Looking for some help/guide on WHY I am NOT seeing Results!!!

monicajogi80

Hello Everyone!
I am so low on motivation right now. So its not easy for me to lose weight in general and I have never been in the right weight range. I am 5'2 and weight 160lbs currently. My goal weight is 130lbs but want to lose 10 pds by March2018
I recently started to log. Weekends I don't get to with all that is going with my twins and house etc. I workout 5/6 days a week - a mix of Beachboday 21dFx, Bootcamp/hip hop/body works and abs class at gym, Surya Namaskars (Sun salutations).
Its very demotivating that I don't see any results. I was 157lbs in December but went on a cruise for 8 days (worked out 5days out of 8) and also enjoyed the food but in moderation and saw the weight jump up
I am so low at this point. Still pushing myself but STRUGGLING will I EVER reach my goal? will I ever ditch size 12 and wear size 6 or lower (P.s: I LOVE clothes)
Its a struggle to find time for workout with kids and work and home but I am scrambling and then to see no results is demotivating
I have started to eat mindfully but obviously big scope for correction THUS have opened my diary for more suggestions
***P.S: Please no Snarky/mean comments - I am looking to get Uplifted and hope***
-Also I am not looking for any extreme diets like Keto or surviving on 1200 Cals as that cannot be sustained in the long run by me --

Thanks in Advance Peeps

tinkerbellang83

tinkerbellang83

Looking through just one day of your logging, I'd say there's a good chance your logging is inaccurate. For example 50 cals for Palak Paneer? I make this myself sometimes and even when I make it with tofu as a substitute for paneer don't think 50 cals seems right, did you enter the recipe into your MFP yourself or have you picked someone elses out of the database,the database is user entered and there are all sorts of different ingredients in other people's recipes and inaccurate entries

Are you weighing food items using a scale or guessing? things like 0.5/1g of Walnuts and Sunflower Seeds seems unlikely too that's less than half a walnut.

Tblackdogs

You're probably not seeing the results you want because you're eating too much on the weekends. If you have a deficit during the week but eat over goal on the weekend, you will at best maintain. To actually lose the weight, you have to eat less. I'm a mom and I know that it's easy to blame being busy and the kids for not being able to do it, but it is possible and this site makes it much easier! You can do it! Make it a game for yourself. Treat yourself with non-food items when you make it through seven days of logging successfully! It feels so good to succeed. Go for it!!!!!!

KeithWhiteJr

I am, by no means an expert, but, looking at your diary, I think you may be logging incorrectly.

For example, you used a generic banana entry at 105 calories, but how do you know it was actually 105 calories?. I had a banana this morning that was almost 200 calories after I weighed it, and logged it by weight. Use the USDA banana entry and weigh it.

juliegilburd

I glanced at your food diary for the past few days (looks like some delicious food on there, btw... now I want Indian food!) and I am wondering if all the entries are accurate, esp. for the Indian food. I can't tell - are those pre-portioned meals that you have exact nutrition info for, direct from the source of the food (i.e. restaurant, frozen dinner box)? Or are you pulling existing entries that you think are close? If it's the latter, there might be more variance in the calories than one would expect. Also, I saw one entry was for 1g of walnuts. That's not many walnuts... is that all that you put in that particular breakfast? (I know it's possible this is an accurate amount of what you put in, but only 1g of *most foods* stands out as a possible error.) These are just some suggestions for where to troubleshoot in re: your caloric intake. Hope you see some losses soon! Hang in there! You seem to have a good attitude about the weight loss process!

LivingtheLeanDream

If you don't log at the weekends its likely you could be undoing all your calorie deficit during the week for one thing.
Also as others have said, keep an eye on what entries you pick when you log your food. Little calorie errors will all add up and means you could be eating more than you think.

All the best, you are here and if you put your mind to it and a bit of effort you will lose those pounds.

quiksylver296

Buy a food scale. Use it to weigh everything, and then log religiously. You'll be amazed.

malibu927

Not logging on weekends is going to be a culprit. If you know what you’re having ahead of time, log it Friday night after the kids go to bed. And make sure everything is logged as accurately as possible (weighed on a food scale, recipe builder, correct entries).

patsyacs

Keep track of what you eat for a week or two then depending on what happens with your weight try to eat smaller portions or make changes in what you eat. it is a matter of trial and error as foods and how they are prepared will affect you differently than anyone else. Remember too that restaurant foods have lots of salt or sugar and they cause you to retain water. Give it more time.

Enjoy time with your kids too

LivingtheLeanDream

As an example when I was overweight I was great at eating well during the week, granted this was before MFP and I have no idea what calories I was eating but looking back now I know my weekend eating wiped out any deficit I had created. Even yet I have to be mindful about how much I eat over the weekends even in maintenance, so I bank calories from during the week to allow for that.

NatalieHarr1993

My biggest mistake was logging inaccurately on MFP on the desktop version! I found when I downloaded the app on my phone I could then use the barcode scanner to accurately measure my food / calorie intake. As advised above - a food scale will help so much. Best of Luck & keep up the good work!

tinkerbellang83

NatalieHarr1993 wrote: »

My biggest mistake was logging inaccurately on MFP on the desktop version! I found when I downloaded the app on my phone I could then use the barcode scanner to accurately measure my food / calorie intake. As advised above - a food scale will help so much. Best of Luck & keep up the good work!

You still need to be wary of the barcode scanner too, it can still link to inaccurate entries, so it's best to check against either the label for packaged goods or the USDA database for fresh produce the first time you scan something.

monicajogi80

thanks EVERYONE for such awesome suggestions and inputs. As for food - its 99.9% home cooked so I am at a loss of how to track so lets say I made a curry - do I take the amount I need to eat and put it on t he food scale? also if I get few nuts and seeds in my oatmeal - how to measure/weigh that? Any suggestions on which is a good food scale to invest in? Its all very overwhelming
I will start logging weekends too. I do know that I don't hog or anything but might be easily eating more calories.
As for Fruits - do I get that from MFP DB or weight those as well?

quiksylver296

monicajogi80 wrote: »

thanks EVERYONE for such awesome suggestions and inputs. As for food - its 99.9% home cooked so I am at a loss of how to track so lets say I made a curry - do I take the amount I need to eat and put it on t he food scale? also if I get few nuts and seeds in my oatmeal - how to measure/weigh that? Any suggestions on which is a good food scale to invest in? Its all very overwhelming
I will start logging weekends too. I do know that I don't hog or anything but might be easily eating more calories.
As for Fruits - do I get that from MFP DB or weight those as well?

For home cooked foods, most people use the recipe builder. Add all the ingredients into the recipe, set the serving size as 100 grams. Cook it up, weigh the serving you scooped. Say it's 340 grams. Add 3.4 servings of the recipe into your food diary.

Your oatmeal, I don't know? You don't make it? If you are adding the nuts/seeds, weigh them before you put them in your oatmeal. I weigh my uncooked oatmeal (40 grams), weigh the fruit I'm adding (70 grams), weigh the almond milk (120 grams), and then cook it.

This is the scale I have. But any digital scale with a tare button will work.

https://www.amazon.com/Escali-157RR-Glass-Digital-Kitchen/dp/B0051ZOJFQ/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1516376053&sr=8-4&keywords=escali+digital+scale

Weigh your fruit. An apple can vary wildly in size. What exactly is a "medium" apple? Who knows?!? But 236 grams of apple? Easy.

maybe1pe

For things that mix well: curry, stew etc. I weigh out the raw ingredients and load that into the recipe builder. When I'm done cooking I weight the total amount in grams (say 1000 grams for all of it) and then make the number of servings in the recipes equal to that total weight so 1000 grams, then you can weigh out how many grams you want to eat and make it that number of servings in your diary.

So if I make japanese curry which I do often and the whole pot is 1000 grams, I make that the number of servings for my recipe and then I want to eat say 250 grams so I log it as 250 servings. If that all makes sense.

That works for a lot of things actually. Just weigh the RAW ingredients and log them based on the USDA entries and then weigh the total cooked weight.

LivingtheLeanDream

Use the recipe builder if you cook your own meals. Over time your meals will be there already. It gets easier as you build/ add to your food entries.
Weigh everything even fruits and veg.

tinkerbellang83

As @RunRutheeRun says create the recipe in the recipe builder (the old version is easier to use than the new one IMO).

Weigh everything where possible at least until you get a better idea of what a portion size is. I no longer weigh everything religiously, now that I have a good grasp of the weight of most of my regular foods I can eyeball them pretty well.

Any digital scale with a TARE function should be suitable.

monicajogi80

wow much thanks!!!! I had no idea about the recipe builder. I will start that ASAP. I think that will be of BIG HELP and EYE opener!!! Same thing for Rice I guess? So if I make rice at home, I should add RAW rice in recipe builder and then weigh the "cooked rice" for servings in gms - correct!! THANKS!!!!

tinkerbellang83

monicajogi80 wrote: »

wow much thanks!!!! I had no idea about the recipe builder. I will start that ASAP. I think that will be of BIG HELP and EYE opener!!! Same thing for Rice I guess? So if I make rice at home, I should add RAW rice in recipe builder and then weigh the "cooked rice" for servings in gms - correct!! THANKS!!!!

If it's just literally rice rather than a special kind of recipe including rice, search for the brand or use the USDA entry. Better to look for a dry entry as the water content can alter the weight significantly.

tinkerbellang83

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1234699/logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide/p1

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10621050/how-to-use-the-usda-food-database-mfp-food-database-for-accurate-logging

aeloine

maybe1pe wrote: »

For things that mix well: curry, stew etc. I weigh out the raw ingredients and load that into the recipe builder. When I'm done cooking I weight the total amount in grams (say 1000 grams for all of it) and then make the number of servings in the recipes equal to that total weight so 1000 grams, then you can weigh out how many grams you want to eat and make it that number of servings in your diary.

So if I make japanese curry which I do often and the whole pot is 1000 grams, I make that the number of servings for my recipe and then I want to eat say 250 grams so I log it as 250 servings. If that all makes sense.

That works for a lot of things actually. Just weigh the RAW ingredients and log them based on the USDA entries and then weigh the total cooked weight.

Just to clarify, 1 gram = 1 serving?

maybe1pe

monicajogi80 wrote: »

wow much thanks!!!! I had no idea about the recipe builder. I will start that ASAP. I think that will be of BIG HELP and EYE opener!!! Same thing for Rice I guess? So if I make rice at home, I should add RAW rice in recipe builder and then weigh the "cooked rice" for servings in gms - correct!! THANKS!!!!

when I make rice. with nothing added. I weigh the raw rice weight so if I'm making 5 servings weigh out 5 servings. and then weigh the total rice cooked and divide by 5 for the cooked weight per serving.

But I log the RAW rice weight, not the cooked.

monicajogi80

Thanks tinkerbellang83 - I have bookmarked both those links and will read them tonight (too much distraction at work AND managers birthday cake - UGH)
You folks are so awesome and knowledgeable

monicajogi80

Thanks maybe1pe for the Rice tip. Also How do I reply individual posts LOL

maybe1pe

monicajogi80 wrote: »

Thanks maybe1pe for the Rice tip. Also How do I reply individual posts LOL

There's a button that says "quote" at the bottom of each post or you can type @ before someone's username like @monicajogi80 and then it will tag them basically.

bisky

Excellent advice from everyone. This is a good article about weighing food:

https://www.outsideonline.com/2179331/what-i-learned-weighing-my-food-four-months

Good luck Monica, you can do it!

kimny72

aeloine wrote: »

maybe1pe wrote: »

For things that mix well: curry, stew etc. I weigh out the raw ingredients and load that into the recipe builder. When I'm done cooking I weight the total amount in grams (say 1000 grams for all of it) and then make the number of servings in the recipes equal to that total weight so 1000 grams, then you can weigh out how many grams you want to eat and make it that number of servings in your diary.

So if I make japanese curry which I do often and the whole pot is 1000 grams, I make that the number of servings for my recipe and then I want to eat say 250 grams so I log it as 250 servings. If that all makes sense.

That works for a lot of things actually. Just weigh the RAW ingredients and log them based on the USDA entries and then weigh the total cooked weight.

Just to clarify, 1 gram = 1 serving?

Yes, that just makes it easy math. If you set the serving size up as one gram, you can just weigh your serving and put the number of grams as the number of servings. If you make the serving size of the recipe 50 grams, but you end up eating 67 grams worth you have to do math to figure out how many servings you had

maybe1pe

aeloine wrote: »

maybe1pe wrote: »

For things that mix well: curry, stew etc. I weigh out the raw ingredients and load that into the recipe builder. When I'm done cooking I weight the total amount in grams (say 1000 grams for all of it) and then make the number of servings in the recipes equal to that total weight so 1000 grams, then you can weigh out how many grams you want to eat and make it that number of servings in your diary.

So if I make japanese curry which I do often and the whole pot is 1000 grams, I make that the number of servings for my recipe and then I want to eat say 250 grams so I log it as 250 servings. If that all makes sense.

That works for a lot of things actually. Just weigh the RAW ingredients and log them based on the USDA entries and then weigh the total cooked weight.

Just to clarify, 1 gram = 1 serving?

Yes, sorry. I just saw this.

1g = 1 serving

total weight 1000 g = 1000 servings, etc etc.

monicajogi80

@bisky - Thanks!!

bisky wrote: »

Excellent advice from everyone. This is a good article about weighing food:

https://www.outsideonline.com/2179331/what-i-learned-weighing-my-food-four-months

Good luck Monica, you can do it!

monicajogi80

@maybe1pe - thanks!!

maybe1pe wrote: »

monicajogi80 wrote: »

Thanks maybe1pe for the Rice tip. Also How do I reply individual posts LOL

There's a button that says "quote" at the bottom of each post or you can type @ before someone's username like @monicajogi80 and then it will tag them basically.