am I eating too much/too less? I'm not losing!
FromFattie2Fittie
Posts: 139 Member
Am I eating too little? I am around 235lbs and my gw is 150..I am 24 years old, female, and 5'8. I have been eating around 1500 everyday but I also exercise everyday. My activity level was set to lightly active..should I change it to active and eat more calories?
Monday- Upper Body Strength Training
Tuesday- 45 mins-1 hour kickboxing
Wednesday- Lower Body Strength Training
Thursday- 45 mins-1 hour hip hop dance class
Friday- 1 hour hip hop dance class
Saturday- 45 mins-1 hour bootcamp (burpees, running stairs, mountain climbers, jumping squats, etc)
Sunday- 45 mins-1 hour full body strength training
This is generally what I do every week and my burns (using a heart rate monitor) usually range from 500-680 approx...am I eating too little at 1500? I have not lost a damn thing! And this has been within 2-3 months of trying faithfully. Any advice? I have not exactly paid attention to macros, as I know I should, but I have incorporated my fruits and veggies and lean protein. Any advice, guys? I am getting really frustrated.
Am I possibly in starvation mode? Every calculator I try, I get tons of different numbers telling me what I should eat. I am so confused.
5'8
24 years old
CW: 235
GW: 150
Monday- Upper Body Strength Training
Tuesday- 45 mins-1 hour kickboxing
Wednesday- Lower Body Strength Training
Thursday- 45 mins-1 hour hip hop dance class
Friday- 1 hour hip hop dance class
Saturday- 45 mins-1 hour bootcamp (burpees, running stairs, mountain climbers, jumping squats, etc)
Sunday- 45 mins-1 hour full body strength training
This is generally what I do every week and my burns (using a heart rate monitor) usually range from 500-680 approx...am I eating too little at 1500? I have not lost a damn thing! And this has been within 2-3 months of trying faithfully. Any advice? I have not exactly paid attention to macros, as I know I should, but I have incorporated my fruits and veggies and lean protein. Any advice, guys? I am getting really frustrated.
Am I possibly in starvation mode? Every calculator I try, I get tons of different numbers telling me what I should eat. I am so confused.5'8
24 years old
CW: 235
GW: 150
0
Replies
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1500 sounds like a good amount to eat (though a little more might not be terrible, either), but are you sure that's what you're eating? Do you weigh all your food on a digital scale?1
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No. Do not add more calories until you have eliminated other options.
Will you open your diary?
Do you weigh your food?2 -
There's no such thing as starvation mode, if you're eating less than you burn you should lose weight. Are you weighing your food, logging everything you eat etc. Have you not lost 1 single pound.5
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Stick with your 1500. At your weight, you can easily get enough to eat on 1500 while still losing at a steady clip.
Are you eating a little more on those heavy exercise days? You can do that, you know?
My guess is that you are not logging your food consistently and you are not weighing and/or measuring your food.
IF you were eating 1500, you'd be losing.4 -
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It is roughly 1450-1500. I do have a food scale, weigh/measure it all, and I also log everything from my drinks to my condiments 0
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Do you have cheat days/cheat meals?2
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1500 should be fine for you. However...since your diary is closed, it's going to be very hard for anyone to give you advice beyond really general tips. Would you be okay opening it for a short amount of time so we can take a look? If not, the only thing we can do is ask questions:
1. How often do you go over your calorie goal? And by how much? (Everyone goes over their goal sometimes.)
2. How confident are you in the entries you are choosing? The MFP database can be edited by any user, which is good, but it also means that there are tons of incorrect entries.
3. Do you eat back your exercise calories? Some, or all?2 -
I will open my diary right now. It has not been logged in the last couple of days (I have been very sick/lethargic= no eating) but the other days should be good. I am pretty confident. I usually double check my entries to make sure they match the labels on whatever I am eating. And I never eat them back, unless I am extremely hungry, which in case I just make it a snack (apple, crackers/cheese, etc).0
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FromFattie2Fittie wrote: »I will open my diary right now. It has not been logged in the last couple of days (I have been very sick/lethargic= no eating) but the other days should be good. I am pretty confident. I usually double check my entries to make sure they match the labels on whatever I am eating. And I never eat them back, unless I am extremely hungry, which in case I just make it a snack (apple, crackers/cheese, etc).
Your diary is still closed.0 -
I opened it go public..hmm
Will try again0 -
There are some entries that make it seem like you're perhaps not weighing everything -- for example, all your apples weigh exactly 5oz, you always eat 3oz of shrimp or 85g of carrots, etc. With things like cereal or PB, it's easy to weigh out the exact amount in a serving size, but it's odd to see things like fruit/veg/meat weighed that way. Unless you're shaving off tiny bits of your carrots or cutting your shrimp in weird ways, I'd expect to see variations in ingredient weights.
Additionally, I went back about three weeks and saw some higher 1600-1700 days, and a lot of incomplete days. It's the incomplete days that stand out, because everyone has some occasional higher-calorie days. But what's going on with the incomplete days? I'd bet money that those were also higher-calorie days, but that screws up your tracking. Your goal doesn't matter as much as your actual average intake, and having incomplete days means that you can't calculate your average intake.
