Ideas about why I am not losing weight?

scrocke

I am 5'6, 230lbs, 35yrs old. I have been meticulous for the last 45 days about logging everything I eat. I weigh solids and measure liquids. (I even log my vitamins) I ride my bike 4.5-5 miles 5 days a week (logged through MapMyFitness) and do cardio exercises (T25 videos) 3-5 days a week. My calorie goal is 1100 a day, leaning towards more protein. I usually have between 90-100g protein (especially the days I do cardio). I feel stronger during the workouts, particularly this past week. I can do some of the ab exercises I could not do at the beginning, for example.
So it's been 45 days, and.. nothing. No change in weight. I don't feel fatigued or hungry at the end of the day. I don't want to give up, but I am just baffled why I am not losing. My diary is open also if anyone has suggestions.

malibu927

Are you weighing your protein powder out?

1100 is very little, especially when you aren't eating back exercise calories as you should be, so I would just double check everything in your logging to make sure it's accurate.

HippySkoppy

Ok - had a look back through your diary for Nov. and then back into mid Oct. Your diary could stand an overhaul.

There were days not complete and everyone I looked at showed you to be quite a deal below your goal of 1100 calories per day. Which by the way is far to low for you especially if you want to fuel your workouts effectively and not crash and burn like so many others on here with such an aggressive goal.

This site here recommends between 1000-1200 at a MIN for women. Bear in mind though, this is the very lowest end of the spectrum and designed for older, shorter sedentary women....criteria which you do not at all fit.

The other issue is that I can see in your diary is the use of tablespoons for peanut butter, cups for quinoa etc. For the greatest accuracy use your scales in grams for all solids especially important for calorie dense foods. Make sure to use verified entries in the database too.

At the end of the day I would say you are eating more than you think. Water weight from fluid retention in your muscles from your inceased workouts may be masking some loss but, yes, given the stats. you have provided and if you are positive your diary is accurate then you would normally expect to see a fair amount of loss.

Once you tidy up the issues with logging and you find yourself still not losing it may then be time to seek a Doctor's help in picking up any medical issues that are hindering your loss.

All the best.

crzycatlady1

How are you weighing your food? You should be using a food scale, set to grams.

scrocke

What you are seeing as peanut butter is powdered peanut butter, 1 serving is 2 TBSP or 12g, what I do is put my shake on the scale and weigh it, but it is listed in the database as 2 TBSP (or half that if I use half a serving). Well, I do use a measuring cup for the quinoa/bulgur, so I will start weighing that. I will also start weighing my protein powder. Otherwise, I am confident in my logging.
Can you point to specific days where you are not seeing completion or need an overhaul? There was a week in late Oct where I was significantly below 1000, but it was a very stressful week and I couldn't make myself eat more. So I did complete my diary but it won't post due to the very low calories.
I am also a bit confused as if the only major issues are the powdered peanut butter and quinoa, and I am logging less than 1100 cals a day, then an extra half serving of powdered peanut butter would add 32 cals a day (if I do not weigh correctly, for example) and an extra half cup of bulgur would add 75 calories a day. This is still below 1200 calories. So is that the major issue, that I am not eating enough?

Edit: I worked in a lab, so I have a lab scale that goes to 4 decimals. I am pretty confident in its precision. Also, I hope I am not sounding like I am making excuses, I am just trying to reply to specific points, and as we all know, weight loss is frustrating. So my apologies if I seem, snarky.

I should also mention that early this year a I had a full panel done and have no thyroid, diabetes, cholesterol, or other health issues.

HippySkoppy

Hmm, there were 2 particularly low days that caught my eye 870 something and a 275? There were also a few entries for takeaway foods, or restaurant dishes and maybe using large as an indicator of calories.

You don't sound snarky in the least, TBH I was worried I might offend you.

Sincerely though...you sound as though you have a handle on the weighing but if you aren't losing weight now the 1st place we are going to ask you to look at is the accuracy of your logging.

