Super Frustrated At Weight Gain
Replies
-
You found your main problem: 1200 versus 2000 calories per day. You are in full-on starvation mode.
Measuring food can be a PITA, but it doesn't have to be. You mention peanuts. If a serving of peanuts is a quarter cup, it doesn't have to be EXACT. Use a measuring cup and realize that even what is printed on the bag/can/whatever is an approximation and can fluctuate. Same goes for labels on things like soup. If I want to eat Doritos, the bag says a serving is "about 12 chips." So I take out 12 chips. No biggie really.1 -
WinoGelato wrote: »What calorie goal does MFP provide you when you enter your current stats and a goal of losing 0.5 lb/week? With 25 lbs or less to lose that's the optimal rate of loss, and it is likely to be significantly more than what you are eating now, you may want to gradually up it over the next few weeks rather than all at once.
Yea, I was just doing that exact thing right after my previous post. I set it to .5 a week and it ramped me up from 1,200 calories to 2,000 calories a day. Heck, at this point I'm not sure I know HOW to eat that many calories a day without being stupid and eating cheeseburgers every day.
I've learned a lot in this thread, and I've learned a lot taking information from this thread and researching it online a bit too. It sounds like I have several things that are a problem here:- Not logging accurately enough. This will be difficult but I'm going to work harder on this
- Unrealistic goal of 2lbs per week is still active, my body is used to the 1,200 calories per day intake and my metabolism may be in starvation mode
- Extra exercising leading to water retention
- Cortisol levels out of balance (this explains my generally sh*tty mood lately)
- Lower carb diet means any carbs can throw things off - yesterday I had a potato, maybe that's part of the spike today
- Eating less than I should be for the calorie burn that I'm achieving each day
I guess I hadn't ever equated "more exercise" to "gain weight" other than muscle weight (which I know weighs more than fat weight).
I have to be honest that I dread putting everything I eat on a scale, I just don't see that as "quality of life" when you have to weigh every peanut because you are so preoccupied with being that ideal weight that you forget that life is to be enjoyed. I suppose I understand it when you are a body builder or when you are 200+ pounds overweight and trying to bring it in, but for someone who is just a bit overweight it seems like a lot. I'm going to do it and see what happens, but it's kicking and screaming that I go there
.
How did you get a goal of 1200 cals to begin with? I'm glad you're taking the information on board.
Weighing food is not a requirement for success. I lost 30 lbs and am successfully maintaining and didn't use a food scale. That said, it is an incredibly helpful tool and only increases accuracy and predictability of results. If I had found myself in your situation I absolutely would have gotten one and started using it.
Additionally, you may have fallen into the classic mindset of extremes that so many struggle with. Nothing wrong with eating a cheeseburger - it can be a healthful component of a diet and you certainly have the calories for it. People make a change for healthy eating and think they have to give up all the foods they previously ate, when it's entirely possible to continue to eat the same foods as before, in moderation, and still achieve your goals.2 -
StevenGarrigus wrote: »You found your main problem: 1200 versus 2000 calories per day. You are in full-on starvation mode.
Measuring food can be a PITA, but it doesn't have to be. You mention peanuts. If a serving of peanuts is a quarter cup, it doesn't have to be EXACT. Use a measuring cup and realize that even what is printed on the bag/can/whatever is an approximation and can fluctuate. Same goes for labels on things like soup. If I want to eat Doritos, the bag says a serving is "about 12 chips." So I take out 12 chips. No biggie really.
No....not starvation mode. This is not happening here. Not at all. If this was the case, then no one would be able to die from starvation. OP is eating more than he thinks from using cups and spoons and estimating (exactly what you are recommending) He doesn't have much to lose, so he HAS to be accurate when calorie counting. It is a biggie, as those "12 chips" servings is a huge estimate and is never equals the weight listed on the package which is indeed accurate. OP should tighten up his logging, weigh more foods, then reassess the calories. He could very well be eating 1500 calorie already due to not weighing food with so little to lose.9 -
WinoGelato wrote: »What calorie goal does MFP provide you when you enter your current stats and a goal of losing 0.5 lb/week? With 25 lbs or less to lose that's the optimal rate of loss, and it is likely to be significantly more than what you are eating now, you may want to gradually up it over the next few weeks rather than all at once.
