If calories in vs. calories out is what matters, why no weight loss?
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RoseTheWarrior wrote: »I suggest additional rest days. Like two on one off. Perhaps you're overtraining and that's leading to water retention?
No. She's not overtraining.
I'm going to venture a guess that there may be an issue with the calorie burn estimate. That's a large daily calorie burn and since OP is small it is even larger relative to her size.
I'm also curious whether OP has been doing regular body fat and waist measurements. Water retention can easily mask weight loss. My scale weight easily fluctuates from up to 5 pounds a day.0 -
Macros mattered for me. I had a bad plateau for a couple of months and yes I weighed everything and I exercised and I did weights and I did cardio.. Changed my macros lower carbs higher fat higher protein & the scale finally started to move. It's individual
If calories are equal, cutting carbs and increasing fat would lead to decreases in glycogen and water weight storage. It's way low carb dieters (especially those who immediately jump into one) can see huge weight loss.2 -
MeanderingMammal wrote: »AmberSpamber wrote: »When I plateau, it is usually cause I am not eating enough calories. When I increase it by 100, my weight starts dropping again. Just a suggestion- I see you have many, but that is what works for me
eating more food is never the answer to "why can't I lose weight"
The observation I would make is that when I was netting about 1600 cals I was pretty listless, I'd choose to email ather than walk up three flights of stairs and talking face to face, stuff like that. The low fueling was manifesting as generally being less active, except in intentional exercise. When I did raise my goal to about 1900 per day I was quickly back to my old self and moving around a lot more.
Eating more was a solution to the problem of being significantly underfueled, which led me to lose again. I'm under no illusions about what the problem was, and eating more wasn't in itself the solution, but it certainly contributed to not feeling like cr*p all the time.
Agreed with this but chances are most people are not really under eating for their activity....they are under estimating CI part of the equation hence my statement...
I mean lets be frank here...mos there who say they eat 1200 are probably eating closer to 1500-1600.1 -
gataman3000 wrote: »Sorry to get everyone all riled up, its just reading these boards the general theme is calories in calories out only when that's just simply not true. When people say they want to lose weight, most people actually want to lose weight and body fat. I don't think anyone will be happy losing 40 or 50 pounds and still having that 40 inch waist. And I get it that it really is calories in calories out but this is for a lifestyle change not for just a number on the scale to move and that's what cico will do, make a number move. But when you actually focus on what you eat is when your body changes and you start to look how you want to look. One person said generic protein shakes, those generic protein shakes are the building blocks of muscle which contain amino acids and are a complete protein unlike that Twinkie diet everyone loves to cite. If me telling someone to have a protein shake and chicken breast over a Twinkie is making me the bad guy, so be it, but I'm sure one person will read it and it will change their diet and their life.
No one on this board is saying macros don't matter... they just don't matter for weight loss. They matter for satiety, energy, muscle retention, hormone regulation and so much more. And in the end, it won't matter what your macros are, if you don't have calories under controlled.
Second, CICO is not a diet, way or eat or anything other than an energy balance equation. One that is the basis for every single diet. Total Daily Energy Expended (TDEE) = basal metabolic rate (BMR)+ Thermal Effect of Food (TEF) + Thermal Effect of Activity (TEA) + Non-Excercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT). TDEE = maintenance calories or average calories out. If you cannot eat below that, you will not lose weight regardless of macro composition. You will not gain weight, if you cannot eat more than that.9 -
There are so many inane myths out there when it comes to weight loss no wonder people get so confused.
- Yes, increasing your calories may give you more energy which causes you to move more, but you didn't lose weight because you increased your calories; you lost weight because you increased your level of activity. When you give credit to the calories themselves, it fuels the notion that eat more = lose more which is just untrue. Say you started moving more at 1500 calories per week so you lost half of a pound, if you would have started moving more on 1200, you would have probably lost one pound instead of half of one. No, starvation mode was not and will never be a factor for you.
