Eating healthy, not losing weight
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Its not just as easy as "just eat less". U probably need to calculate your daily calorie requirement and shoot for 500/day calorie deficit. Severely restricting calories will cause your weight loss to slow as your body adjusts. Also change type of foods....more protein healthy fats. No processed foods. Exercise regularly even if at home. Any type of high intensity intervals will help boost metabolism. Good luck!
There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with "processed" foods. So, yogurt, cheese, ground beef, etc is bad?
OP doesn't have to figure out TDEE -500. They're on MyFitnessPal. They can enter their stats and chose to lose 1lb per week unless they have under 50lbs to lose (should chose to lose half a pound), or over 50lbs to lose (chose to lose 1.5lbs per week), and up to 2lbs per week if they have 75lbs+ to lose. Mfp works out the deficit for us.8 -
Step 1: Figure out exactly how many calories you are eating.
Step 2: Figure out exactly how many calories you should be eating.
Step 3: Eat that many calories.
Eating "healthy" or "unhealthy" is mostly irrelevant to weight loss.12 -
I should also mention that I am fairly tall 5'10" so I'm not supposed to be 120 lbs or anything. MFP hasn't given me anything to stick to.1
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Maxematics wrote: »sodaceratops wrote: »I logged my food yesterday and the day before. Yesterday was 900 calories and the day before was 1000. How many calories should I be eating to lose weight? I was told anything under 1600. I don't believe I eat over 1600 calories. When I was recording my daily food intake, I was always around 1000. I'll try to record my food for the week and hope this helps.
Then you're definitely underestimating your food intake. If you were only eating 900 to 1000 calories per day, you'd definitely be losing weight.
A) How long have you been eating so low?
B ) Can you open your food diary? If you were really eating that little (literally less than my kindergartner) and breast feeding, the pounds would be falling off. This reads like something in your logging/Calories In estimation isn't right.sodaceratops wrote: »I should also mention that I am fairly tall 5'10" so I'm not supposed to be 120 lbs or anything. MFP hasn't given me anything to stick to.
This makes me question your reported intake even more. At your stats and reported intake you're approx. at TDEE -58%, which isn't advised for anyone and would be an estimated weight loss of over 2lbs per week.
The easiest way for us to help you now is by letting us know how long you estimate you've been eating this low and my opening up your diary.4 -
sodaceratops wrote: »I should also mention that I am fairly tall 5'10" so I'm not supposed to be 120 lbs or anything. MFP hasn't given me anything to stick to.
Are you sure? Did you fill this out?3 -
Sounds like you eat the same stuff all the time, so after a week it so if logging it should be pretty easy. The "recent" tab is helpful on your log!0
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RedheadedPrincess14 wrote: »Smoothies can cause weight gain because they are more quickly abs bred and hence raise your insulin levels, making you hungry all day long. I also notice that you have a fair bit of fat in your diet. I am a vegan and I base my diet around starches, whole veg and fruit (unblended), and low fat. This lets me eat a lot of food and lose weight. But also, go easy on yourself since you just had a baby!!! Look up dr.mcdougall, dr.lisle, and chef aj. Also, mr and mrs vegan on YouTube have a program called WSLF (whole starch low fat) that doesn't require calorie tracking and can allow you to eat a lot while still loosing weight. Good luck
NO. she is eating more than she thinks. has nothing to do with the smoothies, I lost weight eating things I liked.fat is healthy and needed for hormone function.eating low fat does not mean fat loss or losing weight. low fat diet should only be for those who have health issues/problems with digesting fat.if you are losing weight its because you are in a deficit period! insulin levels raise and lower in normal people and thats a normal function,its not going to cause weight gain or fat to be stored,unless again health issues and then its still all about the deficit.11 -
Congratulations on the new baby!
Don't overestimate breastfeeding or any other CO process. There is an inherent 20% margin of error in calorie estimations to begin with, so you don't need to add to this by overestimating your caloric output.
Take the time to be specific and provide details describing what you are experiencing and what MFP has you set for. Open you diary and have someone more experienced take a look.
