Not losing weight - why?

ezmaz

I guess I'm not as to the T as I should be with including decimals into my protein intake, for example - but I try to over estimate as much as possible, like rounding up a 7.5oz portion to 8oz, etc. I often am not able to find out exactly what brand of an item (eg ice cream) I am consuming, as the item is served to me rather than me serving myself, so when I do my search for my diary I try to choose the most reasonable item I can find. I also do try to OVER estimate if I'm not exactly sure about a particular item. It's true I sometimes go way over on intake, but I've done the math, and those averages I quoted at the top check out. I could def work on trying to be more consistent rather than feast or famine so often. Using the fried egg as an example, I was under the impression that the calories quoted when choosing the "fried" option include a bit extra to account for the oil. Maybe I'm wrong about that. As far as counting the potatoes as fluid ounces, yes I guess that's a weird one. I think that particular search item didn't have an option to go by regular ounce so I chose fluid ounce thinking it would be the same. Rookie mistake? I do think my biggest problem might be putting too much faith in the MFP calories burned estimates...going to avoid factoring those into my decisions from now on.

sanfromny

definitely watch for those calories burned estimates. I wear a heart rate monitor at the gym. It syncs to teh treadmill or the elliptical. At the end of the session, my HR monitor may say I burned 275cals in 30 mins but the treadmill will say 180cals in 30 mins and when I work out the #s using formulas I get about 255cals. So I usually split the difference or take the lower number. Also I try to not to eat back more than 70% of what I burn so i still am safe to have a deficit

hallycat

Are you logging every single LBandT (lick bite and taste)also? I work as a waiter puts up a big red flag for me, Are fries or tastes of food sneaking their way into your mouth?

Bottom line, be exact, and be honest. Even if you track every morsel it's not going to be perfect but if you leave stuff out or way underestimate it doesn't help either.You do not need to get so technical as the macronutrient/iifym thing. That may be fine and work for some people. Don't want to get into that discussion here.

And a regular bottle of beer? Way different calories depending on alcohol content. My favorite 90 minute IPA by DFH is a whopping 294 calories.

JeromeBarry1

ezmaz wrote: »

For 41 days I've been religious about tracking my intake. I'm a male, 5ft8, 198lb. I'm averaging 1782 cal/day over this period after deducting my expenditure. Even if not counting expenditure, I am intaking 2077/day, which should still result in 1-2lb loss/week. Over these 41 days I've managed to only lose 1 pound. What am I missing?

Because of work I do have a bit of an abnormal eating schedule. My first meal of the day is usually lunch, around noon, I rarely eat breakfast as I sleep late. Then I work from about 5-10pm. After work I have dinner around 11pm, then I'm in bed by about 1am. So I mainly eat two big meals a day with a few snacks in between and I often eat close to bedtime.

Full disclosure, I do drink a good amount of beer/wine on the weekends, but again, I track everything religiously. I am guilty of taking a bit of a feast or famine approach as well. Some days I'll binge and have over 3000 calories followed by a very conservative recovery day of 1500 calories, for example. Sometimes I throw a fasting day in the mix as well. So my intake does go through peaks and valleys. But again, I have worked out the averages and by all accounts I "should" be losing more than I am...

Thoughts?

You make it easy to have thoughts, thank you. I had a binge day near or over 3000 calories 8 days ago, along with many thousands of extra mg of sodium. In the days since, I maintained a 1200-1300 calorie and <1500 mg sodium daily diet, and only today, fully 8 days after the binge, did my weight fall below the point at the morning of my binge. I developed the notion that my body was able to excrete 500 mg of excess sodium per day. It was only on Friday that I perceived my sodium balance to be restored to normal and my water throughput to be un-retained. My thought on your binge eating is that you have them too frequently to successfully lose weight long-term. Is bingeing part of your plan? I hope not. My binge 8 days ago was caused by my very inadequate breakfast that day. I had my normal good lunch, but before my dinner was scheduled, I was overcome by hunger and ate everything I could grab. Since then I've been diligent to have a good breakfast. Both during the work week and on the weekends, this has enabled me to have my planned lunch and dinner and to stay within my macro goals for weight loss. It's also enabled me to do my sedentary mouse-driving job with a clear mind. I suggest that if you diligently modify your diet to have up to 800 calories of mostly protein, some carbs, and some fiber for breakfast each day you will see an end of the bingeing.

Your 2 big meals is also part of the problem. Examine the nutrition of that 2nd meal in the evening. If it is high in carbs, and I mean bread, potatoes, white rice, and alcohol, you are providing your body with an abundance of carbohydrates for your nighttime sleeping. Your body preferentially converts carbohydrates into the energy that your brain and body need, so your high-carb evening meal is giving your body all the carbs it needs to carry on metabolic business all night without burning any stored fat.

These are the 2 big reasons you don't lose weight. You avoid breakfast, which causes bingeing, and you (probably) have a big carb-loaded meal late in the day.

If you could get something less than 800 calories for a breakfast, even a carb-loaded breakfast is ok, you could subtract the carb contribution from your dinner and spend your nighttime sleeping in fat-burning mode. The weekly calorie numbers can be the same, it's just re-arranging your eating schedule and menu that needs to happen.

ezmaz

Thanks for the great feedback everyone. I know eating two meals a day isn't ideal but with my work schedule the way it is, it's tough to get around it. It also doesn't help that I love food. I'm a bit of a foodie so I really look forward to my meals. I get what you mean about too many carbs in the evening. I have had success years back trimming down. I was out of work for 3 months (on a writing retreat, actually) so I started doing p90x, was adhering to a strict eating plan and managed to drop from about 190 to 165 in three months - and was nicely ripped with tons of energy. It's taken me about five years to slowly and surely put the weight back on. This time, I don't have the ability to be doing p90x like before so I've really gotta try to make it work through mainly diet and rely on my shifts at work as the main source of activity.

And oh yeah, I for sure don't eat/graze while at work. It's kind of hard to explain but the way our floor plan is set up I'm far away from the kitchen. There's no real opportunity to graze. The off times that I have grabbed a handful of fries I have gone in and entered it.

eatingfatbeingfat

Dump the booze. Build the muscles mass. Keep the rest the same. I would be surprised if the weight did not start falling off.