Not losing weight

rmhillier

I understand your frustration with everyone telling you to measure with a scale. I do agree that most likely you are eating more than you think you are. I’m 5 feet tall, about 150 pounds and trying to hit a 1200 calorie target too. I know from experience that it can be very (very!) hard to actually hit that target consistently, even when I am measuring as accurately as possible using a scale.

For me the types of foods I eat are key. I can obsessively measure out my 1200 calories with a scale but if I’m eating any starchy foods like bread, pasta, rice, potatoes etc. then I usually have low energy and don’t feel so good. If my 1200 calories are from veggies, healthy protein (for me this means non-breaded), legumes and minimal fruit then I feel much better. If you are lacking energy, consider that you may not be eating enough or eating the wrong things.

Recognize that all our best efforts to calculate our calories are just estimating. Using a scale is most accurate but even using a scale there can be so many measurement errors. How wet is the food? When the can of peaches says 50 g are they counting the syrup or not? All the calorie info on MFP is crowd sourced so you can’t rely on total accuracy there either. (I was accidentally using an entry for fresh strawberries that was overestimating my calories by 300 per serving.) Don’t take your calorie count as written in stone, be aware of how your body is feeling and reacting to what you are eating.

That said, there is a ton of value in trying to track and measure what you are eating. Even if you are not logging using MFP, just keeping an accurate journal could be helpful. Use a green pen for healthy foods you are trying to eat more of and a red pen for foods you are trying to limit. Do this diligently for a week – you may realize that you are actually not eating as well as you think you are.

I think it would be worth a try to work really hard to improve your measurements for a couple of days to see if a more accurate calculations might confirm that too many calories are really not the issue.

Here are some ideas to increase the accuracy of your calorie tracking without a scale. Some foods will be more accurate without a scale than others. Consider changing some of your food choices to ones that are more trackable. A palm sized piece of chicken breast would be almost impossible to guesstimate. 1 egg is pretty accurate between 70 and 80 calories. Half a can of tuna or a piece of frozen fish (choose the medium sized piece) would be more accurate as well.

Some ways of prepping food might be more accurate too. Cooking your chicken, dicing it and measuring out a half cup would be more accurate than eye-balling a palm sized piece of chicken breast.

Choosing foods with low calorie density will limit inaccuracies as well. 1 cup of cooked rice is about 169 calories. If your measurement is off by ¼ cup your calories could be off by 42. 1 cup of cooked carrots is 55 cal. If your measurement if off by ¼ cup then your calories would only be off by 14. This adds up over the day. 6 high density food items each underestimated by 42 calories will make your daily total 252 less than what you actually ate. 6 low calorie ones similarly underestimated and your daily total would only be off by 84. That could be the difference between being below maintenance or above it.

Recipes could help too. Make a big pot of chicken soup. Did you add 400 or 500 grams of chicken? It doesn’t matter that much to your tracking. Once you add all the veggies and divide by the 16 servings the recipe makes the difference per serving is only 9 calories. Make sure you fill your recipes with lots of low caloric density veggies. Magazine and online recipes often have caloric estimates. Sure they are not completely accurate but depending on the recipe they may be more accurate than your current methods. Or use the recipe tool on MFP.

Make extra efforts to measure high caloric density oils/dressings as accurately as you can. Much as I love peanut butter, over estimating by just a half a tablespoon would put me out by 50 calories.

If this is still too much tracking/measuring for you, do some research on foods that have a low caloric density and change you eating plan to focus on including lots of those at each meal with your protein/carb choices and just log what you eat in a journal instead of trying to crunch the calorie numbers. It may be less stressful for you and it might be more effective.

Hope some of these ideas help. Good luck!

xxzenabxx

rmhillier wrote: »

I understand your frustration with everyone telling you to measure with a scale. I do agree that most likely you are eating more than you think you are. I’m 5 feet tall, about 150 pounds and trying to hit a 1200 calorie target too. I know from experience that it can be very (very!) hard to actually hit that target consistently, even when I am measuring as accurately as possible using a scale.

For me the types of foods I eat are key. I can obsessively measure out my 1200 calories with a scale but if I’m eating any starchy foods like bread, pasta, rice, potatoes etc. then I usually have low energy and don’t feel so good. If my 1200 calories are from veggies, healthy protein (for me this means non-breaded), legumes and minimal fruit then I feel much better. If you are lacking energy, consider that you may not be eating enough or eating the wrong things.

Recognize that all our best efforts to calculate our calories are just estimating. Using a scale is most accurate but even using a scale there can be so many measurement errors. How wet is the food? When the can of peaches says 50 g are they counting the syrup or not? All the calorie info on MFP is crowd sourced so you can’t rely on total accuracy there either. (I was accidentally using an entry for fresh strawberries that was overestimating my calories by 300 per serving.) Don’t take your calorie count as written in stone, be aware of how your body is feeling and reacting to what you are eating.

That said, there is a ton of value in trying to track and measure what you are eating. Even if you are not logging using MFP, just keeping an accurate journal could be helpful. Use a green pen for healthy foods you are trying to eat more of and a red pen for foods you are trying to limit. Do this diligently for a week – you may realize that you are actually not eating as well as you think you are.

I think it would be worth a try to work really hard to improve your measurements for a couple of days to see if a more accurate calculations might confirm that too many calories are really not the issue.

Here are some ideas to increase the accuracy of your calorie tracking without a scale. Some foods will be more accurate without a scale than others. Consider changing some of your food choices to ones that are more trackable. A palm sized piece of chicken breast would be almost impossible to guesstimate. 1 egg is pretty accurate between 70 and 80 calories. Half a can of tuna or a piece of frozen fish (choose the medium sized piece) would be more accurate as well.

Some ways of prepping food might be more accurate too. Cooking your chicken, dicing it and measuring out a half cup would be more accurate than eye-balling a palm sized piece of chicken breast.

Choosing foods with low calorie density will limit inaccuracies as well. 1 cup of cooked rice is about 169 calories. If your measurement is off by ¼ cup your calories could be off by 42. 1 cup of cooked carrots is 55 cal. If your measurement if off by ¼ cup then your calories would only be off by 14. This adds up over the day. 6 high density food items each underestimated by 42 calories will make your daily total 252 less than what you actually ate. 6 low calorie ones similarly underestimated and your daily total would only be off by 84. That could be the difference between being below maintenance or above it.

Recipes could help too. Make a big pot of chicken soup. Did you add 400 or 500 grams of chicken? It doesn’t matter that much to your tracking. Once you add all the veggies and divide by the 16 servings the recipe makes the difference per serving is only 9 calories. Make sure you fill your recipes with lots of low caloric density veggies. Magazine and online recipes often have caloric estimates. Sure they are not completely accurate but depending on the recipe they may be more accurate than your current methods. Or use the recipe tool on MFP.

Make extra efforts to measure high caloric density oils/dressings as accurately as you can. Much as I love peanut butter, over estimating by just a half a tablespoon would put me out by 50 calories.

If this is still too much tracking/measuring for you, do some research on foods that have a low caloric density and change you eating plan to focus on including lots of those at each meal with your protein/carb choices and just log what you eat in a journal instead of trying to crunch the calorie numbers. It may be less stressful for you and it might be more effective.

Hope some of these ideas help. Good luck!

Thank you so much! Glad you understand my frustration! Well I am willing to track my calories and reassess my higher calorie foods. Those could be the culprit! I was thinking of these foods that are easier to track: tinned tuna, tinned mackerel or any fish, frozen fish so salmon, cod etc, red kidney beans, chickpeas, lentils, eggs, cottage cheese, lamb once a week too or chicken. Good idea to add more lower calorie foods and incase I'm abit off track it won't kill me! TBH...I am starting to feel like it's not just the calories but the types of food. Also living with family means I eat a lot of meals that I haven't cooked so it could be too much guesswork there. It's so hard to resist food cooked by mum!

kokonani

xxzenabxx wrote: »

Hi everyone! So I'm 23 years old, weigh 154lbs. In oct 2015 I managed to get my weight down to 136 lbs by diet and exercising but because of university and stress I've gained all the weight back. I've been eat 1200/1400 calories a day and I exercise three times a week. I sometime mix up hand weights at home, yoga or stretching. I've built abit of muscle. I'm at loss as to why it's been over a year and I'm not losing weight?! I am an ectomorph and endomorph! Pear shaped slightly! I'm desperate and want to do alternate day fasting?!

Have you tried Keto/LCHF? This seems to work for alot if people who cannot and do not lose on a low fat, moderate carb diet. Maybe you are carb sensitive and need to really reduce your carb intake to less than 20g. But increase your fat. Also, try to incorporate intermittent fasting. This seems to jump start or break stalls for alot of people. I do it once in a while and I will lose about 2 lbs in two days fasting for 16 hours.

esmerelda9479

xxzenabxx, if you are recovered from an eating disorder it's going to be harder to lose weight. You have put your body in starvation mode in the past, it will hold onto extra calories. Get more sleep, up the exercise (get some variety in) and drink enough water. Also, it's important to balance your nutrients. Get a proper amount of calcium, protein etc. May be worth a visit to your Dr. to have your thyroid checked too. Fasting is the not the answer, it's going to do more harm than good in your situation.