I feel like an idiot

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beatyfamily1
beatyfamily1 Posts: 257 Member
edited June 2016 in Health and Weight Loss
MFP tells me I need 1286 calories to lose 2 pounds a week. I've been doing great with weight loss and then I got stuck. My weight fluctuates a little bit, but no more loss along with a non-existent libido that I'm pretty sure is related to my diet. Not fun for my husband. So I found a great explanation on the Harris-Benedict equation to find out my BMR. My BMR is 1,786 calories. Then I have to multiply my BMR to the coordinating number according to my activity level, which makes my total calories 2,143 and 1,643 calories with a 500 deficit. Then it mentioned to split your calorie deficit between eating and exercise. So for a 500 calorie deficit you can do 250 calorie deficit with food and burn off 250 calories with exercise. This whole time I've been eating at a 500 calorie deficit with MFP's 1,286 calorie suggestion plus burning 300 or more calories almost everyday with exercise. No, honestly, it did not occur to me to count exercise calories burned as part of the deficit. So 500 calorie deficit from MFP's 1,286 calorie suggestion plus 300 or more calories burned from exercise plus the missing 357 calories I should have been eating according to the Harris-Benedict equation equals a whopping 1,157 calorie deficit. I'm thinking I should have been eating more calories which probably is the reason I stopped losing weight along with the other side effect and likely more side effect to come if I had not caught this. So there's my vent and I hope my mistake helps others in the same boat.
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Replies

  • charlieandcarol
    charlieandcarol Posts: 302 Member
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    Don't feel like an idiot, I think you just needed to read the mfp info a couple times and read the stickies.
    Firstly you chose in mfp a loss of 2 pounds a week so that's a deficit of 1000 cals a day. Secondly how mfp is designed to work is that you eat the amount of cals it calculates for your chosen weight loss, then if you do any purposeful exercise you eat back an estimate of how many calories you burnt. Not everyone eats back all their exercise cals because of inaccuracies in estimating what you burnt. I am guessing that you were probably under eating for your activity level before. The way you have recently calculated cals is a slightly different method of achieving the same thing mfp does.

    Although you should read the stickies about accurate weighing and logging food because if you were eating 1200 or so cals you should have still been losing weight. How long we're you stuck for?
  • beatyfamily1
    beatyfamily1 Posts: 257 Member
    edited June 2016
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    @charlieandcarol Yes you're right about the 1000 calories for the 2 pounds a week. I forgot about that. I haven't lost weight for over a month. It fluctuated, but won't budge. There were times when I noticed I ate more than usual and I lost weight, but then going back to the 1286 calories my weight went back up by a pound or two. Even MFP's calculations can be wrong so I'm going to try upping my calories for a little bit a see what happens.
  • beatyfamily1
    beatyfamily1 Posts: 257 Member
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    @charlieandcarol I have 48 pounds to go to get to the healthy weight range for my height. Do you think it's time to lose at 1 pound per week rather than 2?
  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,182 Member
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    I told mfp that my weight loss goal was 0.5 lb per week. I told tdeecalculator.net my gender, height, activity level, and age. tdeecalculator.net told me what my maintenance calories were. scoobysworkshop agrees. Subtracting 500 calories from that gives me my mfp calorie recommendation of 2130. Three different sites using the same equation get the same result. I do cardio exercise and log the time. Then mfp adjusts my macros and tells me that I've earned all those calories as food for today. That's cute. That's easy. I got lost trying to follow your logical sequence. I got no libido either, but I don't think my calorie deficit is to blame.
  • beatyfamily1
    beatyfamily1 Posts: 257 Member
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    @JeromeBarry1 Yeah I think I lost myself a little bit there lol. I'm just trying to figure this out. Nothing is making sense to me right now. I recently started paying more attention to my macros. Maybe that will help. Every time I try a different place to get calories needed for the day it comes up with a different number. I haven't gone to the places you mentioned though.
  • cruisin4losin
    cruisin4losin Posts: 3 Member
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    I can't seem to control my fat grams. I stay with 1500 calories a day. My dr says less will put my body in starvation if I eat too little.
  • zoeysasha37
    zoeysasha37 Posts: 7,089 Member
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    Christine_72 wrote: »
    cruisin4losin wrote: »
    I can't seem to control my fat grams. I stay with 1500 calories a day. My dr says less will put my body in starvation if I eat too little.

    @cruisin4losin ask your doctor how anorexics and prisoners of war manage to keep losing weight when eating very, very low calories. How are they not in starvation mode? I would love to hear his explanation :smile:

    I'd also be very curious to hear this explanation.
  • zoeysasha37
    zoeysasha37 Posts: 7,089 Member
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    Op read this thread

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10403462/this-guys-perfect-answer-to-is-starvation-mode-real-or-a-myth#latest


    Even though the info is copied and pasted, it is still a good read
  • beatyfamily1
    beatyfamily1 Posts: 257 Member
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    @eveandqsmom At first glance I would have said the same thing. I'm not convinced I am over eating. I just had dinner so I'm done eating for the day. I'm still left with 220 calories and I actually ate more today than usual. I weighed everything by the gram. I don't drink anything but water. I'll have one protein shake mixed with water. I don't snack or eat any junk food. I eat a lot of vegetables. I haven't exercised yet so I'm not even counting those earned calories yet. The only thing that recently changed was I started weight lifting. I run for 2 miles and then lift weights. I know that's water weight which is why my weight fluctuates. Unless I'm building muscle that's the only other thing I can think of as to why I'm not losing weight. Maybe it's temporary. I really don't know.
  • beatyfamily1
    beatyfamily1 Posts: 257 Member
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    @eveandqsmom Oh no offense taken. I understand it's no possible to lose weight while in a surplus. That's why I can't wrap my head around this. The one thing I am disagreeing with you on is you can build muscle while in a deficit. To gain weight you must be in a surplus, but muscle does not require a surplus. Muscle requires sufficient calories, not excess calories. Sufficient meaning within 300 calories. So if I were in a 500 calorie deficit I would need at least some calories for muscle regrowth and repair. I would simply add up to 300 calories for muscle growth, but I would still have the 200 calorie deficit. I just thought of something that might be related to this regarding my problem. I'm going to do some research.
  • ogtmama
    ogtmama Posts: 1,403 Member
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    Then you got this. Good luck!
  • charlieandcarol
    charlieandcarol Posts: 302 Member
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    beatyfamily1 wrote: »
    @charlieandcarol I have 48 pounds to go to get to the healthy weight range for my height. Do you think it's time to lose at 1 pound per week rather than 2?

    I am not really sure, I'm no expert. I tend to feel that you if you can be satisfied hunger wise on your current cals then stick with that I guess it is a personal thing. Some people who are very successful on here run with the philosophy of "she/he who eats the most calories and still loses weight wins" so they tend to avoid the 1200 ish thing and eat more and I guess trade off it taking a little longer to lose the weight and get to maintain more of their lean muscle mass.

    I would say give it a couple more weeks doing what Machka9 says (she has done amazing things in terms of weight loss and fitness) without changing things and being really diligent with your logging and see what happens.
  • dennysgirl99
    dennysgirl99 Posts: 7 Member
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    beatyfamily1 wrote: »
    @eveandqsmom At first glance I would have said the same thing. I'm not convinced I am over eating. I just had dinner so I'm done eating for the day. I'm still left with 220 calories and I actually ate more today than usual. I weighed everything by the gram. I don't drink anything but water. I'll have one protein shake mixed with water. I don't snack or eat any junk food. I eat a lot of vegetables. I haven't exercised yet so I'm not even counting those earned calories yet. The only thing that recently changed was I started weight lifting. I run for 2 miles and then lift weights. I know that's water weight which is why my weight fluctuates. Unless I'm building muscle that's the only other thing I can think of as to why I'm not losing weight. Maybe it's temporary. I really don't know.

    I know the feeling...just when I think I've got it, I realize how little I know or how wrong I was. I'm still fumbling my way through the learning process so I may be way off BUT experience has taught me that starting any weight lifting program after not having lifted (either in a long time or ever) makes weight loss for me to appear to slow compared to losses I see when I don't exercise or only do cardio and at times, almost stall then I drop 2-4 lbs. I'm hoping that it's partly because the lifting helps preserve more of my existing muscle mass therefore the losses shown on the scale are less than if I didn't lift. A higher proportion of the weight I do shed is fat? Here's to wishful hoping. All I know is that even if I don't see it on the scale, my clothes slowly feel bigger and I slowly feel smaller in them.

    As far as actual fact, I've read in numerous places that weight loss slows or stalls after beginning strength training generally is due to water retention that occurs as your muscles work to repair from the exercise. It usually only lasts a few weeks to a month. If it were me (when it was me), I would give it a full month using the calorie allowance that MFP gives you while continuing to lift and then tweak it. Again, I'm still learning and likely could be way off, so you can take this advice with a grain of salt.

  • beatyfamily1
    beatyfamily1 Posts: 257 Member
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    I figured it out. I was not over eating by calories. I was consuming too much protein. I said I recently started watching my macros and by recently I mean yesterday was the first day. Before I started drinking 2-3 cups of this protein powder shake because I had thought if I increase my protein it would help with muscle building and repair. It's probably true for people who are very active, but I'm not. Yesterday I only had 1 cup of protein shake and I only went over by 9 grams on the protein. I found out earlier yesterday that too much protein the body will turn in to fat. I remembered this when I was talking to eveandqsmom about weight lifting. I had to go back and check my notes I wrote from yesterday. I checked my weight this morning and almost 2 pounds fell off like it was melted butter. So I think what was happening was my body was battling itself. I was exercising and staying within my calories, but because I was like over dosing on the protein my body was battling with itself to lose the fat. Thank you everyone for your help. Sometimes it helps just to bounce ideas off of people until something clicks.
  • nutmegoreo
    nutmegoreo Posts: 15,532 Member
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    Too much of any foods (with an overall calorie surplus) will be stored as fat. A 2lb loss overnight is a water weight shift. Sodium, TOM, etc, will do that. Protein doesn't do that. I know you're looking for answers, but I think you're overcomplicating it.
  • Maxematics
    Maxematics Posts: 2,287 Member
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    beatyfamily1 wrote: »
    I figured it out. I was not over eating by calories. I was consuming too much protein. I said I recently started watching my macros and by recently I mean yesterday was the first day. Before I started drinking 2-3 cups of this protein powder shake because I had thought if I increase my protein it would help with muscle building and repair. It's probably true for people who are very active, but I'm not. Yesterday I only had 1 cup of protein shake and I only went over by 9 grams on the protein. I found out earlier yesterday that too much protein the body will turn in to fat. I remembered this when I was talking to eveandqsmom about weight lifting. I had to go back and check my notes I wrote from yesterday. I checked my weight this morning and almost 2 pounds fell off like it was melted butter. So I think what was happening was my body was battling itself. I was exercising and staying within my calories, but because I was like over dosing on the protein my body was battling with itself to lose the fat. Thank you everyone for your help. Sometimes it helps just to bounce ideas off of people until something clicks.

    I'm glad two pounds came off and I'm not trying to be rude but what you cite as the reasoning for it is absolutely not the case. As stated above, you are overcomplicating things and you also keep investing in different weight loss myths. Weight fluctuates. Water weight happens. Yes several pounds worth. End of story.

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