I have to be honest that I dread putting everything I eat on a scale, I just don't see that as "quality of life" when you have to weigh every peanut because you are so preoccupied with being that ideal weight that you forget that life is to be enjoyed. I suppose I understand it when you are a body builder or when you are 200+ pounds overweight and trying to bring it in, but for someone who is just a bit overweight it seems like a lot. I'm going to do it and see what happens, but it's kicking and screaming that I go there.
I won't touch the starvation mode comment, nor the muscle weighing more than fat, I'm sure others will weigh in on that, but I just wanted to let you know something:
You DON'T have to weigh your food FOREVER. You really and truly don't. What would be a really good thing for you to do is to weigh your food consistently for a period of 4-6 weeks or so, until you get a really good idea of what a food LOOKS like at a particular weight. I weigh my food, and at this point (several years in, I weigh on and off but always weigh calorie-dense stuff) I can eyeball 100g of ground beef, 15g (1 tbsp) of peanut butter, a similar amount of cheese, the weight of an egg, etc., within 1-2 grams.
Keep testing yourself, like put your jar of PB on the scale and tell yourself you're gonna eyeball 15g. Then, tare the scale (so that it says zero with the PB jar on top of it) and then take the jar off the scale and take out what you think looks like 15g. If you're very close to that number... You're getting good. Do this with all of your foods and sooner or later you can wean yourself off weighing food if you really hate it. Lots of people are successful with what I'd call "loose logging" and don't need to weigh their food after some time, but it's VERY useful to start out with the scale and learn what portions/servings really look like. (Hint: They're a heck of a lot smaller than I wish they were...)3 -
daniwilford wrote: »Learn from your frustration.
I'm trying. I've been using MFP since it came out years and years ago, many iterations and many years of just maintaining or trying to lose. This time I'm dead serious so it's a much more important tool to me, so I'm trying.0 -
OP, based on your stats and rate of loss, the only conclusion is that your logging is way off. At your height and weight, if you were really eating 1200 calories, you would be losing weight super fast and be starving. I am a petite female, and I would be losing weight and starving if I was eating only 1200 cals, it's just not a lot of food.
Do you think maybe you could commit to accurately logging and weighing everything for just a couple of weeks? You don't have to do it long term if it's not your thing, but a couple of weeks of super-accurate logging will probably give you much better data to work with.
Having said that, one week with a slight gain is perfectly normal. If you havent experienced this before, you're lucky! Hang in there, and good luck :drinker:1 -
Because it needs repeating... your body is not in starvation mode as you think, it doesn't hold on to the weight in a calorie deficit.
That is a diet myth that keeps getting repeated. If it were real there would not be people with certain eating disorders and folks in food scarce counties all skin and bones.3 -
Wow a flood of 2nd page comments! Yes, MFP really suggested 1,200 calories for a man of my stature when I started this journey 5 months ago and I never thought to have it re-evaluate my needs. That was stupid. I've always thought 1,200 calories was insanely low but I went with the flow.
Yes, I eyeballed food and I'm probably off, I admit that - but I believe that my exercise has likely (notice I have said likely) negated my inaccuracies enough in the past week as to cause me frustrations over not losing. Even if I were way off, I've been steadily losing weight for quite some time, it's just this week was a non-stop gain. I'm going to weigh my food and work on my accuracy but, until now, it's been working for me.
