Please help me....In desperate need of expert advice
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Are you taking any meds. that cause weight gain? I know if I just count calories, it will take me forever to lose just 1 lb. I have to exercise hard to really lose weight. It's always been that way. Being in pain isn't helping you either cuz you are limited as to what you do. Can you bike? Running has been the best thing for me, but I'm thinking that's out of the question for you. How about looking into getting a personal trainer? Maybe they could help you out a bit.3
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How long have you been doing everything? At your start weight, even with a lower than average BMR, the weight should be dropping off at your weight and intake.4
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I took a quick look at your diary, and it appears you are not weighing everything - mostly the pre-packaged foods. Bread, crumpets, cheese, deli meat - it ALL has to be weighed. Often times, the serving information on the package is not what you are eating in a serving. Example - I weighed out the cheese slices I packed in my lunches for this week. The label says that one slice/one serving = 28g. Not ONE slice out of 4 weighed 28g; more like 30-36 grams apiece. It may not sound like a lot, but extrapolate that over the days, weeks, etc. and it adds up.
Please try not to be too hard on yourself. I think if you weigh everything, continue the exercise and don't use the full amount of calories that your FitBit is telling you that are burnt, you will see success.9 -
Maybe the weight going up is because you are increasing your muscle. I know my weight went up years ago as I toned up since I was pretty flabby. I had an infer red BMI done one time and found out I didn't need to lose as much as I thought because if I did I would have to lose muscle and bone. Just a thought, hope it helps.2
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Maybe the weight going up is because you are increasing your muscle. I know my weight went up years ago as I toned up since I was pretty flabby. I had an infer red BMI done one time and found out I didn't need to lose as much as I thought because if I did I would have to lose muscle and bone. Just a thought, hope it helps.
Nope. You can only gain weight if you're eating in a surplus of calories. It's highly unlikely that a female is gaining muscle just walking.14 -
Are you taking any meds. that cause weight gain? I know if I just count calories, it will take me forever to lose just 1 lb. I have to exercise hard to really lose weight. It's always been that way. Being in pain isn't helping you either cuz you are limited as to what you do. Can you bike? Running has been the best thing for me, but I'm thinking that's out of the question for you. How about looking into getting a personal trainer? Maybe they could help you out a bit.
Have to have a B12 injection every 10 weeks for the rest of my life because of that deficiency.
I take a very strong prescription VitD supplement to try to counteract that deficiency.
Pain killers when the pain is literally unbearable.
Apart from that no other meds, I try not to take anything if I can help it.
Can't afford a bike but when I join the gym in March I can use theirs and they will have personal trainers there0 -
Fitbit may be overestimating calories. I actually have a Charge 2 and sometimes I know it does. Also, lack of sleep and stress interfere with hormones that help to burn fat. Sometimes just getting a handle on those help.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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I don't believe in starvation mode, but it still doesn't sound like you're eating enough calories. I don't know your age but your BMR would be somewhere around 1800. I couldn't imagine eating 400-600 calories below my BMR, I would have no energy. It may or may not be related to you not losing weight, but I'd imagine that eating 1200-1400 calories would not be sustainable for you in the long run, especially if you are going to start going to a gym and doing more strenuous exercise, you can't exercise at your full potential if you have no energy.2
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BrunetteRunner87 wrote: »I don't believe in starvation mode, but it still doesn't sound like you're eating enough calories. I don't know your age but your BMR would be somewhere around 1800. I couldn't imagine eating 400-600 calories below my BMR, I would have no energy. It may or may not be related to you not losing weight, but I'd imagine that eating 1200-1400 calories would not be sustainable for you in the long run, especially if you are going to start going to a gym and doing more strenuous exercise, you can't exercise at your full potential if you have no energy.
Sorry keep leaving info out...
I'm 46
Well you see this is what I thought, so when people were saying 1200 calories is no where near enough and leaving no room to manoeuvre as your weight drops, I thought they were probably right, hence why I started upping it, but now I'm gaining weight it's starting to worry me and just left me really confused.0 -
Fitbit may be overestimating calories. I actually have a Charge 2 and sometimes I know it does. Also, lack of sleep and stress interfere with hormones that help to burn fat. Sometimes just getting a handle on those help.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
I wasn't stressed till today lol.