Bottom line if you are not losing then you are not in a caloric deficit and eating more than you think you are.2 -
Look_Its_Kriss wrote: »@RedheadedPrincess14 -- That is absolutely not true, insulin levels do not cause fat storage on the body, insulin is NEEDED for the body, it increases in normal healthy people to keep sugar from sticking to red blood cells, which is what is actually harmful, not increased insulin, Fat is also important in diets, especially good dietary fats, it also helps people remain more satiated as they learn to stick with a deficit. People do not need to go vegan, that is a life choice people make for ethical reasons, if they don't have any issues eating meat or products that come from animals they can eat them and still lose weight just fine
Haha, preach, I'm down 50lbs with plenty of pasta, meat, pizza and alcohol! It's how much we consume, not what we consume (although I do advocate for moderation rather than just junk all the time)8 -
Congratulations on the baby! During my last pregnancy, I had gestational diabetes. I was insulin-dependent. I also had to be on oxygen 24/7 and blood thinners for a pulmonary embolism. I had to learn to record everything before and after my birth to make sure my blood wouldn't clot too readily, and my sugar didn't kill my little one.
One way I learned to continue recording after the birth was to log during the times I was also logging her diaper changes, amount of time she nursed, and so forth. I'd also weigh foods for the next meal or two around that same time. If I didn't record the information right then, I'd have it handy for the next time my kiddo needed a change.
Of course, I was driven by the desire to live, and my doctors would have thrown a fit and a half if my information didn't mesh well with my regular blood tests. I'm sure you wouldn't have to become a super-logger, but a simple digital food scale does help. I've only recently learned single servings are a total lie, and one gram's difference in weight adds 5 or more calories to what I thought was a well-measured, healthy snack.
Good luck, mom!
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If you were consistently eating 900-1000 calories per day, you'd be losing weight (and you'd probably be having issues with your milk supply).
If it were me, I would spend the next two to four weeks logging as accurately as possible (given my available time to do so) and just start collecting data. After that, I would either come back to this thread and open up my diary and ask for input, or start a new thread to ask for people to review my diary. (If you start a new thread, please link back to this one so people can see some context).
Somewhere along the line, you are eating enough calories to put yourself at maintenance, but with only two days worth of data, it's hard for us to guess where. It could be that your perception of what you eat on a daily basis is off, or it could be that you have occasional days where you eat over maintenance and that skews your weekly average. Having more accumulated data in your diary should help you pinpoint what factors are causing you to eat at maintenance so you can target those factors. Again, just eating less across the board without knowing where to cut isn't likely your best bet, since you need to be eating enough to continue to breastfeed.4 -
While you are eating a lot of healthy, nutrient rich foods some of them are also very calorie dense. Avocados, hemp hearts, etc. are things I also love but I weigh the hell out of them because they add up so quick!
I would say try weighing the most calorie dense things at the very least (weighing everything being preferable)- you may be surprised by the numbers.2 -
There's the problem: "...I don't have time to record what I eat everyday, weighing and measuring like I used to. I figure since I eat healthy it should be fine. "
Healthy is subjective. The types of foods are not nearly as important as the calories you consume in a day. You have to create a deficit to lose weight. Period.
I can't add more than the above posters have already done other than to demonstrate you may be eating more calories than you think...
What you posted originally for just the smoothies was (just as an example):
2 Smoothies *1 banana, 1 tbsp cacao, 1 tbsp hemp hearts, 2 c. homemade almond milk, 1 tsp maca*
1 banana (medium, you didn't specify) = ~120 cals
1 tbsp cacao powder = ~12 calories
1 tbsp hemp hearts = ~60 calories
2 cups homemade almond milk? (what recipe?) = 220 cals
1 tsp maca = 10 cals
Total = 422 calories per smoothie, maybe more maybe less depending on how the almond milk is made and the actual size of the banana, etc. So 2 of those is 844 calories (this is a guess-timate)
The reason the logging tool is here on MFP is for this very reason, so that you can know exactly what you're eating, how many calories it is, and how many calories you should eat to lose weight at a specified rate. I wish you luck, but if you're not losing weight those are some ideas above as to why it might not be working for you.15 -
I wonder if you may have a wonky thyroid. Its much more common than most in the general population think and its not just, "I don't seem to loose weight or have suddenly started gaining when I'm doing nothing different" sort of thing. Its about a whole lot more. When a thyroid is on a go slow it lowers the metabolism then adding a calorific restriction reduces it further. Also it effects the nutritional value of the food you do eat by slowing the digestive transit and there is research which links it to things like IBS, it reduces the way one's body can cope with sugar, it can impact on our insulin responses and increases our risk of having food intolerances. Sometimes the thyroid is the victim of other glands within the endocrine system because when the pituitary gland is not working well it reduces the amount hormones the thyroid can make also if the adrenals are not optimum this can have an impact too but for most medics your numbers have to be way off for them to do anything.
