frustrated

vcdoering

The fitness pal says I will be at a particular weight but certainly have not made it to those numbers. I am logging everything I eat and all exercises. I even wear a fit bit. The only thing I can't get to is the amount of protein. I am 61 so not a young person. Does anyone have any ideas what could be the problem?

malibu927

The problem is the projection is, for most people, bogus.

vcdoering

Also I thought fresh fruit was good for you. As soon as I eat an apple, banana, orange etc. the amount of sugar I have supposed to have is over the top?

courtneyfabulous

Don't worry about the sugar from fruit.

But DO TRY TO GET ALL YOUR PROTEIN! That's the second most important factor for healthy weight loss after hitting your calorie goal in my opinion. It helps prevent muscle loss and encourages fat loss (especially when combined with strength training exercises).

The weight projection thing is a little annoying- I never hit those numbers when it says I will either. Remember your calorie goal and loss rate are estimates and even calories in foods are somewhat estimated. Metabolism can vary from person to person which has an effect as well. As long as you are making progress that's the important thing.

duddysdad

For a lot of people, the projections do not match real life loss. For me, I have always exceeded the projections, but that is just me and everyone is different.

cerise_noir

vcdoering wrote: »

Also I thought fresh fruit was good for you. As soon as I eat an apple, banana, orange etc. the amount of sugar I have supposed to have is over the top?

Swap out the sugar tracking for fibre tracking as it is much more useful.

As it has been mentioned, the predictions are bogus. Also, do you use a food scale for all solid and semi solid food, and do you double check the database entries with the food packaging?

Ming1951

vcdoering wrote: »

The fitness pal says I will be at a particular weight but certainly have not made it to those numbers. I am logging everything I eat and all exercises. I even wear a fit bit. The only thing I can't get to is the amount of protein. I am 61 so not a young person. Does anyone have any ideas what could be the problem?

I'm 65 so we are close in age, I don't follow the you will be this weight because it changes depending on what I eat that day. So I ignore it, as long as I stay just under my calories I see the numbers going down. I don't eat back the calories that fitbit give me because other than those I'm pretty sedentary. I have to be honest and say there have been times I've eaten maybe half back but I notice for me the scale stays the same so I try not too eat them.

AnnPT77

The "In five weeks" projection when you close your diary for the day is based on the silly notion that you'll do exactly the same thing every day. Most of us don't do that.

That one, and the projections underlying the "lose X pounds per week" settings in your profile, are based on research on large groups of people. The calculations are based on the average of people of similar age, weight, activity level, height. But the underlying data is really a bell curve. Some people burn more calories than average, some fewer. This particular bell curve is fairly tall & narrow (relatively small standard deviation, in statistical terms), but there still are a few people who can be outliers, quite far from average.

Your best estimate of your weight loss will come from experience with your weight loss. If you find yourself losing 1 pound in a week when your average daily calories were X per day, then your personal maintenance calories at your current weight are around X + 500 per day (because there are roughly 3500 calories in a pound). As you lose weight (are lighter), that number of calories will decline, because it takes less energy to power your smaller body through your day.

Obviously, exercise figures in your calculations as well, but I'm sure you see how that affects the result. Moreover, both eating and exercise are estimates, not a precision thing, so there's some wiggle room from the estimating error, too.

(P.S. I'm 61. I tended to lose noticeably faster than MFP estimated, so it's not purely an age thing. MFP tries to account for age. Some of us are just weird at any age. ).

spiriteagle99

I eat back deliberate exercise calories, but not the steps that aren't part of that. On a normal day, my step counter gives me an additional 5000 or so steps. Maybe if you stop eating back your fitbit calories, it will help.

Also a lot of other things can impact weight loss, like sleep, medications, and underlying illness. Low thyroid can slow down your weight loss, among other issues.