What am I doing wrong?

amandacalories

Hi everyone,

I'm a 24 year old woman and I started out at 244 pounds (I'm 5'8) with my goal being to get to 200 by December. I looked up my BMR and found it should be around 1850 and that the calories to maintain my weight are around 2300 or 2400. I work a desk job during the day and then waitress two or three nights a week. I've been eating between 1850 and 2000 calories. In the first week I went down to 236 but ever since then I've been going between 237 and 238 with no more loss. It has now been almost a month. I measure my food for accuracy as much as possible. What do I need to do to start losing again?

danishbombshell

How's your sodium intake? Could be some water weight slowing you down. Also, are you getting any exercise? I've had a desk job many times and it is very hard to lose weight in that context! You will probably need to lower your calories again and/or add an exercise routine.

janejellyroll

If you open your diary, we may be able to help you spot some logging errors.

cathipa

How are you measuring your food? Unless its with a scale you may be consuming more than you think. Are you using correct entries (i.e. no generic or homemade)? Are you logging everything you consume?

toxikon

I double-checked your Sedentary TDEE and it's coming up as 2250 for me - so definitely close to your numbers.

If you've been logging around 2000 calories a day, that will probably result in pretty slow weight loss with a small margin of error. One wrong MFP database entry or forgotten scoop of peanut butter, and you're eating at maintenance calories.

To lose about 1lbs a week, you need a daily 500 calorie deficit. So going with your Sedentary TDEE, that'll put you at a daily goal of 1750.

Are you using a digital food scale?

inertiastrength

It's probably some common errors in logging. When I first started I was way off on a few surprising things. Can you open your diary?

inertiastrength

The entire first month of my cut I was having 40 calorie double doubles lol Up until recently I was eating double the ice cream I thought I was.

sosteach

You are eating too much. Buy a food scale and weigh and measure everything. Also drop your calorie goal.

inertiastrength

sosteach wrote: »

You are eating too much. Buy a food scale and weigh and measure everything. Also drop your calorie goal.

She's not eating too much, she's eating a good amount of calories but she's probably measuring them wrong. The numbers are good, we just need to get her accurate is my guess.

inertiastrength

well I mean technically yes she is, what I meant was less calories is not the answer. accuracy is hhaha

amandacalories

I use a food scale. I'm confused about how I'm supposed to lower my calories if my BMR is the amount I supposedly need to keep my body working? I'm currently in physical therapy for a torn meniscus and another old sports injury. I can't work out as hard as I'd like to.

inertiastrength

Can you open your diary please?

janejellyroll

amandacalories wrote: »

I use a food scale. I'm confused about how I'm supposed to lower my calories if my BMR is the amount I supposedly need to keep my body working? I'm currently in physical therapy for a torn meniscus and another old sports injury. I can't work out as hard as I'd like to.

Without seeing your diary, we're just going to be guessing about what might be going on.

HeidiCooksSupper

It could have to do somewhat with the torn meniscus. Healing takes water. Any swelling represents water weight.

brznhabits

Your numbers looks good! You could be eating more than you think. But I suspect you are actually losing but the scale isn't the only measurement, are you taking body measurements?

Also, do you have a good body/bathroom scale?

amandacalories

I opened my diary. I guess looking back I haven't been as consistent as I thought. Sometimes I'm over sometimes I'm way under. I've also found myself eating more processed foods since I find it hard to custom make meal on this app so I'm sure sodium has something to do with it.

Spliner1969

Be sure you re-run the wizard every 5 lbs or so of loss. I never trusted MFP to do this for me. Eventually I switched to a site I felt was accurate for me, iifym.com, and used their calculator to set my calorie goals and macros. But I still went back every 5 lbs and re-rolled the numbers. Each time my calorie goal to continue the same weight loss went down slightly. If you don't do that, eventually you'll stall out, and that sounds like what you've done.

TR0berts

amandacalories wrote: »

Hi everyone,

I'm a 24 year old woman and I started out at 244 pounds (I'm 5'8) with my goal being to get to 200 by December. I looked up my BMR and found it should be around 1850 and that the calories to maintain my weight are around 2300 or 2400. I work a desk job during the day and then waitress two or three nights a week. I've been eating between 1850 and 2000 calories. In the first week I went down to 236 but ever since then I've been going between 237 and 238 with no more loss. It has now been almost a month. I measure my food for accuracy as much as possible. What do I need to do to start losing again?

Three things jumped out at me when viewing the last several days of your diary:

1: You're over your Calorie goal many days. A little over here and there likely would be fine, but not a couple hundred most days.

2: There were a couple of days that were incomplete, so you don't really know how much you ate those days.

3: There were a lot of packages and/or non-measured/weighed items. This means that the bolded part isn't really accurate. There can be (and often are) large discrepancies between what the package says regarding weight and how much the items really weigh. Start weighing these, to verify you're eating how much you think you're eating.


edit: I see by your recent post (that you apparently were making while I was typing) that you've noticed these. The fact that you also noticed is a good sign, in that you know where you'll need to improve.

collectingblues

You really need to tighten up your logging. You've got days where things are just missing entirely (did you *really* only eat one meal for a couple of the past few days?), and you've got days where you're going seriously over. And a few of those entries look suspect.

Do that, and then see what happens.

amandacalories

There are days where I don't eat three meals a day because I'm so busy during the day I just don't have time. The incomplete days are accurate except like one day where I didn't log at all.

cathipa

amandacalories wrote: »

I use a food scale. I'm confused about how I'm supposed to lower my calories if my BMR is the amount I supposedly need to keep my body working? I'm currently in physical therapy for a torn meniscus and another old sports injury. I can't work out as hard as I'd like to.

I looked at your diary and I don't see any entries where a food scale was used. Even if you are going based on the package the food weight may be off. And as others and yourself have addressed you are going over many days and not logging everything every day. Tighten up your logging, weigh everything you consume, use correct entries and stick to a reasonable calorie deficit.