Stopped drinking every night and started eating very healthy and GAINING weight :(
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Your weight is an output of you behavior - specifically your caloric intake and output. If you gain weight (bodyfat) then you are eating more calories than you need and your body converts this to fat - stored energy.
Treat this as you would a financial budget - balancing your checkbook. Log EVERYTHING you eat. Weight everything in the beginning so you narrow down the possibility of error. Do this for a few weeks and see if that changes. Look to those who have been successful with this - most diaries are open.
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Girl. Track your calories correctly. You have to weigh your veggies (or log them), and log your weekends and wine. You're eating at maintenance my friend. I know it's stinky. But ya gotta eat less.24
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It sounds like you aren't weighing your food to get correct calories. I think it can't be overstated that you need to weigh your foods, not just scan the bar code or measure with cups and spoons. That method will easily give you hundreds of calories you aren't accounting for.5
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so the only protein you are getting is in the 3 eggs a day? As others have said, you're getting too many calories somewhere, sometime.
eating "healthy" doesn't mean you'll lose weight, and your meals don't actually look all that healthy to me. No chicken, tofu, or beans? No fruit? the only fat you get is from the half avocado?
I'd suggest losing the alcohol all together and figuring out a more balanced meal plan within your targeted calorie range.5 -
Probably too many dang seeds and crap.29
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You gotta be honest with yourself, sister. Like the others have said, log everything and log it accurately. If you don't have a food scale, go get one. Use measuring cups and spoons. Try it every day for at least, say, a month and you will see where the calories add up. For the longest time I was "behaving" during the week but would blow it all on the weekend. I assumed that because I was good 5/7 days and worked out a lot, that I would be okay. But then I started logging what I consumed on weekends and it blew my mind how many calories are in wine and beer and desserts when I was really honest. And yes - nuts, oils and healthy fats are good for you in moderation, but if you're not measuring them accurately, you could be consuming twice as many calories as you think you are.
TLDR: Measure your food with a food scale, measuring cups and measuring spoons and log ALL THE THINGS.9 -
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kaitlynb92 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »FoodieMotion wrote: »I notice you don't eat breakfast and your lunch is low calorie too. Your dinner I can't tell as you haven't put quantities and personally I don't think you are eating enough.
At 112lbs on your typical height/weight chart you would be considered underweight at 5'7" in height.
small frame 123-136
medium frame 133-147
large frame 143-163
Obviously there are deviations from this where athletes and bodybuilders are concerned but maybe opening up your diary would make it clearer as there are people on here much more experienced at this than me who can probably help with a bit more info.
OP is 147lbs now they were 112lbs that's the problem
So OP is now a healthy weight. I don't see what the problem is.
Except that she hasn't mentioned what her goal weight is. Or what her other goals are.
Regardless... the imprecision in her tracking of her intake is going to be a major impediment in losing weight.
I am not a healthy weight in the slightest, actually. 147lbs is not an unhealthy weight in general - BUT, I've gotten to that weight by drinking wine, eating fast food, and not working out enough. If I had gotten to this weight by eating right and exercising, you would be correct in saying that. My goal weight is to get back around 120 lbs or even just to lose the fat and tone up, regardless what the number weight may be.
You may not be a healthy condition, shape, or fitness, but you are a healthy size.
First, focus on your health. 120 is borderline underweight. Whereas even at 147 you have quite a bit of headroom before being overweight.
You've mentioned just completing school, how old are you. If you're under 25, your perception of what a healthy body size/shape as an adult has not yet fully formed.
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stanmann571 wrote: »kaitlynb92 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »FoodieMotion wrote: »I notice you don't eat breakfast and your lunch is low calorie too. Your dinner I can't tell as you haven't put quantities and personally I don't think you are eating enough.
At 112lbs on your typical height/weight chart you would be considered underweight at 5'7" in height.
small frame 123-136
medium frame 133-147
large frame 143-163
Obviously there are deviations from this where athletes and bodybuilders are concerned but maybe opening up your diary would make it clearer as there are people on here much more experienced at this than me who can probably help with a bit more info.
OP is 147lbs now they were 112lbs that's the problem
So OP is now a healthy weight. I don't see what the problem is.
Except that she hasn't mentioned what her goal weight is. Or what her other goals are.
Regardless... the imprecision in her tracking of her intake is going to be a major impediment in losing weight.