- Decreasing your carbs only "gets the scale moving" because you're depleting your glycogen stores. You'll see an initial loss due to water weight, but it's not fat loss. If you keep seeing losses after the fact, it's either because you're still depleting your glycogen stores and it will eventually taper off or seeing the initial water weight loss actually put a fire under your butt and in turn you became more active, accurate with logging, or some combination of the two. Macros do not affect weight loss itself, period.
The dispute of CICO is absolutely ridiculous because the body functions on calories. I'm tired of reading about toxins, GMOs, organic food, diet pills and teas, metabolism boosters, etc. You can't say CICO doesn't work because you're not losing weight with it. Either your calorie counting/logging is off, you overestimate your exercise burns, or your CO part of the equation differs from the norm. Just because MFP says you can eat x amount doesn't always make it true. If I said I wanted to lose 0.5 pounds per week or 2 pounds per week, MFP would still give me the baseline of 1200 calories because it won't go below 1200. I wish people would research, read, and use logic and reasoning skills before expecting miracles. People can read up on starvation mode, ten ways to banish belly fat, or five ways to boost metabolism but they can't take a few moments to educate themselves on BMR, TDEE, and CICO. Come on now.26 -
There are so many inane myths out there when it comes to weight loss no wonder people get so confused.
- Yes, increasing your calories may give you more energy which causes you to move more, but you didn't lose weight because you increased your calories; you lost weight because you increased your level of activity. When you give credit to the calories themselves, it fuels the notion that eat more = lose more which is just untrue. Say you started moving more at 1500 calories per week so you lost half of a pound, if you would have started moving more on 1200, you would have probably lost one pound instead of half of one. No, starvation mode was not and will never be a factor for you.
- Decreasing your carbs only "gets the scale moving" because you're depleting your glycogen stores. You'll see an initial loss due to water weight, but it's not fat loss. If you keep seeing losses after the fact, it's either because you're still depleting your glycogen stores and it will eventually taper off or seeing the initial water weight loss actually put a fire under your butt and in turn you became more active, accurate with logging, or some combination of the two. Macros do not affect weight loss itself, period.
The dispute of CICO is absolutely ridiculous because the body functions on calories. I'm tired of reading about toxins, GMOs, organic food, diet pills and teas, metabolism boosters, etc. You can't say CICO doesn't work because you're not losing weight with it. Either your calorie counting/logging is off, you overestimate your exercise burns, or your CO part of the equation differs from the norm. Just because MFP says you can eat x amount doesn't always make it true. If I said I wanted to lose 0.5 pounds per week or 2 pounds per week, MFP would still give me the baseline of 1200 calories because it won't go below 1200. I wish people would research, read, and use logic and reasoning skills before expecting miracles. People can read up on starvation mode, ten ways to banish belly fat, or five ways to boost metabolism but they can't take a few moments to educate themselves on BMR, TDEE, and CICO. Come on now.
So much awesome in this post .3 -
Simple question, are all of you saying that if 2 people who start at the same weight want to lose 30 pounds at 1800 calories a day, one has a balanced diet of protein, carbs and fats but the others has twinkies and snickers that at the end they will look exactly the same?0
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misschellechelle wrote: »I am trying to lose my last 5-7 pounds. I weigh all of my food and log absolutely everything! I also wear a fitbit to get a general idea of calories burned.
Last week, I was 7,000 calories under maintenance for the week. I eat 1200 calories a day and end up burning about 2100-2300 calories a day. When I weighed in, no weight loss! I have been at this plateau for about a month. I have switched up my workouts and been especially mindful of my eating.
Any advice?
This is why I hate fitbits . You should only be tracking calories from actual exercise, IE lifting weights, running, jogging, cycling ... you know stuff that makes you sweat.
Don't eat back calories from walking around all day, and they don't count towards a loss or negative calories as whatever you currently do your body has already adjusted to.1 -
gataman3000 wrote: »Simple question, are all of you saying that if 2 people who start at the same weight want to lose 30 pounds at 1800 calories a day, one has a balanced diet of protein, carbs and fats but the others has twinkies and snickers that at the end they will look exactly the same?
Oh good, you didn't actually read what people were posting. No one said that.4 -
gataman3000 wrote: »Simple question, are all of you saying that if 2 people who start at the same weight want to lose 30 pounds at 1800 calories a day, one has a balanced diet of protein, carbs and fats but the others has twinkies and snickers that at the end they will look exactly the same?
There will be a lot of variables, but if two people both maintain a 500 calorie deficit, then the should pretty much have the same results, regardless of which type of diet they choose.2 -
gataman3000 wrote: »Simple question, are all of you saying that if 2 people who start at the same weight want to lose 30 pounds at 1800 calories a day, one has a balanced diet of protein, carbs and fats but the others has twinkies and snickers that at the end they will look exactly the same?
Not look the same. Weigh the same, maybe. Definitely not feel the same.2 -
gataman3000 wrote: »Simple question, are all of you saying that if 2 people who start at the same weight want to lose 30 pounds at 1800 calories a day, one has a balanced diet of protein, carbs and fats but the others has twinkies and snickers that at the end they will look exactly the same?
Not look the same. Weigh the same, maybe. Definitely not feel the same.
It would also depend on their starting points. Two people starting at 300 lbs, might look the same. But if they are very lean individuals.. well who knows.
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gataman3000 wrote: »Simple question, are all of you saying that if 2 people who start at the same weight want to lose 30 pounds at 1800 calories a day, one has a balanced diet of protein, carbs and fats but the others has twinkies and snickers that at the end they will look exactly the same?
There will be a lot of variables, but if two people both maintain a 500 calorie deficit, then the should pretty much have the same results, regardless of which type of diet they choose.
I think you could end up with drastically different results if they were reaching their deficit through very different activity levels. Not enough variables were defined in the example.
And the strawman argument of only twinkies and snickers would give meaningless results. Very few people would feel satiated on that diet and would likely struggle to maintain a deficit. And talk about low protein diet. If be so hungry. All the time.1 -
gataman3000 wrote: »Simple question, are all of you saying that if 2 people who start at the same weight want to lose 30 pounds at 1800 calories a day, one has a balanced diet of protein, carbs and fats but the others has twinkies and snickers that at the end they will look exactly the same?
There will be a lot of variables, but if two people both maintain a 500 calorie deficit, then the should pretty much have the same results, regardless of which type of diet they choose.
I think you could end up with drastically different results if they were reaching their deficit through very different activity levels. Not enough variables were defined in the example.
And the strawman argument of only twinkies and snickers would give meaningless results. Very few people would feel satiated on that diet and would likely struggle to maintain a deficit. And talk about low protein diet. If be so hungry. All the time.
Totally agree.. The argument (as it always has been) is ridiculous. There are so many factors that drive results; age, current body composition, training program, genetics, etc....
And ultimately, the question still ignores and misconstrues what everyone is actually saying. We are NOT saying eat nothing but crap only worry about calories. But calories drive loss, maintenance, gain. Macros drive body composition, energy, nutrient absorption, satiety, etc.... And in the end, it needs to be a balance.3 -
The body is so complex, I lost 2 stone on 1600 a day no workouts. Then my weight stopped dropping like it was, 3 or 4 weeks nothing altered so I started eating more 1900 a day and started p90x3 and 2 pound off last week and 1.5 already this week, I can't explain it0
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gataman3000 wrote: »Simple question, are all of you saying that if 2 people who start at the same weight want to lose 30 pounds at 1800 calories a day, one has a balanced diet of protein, carbs and fats but the others has twinkies and snickers that at the end they will look exactly the same?
That's like asking if someone who burns the same amount of calories in a day doing weightlifting will look like someone who burns the same amount of calories in a day doing yoga. Body composition and weight loss are two separate things. Nobody has ever said that macros do not affect body composition. In fact, it is said time and time again on these boards to eat enough protein to be able to preserve muscle mass when losing weight.
However, when it comes to weight loss, if one ate their calorie allowance in Twinkies and the other in chicken breasts and brown rice where the only goal was to lose 20 pounds, both subjects should lose 20 pounds over the same duration of time. For such an experiment though, you'd have to clone someone and make sure each entity has the same TDEE and run an experiment in a completely controlled environment, where no other natural factors of the human body would be able to take place.1 -
gataman3000 wrote: »Simple question, are all of you saying that if 2 people who start at the same weight want to lose 30 pounds at 1800 calories a day, one has a balanced diet of protein, carbs and fats but the others has twinkies and snickers that at the end they will look exactly the same?
I'd say that the person that ate the balanced diet of protein, carbs and fats, but ate at too high a deficit (lost the weight far too quickly) and didn't do any resistance training would probably not look as good as the person that ate a diet that included twinkies and snickers, but had a solid exercise routine and lost the weight slowly.2 -
Tedebearduff wrote: »misschellechelle wrote: »I am trying to lose my last 5-7 pounds. I weigh all of my food and log absolutely everything! I also wear a fitbit to get a general idea of calories burned.
Last week, I was 7,000 calories under maintenance for the week. I eat 1200 calories a day and end up burning about 2100-2300 calories a day. When I weighed in, no weight loss! I have been at this plateau for about a month. I have switched up my workouts and been especially mindful of my eating.
Any advice?
This is why I hate fitbits . You should only be tracking calories from actual exercise, IE lifting weights, running, jogging, cycling ... you know stuff that makes you sweat.
Don't eat back calories from walking around all day, and they don't count towards a loss or negative calories as whatever you currently do your body has already adjusted to.
why not?
If I am out working in the garden and doing extra work around the house why can't I eat those calories to bring me to maintenance? Gardening makes me sweat...lifting does not, going for a purposeful walk does not.....
Yes I wear a fitness tracker and it has proven over the last two years to be accurate for me...maybe because I set it up correctly, log my food accurately and consistently...3 -
Tedebearduff wrote: »misschellechelle wrote: »I am trying to lose my last 5-7 pounds. I weigh all of my food and log absolutely everything! I also wear a fitbit to get a general idea of calories burned.
Last week, I was 7,000 calories under maintenance for the week. I eat 1200 calories a day and end up burning about 2100-2300 calories a day. When I weighed in, no weight loss! I have been at this plateau for about a month. I have switched up my workouts and been especially mindful of my eating.
Any advice?
This is why I hate fitbits . You should only be tracking calories from actual exercise, IE lifting weights, running, jogging, cycling ... you know stuff that makes you sweat.
Don't eat back calories from walking around all day, and they don't count towards a loss or negative calories as whatever you currently do your body has already adjusted to.
Oh, great, this again. Your body sweating does not automatically mean you're burning more calories; anyone recall the sauna thread in the Getting Started subforum a few days ago? Walking is exercise. Furthermore, by your theory, I should count walking because I sweat every time I walk seeing as I walk 4mph.
If the body adjusted to everything we normally did that burned calories, BMR would not exist. Also, I'm not even going to touch the term "negative calories". The OP's problem isn't their Fitbit. It may be a factor, but a 7000 calorie margin of error per week is not going to happen from a Fitbit. You've said similar in other threads and each time you're told that what you believe makes no sense.3 -
Tedebearduff wrote: »misschellechelle wrote: »I am trying to lose my last 5-7 pounds. I weigh all of my food and log absolutely everything! I also wear a fitbit to get a general idea of calories burned.
Last week, I was 7,000 calories under maintenance for the week. I eat 1200 calories a day and end up burning about 2100-2300 calories a day. When I weighed in, no weight loss! I have been at this plateau for about a month. I have switched up my workouts and been especially mindful of my eating.
Any advice?
This is why I hate fitbits . You should only be tracking calories from actual exercise, IE lifting weights, running, jogging, cycling ... you know stuff that makes you sweat.
Don't eat back calories from walking around all day, and they don't count towards a loss or negative calories as whatever you currently do your body has already adjusted to.
why not?
If I am out working in the garden and doing extra work around the house why can't I eat those calories to bring me to maintenance? Gardening makes me sweat...lifting does not, going for a purposeful walk does not.....
Yes I wear a fitness tracker and it has proven over the last two years to be accurate for me...maybe because I set it up correctly, log my food accurately and consistently...
Ya, my mother does very little "purposeful" exercise, but hovers around Underweight due to all her gardening, scraping and painting the house, yardwork, etc.
I also sweat from gardening but not from lifting weights.0
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