Sleeping isn't too bad, on average 7 to 8 hours every night1 -
sunshine12870 wrote: »BrunetteRunner87 wrote: »I don't believe in starvation mode, but it still doesn't sound like you're eating enough calories. I don't know your age but your BMR would be somewhere around 1800. I couldn't imagine eating 400-600 calories below my BMR, I would have no energy. It may or may not be related to you not losing weight, but I'd imagine that eating 1200-1400 calories would not be sustainable for you in the long run, especially if you are going to start going to a gym and doing more strenuous exercise, you can't exercise at your full potential if you have no energy.
Sorry keep leaving info out...
I'm 46
Well you see this is what I thought, so when people were saying 1200 calories is no where near enough and leaving no room to manoeuvre as your weight drops, I thought they were probably right, hence why I started upping it, but now I'm gaining weight it's starting to worry me and just left me really confused.
It can be scary to eat more calories! But think of it this way, your weight is already going up, so you don't have much to lose by trying. I would try eating maybe 1900 for a few weeks and see how it goes, if it doesn't work you can always try something else. It can be tough to find that sweet spot where you are eating enough to fuel your exercise but also lose weight.0 -
sunshine12870 wrote: »Are you taking any meds. that cause weight gain? I know if I just count calories, it will take me forever to lose just 1 lb. I have to exercise hard to really lose weight. It's always been that way. Being in pain isn't helping you either cuz you are limited as to what you do. Can you bike? Running has been the best thing for me, but I'm thinking that's out of the question for you. How about looking into getting a personal trainer? Maybe they could help you out a bit.
Have to have a B12 injection every 10 weeks for the rest of my life because of that deficiency.
I take a very strong prescription VitD supplement to try to counteract that deficiency.
Pain killers when the pain is literally unbearable.
Apart from that no other meds, I try not to take anything if I can help it.
Can't afford a bike but when I join the gym in March I can use theirs and they will have personal trainers there
Hi. What D supplement are you taking? Many people complain that prescription D2 makes them gain weight. Switch to D3 (which is OTC, cheaper and much more easily absorbed by the body).
Many Dr's just prescribe D2 because of $. I had a deficiency that I fixed entirely through taking OTC D35 -
I checked a couple of days of entries in your diary.You're not weighing your food.Or at least not all of it. I see entries for slices of bread,slices of cheese, pieces of this or that.Do you weigh each bread slice? I know mine differ. 2 slices could be anywhere from 44grams,to 58grams. For eggs you use an entry for medium. Medium could be 50grams or 45 grams. I had cans of soup that said they were 560ml and when weighed they were over 600ml. All this in the course of a day add up. Do you weigh oils, ketchup,mayo, things like that? If you get the tracking In order,i'm sure on 1200 you will lose weight. But right now you're underestimating your intake.
edit: i went back a bit further and there are also days that are half filled, and dates where you went over your goal. Couple that with the inaccurate entries/improper logging, and with perhaps an overestimation of your exercise, and it's easy to see why your weight loss stalled.9 -
VintageFeline wrote: »How long have you been doing everything? At your start weight, even with a lower than average BMR, the weight should be dropping off at your weight and intake.
Oh I totally agree....at my size, calories I'm on and exercising every day...absolutely it should just be dropping off....hence the confusion and frustration I'm feeling today.
I've been back since Sep last year, so 5 months I've been giving 100%, but clearly something is wrong0 -
Heartisalonelyhunter wrote: »sunshine12870 wrote: »Are you taking any meds. that cause weight gain? I know if I just count calories, it will take me forever to lose just 1 lb. I have to exercise hard to really lose weight. It's always been that way. Being in pain isn't helping you either cuz you are limited as to what you do. Can you bike? Running has been the best thing for me, but I'm thinking that's out of the question for you. How about looking into getting a personal trainer? Maybe they could help you out a bit.
Have to have a B12 injection every 10 weeks for the rest of my life because of that deficiency.
I take a very strong prescription VitD supplement to try to counteract that deficiency.
Pain killers when the pain is literally unbearable.
Apart from that no other meds, I try not to take anything if I can help it.
Can't afford a bike but when I join the gym in March I can use theirs and they will have personal trainers there
Hi. What D supplement are you taking? Many people complain that prescription D2 makes them gain weight. Switch to D3 (which is OTC, cheaper and much more easily absorbed by the body).
Many Dr's just prescribe D2 because of $. I had a deficiency that I fixed entirely through taking OTC D3
I'm on Fultium D3 800u capsules. So all good on that one1 -
Your logging is not tight enough. You have to weigh e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. When I tried to fudge and only weighed part of what I ate, I didn't lose either. I would do a good solid month or two of weighing literally everything you put in your mouth. If at that point you haven't started losing (eating based on MFP calorie set), then I would suggest getting your thyroid checked b/c the only time I haven't lost with this app is either when I'm not weighing everything or when my thyroid tanks and I need to increase my meds.3
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I'm going to disagree a little bit with some previous posters telling you to weigh your slices of bread and individual eggs, and here's why...if you were in the ballpark of a deficit, you'd be seeing something of a downward trend. You say that you're not, which means that we're missing something big. With your stats, it should be relatively easy for you to hit a deficit, even if it's not exactly where you want to be. For the most part, you need to look at weighing individual slices of bread when you're very close to your goal weight (for example, if you're 130 pounds and want to lose 5 more) or if you're really trying to hit a certain rate of loss (if you're losing 0.3 pounds on average per week and want to lose 0.5). Start by looking at the things that will make the most difference and have the most impact first, find your deficit ballpark, and then fine-tune from there. Weighing individual slices of bread is a fine-tuning issue.
If it were me, I'd start by exporting my calorie data into a tool like Excel and figuring out what my actual average intake is. Delete any partial days so they don't interfere with your calculations, and then figure out what you're actually eating. Sometimes that magic "1200" number looms so largely in our heads that we don't realize that the days we go over have an impact on the average.
Then, I'd look at my logging, specifically for places where I'm missing things that have a big impact (fats and calorie-dense foods). I don't weigh slices of bread, or individual eggs, or pre-cut slices of cheese, or salad greens. If you're off by a couple of grams on those things, that's not going to add up to enough calories per day to kick you out of a good deficit, if you can get yourself into one.
I did notice that you're using entries for prepared dishes sometimes (for example, scrambled or fried eggs) where you should be entering all of the components separately (the eggs + the oil/butter + the milk, if you add any). I'd make it a rule that anything that is calorie-dense needs to get weighed and entered as a separate entry.
Ultimately, your body is telling you that you're not in a deficit. That sucks, but that's the story behind the results you're seeing. Most typically, that's because of some kind of data-entry error (overestimating exercise, underestimating food/logging incorrectly, or not logging everything in total). Since you should be able to lose anywhere in the 1200-1600 calorie ballpark, smart money says it's a combination of incorrect logging and not logging completely.28 -
I looked at a few days of your food diary.
The first thing I want to mention is that you're tracking trans-fats and consistently getting "0". While "0" is wonderful for trans fats, it's a waste of one tracking column. I wanted to see sodium, so I looked at the printable view of your diary to see the sodium column. One thing I know has sodium is bread, so I looked at your Weight Watcher's Danish White Bread and see that your diary lists your WW white bread as having "0" sodium. That's basically false. A 20 gram slice of that bread has 200 mg sodium. This leads me to suspect that you have other errors in your tracking, and it's your job to diligently record your nutrition accurately. Myfitnesspal users are permitted to edit the food database. This is great power. Use it well.6 -
JeromeBarry1 wrote: »I looked at a few days of your food diary.
The first thing I want to mention is that you're tracking trans-fats and consistently getting "0". While "0" is wonderful for trans fats, it's a waste of one tracking column. I wanted to see sodium, so I looked at the printable view of your diary to see the sodium column. One thing I know has sodium is bread, so I looked at your Weight Watcher's Danish White Bread and see that your diary lists your WW white bread as having "0" sodium. That's basically false. A 20 gram slice of that bread has 200 mg sodium. This leads me to suspect that you have other errors in your tracking, and it's your job to diligently record your nutrition accurately. Myfitnesspal users are permitted to edit the food database. This is great power. Use it well.
And with that great power comes...great responsibility! (Sorry, I couldn't resist)
But this is very true. I've personally found many errors in the database, and I know others have as well. I'm guilty of eyeballing the entries and choosing one that looks reasonable when I'm in a hurry, but I try to compare to packages whenever possible.
OP: Take advantage of the option to change up the columns you see by default on your diary. I'll track sodium for a while, then switch it up to sugar, then something else I want to track might catch my eye. I always keep total fat on there, but ignore trans fat. I try not to eat a lot of prepared foods, so it's not really something I concern myself with.0
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