My advice is to stick to an actual average of 1500 for 4-6 weeks, then reassess. Weigh everything solid, or as much as you possibly can, and be as consistent as possible. You really can't tell what's going on unless your data is consistent.4 -
There are some entries that make it seem like you're perhaps not weighing everything -- for example, all your apples weigh exactly 5oz, you always eat 3oz of shrimp or 85g of carrots, etc. With things like cereal or PB, it's easy to weigh out the exact amount in a serving size, but it's odd to see things like fruit/veg/meat weighed that way. Unless you're shaving off tiny bits of your carrots or cutting your shrimp in weird ways, I'd expect to see variations in ingredient weights.
Additionally, I went back about three weeks and saw some higher 1600-1700 days, and a lot of incomplete days. It's the incomplete days that stand out, because everyone has some occasional higher-calorie days. But what's going on with the incomplete days? I'd bet money that those were also higher-calorie days, but that screws up your tracking. Your goal doesn't matter as much as your actual average intake, and having incomplete days means that you can't calculate your average intake.
My advice is to stick to an actual average of 1500 for 4-6 weeks, then reassess. Weigh everything solid, or as much as you possibly can, and be as consistent as possible. You really can't tell what's going on unless your data is consistent.
I understand..thank you. Does my exercise schedule look okay? As far as exercising, I push as hard as I can. But I will definitely do that.0 -
FromFattie2Fittie wrote: »Am I eating too little? I am around 235lbs and my gw is 150..I am 24 years old, female, and 5'8. I have been eating around 1500 everyday but I also exercise everyday. My activity level was set to lightly active..should I change it to active and eat more calories?
Monday- Upper Body Strength Training
Tuesday- 45 mins-1 hour kickboxing
Wednesday- Lower Body Strength Training
Thursday- 45 mins-1 hour hip hop dance class
Friday- 1 hour hip hop dance class
Saturday- 45 mins-1 hour bootcamp (burpees, running stairs, mountain climbers, jumping squats, etc)
Sunday- 45 mins-1 hour full body strength training
This is generally what I do every week and my burns (using a heart rate monitor) usually range from 500-680 approx...am I eating too little at 1500? I have not lost a damn thing! And this has been within 2-3 months of trying faithfully. Any advice? I have not exactly paid attention to macros, as I know I should, but I have incorporated my fruits and veggies and lean protein. Any advice, guys? I am getting really frustrated. Am I possibly in starvation mode? Every calculator I try, I get tons of different numbers telling me what I should eat. I am so confused.
5'8
24 years old
CW: 235
GW: 150
Try calculating TDEE here properly - http://www.iifym.com/tdee-calculator/
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FromFattie2Fittie wrote: »There are some entries that make it seem like you're perhaps not weighing everything -- for example, all your apples weigh exactly 5oz, you always eat 3oz of shrimp or 85g of carrots, etc. With things like cereal or PB, it's easy to weigh out the exact amount in a serving size, but it's odd to see things like fruit/veg/meat weighed that way. Unless you're shaving off tiny bits of your carrots or cutting your shrimp in weird ways, I'd expect to see variations in ingredient weights.
Additionally, I went back about three weeks and saw some higher 1600-1700 days, and a lot of incomplete days. It's the incomplete days that stand out, because everyone has some occasional higher-calorie days. But what's going on with the incomplete days? I'd bet money that those were also higher-calorie days, but that screws up your tracking. Your goal doesn't matter as much as your actual average intake, and having incomplete days means that you can't calculate your average intake.
My advice is to stick to an actual average of 1500 for 4-6 weeks, then reassess. Weigh everything solid, or as much as you possibly can, and be as consistent as possible. You really can't tell what's going on unless your data is consistent.
I understand..thank you. Does my exercise schedule look okay? As far as exercising, I push as hard as I can. But I will definitely do that.
Generally speaking, diet is FAR more important for weight loss than exercise. That's not to say that exercise isn't important for overall health...it absolutely is...but you can lose weight by just focusing on diet alone.
Your schedule looks like it's pretty intense...how often do you have a rest day? Rest and recovery are incredibly important and shouldn't be overlooked.1 -
One thing to consider is how much you move when you AREN'T exercising. If you don't keep moving the rest of the time, you might change your setting to sedentary. Lots of people think that exercising every day makes them "active." It doesn't. That's why MFP describes sedentary and active and lightly active in terms of occupation. Unless you are really moving all day long, you are probably sedentary. And, as someone else has said, you MUST log EVERY DAY. Even when you don't eat a lot and even when you go way over. I often go way, WAY over, but I always log my food. Then, if I gain, I know why.2
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Losing weight can be so frustrating, especially when you feel like you are working so hard but don’t see results. However, there are some very important things to keep in mind. Remember that you didn’t gain the weight overnight. It won’t come off overnight either. Be realistic. Four to five pounds a month is excellent progress, although you may wish it was even more. Patience, dedication, and consistency are key.