I figure my system is really messed up right now. Eating improperly (be that too few calories or being inaccurate in logging them) and this week I upped my exercise and probably made the problem worse. Like I said, my mood has been really horrid this week and a hormone imbalance would certainly help explain that - especially since it all coincides with me putting a LOT more activity in this week.0 -
Don't throw in the towel, just try to relax. Even seven days of weight going slightly up will just be a gentle little bump in a long and hilly journey. This is the long game... if you quit, you're deciding this isn't worthwhile. If you don't want to long everything, but you find you are gaining when your calculations say you shouldn't be, you may just want to estimate higher intake or lower your calorie goal slightly. You will have a week here and there where the scale goes in the wrong direction. Instead of exercising more and more and risking burnout and frustration, take care of yourself, stick to a sensible workout plan and give it more time. I'm just short of 6 months into this, and I took getting a couple of little "hills" to truly understand that it's the big picture that counts. A weight trending app helps a lot because I get to "count" my weight as being a moving average rather than the number I get one day based on a hundred factors. Good luck, you've done great so far. It's holiday season... most everybody is gaining a bit. Think where you'd be without doing this work...1
-
@ibscas I won't reiterate all the great advice you've gotten, that would be overkill. But I will go back to your original issue, the weight gain this week. Weight is not a set thing. I've seen my weight change drastically in the course of a day. So any number of things could be affecting your numbers. I weigh daily so I know the frustration. Especially since I have a high sodium diet.
One thing noone has mentioned has been your bowel movements (TMI, I know). If they aren't regular, this could account for the scale creep you've seen this week. At least once every few months I have lighter bowel movements than usual and notice my daily weigh ins are higher that week. It's usually when my fiber intake or fat intake has changed. It regulates itself within a week or so. And I usually see a big woosh on the scale when it does.1 -
Again, thank you all for the awesome comments, I'm taking them all to heart and I feel much better about what to do now and how the week has gone. I'm definitely upping the caloric intake and relaxing the diet for this week to let my body reset a little, then a SENSIBLE caloric goal afterwards. In the meantime I'll still eat well, just more of it (nearly twice as much) but I'll ramp that up little by little each day.
I'm still in a bad mood but I feel better - thank you all!8 -
Hey,
First, deep relaxing breaths!
OK, now I ran your numbers (male, 198.5 lbs, 5'9", age 46) through the calculator at scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/, and for a sedentary person trying to cut calorie intake by 20%, I got the following results:
So, as many others have said, your daily target of 1200 calories is off - way off - and you're not accurately measuring your food.
I'm 8 years older than you, an inch taller than you, and there is no way I could survive in 1200 calories now. I dropped 100+ lbs after setting up my targets, and measuring food exactly. If you correct your intake to reflect what you are actually ingesting, you will get there.
3 -
Wow a flood of 2nd page comments! Yes, MFP really suggested 1,200 calories for a man of my stature when I started this journey 5 months ago and I never thought to have it re-evaluate my needs. That was stupid. I've always thought 1,200 calories was insanely low but I went with the flow.
Yes, I eyeballed food and I'm probably off, I admit that - but I believe that my exercise has likely (notice I have said likely) negated my inaccuracies enough in the past week as to cause me frustrations over not losing. Even if I were way off, I've been steadily losing weight for quite some time, it's just this week was a non-stop gain. I'm going to weigh my food and work on my accuracy but, until now, it's been working for me.
I figure my system is really messed up right now. Eating improperly (be that too few calories or being inaccurate in logging them) and this week I upped my exercise and probably made the problem worse. Like I said, my mood has been really horrid this week and a hormone imbalance would certainly help explain that - especially since it all coincides with me putting a LOT more activity in this week.
I will vouch for the fact that there is a glitch in MFP where it will sometimes give a male 1200 net calories.
OP 1500 net calories is the healthy minimum for a male who is not under medical supervision.1 -
I ran your numbers (male, 198.5 lbs, 5'9", age 46) through the calculator at scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/
Thanks for that link! I've bookmarked it and am plugging it in with my activity levels now. EYE OPENING difference between MFP's suggestions and that! I'll need to cross verify the numbers with 2-3 other places but it sounds like 1,200 was insanity.1 -
Again, thank you all for the awesome comments, I'm taking them all to heart and I feel much better about what to do now and how the week has gone. I'm definitely upping the caloric intake and relaxing the diet for this week to let my body reset a little, then a SENSIBLE caloric goal afterwards. In the meantime I'll still eat well, just more of it (nearly twice as much) but I'll ramp that up little by little each day.
I'm still in a bad mood but I feel better - thank you all!
Go find the ice cream your wife has tucked away, have some, exhale and smile.
Tomorrow is a new day.
As for weight loss: There are only one absolute: You need to burn more calories than you eat.