I am not a healthy weight in the slightest, actually. 147lbs is not an unhealthy weight in general - BUT, I've gotten to that weight by drinking wine, eating fast food, and not working out enough. If I had gotten to this weight by eating right and exercising, you would be correct in saying that. My goal weight is to get back around 120 lbs or even just to lose the fat and tone up, regardless what the number weight may be.
You may not be a healthy condition, shape, or fitness, but you are a healthy size.
First, focus on your health. 120 is borderline underweight. Whereas even at 147 you have quite a bit of headroom before being overweight.
You've mentioned just completing school, how old are you. If you're under 25, your perception of what a healthy body size/shape as an adult has not yet fully formed.
I'm really more so interested in losing fat and toning up - the number is more ingrained in my mind since it was the last time I felt fit and healthy. But yeah, feeling fit is more important to me than the number. I am 25 - by school, I mean an extremely intensive 9 weeks coding bootcamp. That is where I stopped taking care of myself and dedicating every second to coding, which is where I started the weight gain
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kaitlynb92 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »FoodieMotion wrote: »I notice you don't eat breakfast and your lunch is low calorie too. Your dinner I can't tell as you haven't put quantities and personally I don't think you are eating enough.
At 112lbs on your typical height/weight chart you would be considered underweight at 5'7" in height.
small frame 123-136
medium frame 133-147
large frame 143-163
Obviously there are deviations from this where athletes and bodybuilders are concerned but maybe opening up your diary would make it clearer as there are people on here much more experienced at this than me who can probably help with a bit more info.
OP is 147lbs now they were 112lbs that's the problem
So OP is now a healthy weight. I don't see what the problem is.
Except that she hasn't mentioned what her goal weight is. Or what her other goals are.
Regardless... the imprecision in her tracking of her intake is going to be a major impediment in losing weight.
I am not a healthy weight in the slightest, actually. 147lbs is not an unhealthy weight in general - BUT, I've gotten to that weight by drinking wine, eating fast food, and not working out enough. If I had gotten to this weight by eating right and exercising, you would be correct in saying that. My goal weight is to get back around 120 lbs or even just to lose the fat and tone up, regardless what the number weight may be.
120 is going to be on the verge of underweight. Just because you were underweight before doesn't make it a good idea again.
So yes, you *are* at a healthy weight, but you're comparing it to your underweight past self, and that's why you're thinking you're unhealthy.
May be time to pursue a recomp instead.15 -
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I'm going to sound like part of a broken record here, but the reality is you are eating too much. "Healthy" still adds up, and one or two meals on the weekend can completely undo an entire week's worth of 'work' (and then some).
Here's the hard truth - you became sedentary from being more active. This has a HUGE impact on your body's needs (even though your stomach may not agree for quite some time). I never had to worry too much about my weight until, in my early 30's I got a desk job. I didn't change anything else about my lifestyle as I was pretty "healthy" to begin with. I gained close to 40 pounds in about a year, maybe 2.
I tried what you've been doing - eating "healthier," eating out less, cutting back on soda and fast food - because, in the past, that was all I needed to do to get my weight back in check. All of a sudden, that didn't work. AT ALL.
The hard truth was I needed to be more strict. I needed to correctly weigh and track everything. Yes, weigh, not measure. I needed to track (and be honest about!) my eating out. I needed to include all my snacks, sauces, dressings, oils, seeds, or dabs or sprinkles of this or that. It is SHOCKING how quick those little things add up to an insane number of calories!!!
I lost half of the weight I had gained by doing that, then I decided to focus more on getting fit again and working on getting into race shape as my racing was starting to take off a bit at that point. I put some pounds back on, but kept tracking and the weight was still slowly coming off. An injury last year, when I chose not to track while dealing with the stress of trying to keep my leg attached to my body, and I put 10 pounds back on. Now, I'm back to working out hard again, and am recomping my body, with a very, very, very slow weight loss.
I STILL have to track every calorie or I will overeat (at least if I want to keep losing the body fat). I still have a desk job M-F, and that still means my body needs a lot less than it wants.
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kaitlynb92 wrote: »jasondjulian wrote: »Interesting.. so you don't actually EAT breakfast.
That's a lot of supplements... are you really sure those are all needed? Are you deficient in any of those areas?
You are clearly over-consuming. I'd bet it's the weekend drinking.. if you are used to 6-8oz glasses you are probably likely to over indulge on the weekends.. there are A METRIC CRAP LOAD of calories in 8oz of most wines. Each glass could be 250 calories... even at half your old volume, those 3-4 drinks could add up to 1000 extra calories in one go. Do that both weekend days, 2000+ calories on top of eating, there goes your 3500 calorie deficit to lose the 1lb/wk (if those are your goals).
Also, keep in mind that a crap load of vegetables can have a lot of calories too.. are these cooked in any oils or butter?
You've got a lot of WHAT you eat, but it doesn't seem like you are tracking HOW MUCH. That is what matters. Just because a food is thought of as "healthy" doesn't mean you can eat unlimited amounts of it.
Oranges are good for you, a 5lb bag of oranges is not. Extreme example, but you get the jist.
Sorry - I didn't realize I forgot to list breakfast. I actually eat breakfast every day - oatmeal with 1/2 cup strawberries, hemp seeds, chia seeds, flax seeds, and one hard boiled egg.
As for the calorie intake of wine on weekends, you're absolutely right. I guess I was blindly hoping weekends wouldn't affect the week lol. Thank you for putting that into perspective - that makes a lot of sense.
I do track how much I eat, and often scan the bar code on food to make sure its as accurate as possible. Each meal is within a normal range, equalling up to about a 1200 calorie day (but now that I have better perspective of weekends, my weekend calorie intake is a lot more still).
On this point, you need a food scale. Weekdays and Weekends.5 -
kaitlynb92 wrote: »I do track my calories most of the time! For the better part of January, I was eating a ton of healthy food, but vegetables that didn't have a lot of calories so although I was filling up at every meal, I was only eating a calorie amount of around 900-1000 calories a day. I understand that my body probably went into starvation mode and held the fat (even though I wasn't trying to eat that little calories, I was actually eating a lot - just low cal veggies I guess). So since then, I've been eating about 1200 calories a day.
Yes, you guys are totally right, I definitely do consume way more calories on weekends with the wine. If cutting out alcohol completely is what I need to do, I'm happy to - I just didn't realize 2 days of wine could catch up to me so fast ahah.
And thank you for the tip spartanhollis! Sorry - not sure how to tag you on this. I have heard of that method before but never looked into it. I will do that tonight!
I see a couple people here saying to eat less - is this referring to weekends or weekdays? I definitely agree I can cut some calories on the weekends but if I eat any less on weekdays, I'll be going back under 1200 which I understand is bad.
At any rate, wow thank you so much everyone! I was not expecting so many responses - truly appreciated!
1200 is a default minimum. This number is fine for elderly and sedentary or petite and sedentary. But you should be able to lose weight eating more than this. Because you are close to goal expect about 1/2 pound a week weight loss. 1/2 pound is just a 250 calorie deficit......too much weekend wine can definitely wipe that out.
Starvation mode is not really a thing...........http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/761810/the-starvation-mode-myth-again/p1
What does happen when you diet aggressively is not holding onto fat, but using a larger % of lean muscle mass for fuel instead. If you want to lower your body fat %, aggressive dieting isn't the best choice.8 -
kaitlynb92 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »kaitlynb92 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »FoodieMotion wrote: »I notice you don't eat breakfast and your lunch is low calorie too. Your dinner I can't tell as you haven't put quantities and personally I don't think you are eating enough.
At 112lbs on your typical height/weight chart you would be considered underweight at 5'7" in height.
small frame 123-136
medium frame 133-147
large frame 143-163
Obviously there are deviations from this where athletes and bodybuilders are concerned but maybe opening up your diary would make it clearer as there are people on here much more experienced at this than me who can probably help with a bit more info.
OP is 147lbs now they were 112lbs that's the problem
So OP is now a healthy weight. I don't see what the problem is.
Except that she hasn't mentioned what her goal weight is. Or what her other goals are.
Regardless... the imprecision in her tracking of her intake is going to be a major impediment in losing weight.
I am not a healthy weight in the slightest, actually. 147lbs is not an unhealthy weight in general - BUT, I've gotten to that weight by drinking wine, eating fast food, and not working out enough. If I had gotten to this weight by eating right and exercising, you would be correct in saying that. My goal weight is to get back around 120 lbs or even just to lose the fat and tone up, regardless what the number weight may be.
You may not be a healthy condition, shape, or fitness, but you are a healthy size.
First, focus on your health. 120 is borderline underweight. Whereas even at 147 you have quite a bit of headroom before being overweight.
You've mentioned just completing school, how old are you. If you're under 25, your perception of what a healthy body size/shape as an adult has not yet fully formed.
I'm really more so interested in losing fat and toning up - the number is more ingrained in my mind since it was the last time I felt fit and healthy. But yeah, feeling fit is more important to me than the number. I am 25 - by school, I mean an extremely intensive 9 weeks coding bootcamp. That is where I stopped taking care of myself and dedicating every second to coding, which is where I started the weight gain
You need a very small deficit, strength training and adequate protein in your diet, time and patience to for fat loss and 'toning' up.
I would readdress your goals and what exactly you need to be doing to reach those goals. You are very young, have plenty of time to work on getting aesthetics you want without doing aggressive calorie deficits etc.
Eta: Adding in info for recomp.. create you a very small deficit along side this process.
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10177803/recomposition-maintaining-weight-while-losing-fat/p1
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10332083/which-lifting-program-is-the-best-for-you/p17 -
kaitlynb92 wrote: »I'm really more so interested in losing fat and toning up - the number is more ingrained in my mind since it was the last time I felt fit and healthy. But yeah, feeling fit is more important to me than the number. I am 25 - by school, I mean an extremely intensive 9 weeks coding bootcamp. That is where I stopped taking care of myself and dedicating every second to coding, which is where I started the weight gain
While we're clarifying things to help you out, "toning" and "toning up" aren't really things like you may think they are either. A carry-over from the aerobics craziness that was the 1980s.
Basically, losing body fat to allow the muscles to be more defined and give you a "harder" appearance is what you're thinking of. Lift weights (heavy!) and work towards reducing body fat % (which does not necessarily mean lose body weight) will achieve that.
And no, lifting heavy weights will not turn you into She-Hulk ready for the bodybuilding competition.11 -
stanmann571 wrote: »kaitlynb92 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »FoodieMotion wrote: »I notice you don't eat breakfast and your lunch is low calorie too. Your dinner I can't tell as you haven't put quantities and personally I don't think you are eating enough.
At 112lbs on your typical height/weight chart you would be considered underweight at 5'7" in height.
small frame 123-136
medium frame 133-147
large frame 143-163
Obviously there are deviations from this where athletes and bodybuilders are concerned but maybe opening up your diary would make it clearer as there are people on here much more experienced at this than me who can probably help with a bit more info.
OP is 147lbs now they were 112lbs that's the problem
So OP is now a healthy weight. I don't see what the problem is.
Except that she hasn't mentioned what her goal weight is. Or what her other goals are.
Regardless... the imprecision in her tracking of her intake is going to be a major impediment in losing weight.
I am not a healthy weight in the slightest, actually. 147lbs is not an unhealthy weight in general - BUT, I've gotten to that weight by drinking wine, eating fast food, and not working out enough. If I had gotten to this weight by eating right and exercising, you would be correct in saying that. My goal weight is to get back around 120 lbs or even just to lose the fat and tone up, regardless what the number weight may be.
You may not be a healthy condition, shape, or fitness, but you are a healthy size.
First, focus on your health. 120 is borderline underweight. Whereas even at 147 you have quite a bit of headroom before being overweight.
You've mentioned just completing school, how old are you. If you're under 25, your perception of what a healthy body size/shape as an adult has not yet fully formed.
This. You are a healthy weight. You might want to look into recomposition instead (there is a thread about it in the maintenance forum) to lose fat and gain muscle. Or do some cutting and bulking cycles. Either way, you're going to have to exercise if you're not happy with how you look at your weight (and by that I mean doing some strength training). What you ate to get where you are really has nothing to do with your body composition (although not eating enough protein isn't going to help you either).
About you gaining weight - could be water retention, could be indeed eating too much oatmeal, rice, seeds etc (I never eat them - calories add up way too fast for something that doesn't even taste good).3 -
Your goals are worth re-examining.
Being at the bottom of a healthy weight or below does not make you "unfat and toned"
If you want to be "unfat and toned" you may want to start a thread stating your current condition and asking for advice on how to build additional muscle without necessarily losing weight or only losing a little bit of weight.. as opposed to aiming for minimum caloric intake and 2 pounds a week loss...4 -
As others mentioned it seems you're possibly eating at maintenance if you're weight isn't increasing some more and it's staying the same. Invest in a food scale if you don't have it, and track your calories. I'd recommend you continue to eat at maintenance and focus not on losing weight but maintaining your current weight, and starting a progressive strength training workout. Body recomposition is what you need to do. Good luck!!1
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