If you have been trying to lose weight through counting calories every day for at least 30 days yet have not lost any weight, you might want to take a serious, honest look at what you are truly eating. Underreporting is extremely common. In a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, individuals underreported their intakes by 47%, but over reported exercise by 51%. (http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJM199212313272701). Researchers had subjects eat several meals in the lab, then estimate how much they had eaten. Subjects reported they ate about 1,028 calories, but where actually eating 2,081 calories. Unfortunately this not an isolated incident, as there are numerous articles on this subject as well. A Pub Med or Google Scholar search using the terms “self-reported dietary intakes” or “underreporting food”, etc will help give you a greater scope of the problem.
Why people underreport is another discussion entirely, but I encourage you to think long and hard about how much you are truly eating. Here are some suggestions to get you thinking:
1. Condiments such as ketchup, mayonnaise, butter, gravy, syrup, jelly, sugar, salad dressings, cream cheese, sour cream can add hundreds of calories quickly.
2. Not weighing, measuring, or paying attention to portion sizes of foods. Yes, one serving may only be 110 calories, but you just ate half the package and there are ten servings in there, so you really ate 550 calories.
3. Over eating healthy foods, such as peanut butter and nuts. While both are a great source of healthy fats, protein, vitamins, minerals, and fiber, ½ a cup of peanut butter contains 800 calories! If you measure out ½ a cup of peanut butter, it isn’t very much. Same with nuts. A small handful can contain almost 200 calories. Eat 2 or 3 handfuls and you could be eating upwards of 600 calories. A tablespoon of olive oil contains 120 calories. It is easy to add several tablespoons while cooking, adding hundreds of calories without you realizing it. Avocados are another high calorie healthy food.
4. Forgetting to track things, like a few bites of food off a friend or significant others plate, handful of candy on a co-workers desk, snacking while watching TV, eating while driving, etc. If it goes in your mouth, it needs to be accounted for.
5. Sugary drinks, from soda to sweet tea to smoothies to fancy coffees. Many of these drinks have upwards of 300 calories.
6. Not counting “cheat” days. You do great all week, then over indulge on the weekend. Embarrassed and ashamed, you leave out many of the foods you eat. Don’t. If you over eat, put that in your food journal. It can be very depressing to realize that you are eating 4,000+ calories on your cheat day, sabotaging the whole week of results.
Finally, remember that all the changes you make must be permanent. The second you go back to doing what you where before, all the weight will come back. This is why diets don’t work. They are not permanent. You don’t need to restrict yourself or eliminate favorite foods, just less of the high calorie and more fruits and veggies.
I have listed some good resources below for additional food for thought.
1. “Mindless Eating” by Brain Wansink, a great book that can help you identify what is sabotaging you, and what to do about it.
2. The National Weight Control Registry, (http://www.nwcr.ws/) a database of individuals who have lost at least 30 pounds and maintained for 1 year. They report how and what they do to maintain their weight.
3. If you like to watch TV, Secret Eaters, a U.K. show you can find on youtube, features individuals who can’t lose weight despite eating 1,000-1,500 calories. The show places video cameras in their home and hires private investigators to figure out how much participants are really eating. Spoiler alert: They are eating much more than they are reporting. Here is a link the season 1, episode 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYJrC3RTtgQ
4. If you suspect you have an addiction to eating, contact your doctor, mental health care professional or Over Eaters Anonymous (www.oa.org). Here is a link to fifteen questions to determine if you are a compulsive eater: https://oa.org/newcomers/how-do-i-start/are-you-a-compulsive-overeater/
Food addiction is a serious condition. It is not a moral failing or lack of will power on your part. Many of the foods today are designed by scientists to taste delicious. The more of this delicious food you eat, the faster you run out and must purchase more, driving profits. Sugar and fat are cheap. It costs about a dime to make a bottle of pop, for example (https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Cost+to+make+a+bottle+of+pop).
Here is an interesting article on the toxic food environment in most industrialized countries: http://boingboing.net/2012/03/09/seduced-by-food-obesity-and-t.html. Scroll down to “The Most Fattening Diet in the World” for more details.
Hang in there. Weight loss is hard but not impossible. Enlist family, friends, your doctor or other health care professionals to support and help you. The health benefits and improved quality of life are wonderful and worth it. It’s great that you are trying, and I just want to help you succeed and achieve your goals.
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Quite the copy/paste for a first post, there ugofatcat.0
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ugofatcat--have you read Why Calories Count? I just finished it and learned so much. It's solid (and extremely frustrating at some points). I wish everyone had this information about how calories actually work, what they are, how they are determined. It clears up so much for me.1
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Cmriverside- I had been working on that post all day.
Godlikepoeteyes- I will have to add that to my reading list. Thanks for the suggestion
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Ugofatcat--I love it when people take the time to communicate well. Thanks for this.0
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Why thank you for your kind words. Feel free to copy and paste that post if you think someone would benefit from it.0
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Alot of my food (ex. Shrimp) are repretitive but i actually did weigh them each and everytime on a food scale until i got that oz/serving size. Same with the apples. But thanks everyone for the advice. I am gonna stick to 1500 and keep exercising for 4-6 weeks. We will see what happens. Thanks for not letting me give up. 0
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