How you do it, is entirely up to you. You dont HAVE to go low carb, you dont HAVE to weigh and measure everything or anything. You dont HAVE to drink 8 glasses of water. You dont HAVE to exercise 2 hours each day.
You just have to find YOUR way, whatever that may be.
What I do want to suggest though, is to get one of those body scale analyzers that measure total weight, lean mass and fat mass.
Many poeple will say they are inaccurate, and they would not be wrong. It will however show you a reliable trend.
Because the total number on your scale is not the most important number. Your total weight is lean mass+fat mass. Lean mass is everything but fat (bones, organs, mucles, water)
If you have been working out hard the past week, and eating very little, your body is holding on for dear life, keeping most of the liquid to repair mucles. Thats the gain you have been seeing this week. If you had a body analyzer, you would have seen that the body fat has been reduced, but lean mass increased (in this case water)
You would have known you had lost fat this past week, and you wouldnt right now eat your wife's ice cream!
Have a wonderful day 1 -
I ran your numbers (male, 198.5 lbs, 5'9", age 46) through the calculator at scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/
Thanks for that link! I've bookmarked it and am plugging it in with my activity levels now. EYE OPENING difference between MFP's suggestions and that! I'll need to cross verify the numbers with 2-3 other places but it sounds like 1,200 was insanity.
It IS insanity. No wonder you're grumpy.
1 -
What I do want to suggest though, is to get one of those body scale analyzers that measure total weight, lean mass and fat mass.
Many poeple will say they are inaccurate, and they would not be wrong. It will however show you a reliable trend.
Because the total number on your scale is not the most important number. Your total weight is lean mass+fat mass. Lean mass is everything but fat (bones, organs, mucles, water)
If you have been working out hard the past week, and eating very little, your body is holding on for dear life, keeping most of the liquid to repair mucles. Thats the gain you have been seeing this week. If you had a body analyzer, you would have seen that the body fat has been reduced, but lean mass increased (in this case water)
You would have known you had lost fat this past week, and you wouldnt right now eat your wife's ice cream!
Have a wonderful day
I have the top of the line Withings scale and, while I know it's not perfect science, I use it religiously each day and have for months. I have a fantastic chart of my trends. I have not, however, been really paying THAT much attention to the lean mass. It tells me a water % but I've never really known what that meant - I kept meaning to go out and research it but just haven't gotten to it.Susieq_1994 wrote: »It IS insanity. No wonder you're grumpy.
RIGHT!?!?!?!1 -
What I do want to suggest though, is to get one of those body scale analyzers that measure total weight, lean mass and fat mass.
Many poeple will say they are inaccurate, and they would not be wrong. It will however show you a reliable trend.
Because the total number on your scale is not the most important number. Your total weight is lean mass+fat mass. Lean mass is everything but fat (bones, organs, mucles, water)
If you have been working out hard the past week, and eating very little, your body is holding on for dear life, keeping most of the liquid to repair mucles. Thats the gain you have been seeing this week. If you had a body analyzer, you would have seen that the body fat has been reduced, but lean mass increased (in this case water)
You would have known you had lost fat this past week, and you wouldnt right now eat your wife's ice cream!
Have a wonderful day
I have the top of the line Withings scale and, while I know it's not perfect science, I use it religiously each day and have for months. I have a fantastic chart of my trends. I have not, however, been really paying THAT much attention to the lean mass. It tells me a water % but I've never really known what that meant - I kept meaning to go out and research it but just haven't gotten to it.
Look at your fat mass chart for the last week.
0 -
-
You seem to have an all or nothing mentality- don't log at all or "weigh every peanut". Take a deep breath. When you get close to goal, accuracy is important because you don't have much room for error. But you're really making weighing & logging out to be an excessive burden, and it's not (if it was, I certainly wouldn't be doing it). If you snack on peanuts during the day, weigh out a bag in the morning and eat from that. When you make a sandwich, make it on the scale & grab the numbers as you go along. The thing is, we're really creatures of habit. We tend to eat the same things & the same general amounts from day to day. Once you've logged for a couple of weeks, all of your basic choices in the amounts you tend to use will be right there in your recent entries and logging will take a few minutes a day.
I saw some mention made of eating back your exercise calories. Burns are inflated. Only eat back about half. You need a month of weigh ins to see a real trend, not a week. But hang in there, you'll get this. 1 -
MileHigh4Wheeler wrote: »
Those scales do tend to have some margin of error. Good for watching the trends though, from my understanding.0 -
MileHigh4Wheeler wrote: »
Today: 23.8% Fat. That your all time low since you started losing weight?
It seems like you have lost quite a bit of fat, and thats your goal so last week has been good.
0 -
Today: 23.8% Fat. That your all time low since you started losing weight?
It seems like you have lost quite a bit of fat, and thats your goal so last week has been good.
It is my low, about tied with where i was on December 15th. Yea, my body fat trend is very much up and down, when I look at the chart it's like a heartbeat. There is a steady decline but lots of peaks and valleys.0 -
MileHigh4Wheeler wrote: »I ran your numbers (male, 198.5 lbs, 5'9", age 46) through the calculator at scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/
Thanks for that link! I've bookmarked it and am plugging it in with my activity levels now. EYE OPENING difference between MFP's suggestions and that! I'll need to cross verify the numbers with 2-3 other places but it sounds like 1,200 was insanity.
Hang on, one thing to note: MFP estimates are NEAT calorie goals, they do not include exercise. A site like scooby's workshop which calculated TDEE is including all your calories burned including exercise. That's one reason for the big difference.
That said, all of these are just estimates based on numbers you input. The most accurate numbers are the ones that come from your actual results, but since there's a change your logging hasn't been accurate it's difficult to assess what your actual TDEE is.
1 -
MileHigh4Wheeler wrote: »I ran your numbers (male, 198.5 lbs, 5'9", age 46) through the calculator at scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/
Thanks for that link! I've bookmarked it and am plugging it in with my activity levels now. EYE OPENING difference between MFP's suggestions and that! I'll need to cross verify the numbers with 2-3 other places but it sounds like 1,200 was insanity.
It's worth pointing out that MFP's calculations for daily calorie goals don't include exercise. A TDEE calculator like the one linked above does. So while "lightly active" on MFP means you're lightly active at work, "lightly active" on a TDEE calculator means you incorporate a modest amount of exercise into your daily routine. Hence the difference in numbers between the two sources.3 -
WinoGelato wrote: »MileHigh4Wheeler wrote: »I ran your numbers (male, 198.5 lbs, 5'9", age 46) through the calculator at scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/
Thanks for that link! I've bookmarked it and am plugging it in with my activity levels now. EYE OPENING difference between MFP's suggestions and that! I'll need to cross verify the numbers with 2-3 other places but it sounds like 1,200 was insanity.
Hang on, one thing to note: MFP estimates are NEAT calorie goals, they do not include exercise. A site like scooby's workshop which calculated TDEE is including all your calories burned including exercise. That's one reason for the big difference.
That said, all of these are just estimates based on numbers you input. The most accurate numbers are the ones that come from your actual results, but since there's a change your logging hasn't been accurate it's difficult to assess what your actual TDEE is.
Since I first mentioned the Scooby site and TDEE numbers, note that I said the calculation was for a "sedentary" person, which I believe should give a close approximation to the MFP/NEAT baseline number (happy to be corrected). My purpose for doing so was to show that there was no way MFP should be telling him to eat 1200 calories ... unless, for example, he put in a massive weekly weight loss target.
For those not knowing what TDEE or NEAT are, a brief summary:
- MFP uses NEAT (Non exercise Activity Thermogenisis) which basically is the calories you need before purposeful exercise to lose weight...that is why choosing your activity level is important when setting up your account if you aren't going to use TDEE.
- TDEE is Total Daily Energy Expenditure so that is your NEAT + EXERCISE
- Source: Second reply in https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10004328/mfp-vs-tdee0 -
MileHigh4Wheeler wrote: ».......................
I was so upset about this that I told my wife "screw this, what is the point" and told her that I'm done,............
HELP!
Don't give up. Keep going. You could be "this close".5 -
MileHigh4Wheeler wrote: »callsitlikeiseeit wrote: »THAT RIGHT THERE IS THE PROBLEM. RIGHT THERE. IN BLACK AND WHITE.
So you are saying that I need to weigh every single peanut I eat (in case the peanut is 1/100th of a gram off from a normal peanut) and somehow try to match every single macro and micro nutrient because nobody can lose weight reliably without doing that?
I know it sounds really snarky but the all caps yelling at me says that "hard work, eating "right" and exercise will never be successful unless you weigh each grain of rice you eat".
It just seems excessive. I appreciate that you lost 80 pounds, that's quite an achievement indeed, but I've been doing well up until recently I'm just not sure if my increase in exercise or maybe a lack of a major important nutrient is something I should be zooming in on here. I haven't weight each apple seed but you are implying that was just sheer luck because measuring out each oatmeal grain individually is the only way to get to my goal. Again, I glean this from the all caps yelling that my problem was staring me in the face.
I'm kind of skipping ahead and have not read every comment, but this right here is the issue. You are not weighing and logging correctly. The only way I lost the 60 lbs I have is by weighing every single thing I eat. This is the only way to know that the calorie amount you are taking in is correct. If I make homemade spaghetti sauce, I will weigh by grams and log every ingredient. I add them all up and divide by the amount of servings and that is the weight in grams I can have for that serving. Does it take a bit more time? Of course... but I am now sitting here 60 lbs lighter and can definitely say those extra few minutes I spend weighing and logging my food is way worth it.1 -
WinoGelato wrote: »MileHigh4Wheeler wrote: »I ran your numbers (male, 198.5 lbs, 5'9", age 46) through the calculator at scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/
Thanks for that link! I've bookmarked it and am plugging it in with my activity levels now. EYE OPENING difference between MFP's suggestions and that! I'll need to cross verify the numbers with 2-3 other places but it sounds like 1,200 was insanity.
Hang on, one thing to note: MFP estimates are NEAT calorie goals, they do not include exercise. A site like scooby's workshop which calculated TDEE is including all your calories burned including exercise. That's one reason for the big difference.
That said, all of these are just estimates based on numbers you input. The most accurate numbers are the ones that come from your actual results, but since there's a change your logging hasn't been accurate it's difficult to assess what your actual TDEE is.
Since I first mentioned the Scooby site and TDEE numbers, note that I said the calculation was for a "sedentary" person, which I believe should give a close approximation to the MFP/NEAT baseline number (happy to be corrected). My purpose for doing so was to show that there was no way MFP should be telling him to eat 1200 calories ... unless, for example, he put in a massive weekly weight loss target.
For those not knowing what TDEE or NEAT are, a brief summary:
- MFP uses NEAT (Non exercise Activity Thermogenisis) which basically is the calories you need before purposeful exercise to lose weight...that is why choosing your activity level is important when setting up your account if you aren't going to use TDEE.
- TDEE is Total Daily Energy Expenditure so that is your NEAT + EXERCISE
- Source: Second reply in https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10004328/mfp-vs-tdee
Yeah I didn't actually see that you provided him any numbers, I just wanted to clarify for him why you might see such a big difference between two different systems. I still haven't figured out how he ended up with a 1200 recommendation from MFP other than a glitch...
I've actually never compared a sedentary NEAT calculation from MFP with a sedentary TDEE from Scooby or another site. I know some TDEE calculators rely on a body fat estimate in order to more accurately predict calories. I use the MFP NEAT with a synced FitBit for exercise adjustments. That's been very accurate for me.2 -
In addition to a lot of good advice you've gotten from others, I'll just leave this here - it's worth a read: http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/why-big-caloric-deficits-and-lots-of-activity-can-hurt-fat-loss.html/0
This discussion has been closed.
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 393.4K Introduce Yourself
- 43.8K Getting Started
- 260.2K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.9K Food and Nutrition
- 47.4K Recipes
- 232.5K Fitness and Exercise
- 426 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.5K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 153K Motivation and Support
- 8K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.3K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.7K MyFitnessPal Information
- 24 News and Announcements
- 1.1K Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.6K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions