • RuNaRoUnDaFiEld
    RuNaRoUnDaFiEld Posts: 5,864 Member
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    Can you open your food diary? Most of the time the answer is in the logging and we can help you see where to tighten it up.
  • Michaelg235
    Michaelg235 Posts: 1,093 Member
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    kimny72 wrote: »
    andygvr96 wrote: »
    I know my diets not the best but I always try my best to be under my calorie goal... I've been going to the gym 6 days a week for about 2 months and i bike ride everywhere I go( literally everywhere(no car)) What am I doing wrong? My guess is just that the fat is turning into muscle because I have been increasing weight in the workouts I do... But idk... Oh and also I'm going to start doing meal preps on monday.. Hopefully that will help? Any advice? In anything? Even what type of meals I should make? I just bought chicken breast and rice for now...

    Losing weight is about diet - you have to eat less calories than you burn. Are you logging your food? Do you use a food scale? You have to get your "calories in" straight. Focus on logging your food, choosing accurate entries, using a food scale and see how many calories you're really eating and go from there.

    I'm burned out he said he rides his bike everywhere and works out 6 days a week he has to be burning a lot of calories away unless he's eating McDonalds I don't know what's going on
  • nutmegoreo
    nutmegoreo Posts: 15,532 Member
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    Your logging looks really inaccurate. If you aren't losing, you are consuming more than you realize.

    The homemade egg and cheese sandwich, is this something you have weighed out each ingredient yourself, or is it a just a similar database entry your found on the database? Solid food should be measured by weight not cups (1 cup of rice, could be highly inaccurate).

    Other things to consider: water retention from increased exercise, water retention from increased sodium. It's not likely you are replacing fat losses with muscle gain. It's great that you're getting stronger but that's not the same as actual muscle growth. The pumped look you get from a good weight session is water retention.

    In summary, when the scale isn't doing what you want, you need to look at several variables, the biggest one being your logging practices.
  • nutmegoreo
    nutmegoreo Posts: 15,532 Member
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    Here is a great collection of posts that provide greater detail than I just did:

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10260499/i-like-old-posts-and-i-cannot-lie/p1

    Start with the ones on logging accurately.
  • DanSTL82
    DanSTL82 Posts: 156 Member
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    If what you say is true, and you are staying under your calories and exercising a lot throughout the week, the only possible answer is that you are logging your food incorrectly. Buy a food scale and measuring cups, and measure everything you are putting into your meals, ingredient by ingredient. It's tedious at first, but you'll eventually get an eye for making things in portions and knowing how much you're using. People tend to *really* underestimate the serving sizes they make for themselves when they are not weighing/measuring them.
  • andygvr96
    andygvr96 Posts: 26 Member
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    Yeah I guess I might be logging innacurately... But prepping meals will help with that, right?
  • Alatariel75
    Alatariel75 Posts: 17,959 Member
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    andygvr96 wrote: »
    Yeah I guess I might be logging innacurately... But prepping meals will help with that, right?

    Only if you weigh and log them accurately :)
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
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    andygvr96 wrote: »
    Yeah I guess I might be logging innacurately... But prepping meals will help with that, right?

    As long as you weigh everything and log it accurately

  • nutmegoreo
    nutmegoreo Posts: 15,532 Member
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    andygvr96 wrote: »
    Yeah I guess I might be logging innacurately... But prepping meals will help with that, right?

    I love meal prepping. I can get so much more food when I make it myself for the same number of calories. However, it is still possible to overeat if you aren't weighing and logging accurately.

    If you do some extra reading, and spend a week or two getting used to it, this will become much easier.

    I posted in your other thread about the boxing. I would like to remind you that food is fuel! Making sure that you have the right amount of fuel will drive your energy even higher to sustain those workouts. You will be surprised at where you can be in a couple months. :smile:
  • sourcandies
    sourcandies Posts: 42 Member
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    Prepping meals will help if you weigh everything you eat.
    I got a scale from Walmart on sale (about 10 bucks), you get quicker at weighing your foods the more you use it.
  • jemhh
    jemhh Posts: 14,261 Member
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    You are plain old eating too much to lose. Meal prep or not, just eat less. I can see from your avi that you are not a 5'1" 60 year old woman, which you'd have to be to maintain on the calories logged in your diary. If you want to lose weight you need to take a cold hard look at what you're actually eating and drinking--every bite, every sip--and realize that even if you don't log it in your diary, you have ingested it and it will affect whether or not you hit your weight loss goal.
  • hectorh82
    hectorh82 Posts: 110 Member
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    This is easy.. if you look good, like if you shaped up then you are gaining muscle mass.. most guys do.. I know, I was always over weight due to military standards but the extra 15lbs where muscle.. it's normal if you lift allot or squat.. your thighs and back can be deceiving.. if you see yourself as solid then just ease off a bit on intensity if your weight number is tripping you out.. we all have a natural part of our body that won't trim just get bulkier.. mine are my thighs , I'm a runner so that's where I can't trim down any weight at all..
  • hectorh82
    hectorh82 Posts: 110 Member
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    Oh check that intake buddy.. eat less burn more.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,372 Member
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    You can't outrun a bad diet. Weight loss is 100% diet. Exercising lets you eat more... but only as much as you're burning...
  • cityruss
    cityruss Posts: 2,493 Member
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    Boring routine answers, but.

    Your logging doesn't look accurate, this means you have no idea how many calories you are consuming. If the level of calorie intake reflected by your diary was accurate coupled with your stated exercise you'd be shedding weight, and would most probably crash and burn in a spectacular manner.

    Fat doesn't turn in to muscle. Building appreciable levels of muscle mass is a long and arduous process that requires you to be taking on a surplus of calories.

    However, the only advice you need at the moment is to log your intake correctly.

    If after a sustained period of time (enough time for things like water retention, scale fluctuations etc to be discounted) logging intake and monitoring trends in weight you are losing no weight, you need to consume less.
  • Maxematics
    Maxematics Posts: 2,287 Member
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    Yeah, like others have said, it's definitely the logging. You say you always try your best to be under your calorie goal, but on most days your calorie counts are abysmally low. So low to the point that I know you're just not logging what you eat. I'm a woman, 5'3", and 112 pounds and I eat 2000 calories per day to maintain, so you'd probably be fainting at 800 to 1000 calories per day like your diary shows you consume on most days. Even at 1600 calories, you could most likely afford to eat more provided your diary becomes more accurate than it is.

    It's awesome that you bike everywhere and go to the gym six days per week, but if you keep phoning it in on the food logging, you're going to waste several more months in the position you're currently in. The good part is that you haven't gained weight, so at least you're only eating at maintenance. Get into proper logging habits and aim for a reasonable deficit and you'll definitely see progress. If your goal truly is weight loss, take care of that deficit first while doing resistance training. If you want to build muscle, you can continue to eat at maintenance or even a slight surplus. Since you've been doing that for the past two months, it's possible you've at least made changes in that regard and you could have possibly even lost some inches. You're off to a great start, you just have to step up that logging. Good luck!
  • fry5150
    fry5150 Posts: 34 Member
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    How are you calculating your calorie burn when you exercise? It sounds like you're over calculating.
  • meritage4
    meritage4 Posts: 1,441 Member
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    you say you are prepping chicken and rice. Add vegetables. Lots of them.

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