Again I have to stress the issue I and others too are going to have with you consistently eating so little. Your supposed to eat at least a portion of your exercise calories so the NET comes to a min. of 1200 which is what this site would be recommending for you at your age, height and weight and your burns are quite significant.

Yes I am concerned about your long term health eating so little. I have seen it so often on here and experienced it myself that not eating enough or going for the most drastic of loss quickly can cause problems.

Fatigue, hair loss, fingernails splitting etc. I know it sounds dramatic and a bit fanciful but over time dieting can take a toll and you'll end up burnt out and exhausted.

For what it is worth I'd go back to the Dr. and get a repeat of the testing necessary to rule out anything that could be impeding you, as you said it was early this year and the year isn't far from being over so a lot might have changed.

Decapins

theres no way you're not losing weight on that. it sounds like you're pretty accurate too esp if youre eating so little. even if you weren't eating enough, you would still be losing weight (rapidly and unhealthily!). theres been no change at all in 45 days? no fluctuations at all? either you're lying or its time to see a doctor

Meghanebk

Have you been taking measurements as well as weighing? Between water retention from exercise/dietary changes and maybe a bit of muscle gain, you may be losing fat and seeing it only in the tape measure, not the scale. On the plus side, you know you're making progress since you are increasing what you can do in those exercises.

I definitely would not lower your intake if you are logging accurately with that lovely lab scale (I'm jealous). Do make sure the entries you are using to log are cross checked, some people's listings are pretty far off.

If you have been active fairly continuously for that long, I'd take 2 days off entirely, eat at a couple of hundred calories above your current level, and see if anything shifts. Weirdly, I tend to drop a lot of weight on breaks like that after a few weeks of activity.

scrocke

Not in weight (change that is, I have no reason to lie and then seek advice). Unfortunately, I won't be home (I am away for school) until Thanksgiving when I can pick up my digital body tape measure. I realize it is an inaccurate tool, but I have seen no perceptible difference in how my clothes fit, I have a slim fitting pair of jeans that fit the same. Upper body I tend to wear loose shirts, and I see my face every day so don't know if it is slimmer.

I can't always find a verified entry, but for things that have a barcode (powdered PB and protein powder for instance), I scan them to get serving size. I had assumed this would be accurate, is this a wrong assumption? I will try to be more diligent in this area.

Edit: Since this is the second time water retention has been mentioned, I will research more into this. Although I hate to say, no I'm not fat, it's just water

rileysowner

If all you say is correct, the two things I would suggest is make sure of your database entries, and go see a doctor for a full workup. One question, has there been any change in the fit of your clothing?

GottaBurnEmAll

rileysowner wrote: »

If all you say is correct, the two things I would suggest is make sure of your database entries, and go see a doctor for a full workup. One question, has there been any change in the fit of your clothing?

^This. I've gone into your diary twice and can't really find any answers.

HippySkoppy

GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »

rileysowner wrote: »

If all you say is correct, the two things I would suggest is make sure of your database entries, and go see a doctor for a full workup. One question, has there been any change in the fit of your clothing?

^This. I've gone into your diary twice and can't really find any answers.

Oh thank the Great Potatoe!!!!

I was *kitten* myself I'd missed something. You more experienced members are better at spotting things than me.

This sounds like a bit of a mystery OP - water retention maybe a little bit of the answer but not enough to cover what you 'should' have lost at such a deficit. As for gaining muscle, no sorry, again at such a steep deficit you would be losing muscle....

I sorry other than what I've already suggested to do I'm stumped.

scrocke

Well, I won't be able to get to my doctor until March for a scheduled check-up (again, away for school and I have VA healthcare so I can't just find a local Dr.). Until then I guess I will try to make sure:
-look for verified entries
-weigh bulgur/protein powder
-aim for 1100-1200 calories a day vs <1100

Thank you for all of your responses

Psychgrrl

scrocke wrote: »

Well, I won't be able to get to my doctor until March for a scheduled check-up (again, away for school and I have VA healthcare so I can't just find a local Dr.). Until then I guess I will try to make sure:
-look for verified entries
-weigh bulgur/protein powder
-aim for 1100-1200 calories a day vs <1100

Thank you for all of your responses

Just a reminder, this should be your NET (what you have left after eating back some exercise calories) not your GROSS (the total of what you ate for the day. With your activity level, 1100-1200 is not enough nutrition to sustain you. You'll end up losing a good deal more lean muscle than you probably want.

If you're at a college campus, they have services like a health center, wellness center, Rec center you can access with people like doctors and registered dietitians.

Meghanebk

Keep in mind that anything prepackaged might need to be weighed too - If canned beans says x calories per serving of 100 grams, 2.5 servings in the can - you may weigh the beans and find there are 270 grams in there instead of 250. Little differences like that add up. Though things like restaurant food are more notoriously imprecise in serving size accuracy and calorie count.

scrocke

I admit that eating back calories is anathema to me and something I struggle with. It is hard to get over the mindset that deficit is necessary therefore more deficit must be better. Logically I recognize this, emotionally I don't. I keep thinking that I don't have an exact number for calories burned, just estimates, so I don't want to eat more than I should be.

RoxieDawn

OP your BMR at your current weight is approx 1760.. I must disagree with the 1100-1200 calories.. While I can agree that going a little under is ok at your current weight, eating less than 1200 certainly is way too low.

You have not had one drop in weight since you started logging in MFP at all eating 1100 calories? Not even water weight loss?

sheebs11

Try adding in more strength training and eating more. More strength training = more lean muscle mass = better resting metabolism. Try dropping down to 3 or 4 cardio session a week and aim to burn approx 300 cals in those session and aim for 5 or 6 strength sessions and do not do your cardio before them (fatigues your muscles too much before lifting). Increase your cals to help fuel this but make sure its still clean eating and lots of protein. And no it won't make you bulky. You might see a minor gain in the first week or two from water retention and then the scales should start going down as long as you are consistant Good luck!

sarahsamandpete

I would recommend eating more calories. 1100 is too little. Just give it two weeks. Eat back most of your exercise calories and see if your body will adjust. I know it sounds scary and counter-intuitive but sometimes your body needs more to lose more. I've had a similar situation I was stalled out for months at about 1500 calls and never ate back my exercise calories. Upon the advise of my trainer I upped it to closer to 1800 and have seen losses. It is a little early for me to determine if this will stick long term but I am hopeful. I know everyone says it's only about calories in/calories out, so u would think the greater your defect the bigger your weight loss but it doesn't always work that way especially if you are not giving your body the minimum it needs to function. Try eating back at least 50% of your exercise calories. Just give it two weeks and see if your body responds.

scrocke

Try dropping down to 3 or 4 cardio session a week

I have to ride my bike to get to school (edit: this is also where the gym is), should I count this as cardio and try weights instead of more cardio 3-5 times a week?

Try eating back at least 50% of your exercise calories. Just give it two weeks and see if your body responds

I can do this.

sheebs11

Yes! Absolutely! If you are already riding to and from school daily then you are getting plenty of cardio! Switch out your other cardio sessions for strength training ones. It can be intimidating if you have never weight trained before but bodybuilding.com has plenty of great beginner routines as well as instructional videos on how to do exercises properly! And I cannot reiterate enough that you have to eat more the help sustain muscle gain and fat loss! When I'm losing I try to eat lots of protein, moderate amount of fats and lower carbs (because my body hangs on to those suckers haha)

PAV8888

You are baffling me.

First of all at 230lbs and 5ft 6 and 35 yo I would definitely hope you're eating more than the past 3-4 days of logging indicate. That's if you want to lose weight as opposed to crash and burn.

Yes, a cliff bar is often 72g not the 68g it advertises. Or something else may weight considerably more than what you think it does or what the package seems to indicate. And yes a pop-tart package is TWO servings, not one!

***But the margins you're playing with are WAY too big.***

You're flirting with over 1000 Cal a day deficit which should translate into fairly rapid weight loss even if you were only hitting 500Cal a day.

How much do you move around in a day? Even if you don't have a fitness band, you probably have a phone and both iphones and android phones have apps that can act as plain pedometers.

Broken scale? Double check scale by holding 2lb+ water bottle and then not.

Bowel movements? Pregnancy? Edema? Sleep eating?

Make a rule for youself that you can't put ANYTHING in your mouth unless you have actually already measured it and logged it into MFP. Nothing. Not even water. At least for now till you can trouble shoot this.

Make sure you're netting at least 1200 Cal using verified (green checkmark) entries or USDA cross referenced entries or package cross referenced entries.

Put your daily weight in data in weightgrapher.com or happy scale for iphone or libra for android.

Visit doctor if this continues.

scrocke

The past few days are accurate. I can download a pedometer app to see, until then my daily activity is: ride to school (2.5ish mi, whatever mapmyfitness says), sit in class/internship, ride to next class (don't usually count this it's less than 2 min ride), ride home (2.5ish mi again) do a cardio video 25min for 1, 50min for 2 (usually only 2 twice a week when I have more time). Study/homework until bed.

What I am seeing from many of you is that I am not eating enough for a sustainable future and I should be eating more. If I try for 1400 a day, will that at least be better? I am really struggling with eating enough now to make it to 1100 (as many have noticed). Since I am due to visit grocery tomorrow I should look for more nutritionally dense foods (maybe get real peanut butter and whole grain toast).

Edit:

Bowel movements? Pregnancy? Edema? Sleep eating?

Normal, once daily, not floaters. Pregnancy not possible, I am not Mary. Edema: no, can see lateral and medial malleolus clearly, I easily notice when I have water weight gain (after a salty meal for instance I get cankles). Sleep on bunk bed, would likely have broken something if sleep eating.

PAV8888

OK: here is the reason for bafflement.

MFP values are based on Mifflin St Jeor's BMR equations. This establishes 1x of base calories. I don't have it anywhere handy nor is my math up on reading the original... but I am sure you can find standard deviation on Mifflin St Jeor if you try real hard. Suffice it to say though that other validation studies have found their individually calculated values to be within 10% of the predicted values... so close enough for government work and calories estimating most of the time!

MFP then multiplies that by 1.25, 1.4, 1.6, or 1.8 activity factor to give you your expected calories. Again these are values derived from population studies and slightly tweaked by MFP which then expects you to add exercise calories separately.

1.25 corresponds to about 30-40 minutes of physical activity other than sitting a day.
1.4 requires about 7500 steps/75 minutes of activity other than sitting a day.
1.6 is at around 10K steps or 100+ minutes of activity other than sitting a day.

A quick eyeball places you at 1.4 to 1.6 @ 230lbs (especially if one were to include the exercise you don't).

Which means an expected maintenance of 2400 to 2700 and you losing weight at an appreciable clip at 2000 Cal which would be a sane and desirable 20% deficit.

You're eating less than half of that. You are not already normal weight or low overweight at 230lbs, which means that under normal circumstances your body ought to be cooperating.

Remember the discussion about standard deviation? Your results place you into very outlier status vis a vis the population as a whole

So... a whole bunch of stuff can be going on. and inaccuracies and all that. But that's a big difference between expected and reality.

So yes, your scale itself may be a problem hence my call to test it... but you also said that you don't feel like you've lost any weight.

Measurement can be an issue. Hence my call for daily weight in and recording of the fluctuations.

But past all that we come down to you eating a substantially higher amount of calories on a daily basis just for health... I mean your numbers are approaching VLCD status on certain days,

And possibly having an endocrinologist taking a crack at you once you have all your ducks in order and you can present a case to them.

