Not losing weight!!

nicoleash126

Working out for 27 days running about 40-60 minutes 5 days a week lowered my calories. Need as many tips as possible. People with open diaries should add me !

zoeysasha37

Weight loss comes from a calorie deficit.
If your not losing, your not at a calorie deficit. Calories in - calories out.

Seffell

Do you use a scale to weigh all your food? What does "lowered my calories" exactly mean?
If you're not losing any weight for 27 days then you eat as much as you burn. Nothing fancy.

nicoleash126

Ugh, I was trying as hard as I can to be accurate with tracking my food without a scale. I gained 8 lbs. I lowered my calories to 1200 but only used food labels table spoons measuring cups cause I didn't have the extra money for an actual food scale I guess it's a must for me! People were telling me that I needed to eat more calories. Thoughts on that? Yesterday I upped to 1400

GMAC2016

Weigh everything, eat less than you burn. That's it. Exercise is irrelevant if you want to lose and are eating back all the calories your body needs. Not saying it's not good for you for other reasons but it's calories burned versus consumed that matters.

diannethegeek

1. If it's been less than 3 weeks or so, don't sweat it! Normal fluctuations happen and unfortunately sometimes we stall for a week or two even when we're doing everything right. Give your body some time to catch up with the changes you're making.

2. If you aren't already, be sure that you're logging everything. Sometimes people forget about things like veggies, drinks, cooking oils, and condiments. For some people these can add up to enough to halt your weight loss progress.

3. Consider buying a food scale if you don't already have one. They're about $10-$20 dollars in the US and easily found at places like Amazon, Target, and Walmart. Measuring cups and spoons are great, but they do come with some degree of inaccuracy. A food scale will be more accurate, and for some people it makes a big difference.

4. Logging accurately also means choosing accurate entries in the database. There are a lot of user-entered entries that are off. Double-check that you're using good entries and/or using the recipe builder instead of someone else's homemade entries.

5. Recalculate your goals if you haven't lately. As you lose weight your body requires fewer calories to run. Be sure you update your goals every ten pounds or so.

6. If you're eating back your exercise calories and you're relying on gym machine readouts or MFP's estimates, it might be best to eat back just 50-75% of those. Certain activities tend to be overestimated. If you're using an HRM or activity tracker, it might be a good idea to look into their accuracy and be sure that yours is calibrated properly.

7. If you're taking any cheat days that go over your calorie limits, it might be best to cut them out for a few weeks and see what happens. Some people go way over their calorie needs without realizing it when they don't track.

8. If you weigh yourself frequently, consider using a program like trendweight to even out the fluctuations. You could be losing weight but just don't see it because of the daily ups and downs.

9. Some people just burn fewer calories than the calculators predict. If you continue to have problems after 4-6 weeks, then it might be worth a trip to the doctor or a registered dietitian who can give you more specific advice.

zoeysasha37

Eyeballing portions isn't accurate and obviously isn't working for you since your not losing weight.
Get yourself a digital scale. Walmart has them for $13.
Weigh all your solids and measure all your liquids.

zoeysasha37

@diannethegeek please post the lemonlion chart for this member who is new to this and isn't losing weight

emdeesea

Well you need to get a food scale because bottom line is that you don't know how many calories you're really eating if you don't have one.

Seffell

First see this:


https://youtu.be/vjKPIcI51lU


Then, no - eating more will not make you lose. Contrary to expectations (lol) eating is quite logical. Eating more leads to gaining not to losing
If you're gaining you're eating more than you think (and more than you burn). It is not a nice thing to hear (I know!) but it is sadly the truth. Scale is essential. I got mine for £10 and it is very accurate.

Jcl81

I put them in the order I think happens to most people.

1. Find "your" true TDEE. Just because myfitnesspal or some other calculator tells you are a certain amount of calories doesn't make it true, you have to play around to find the right amount for you.
2. Over estimating how much is burned in exercise. Myfitnesspal is notorious for this.
3. Underestimating calories in food. This can be easily done. milk is good one for this. A cup is not really that much.
4. Unlikely but, you have a hormone problem. Unlikely but it happens.

I think I got everything.

gramarye

thorsmom01 wrote: »

Eyeballing portions isn't accurate and obviously isn't working for you since your not losing weight.
Get yourself a digital scale. Walmart has them for $13.
Weigh all your solids and measure all your liquids.

You can get them online cheaper, if you don't mind waiting. I got my first scale almost three years ago on eBay for $8, free shipping, and it's still holding up like a charm. (This exact scale, to be specific. I bought a second one last year in an attempt to upgrade, and regret it. The first one is still better.)

nicoleash126

How do I track the calories I burn? Accurately? I will purchase a scale today .

diannethegeek

thorsmom01 wrote: »

@diannethegeek please post the lemonlion chart for this member who is new to this and isn't losing weight

Rocknut53

nicoleash126 wrote: »

Ugh, I was trying as hard as I can to be accurate with tracking my food without a scale. I gained 8 lbs. I lowered my calories to 1200 but only used food labels table spoons measuring cups cause I didn't have the extra money for an actual food scale I guess it's a must for me! People were telling me that I needed to eat more calories. Thoughts on that? Yesterday I upped to 1400

Just no on this, if you're not losing on what you perceive to be a deficit, eating more is not going to help. Everyone is spot on with their advice.

gramarye

nicoleash126 wrote: »

How do I track the calories I burn? Accurately? I will purchase a scale today .

Nothing is going to be 100% accurate.

You can use a TDEE calculator to estimate your daily burn and cut from there. (I think people tend to like this one, but I'm not sure what's in vogue now.)

You can use MFP for estimation, though a lot people who opt to do that will only eat back 50% to 75% of what MFP suggests.

You can purchase a heart-rate monitor if it's very important to you to ensure as accurate as possible a number, though even aren't perfect.

I personally use my Fitbit to estimate my calories out each day since 99% of my exercise is walking and running. I don't do enough strength training to bother adding it to that daily number. This has been accurate enough for my needs. Before I had that, the MFP exercise calories for walking and slow running worked for me, but I was a higher weight and had more wiggle room than you might.

CoffeeNCardio

Jcl81

nicoleash126 wrote: »

How do I track the calories I burn? Accurately? I will purchase a scale today .

Honestly, I just don't count my exercise burn calories, it's was too hard to judge. I just played with my calories. It would say something like 300 calories burned for something I knew was wrong.

To put it lightly there were many variables, weight, intensity, so on so forth.

I think they have these heart monitors. Although, I am not sure how accurate those are, instead I just looked at how many pounds I was losing a week, and if my strength stayed around the same. So far so good! 5.6 pounds lost and still benching the the same amount of weight, same energy levels on all exercises on a 400-500 calorie deficit a day, without calories counted from exercised burned.

I even lowered my cardio and just really hit heavy weights.

DanaDark

Worth considering the fact its been less than a month and you've introduced drastic changes to your life and body.

Increased exercise, be it lifting or cardio, will cause initial weight gain. Note: weight, not fat. Water is used all over the body and will definitely be used to aid in recovery from any form of exercise. So you've probably gained some there. Really, water can weigh a lot.

Most likely your water levels are fluctuating, masking any fat loss.

You asked about accuracy of exercise calories... I offer the standard: just eat back half. Better safe than sorry.

Be sure you weigh yourself in a consistent manner: i.e. same time of the say with similarly weighted clothes, etc.

Otherwise, you'll be surprised by how much your weight changes from when you wake up to right after diner!

Queenmunchy

My food scale was under $15 on Amazon and it's lasted me almost 10 years now. Worth the investment if you can swing that.

Myjourney2345

Invest in a good food scale and a heart rate monitor. How many calories are estimating to be burning during a workout?

I use Polarm400 to track my daily activities (steps) and calories burned during a workout. I second what everyone here is suggesting, you should weigh everything you eat ( with the exception liquids, for that you can use measuring cups, unless of course you're using olive oil or coconut oil, I would make sure to weigh those 15g or single servings portions).

Here is an example of what my daily PolarM400 diary looks like. I use the number of calories burned according to my PolarM400 and subtract 600 from it to get a 600 calorie deficit.

emdeesea

nicoleash126 wrote: »

How do I track the calories I burn? Accurately? I will purchase a scale today .

I don't really count calories burned. I figure them in on a weekly basis - (I work out 3-5 times a week for about an hour).

I like the Scooby Calculator. Nothing is ever going to be perfect but it's worked well for me.

nicoleash126

mg2012 wrote: »

Invest in a good food scale and a heart rate monitor. How many calories are estimating to be burning during a workout?

I use Polarm400 to track my daily activities (steps) and calories burned during a workout. I second what everyone here is suggesting, you should weigh everything you eat ( with the exception liquids, for that you can use measuring cups, unless of course you're using olive oil or coconut oil, I would make sure to weigh those 15g or single servings portions).

Here is an example of what my daily PolarM400 diary looks like. I use the number of calories burned according to my PolarM400 and subtract 600 from it to get a 600 calorie deficit.

So I use my IOS activity measurement as well as running on the treadmill. Whatever the treadmill says I burn I assume it's 25% off


I bought a food scale everyone! Thank you for all of the information. Hoping to see results after a few changes are made!