Oh no 😭

dwills1507

I'm a former college athlete who is trying to get back into top shape. I started about a month and a half ago after my vacation. I weighed in at 202 the most I've ever weighed. I started ordering meal prep from this guy drink green smoothies, drinking my water and I would start and end my day with apple cider vinegar, grapefruit juice and honey. My workout consisted of weightlifting, swimming, boxing, running. I took my before pics. I hate the scale first of all. But I would occasionally step on the scale and see that the scale would say I was only 2-3lbs down. I wasnt happy about that especially because I've been feeling great. I asked my friend who is a trainer and he told me to continue doing what I'm doing and to stay consistent because losing inches is much more important than what the scale says. Im cool with that. So I've took out boxing, added spin class, 2 mile run, boxing. Fast forward to the month of August. I went to Chicago a few weeks ago. This past weekend my college roommate came to town and it was literally nothing but eating and drinking. Now on the weekends I was still doing what I was supposed to do but I just started to hangout more. I stepped on the scale and wow, it says 206. So I decided to take a pic and forget what the scale says. Yes....it definitely looks like I picked up some weight. My stomach pokes out further now than before. Soooooo am I really a month and a half in and I have to start all over again because I decided to hangout some? WOW!

AnvilHead

I see a lot of references to green smoothies, drinking water, apple cider vinegar drinks and workouts, but no talk about what really matters - your calorie intake.

Have MFP set a calorie goal for you, get a food scale, track/log your food accurately and stick to your calorie goal. Eat a reasonable diet consisting of foods you enjoy within that calorie goal. The exercise will help, but you can't outrun your fork. And get rid of the apple cider vinegar concoction - unless you really like drinking it, it isn't doing a bit of good for anything. You lose weight by consuming less calories than you expend.

As to the scale reading, some of it could be fat gain but a lot of it could also be water weight and extra food still in your digestive tract. Weight fluctuates for a lot of different reasons: https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10683010/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-fluctuations/p1

kshama2001

While you may have a little extra water weight going on right now from your weekend, the bottom line is that a month and a half ago you were 202 pounds and today you are 206. So what you've been doing isn't working.

In your post I don't see anything about calories or a calorie deficit. All the ACV in the world won't help you unless you are also in a calorie deficit.

There are mistakes that people commonly make that cause them to not lose weight that we might be able to spot if you change your Diary Sharing settings to Public: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings

Millicent3015

You don't have to start all over again, because there's really no stopping, there's picking up where you left off, but maybe with a more balanced diet than you seem to have at the moment. Smoothies will fill you up, but actually eating the fruit and veg used to make them will fill you up for longer. You're human and you will have occasions where you eat differently, and then resume your normal healthy diet. If your diet is mainly liquid it won't teach you how to eat more nutritionally, and it'll get boring, so maybe start planning, prepping and making your own nutritious meals rather than relying on smoothies and faddy 'remedies' like ACV to get your weight down.

dwills1507

kshama2001 wrote: »

While you may have a little extra water weight going on right now from your weekend, the bottom line is that a month and a half ago you were 202 pounds and today you are 206. So what you've been doing isn't working.

In your post I don't see anything about calories or a calorie deficit. All the ACV in the world won't help you unless you are also in a calorie deficit.

There are mistakes that people commonly make that cause them to not lose weight that we might be able to spot if you change your Diary Sharing settings to Public: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings

Explain calorie deficit in the most simple terms please?

kimny72

dwills1507 wrote: »

kshama2001 wrote: »

While you may have a little extra water weight going on right now from your weekend, the bottom line is that a month and a half ago you were 202 pounds and today you are 206. So what you've been doing isn't working.

In your post I don't see anything about calories or a calorie deficit. All the ACV in the world won't help you unless you are also in a calorie deficit.

There are mistakes that people commonly make that cause them to not lose weight that we might be able to spot if you change your Diary Sharing settings to Public: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings

Explain calorie deficit in the most simple terms please?

A calorie deficit means you have to eat less calories than your body uses in order to lose weight. If you fill out your profile and set your goal to lose 1 lb per week , MFP will give you a calorie goal that has you at a deficit (it can only estimate, so after 4-6 weeks you might have to tweak the number based on your results ).

Regardless of how, what, or when you eat, the calorie deficit is how you lose weight.

lynn_glenmont

dwills1507 wrote: »

kshama2001 wrote: »

While you may have a little extra water weight going on right now from your weekend, the bottom line is that a month and a half ago you were 202 pounds and today you are 206. So what you've been doing isn't working.

In your post I don't see anything about calories or a calorie deficit. All the ACV in the world won't help you unless you are also in a calorie deficit.

There are mistakes that people commonly make that cause them to not lose weight that we might be able to spot if you change your Diary Sharing settings to Public: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings

Explain calorie deficit in the most simple terms please?

Calories are a measure of energy.

Your body uses energy (calories) throughout the day, for everything from keeping all your internal systems (digestion, circulation, respiration, immune, reproductive, brain function, etc.) running, to walking from the bedroom to the bathroom to the kitchen to the car etc., to doing your workouts.

Food and some drinks contain energy (calories).

If the calories you take in from food and drinks is less than the calories your body uses throughout the day (or over any time period for which you want to compare in-take and out-go), you are in a calorie deficit. Your body will have to tap its stored energy, which can be found in glycogen, fat, and muscle. (Well, it can also be found in your organs, but that's a very bad situation if your body is breaking down its organ for energy to keep you alive. Kind of self-defeating.)

Psychgrrl

Since MFP includes regular daily activity (the “sedentary,” “lightly active,” etc. setting) but not intentional exercise, you’ll want to log those boxing, lifting, swimming, etc.) and eat back a portion of those calories as well. You can log them by linking a fitness tracker (I link my Garmin) or by using the MFP exercise database. Just be aware, if you choose the latter, that many folks find it overestimates the calorie burn. For starters, many folks eat back about half of their exercise calories.

kshama2001

dwills1507 wrote: »

kshama2001 wrote: »

While you may have a little extra water weight going on right now from your weekend, the bottom line is that a month and a half ago you were 202 pounds and today you are 206. So what you've been doing isn't working.

In your post I don't see anything about calories or a calorie deficit. All the ACV in the world won't help you unless you are also in a calorie deficit.

There are mistakes that people commonly make that cause them to not lose weight that we might be able to spot if you change your Diary Sharing settings to Public: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings

Explain calorie deficit in the most simple terms please?

You create a calorie deficit when you eat fewer calories than you burn. Most people burn the majority of their daily calories just by being alive and moving around. If you exercise, you burn additional calories.

Say the amount of calories you need to maintain your weight is 2000 per day. In order to lose a pound a week, you need to create a daily calorie deficit of 500 calories. (500 calories x 7 days per week = 3500 calories = 1 pound.)

If you were to put in your stats into MFP and tell it you want to lose a pound a week, the number of calories it gives you to eat per day will be a 500 calorie deficit. You do this here: https://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/change_goals_guided

Since you didn't lose any weight, you weren't in a calorie deficit. Have you been tracking your food this past 6 weeks? If so, how were you measuring your food?

jennifer_417

It's all about the calories. Eat fewer than you burn, and you'll lose weight. You don't need smoothies, fancy prepped meals, or ACV.