PAV8888

You can experiment with the institute of medicine equation:
http://www.globalrph.com/resting_metabolic_rate.htm
You will see similar EXPECTED results to what I'm chatting about above.
Yes your body does have the potential to down regulate, though not estimating calories in correctly is much more likely.
Yes, if you sit and study for long periods of time you might want to seriously look into forcing a 3-5 minute break every hour where you get up and vigorously walk. Around the block, up and down the corridor, around the kitchen. MOVE. regularly. instead of almost being asleep in your chair ;-)
It will make a world of difference.
And yes, you should eat more than what you've got down in your log.

lynn_glenmont

Psychgrrl wrote: »

scrocke wrote: »

Well, I won't be able to get to my doctor until March for a scheduled check-up (again, away for school and I have VA healthcare so I can't just find a local Dr.). Until then I guess I will try to make sure:
-look for verified entries
-weigh bulgur/protein powder
-aim for 1100-1200 calories a day vs <1100

Thank you for all of your responses

Just a reminder, this should be your NET (what you have left after eating back some exercise calories) not your GROSS (the total of what you ate for the day. With your activity level, 1100-1200 is not enough nutrition to sustain you. You'll end up losing a good deal more lean muscle than you probably want.

If you're at a college campus, they have services like a health center, wellness center, Rec center you can access with people like doctors and registered dietitians.

Since OP isn't losing weight, I don't see how lean muscle loss can be a serious concern.

scrocke

Ah science and math, feels so good (really!). I truly appreciate you listing how expected calories are calculated, and all of the other valuable information. I will make a plan to aim for 1400cal for a week, and try for 1500 the week after, eating back around 50%. Will also try to move more during study lest I grow roots. I'll have access to my digital tape measure in a few weeks and can then have another source of information.

though not estimating calories in correctly is much more likely

I eat so little, and am fairly confident in my ability to use a scale, I can't imagine that I am so far off. Regardless, I will endeavor to weigh all things, protein powder being the biggest as that is many of my meals.

itsbasschick

i am 5' 3" and i have been 175 pounds twice in my life. once i was bodybuilding, and while i wasn't low fat, i was unusually muscular for my height. the other time i was in poor shape and probably had less muscle mass than the average woman my height. i could easily have had a 25% difference in amount of muscle mass.

i mention this because i had totally different calorie needs, yet i was the same weight and BMR. online calculators would, however, list the same needs at both times, so consider the MFP calories are only a generalization.

also weigh your food. measuring cups and spoons can have surprising differences with things like protein powder and powdered peanut butter, as there can be a lot of air or very little fitting into the same measuring thing. also quest protein powder, as an example, as a scoop that holds well over one serving where some others have a scoop that holds less. but 25 grams will always be 25 grams.

Psychgrrl

lynn_glenmont wrote: »

Psychgrrl wrote: »

scrocke wrote: »

Well, I won't be able to get to my doctor until March for a scheduled check-up (again, away for school and I have VA healthcare so I can't just find a local Dr.). Until then I guess I will try to make sure:
-look for verified entries
-weigh bulgur/protein powder
-aim for 1100-1200 calories a day vs <1100

Thank you for all of your responses

Just a reminder, this should be your NET (what you have left after eating back some exercise calories) not your GROSS (the total of what you ate for the day. With your activity level, 1100-1200 is not enough nutrition to sustain you. You'll end up losing a good deal more lean muscle than you probably want.

If you're at a college campus, they have services like a health center, wellness center, Rec center you can access with people like doctors and registered dietitians.

Since OP isn't losing weight, I don't see how lean muscle loss can be a serious concern.

She's not eating enough to sustain her basic bodily functions. She's taking in 1000 or less calories a day and exercising a lot on top of it. Her body will take the nutrients it needs from within, this means cannibalizing lean muscle tissue first. Over the long term, heart and other organs are affected.

savithny

as a cook, I feel like there are things missing from some of your entries. How do you cook the chicken thighs? How do you cook the salmon? How do you roast the brussels sprouts? Is there any oil involved in those preparations?

I have met people who honestly do not count oil used in cooking because "you lift it back out of the oil." Are you really cooking all those things without any oil at all?

scrocke

I have nice non-stick pans for cooking on the stove, where I use the recommended 1 second spray of cooking spray. I use non-stick foil to roast things in the oven. The times I do use oil (today for instance) I measure and include it.