May I suggest you look at some websites doing your own research and keep notes, copious ones. Most countries have their own thyroid support site. Stop the Thyroid Madness is one which brings us up to date scientific information though when it comes to having a diagnosis it may, some think it tends towards promoting NDT which is not available in Europe. The hypothyroid mom, on her site lists 300 possible symptoms because the thyroid impacts on every cell. There are many more reputable sites and open access medical papers available for information.
I would not necessarily trust your own doctor to know much about this subject most never tell you of the need for selenium to aid conversion of the t4 iodine, you should have 150 microns per day half a teaspoon for a year, and the need for many vitamins and minerals to aid production of the t3 hormone which is sometimes referred to as, the spark of life, or a power pack for cells, or "the brain hormone", because being fat based and the brain is principally fat t3 is needed for many functions not least underpinning ones feeling of well being.
Hashimoto's thyroiditis, the most common problem, can be triggered during/after pregnancy recent research points to thyroid issues being higher in persons who had trauma in their first months too. The only way to diagnose Hashimoto's is by testing for antibodies which are created in response to a cause, when Hashi first presents you will have normal thyroid numbers, its only when you are a long way down the road to a major problem do the numbers change. Its complicated or can be and most medics do not realise the breadth of issues it can underpin, weight is just the tip of the iceberg.
I'm hashi, had problems for a life time over 40 years and am getting my life back before nature takes its natural course.
all the very best.1 -
I wonder if you may have a wonky thyroid. Its much more common than most in the general population think and its not just, "I don't seem to loose weight or have suddenly started gaining when I'm doing nothing different" sort of thing. Its about a whole lot more. When a thyroid is on a go slow it lowers the metabolism then adding a calorific restriction reduces it further. Also it effects the nutritional value of the food you do eat by slowing the digestive transit and there is research which links it to things like IBS, it reduces the way one's body can cope with sugar, it can impact on our insulin responses and increases our risk of having food intolerances. Sometimes the thyroid is the victim of other glands within the endocrine system because when the pituitary gland is not working well it reduces the amount hormones the thyroid can make also if the adrenals are not optimum this can have an impact too but for most medics your numbers have to be way off for them to do anything.
May I suggest you look at some websites doing your own research and keep notes, copious ones. Most countries have their own thyroid support site. Stop the Thyroid Madness is one which brings us up to date scientific information though when it comes to having a diagnosis it may, some think it tends towards promoting NDT which is not available in Europe. The hypothyroid mom, on her site lists 300 possible symptoms because the thyroid impacts on every cell. There are many more reputable sites and open access medical papers available for information.
I would not necessarily trust your own doctor to know much about this subject most never tell you of the need for selenium to aid conversion of the t4 iodine, you should have 150 microns per day half a teaspoon for a year, and the need for many vitamins and minerals to aid production of the t3 hormone which is sometimes referred to as, the spark of life, or a power pack for cells, or "the brain hormone", because being fat based and the brain is principally fat t3 is needed for many functions not least underpinning ones feeling of well being.
Hashimoto's thyroiditis, the most common problem, can be triggered during/after pregnancy recent research points to thyroid issues being higher in persons who had trauma in their first months too. The only way to diagnose Hashimoto's is by testing for antibodies which are created in response to a cause, when Hashi first presents you will have normal thyroid numbers, its only when you are a long way down the road to a major problem do the numbers change. Its complicated or can be and most medics do not realise the breadth of issues it can underpin, weight is just the tip of the iceberg.
I'm hashi, had problems for a life time over 40 years and am getting my life back before nature takes its natural course.
all the very best.
Shes drinking 800 calories and isn't tracking. I wouldnt start with thyroid if I had to wager a guess on what was 'wrong'18 -
You did not have time to read and inwardly digest what I wrote. fascha. True thyroid may not be the first port of call but when it reduces metabolism and messes up so much, with the brief explanation I gave with places to find information 300 symptoms, it may be helpful, if only for the OP or other readers, to eliminate thyroid issues, from the possibilities.0
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Yes pregnancy can cause thyroid disturbances and also severe fat restriction can cause it as well. True thyroid should be ruled out, but I'd bet the lack of weight loss is related to eating more than perceived.0
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I suppose if your only tool is a hammer it's convenient that every problem be a nail. I think it's a terrible place to start when you can plainly see OP is eating way too much. Her smoothies are 800 calories and then she's having 2 substantial meals. This is just going to give her another excuse why she can't lose weight. She already used the no time to log, well done.12
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