1200 cals a day and gaining weight :(

MissMoo1979

Hey everyone. This is my first post here, so nervous.

I've been using MFP for a long time on and off and am really trying to lose about 8kg so have started religiously tracking my calorie intake. For 3 weeks now I have strictly stuck to 1200 cals (some days I do go over between 50-70 cals), cut out all alcohol, started drinking 3L water per day etc. All that's happened is now I'm heavier than before I started. I'm beyond frustrated. I've put on 1.1kg in the 3 weeks I've been calorie counting.

At the moment however I'm doing very little exercise. I run my own business 6 days a week and am also a single parent, so finding time to exercise is pretty hard apart from the incidental exercise involved with doing those 2 things!

Other helpful info - I'm 37, currently weigh 66.3kg as of this morning, 5 foot 7, would like to get down to about 58kg.

Help!!

malibu927

How are you measuring your calorie intake?

MissMoo1979

I'm just using the MFP app to track calories.

annteja

Are you measuring everything (oil for the salad, milk in the coffee..) accurately on the scale?

MissMoo1979

As accurate as I can I think. If I'm unsure I'll err on the side of more calories just to be safe. Of course I'm sure there will be some errors but I'm trying to err on the conservative side if I'm not sure.

LessCookiess

You're eating more than you think op if you want to measure your calories that's fine, but the most accurate way of knowing how many calories you're truly consuming is weighing solid food, and using measuring cups for liquids/ or even the same scale if it has liquid capacity.

I don't weigh my food or calorie count, but If you're calorie counting weighing your food would help tighten up your numbers. You could actually be consuming 500 calories more than you think you are. Also packages ted to underestimate numbers I've read posts where some people even weigh that. Good luck on your journey!!

MissMoo1979

I guess I'm bemused that I'm putting on more weight than I was when I threw caution to the wind and ate whatever I liked. Even if I'm not counting 100% accurately and say I'm actually eating 1600cals instead of 1200cals - surely I should be seeing SOME weight loss compared to my previous eating habits!

leanjogreen18

True but you don't have much to lose so your deficit is smaller. You may lose but ever so slowly. 3 lbs could be water retention from high sodium meals or TOM.

LessCookiess

You have a normal BMI (22.9) why are you trying to lose weight? You're also pretty tall.
You could eat at maintenance if you wanted and incorporate strength training into your workout and some mild cardio.

SmartAlec03211988

Plain and simple, you're miscalculating. It truly is that simple. Unless you're <100 lbs you're not gaining on 1200 calories. It's much more.

Weigh all solids on a food scale raw/uncooked, measure liquids. Be super, duper accountable and accurate and make sure the entries you're using are accurate (USDA certified).

Trust me, it's very easy to overestimate. Especially if you're using inaccurate entries. When I eyeball my food I eat 500+ more than I think I am. Sometimes I double check food entries and find I wasn't using an accurate one, too. It happens.

LessCookiess

MissMoo1979 wrote: »

I guess I'm bemused that I'm putting on more weight than I was when I threw caution to the wind and ate whatever I liked. Even if I'm not counting 100% accurately and say I'm actually eating 1600cals instead of 1200cals - surely I should be seeing SOME weight loss compared to my previous eating habits!

Or you could be eating 2200 and think you're eating 1200 no one know but you. Weighing your food will
Help you out. Also like there mentioned sodium or even water retention can also be another culprit. But even with water retention if you're truly eating at 1200 calories you're still going to lose weight. Have you considered recomposition? I've heard that might be a good idea.

srk369

How often are you weighing? I agree with comments above that it could be water retention and if you don't weigh daily, you may have caught a high day.

I also think you are over estimating your calories. Measuring cups don't work as well as a scale and individual portions can be off by as much as 20%. But even at that, I doubt you are over your maintenance calories. I still vote for water weight only 3 weeks in.

cerise_noir

Can you please open your food diary?

MissMoo1979

Thanks for all your thoughts and advice. It can be so disheartening when you're trying so hard and not seeing any results. Even a small drop would have been enough to motivate me to keep on this track. I will def work on making sure I'm accurate with weighing and measuring food but me, say, 8 months ago was drinking cans and cans of soft drink, chips, snacks, like literally eating whatever. So *surely* by me considerably tightening up my diet (ie eliminating all those bad habits) should have shown some results.

I want to lose weight because I don't feel or look like myself. This is the most I've ever weighed in my life (I was only 65kg the day I gave birth to my daughter - so 8 months pregnant! So I'm not happy with how I look or how my clothes feel.

I'm going to try meal replacement shakes for a couple of weeks because I really just need to see some slight results or I feel like I'm going to give up.

socalkay

This is not a sprint, it's a marathon. Get in it for the long haul if you want to see changes. Three weeks isn't that much time invested. As at least one other person pointed out, if you don't have much to lose, you lose more slowly. Regular exercise will help and try considering this a lifestyle change. Instead of focusing on the scale and looking for a quick fix, start educating yourself about what you should eat. The 'best you' requires good nutrition and regular exercise.

SoLongAndThanksForAllTheFish

Weigh everything out, even packaged food. Example food for me is a bag of crunchy curls from trader joes I liked, it said 31 curls= 1 serving, 6 servings per bag for 130 calories. I pigged out one day on them, having 3 servings and curiously the bag was almost empty. If there are 6 servings per bag and I'm the only one eating at the time then...that means I was eating double the calories every time I had them and the bag was very wrong. Wrong in serving size, AND even halving servings size to get to 6 servings, there were still some left in the bag, it is absurdly off.

As you get closer to your "optimal" weight, it is much slower to lose weight since your activities dont burn off as many calories and you consume less so you cant get as high of a deficit safely. This makes it even more imperative to weigh everything, even the sauces, the last bite off the kid's plate, ketchup, cooking oil, mayo.

DietPrada

Am I the only one who thinks 1.1kg variation in three weeks is normal? You can vary a couple of lbs day to day.

Weight loss:

MissMoo1979

Wow thanks for that advice SoLong, I must admit I have been trusting the nutritional information and haven't really been checking if the serving size seems accurate. I also do Hello Fresh meal boxes which have detailed nutritional information but again, am not 100% certain on how large each meal size is in that calculation.

srk369

EbonyDahlia wrote: »

Am I the only one who thinks 1.1kg variation in three weeks is normal? You can vary a couple of lbs day to day.

Weight loss:

Yep, I agree! That's why I asked if she weighed daily. If not and she had a 2 week period like you from 2/1 to 2/14(ish?) and only weighed on 2/14, she would think she gained. My charts look a lot like yours!

MissMoo1979

I weigh myself maybe three times a week. Maybe there's hope here!