Paleo? Yes or no?

lmccarty94

This is my body currently.

CafeRacer808

lmccarty94 wrote: »

I do count calories and I do measure my food and I eat around 1600 a day with macros set at 45% protein, 35% carbs and 20% fat. I'm doing everything as per my trainer which is why I'm so frustrated. I'm doing everything by the book. Counting calories, keeping track of macros, burning more than I intake, so and so forth. I've lost 7lbs in total but have been at a standstill for over a month. I started at 185lbs and I'm down to 177 in 4 months but it stopped. I stopped losing. And I haven't stopped doing anything of the above things mentioned.

For anyone good with stats, here are mine currently:
Weight 177lbs
Age 22
Female
Height 5'5"

1600 cals a day
45% protein
35% carbs
20% fat

I started at 1400 calories but was always hungry and never satisfied so I increased my caloric intake by 200cals but I'm burning roughly 400-550 cals at the gym 3-4 days a week (recorded by Apple Watch and Fitbit)

If by all means any of this is wrong, please help! I want to get over this hump.

Are you eating back your exercise calories? If so, how much of them are you eating back?

At this point, it might be helpful if you opened your food diary for us.

lmccarty94

CafeRacer808 wrote: »

lmccarty94 wrote: »

I do count calories and I do measure my food and I eat around 1600 a day with macros set at 45% protein, 35% carbs and 20% fat. I'm doing everything as per my trainer which is why I'm so frustrated. I'm doing everything by the book. Counting calories, keeping track of macros, burning more than I intake, so and so forth. I've lost 7lbs in total but have been at a standstill for over a month. I started at 185lbs and I'm down to 177 in 4 months but it stopped. I stopped losing. And I haven't stopped doing anything of the above things mentioned.

For anyone good with stats, here are mine currently:
Weight 177lbs
Age 22
Female
Height 5'5"

1600 cals a day
45% protein
35% carbs
20% fat

I started at 1400 calories but was always hungry and never satisfied so I increased my caloric intake by 200cals but I'm burning roughly 400-550 cals at the gym 3-4 days a week (recorded by Apple Watch and Fitbit)

If by all means any of this is wrong, please help! I want to get over this hump.

Are you eating back your exercise calories? If so, how much of them are you eating back?

At this point, it might be helpful if you opened your food diary for us.

No I do not eat them back. I stick to my calorie goal and don't eat what MFP says to eat after a workout is logged.

How do I share that?

lmccarty94

Also with my weight and my goal, MFP says I need to eat 2,000 cals a day. Could I possibly not be eating enough? Goal is set at 1lb a week.

kimny72

Just some general things to consider:

Are you using a food scale or eyeballing portions? Weighing is more accurate and might shine a light on the issue. Even packaged foods, don't trust how many servings it says are in the package. The calories are correct for the grams listed, then they estimate the cups or chips or # of servings.
Check the database entries you are using. There is lots of bad info in there.

Hang in there!

CafeRacer808

lmccarty94 wrote: »

No I do not eat them back. I stick to my calorie goal and don't eat what MFP says to eat after a workout is logged.

How do I share that?

In the mobile app, go to: More/Settings/Diary Settings/Diary Sharing and select "Public".

doittoitgirl

Eat whatever way is sustainable for you personally. Some people have no problem eating tons of meat. Some people have a hard time digesting it. Some people love being vegetarian and some people hate it. Eat in such a way that's healthy, getting the nutrients you need, and comfortable to you and you'll be able to keep that pattern for the rest of your life.

CafeRacer808

Thanks for opening your diary, OP. I've got a couple of questions and comments:

1. I've noticed that for the past several days, your sodium intake has been really high. This could explain why you haven't seen the scale moved this week.

2. Last Thursday's entry was incomplete, and Friday-Monday weren't logged at all. Yesterday's entry also looks to be incomplete. I haven't gone back through your diary for the past month, but is this a regular occurrence for you?

3. I've noticed quite a few entries in which you've logged food by volume (peanut butter, jam/preserves, pasta sauce, etc). Are you weighing these foods and then converting them to tablespoons, cups, etc before you log them, or are you using tablespoons and cups to measure them out?

4. I saw an entry for turkey sausage logged as "links". There's a lot of variance in food manufacturing, so it's important to weigh things like sausage links, crackers, bread, etc, rather than just going by what the nutritional label says.

I'll wait for your answers to my questions, but I suspect you need to tighten up your logging.

crzycatlady1

CafeRacer808 wrote: »

Thanks for opening your diary, OP. I've got a couple of questions and comments:

1. I've noticed that for the past several days, your sodium intake has been really high. This could explain why you haven't seen the scale moved this week.

2. Last Thursday's entry was incomplete, and Friday-Monday weren't logged at all. Yesterday's entry also looks to be incomplete. I haven't gone back through your diary for the past month, but is this a regular occurrence for you?

3. I've noticed quite a few entries in which you've logged food by volume (peanut butter, jam/preserves, pasta sauce, etc). Are you weighing these foods and then converting them to tablespoons, cups, etc before you log them, or are you using tablespoons and cups to measure them out?

4. I saw an entry for turkey sausage logged as "links". There's a lot of variance in food manufacturing, so it's important to weigh things like sausage links, crackers, bread, etc, rather than just going by what the nutritional label says.

I'll wait for your answers to my questions, but I suspect you need to tighten up your logging.

Agree, numerous days with only partial entries or no entries at all. Also seeing cups, tablespoons etc. OP, focus on tightening up your logging and I bet you'll start seeing the results you're looking for

lmccarty94

CafeRacer808 wrote: »

Thanks for opening your diary, OP. I've got a couple of questions and comments:

1. I've noticed that for the past several days, your sodium intake has been really high. This could explain why you haven't seen the scale moved this week.

2. Last Thursday's entry was incomplete, and Friday-Monday weren't logged at all. Yesterday's entry also looks to be incomplete. I haven't gone back through your diary for the past month, but is this a regular occurrence for you?

3. I've noticed quite a few entries in which you've logged food by volume (peanut butter, jam/preserves, pasta sauce, etc). Are you weighing these foods and then converting them to tablespoons, cups, etc before you log them, or are you using tablespoons and cups to measure them out?

4. I saw an entry for turkey sausage logged as "links". There's a lot of variance in food manufacturing, so it's important to weigh things like sausage links, crackers, bread, etc, rather than just going by what the nutritional label says.

I'll wait for your answers to my questions, but I suspect you need to tighten up your logging.

1. Sodium is absolutely a big problem for me. I can't figure out how to lower that. I absolutely love salty foods so that's hard to deviate from.
2. This is definitely not a regular occurrence until this past week. I had the flu and didn't eat hardly anything which explains the not logging fully on Thursday and at all throughout the weekend. Typically I log every single day.
3. Yes, I measure using tablespoon/measuring cups because I do not have a scale. Could you rexcommend one for me?
4. I do always log based off of the label. I didn't know that was a no-no.

lmccarty94

And that was all I ate yesterday unfortunately.

CafeRacer808

OK, it sounds like we found the answer. If you're not using a scale, you don't really know exactly how many calories you're eating.

Any digital food scale will do. Just make sure it measures in both grams and ounces. Since there are 28 grams per ounce, grams are more accurate so try to use them whenever possible. I use an Oxo 11 lb scale, which more expensive than other brands. I see the Ozeri scale mentioned here quite a bit. You can find both (and many others) on Amazon.

Once you get your scale, test out the food label thing. Weigh slices of bread, cookies, sausages, etc and compare those weights to what's listed on the food label. In most cases, you'll see that the food weighs more than the label says. Here's a quick video about why weighing food is so important. It's specifically about oatmeal, but the same rules apply to everything else I just mentioned. For liquids (juice, milk, cooking oil, etc), it's fine to use cups. But for any solid food or things like sugar, honey, flour, etc, weighing is more accurate.

Use your scale to weigh everything for a month and I think you'll start to see the numbers on the scale go down. Best of luck!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfcB7GbLmIM

CafeRacer808

Here's one more video that's really great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnnpUYmr0OM

kommodevaran

Now that we've established that you aren't using a food scale, and how and why to use one, I want to comment on your macro split. 45% protein, 35% carbs and 20% fat can only translate to a very unbalanced - meaning strange, boring, complicated and potentially low on essential nutrients - diet. Trainers are great for training, but they don't usually know that much about nutrition. Maybe you'd have to eat like that - for a short while - as part of competition prep, but as a completely normal and slightly overweight person, a completely normal diet with a slight calorie restriction will do just fine. Lower your protein to 20-25%, up your fat to at least 30%, and then go as high or low carb as you want. Eat whatever food you want and hit your calorie goal. Macros serve only as a guide to getting in proper nutrition.

Macro split/diet/nutrition will not, and I repeat, NOT, influence your weight loss directly, but it has a great influence on satiety, mood and energy, and thus willingness and ability to adhere to calorie restriction over time, which is what lowers your weight.

crzycatlady1

Yep, definitely get a food scale and prepare to be shocked lol. I just bought a cheapy one at the grocery store (like $12) and it works great. Otherwise you can order one off of Amazon, or find them at Walmart, Target etc.