Eating and exercising but not losing weight

emma_bisson17
emma_bisson17 Posts: 1 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I've been clean eating and exercising since January but I've only lost 5 pounds.
I eat about 1100- 1200 cals a day and work out as much as I can, but don't understand why the weight isn't shifting :(

Replies

  • queenliz99
    queenliz99 Posts: 15,317 Member
    Eating that amount you should be losing. How accurate is your calorie counting? Do you use a food scale? And your workouts, how do you calculate your burns?
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    It looks like your diary is closed, but often when people don't lose what they expect to lose it is due to logging errors. Are you using a food scale for all solid food? Are you avoiding all "generic" and "homemade" entries in the database? Are you having any days where you don't log or when you go over calories?
  • elphie754
    elphie754 Posts: 7,574 Member
    How tall are you and how much do you weigh? How much do you have to lose?
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    There are mistakes that people commonly make that cause them to not lose weight that we might be able to spot if you change your Diary Sharing settings to Public: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings
  • StaciMarie1974
    StaciMarie1974 Posts: 4,138 Member
    Losing 5 pounds means you are losing, though maybe not as fast as you'd like.

    What is your current height/weight and how much weight are you trying to lose? The smaller you are, the less energy your body uses and the harder it is to have a large deficit. If you're in a healthy BMI range, losing at the rate of 1-2 pounds a month might be reasonable.
  • supersimonesquirrel
    supersimonesquirrel Posts: 74 Member
    Maybe you are not eating enough? I have had to up my calories from 1200 to around 1800 (sometimes more). I started losing again and I do feel more satisfied, although I was not especially hungry at 1200. Could be worth a try - some workouts make you burn more than you realise :-)
  • goldthistime
    goldthistime Posts: 3,213 Member
    supersimonesquirrel wrote: »
    Maybe you are not eating enough? I have had to up my calories from 1200 to around 1800 (sometimes more). I started losing again and I do feel more satisfied, although I was not especially hungry at 1200. Could be worth a try - some workouts make you burn more than you realise :-)

    Theoretically, this shouldn't work. Eating more shouldn't help you lose. I will say however that I have had this "work"/occur. Could be that my body was stressed from the deficit and all the exercise I was doing and therefore retaining water, could be that I was sitting more, fidgeting less etc because I wasn't getting enough calories, could be that more calories triggered the legendary "whoosh" I was waiting for, but quite possibly it was just coincidence. Personally I'd try this only if you feel like you need a bit of a break.

  • MudderGrad
    MudderGrad Posts: 14 Member
    If you're exercising every day and only eating 1200 calories than the problem is with your calories. You probably need to eat more. Even if you're trying to lose weight fast, no one should only eat 1200 calories for a extended amount of time. Since it's now about 6 months, you probably slowed down your metabolism and that's why you're stuck.

    You need to recalculate how many calories you need to eat. Find a online weight loss calculator that determines your calorie range based on your sex, age, weight, height, and activity level.
  • queenliz99
    queenliz99 Posts: 15,317 Member
    MudderGrad wrote: »
    If you're exercising every day and only eating 1200 calories than the problem is with your calories. You probably need to eat more. Even if you're trying to lose weight fast, no one should only eat 1200 calories for a extended amount of time. Since it's now about 6 months, you probably slowed down your metabolism and that's why you're stuck.

    You need to recalculate how many calories you need to eat. Find a online weight loss calculator that determines your calorie range based on your sex, age, weight, height, and activity level.

    Nope, eating more is not the answer. OP is probably not calculating her calories correctly. She is eating more than she thinks.
  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
    Congrats on losing 5 pounds! That's great progress.

    1. If it's been less than 3 weeks or so since you last saw a drop on the scale, 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.
  • lauraesh0384
    lauraesh0384 Posts: 463 Member
    goldthistime wrote: »
    supersimonesquirrel wrote: »
    Maybe you are not eating enough? I have had to up my calories from 1200 to around 1800 (sometimes more). I started losing again and I do feel more satisfied, although I was not especially hungry at 1200. Could be worth a try - some workouts make you burn more than you realise :-)

    Theoretically, this shouldn't work. Eating more shouldn't help you lose. I will say however that I have had this "work"/occur. Could be that my body was stressed from the deficit and all the exercise I was doing and therefore retaining water, could be that I was sitting more, fidgeting less etc because I wasn't getting enough calories, could be that more calories triggered the legendary "whoosh" I was waiting for, but quite possibly it was just coincidence. Personally I'd try this only if you feel like you need a bit of a break.

    This has also happened with me. I was eating 1700-1800 calories but I was probably netting 1100-1200 with all my exercise and left over calories. I never ate back my exercise calories because I was scared I wouldn't lose weight. My weight was dropping but then stopped out of nowhere. One day I decided to try and eat back my exercise calories. It worked so I continued doing that. I dropped 3 lbs in a matter of a few days, which I assume was water weight. I'm averaging 2000 calories a day now and backed off my exercise a bit. I tend to net around 1600. Can't say I'm sad that I get to eat more food.

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