Hard losing
Replies
-
Whole calorie burn. That’s where I usually avg with 2100 being the highest I’ve seen. I have some days where it’s only 1100 burned, but that’s maybe once a week on a rest day.
0 -
@AtlasxMedic perhaps there’s a combination of factors in play. Some calorie and portion size underestimating. Some fluid retention. But medical causes were ruled out. So I don’t know. But I believe in CICO. Also weight is not linear so some people prefer to track trends/averages with some apps. Maybe that might be helpful for you as well since the numbers look surprising.1
-
So to circle back to logging - if you eat something packaged or store bought, how are you measuring a portion/serving of that? Like if you ate oatmeal, how would you know how much is the 190 cal serving?1
-
Your Fitbit issues your tdee for the day. This includes calories for existing (BMR), non exercise, AND exercise activity. Single total number is what you get. Is that 2100 or less?
Your MFP exercise adjustment equalises your mfp pre-selected tdee setting to the TDEE detected by Fitbit, and adjusts your food based on that.
I don't see your responses to other people's questions so maybe MFP is being a **kitten**.
I don't know if you're still obese but as you enter the overweight range you should consider lowering not increasing your deficit.
A high deficit and intense exercise is probably make you veg the rest of your day due to lack of energy. Why don't you try a couple of walks, or pacing outside your ambulance while waiting for a call. If you don't have the energy to do that, this indicates to me that you're overdoing your deficit.
Scale on hard, unyielding, floor.
First thing in the morning after using the washroom and before eating or drinking anything. Not during the day, before or after the gym or even clothed!
Plug numbers in trending weight app. Plug back numbers in there too while you're at it. Since using Fitbit, enter weight in Fitbit and connect account to trendweight.com
Obviously check for edema. And constipation.
If you're sore (muscles hurting), you ARE retaining water for muscle repair. Take out and commercial meals have high amounts of sodium. Balancing sodium requires water retention.
You say: "Sauces by portion size. Meal "about" 1000 Calories, when I cheat "about" x calories"
I get that people don't NEED to weigh everything obsessively to lose weight.
The answer is, always, that if you reduce calories you will lose weight. Whether you will lose fat, or lose optimally, or even appropriately, or injure your health due to malnutrition is not covered by the previous statement.
*I* personally think that eating the most I can while meeting my goals is better than trying for the hero medal of "eats nothing".
But eating the most you can while meeting your goals has a price. And the price is knowing what you eat.
You don't. What you're doing is called a *rough* estimate. Weighing each component on a scale and logging it appropriately before eating it is a better estimate. When you're here wondering how to account for the PAM spray you applied to your pot and then wiped off before cooking then you may be approaching precision (or slightly obsession
)
If your tdee is 2100 (which sounds incredibly low for a 5ft 6" 195lb guy that would lead me to think that you're making no effort to increase your non exercise burn (see the thread about increasing NEAT)) a cheat day and a doubling of the calories of your sauces and/or condiments/cooking oils/butter, because you're not measuring using a scale, can easily bring you close enough to 2100 to see very slow progress.
Serious gain though seems -- odd.5 -
I agree with everything Pav8888 said. Plus, double check your settings in Fitbit. That seems an incredibly low daily burn for your size. I'm an older, lighter and much shorter female and the lowest I've ever seen is around 1350 and that was while I was in the hospital and not moving much besides to the restroom.4
-
OP, with your height and weight, if you were eating 1200-1500 calories a day, you'd be losing weight. Most people, myself included, think they're being precise with their logging when they start. But the truth is, it takes a while to get into the swing of things. Opening your diary could really help us help you.
MFP's activity setting is based on NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis). This is your daily activity without exercise being included. If you have a desk job, you're probably sedentary and might want to change your setting from lightly active. Either way, since you have your Fitbit connected, you should also enable "negative calorie adjustments" if you haven't already. This will allow MFP to deduct from your calorie allowance if you are less active than your MFP activity setting. Exercise calories are meant to be added in addition. Since it can be difficult to determine how many of the exercise calories to eat back, many people start with 50% and adjust from there.
There are ways to increase your NEAT. I have a desk job. And I take walk breaks to get steps in. It clears my head and gives me a little more calorie wiggle room. I get 10,000 steps a day outside of exercise. This technically puts me in MFP's "active" activity level, in spite of my desk job. My Garmin sends over my exercise in addition to my steps. Weight lifting doesn't burn many calories during the actual activity. The benefits include (over time) increased muscle mass which will burn more daily calories (higher BMR--Basic metabolic rate, what your body needs just to keep you breathing and your brain turned on--no activity considered).
However, it really all comes down to logging accurately. You don't need exercise to lose weight. It creates more wiggle room with the deficit and it helps with health and fitness, but all that is necessary for weight loss is a calorie deficit. It's hard to effectively know your calories out if your calories in aren't accurate. Weigh all solid foods on a food scale in grams (including the raw chicken breasts prior to cooking) and be sure to choose accurate entries in the database (they're not always accurate, even the "verified" green check marked ones). This also includes pre-packaged foods like frozen meals, yogurt, slices of bread and cheese, eggs, etc. Packaging can (legally) be off as much as 20% from the actual weight of the product. And there is often variance. Usually on the you're-eating-more-calories-than-you-think side, unfortunately. Use measuring cups and spoons for liquids. Log the blasts of cooking spray and any condiments like butter/margarine. If you use the barcode scanner, always double check the entry is correct (matches the packaging or the USDA database). Food nutrition content varies as products change and the database may not always be able to keep up. Over time, I've built my own little database of added foods as I haven't found ones in the database to match the food label for what I'm eating. It's a tiny investment of time on my part that helps in the overall picture.
USDA Nutrient Database
I know it may seem like a lot, but you'll get into the groove and it'll become second nature.
Others have said, weight loss doesn't always happen in a linear fashion. They're right. But if your CICO numbers are accurate, the weight will come off. Water weight, hormones, food waste all mask fat loss. Water weight can fluctuate up to 4-5 pounds per day. Men in a progressive lifting program lifting consistently can gain up to 2-4 pounds of muscle per month depending on a lot of other factors. Women like me .5-1 pound per month. It is unlikely all your gains are muscle, especially in such a short period of time. I really do think the issue is with the calories in portion of the equation. Don't be discouraged, you're going through the process a lot of us ahve been through.
Another measure is a DEXA scan. This will measure body fat, bone mass and lean mass. One every six months or so will tell you things the scale can't.
Hang in there!6 -
OP, with your height and weight, if you were eating 1200-1500 calories a day, you'd be losing weight. Most people, myself included, think they're being precise with their logging when they start. But the truth is, it takes a while to get into the swing of things. Opening your diary could really help us help you.
MFP's activity setting is based on NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis). This is your daily activity without exercise being included. If you have a desk job, you're probably sedentary and might want to change your setting from lightly active. Either way, since you have your Fitbit connected, you should also enable "negative calorie adjustments" if you haven't already. This will allow MFP to deduct from your calorie allowance if you are less active than your MFP activity setting. Exercise calories are meant to be added in addition. Since it can be difficult to determine how many of the exercise calories to eat back, many people start with 50% and adjust from there.
There are ways to increase your NEAT. I have a desk job. And I take walk breaks to get steps in. It clears my head and gives me a little more calorie wiggle room. I get 10,000 steps a day outside of exercise. This technically puts me in MFP's "active" activity level, in spite of my desk job. My Garmin sends over my exercise in addition to my steps. Weight lifting doesn't burn many calories during the actual activity. The benefits include (over time) increased muscle mass which will burn more daily calories (higher BMR--Basic metabolic rate, what your body needs just to keep you breathing and your brain turned on--no activity considered).
However, it really all comes down to logging accurately. You don't need exercise to lose weight. It creates more wiggle room with the deficit and it helps with health and fitness, but all that is necessary for weight loss is a calorie deficit. It's hard to effectively know your calories out if your calories in aren't accurate. Weigh all solid foods on a food scale in grams (including the raw chicken breasts prior to cooking) and be sure to choose accurate entries in the database (they're not always accurate, even the "verified" green check marked ones). This also includes pre-packaged foods like frozen meals, yogurt, slices of bread and cheese, eggs, etc. Packaging can (legally) be off as much as 20% from the actual weight of the product. And there is often variance. Usually on the you're-eating-more-calories-than-you-think side, unfortunately. Use measuring cups and spoons for liquids. Log the blasts of cooking spray and any condiments like butter/margarine. If you use the barcode scanner, always double check the entry is correct (matches the packaging or the USDA database). Food nutrition content varies as products change and the database may not always be able to keep up. Over time, I've built my own little database of added foods as I haven't found ones in the database to match the food label for what I'm eating. It's a tiny investment of time on my part that helps in the overall picture.
USDA Nutrient Database
I know it may seem like a lot, but you'll get into the groove and it'll become second nature.
Others have said, weight loss doesn't always happen in a linear fashion. They're right. But if your CICO numbers are accurate, the weight will come off. Water weight, hormones, food waste all mask fat loss. Water weight can fluctuate up to 4-5 pounds per day. Men in a progressive lifting program lifting consistently can gain up to 2-4 pounds of muscle per month depending on a lot of other factors. Women like me .5-1 pound per month. It is unlikely all your gains are muscle, especially in such a short period of time. I really do think the issue is with the calories in portion of the equation. Don't be discouraged, you're going through the process a lot of us ahve been through.
Another measure is a DEXA scan. This will measure body fat, bone mass and lean mass. One every six months or so will tell you things the scale can't.
Hang in there!
All of this. It took me three months to figure out how to measure accurately enough and manage my hunger to get my calories into the deficit I wanted, but once you get it, this whole weight loss game becomes so much easier. You just need to be patient and keep at it. You can do this!2 -
orangegato wrote: »@AtlasxMedic perhaps there’s a combination of factors in play. Some calorie and portion size underestimating. Some fluid retention. But medical causes were ruled out. So I don’t know. But I believe in CICO. Also weight is not linear so some people prefer to track trends/averages with some apps. Maybe that might be helpful for you as well since the numbers look surprising.
Did I miss something? I didn't see anything from the OP indicating medical screening of any kind.0 -
lynn_glenmont wrote: »orangegato wrote: »@AtlasxMedic perhaps there’s a combination of factors in play. Some calorie and portion size underestimating. Some fluid retention. But medical causes were ruled out. So I don’t know. But I believe in CICO. Also weight is not linear so some people prefer to track trends/averages with some apps. Maybe that might be helpful for you as well since the numbers look surprising.
Did I miss something? I didn't see anything from the OP indicating medical screening of any kind.
At the bottom of the initial post, he edited it.0 -
Did you weigh yourself on the same scale in the same place (which is also a flat, hard surface)?0
-
AtlasxMedic wrote: »Thanks for the replies everyone! MFT wants me at 1700 calories a day. I marked myself as light activity because when I’m off of work I spend my 1.5-2hrs at the gym and then relax at home.
@Hearts_2015 I didn’t use an equation for my calories. When I started to clean up my diet, I based it off of needing more veggies and lots of protein. In all honesty, I started eating these foods and then calculated the calories. I obtained the calorie values from documents my previous nutritionist gave me. I do stand at a whole 5’6” though so that could be why I don’t feel like I’m starving at these lower numbers.
@smnovosad1 I appreciate your kind words. I never really thought about water weight until posting this, so maybe I should be less hard on myself.
@1houndgal Lol I am male (I need a better picture haha). As for cheat meals: I allow myself to have one occasionally, and what ends up happening is I eat fewer meals that day. For instance, I went out to lunch this week. My meal was around 800-1000 calories. My breakfast that day had been 350 calories. I ended up not having a protein shake that day, and for dinner I limited myself to 250 calories bringing my day to 1600.
@orangegato I will definitely try that out. I’m being told my chicken is all 4 oz, but I’m not verifying. However, would that account for so much weight gain?
Are you logging the foods you eat for your cheat meal also?0 -
Okay I’ll try to address everything here.
So I’m not new to logging food, I’m just new to MFP. I’ve spent the last 6 months manually logging my meals in a notebook. I chose to come here because of the community and the fact that it’s easier to log on my phone. When I had cheat meals for the holidays I logged those. When I did 8 shots of Fireball on NYE i logged that. That being said, I can definitely improve upon weighing everything out.
When it comes to extras like cooking oil, butter, seasoning, etc. I rarely use cooking oil, but I’ll be sure to track when I do. I haven’t used butter in years for whatever reason. Whenever I use a sauce (like Frank’s) I check the label for the serving size. If it’s 1 teaspoon then I only use 1 teaspoon and I log it per the label. I’ve cross checked a few of the seasonings online for their validity and I have a chart I use now.
Finally, the scale. I use the same scale on flat, tile floor in the morning without clothes. However, as I started to not see results I became obsessive. Friday alone I weighed myself 3x, and felt terrible after dinner (I had chicken) that I did a second work out. I haven’t weighed myself since because I need to avoid the obsessive stuff.
You guys have given me a ton of info and it’s amazing. I know I’m not answering everyone’s questions, there’s just a lot so things are easy to miss. I will definitely tighten up with weighing things and making sure I calculate the little things like cooking oil. I’m also going to recalibrate my FitBit, and see if those numbers go up. Once I get more entries in my diary I’ll open it up.2 -
Also, after my workout (only my cardio got calculated because my FitBit was charging), I had a rather large deficit. I ate my dinner and I’m still in a 1,000 calorie deficit. When I hit complete diary the app tells me I haven’t eaten enough. My dinner had a lot of sodium though, and if I eat anymore my sodium for today is gonna be insane. (Side Note: I think obsessing over sugar intake made me forget about sodium, so I think that’s factoring into my weight gain). Have any of you ran into this issue?0
-
Yeah MFP has minimal daily calorie guidelines of 1500/d for men, 1200/d for women. You can choose to not log your exercise on MFP or not eat back all/some of the calories your FitBit says you burned.
ETA: eating back calories seems controversial on MFP - people seem pretty split about it. Most agree that the estimated calories for exercise seems too high no matter the tracker.2 -
AtlasxMedic wrote: »Also, after my workout (only my cardio got calculated because my FitBit was charging), I had a rather large deficit. I ate my dinner and I’m still in a 1,000 calorie deficit. When I hit complete diary the app tells me I haven’t eaten enough. My dinner had a lot of sodium though, and if I eat anymore my sodium for today is gonna be insane. (Side Note: I think obsessing over sugar intake made me forget about sodium, so I think that’s factoring into my weight gain). Have any of you ran into this issue?
Sodium tends to increase water retention. There’s not a lot of reason to avoid it, unless you have high blood pressure or another heart-related condition that could be impacted. Personally, with a family history of high blood pressure on both sides (dad’s diet was out of control, but mom followed DASH protocol) I try to keep mine below the RDA of 2300mg.1 -
trending weight app for weight level. Especially if you have a fitbit. It connects to Fitbit for the weight information.
Sodium and exercise can spike your water retention.
IF you feel listless and unable to pace around your ambulance/at work etc this is a good indication that your deficit is too aggressive. Still having some trouble envisioning a Fitbit TDEE of 2100. Unless you're saying that it is your exercise adjustment that is 2100. In which case you either have a very high resting heart rate leading to an inflated burn from Fitbit, an incorrect settings issue, or you're trying to systematically under-eat.
Tracking your "off" days is part of collecting data. Nothing wrong with having off days. Some people even have intentional re-feed days where macros come more into play (increased calories with the primary increase coming from carbs in order to restore hormones)3 -
trending weight app for weight level. Especially if you have a fitbit. It connects to Fitbit for the weight information.
Sodium and exercise can spike your water retention.
IF you feel listless and unable to pace around your ambulance/at work etc this is a good indication that your deficit is too aggressive. Still having some trouble envisioning a Fitbit TDEE of 2100. Unless you're saying that it is your exercise adjustment that is 2100. In which case you either have a very high resting heart rate leading to an inflated burn from Fitbit, an incorrect settings issue, or you're trying to systematically under-eat.
Tracking your "off" days is part of collecting data. Nothing wrong with having off days. Some people even have intentional re-feed days where macros come more into play (increased calories with the primary increase coming from carbs in order to restore hormones)
My FitBit is updating as we speak and I’ll recalibrate it tonight. I’ll definitely look into trending my weight and see if that gives me any clues about what’s going on. Honestly, if this comes down to a water retention issue or a simple mismeasurement I will be relieved. Thank you for all the info you’ve provided (as well as everyone else)!
1 -
AtlasxMedic wrote: »Also, after my workout (only my cardio got calculated because my FitBit was charging), I had a rather large deficit. I ate my dinner and I’m still in a 1,000 calorie deficit. When I hit complete diary the app tells me I haven’t eaten enough. My dinner had a lot of sodium though, and if I eat anymore my sodium for today is gonna be insane. (Side Note: I think obsessing over sugar intake made me forget about sodium, so I think that’s factoring into my weight gain). Have any of you ran into this issue?
I don’t like the sugar tracker on here because it counts sugar in good foods like fruit and dairy. I easily go over with just those things. You need to worry about added sugar like in salad dressings and processed food. Sodium isn’t an issue really but could retain water, drink more water to help flush it out. Maybe just try focusing on one or two aspects of your diet instead of every single number. If you’re not eating enough because you’re worried about a high sodium intake then that isn’t healthy. I lost weight before with only caring about calories (I’m back because of pregnancy weight) so doing it simply is possible.
1 -
So I opened my diary up now that’s there’s at least some data in there. I started the week at a lower weight than last week which was nice.
Thanks to everyone for the advice and input. It definitely helped put things into perspective for me!3 -
You're eating more calories than you think honestly. Buy a food scale if you want, and since you don't have much to lose set your loss rate on MyFitnessPal to lose 0.5- 1 pound a week and eat the calories suggested it will be more than 1200-1400 calories I believe, and eat back at lest half of your workout burned calories.
Food labels can underestimate or overestimate by 20%, and if you've been gaining weight it's because you're eating more Calories than you think. Good luck.0
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 392.9K Introduce Yourself
- 43.7K Getting Started
- 260.1K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.8K Food and Nutrition
- 47.4K Recipes
- 232.5K Fitness and Exercise
- 415 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.5K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.9K Motivation and Support
- 8K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.3K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.6K MyFitnessPal Information
- 23 News and Announcements
- 1.1K Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.5K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions