Zero progress

TammyGermiller

30 days in low carb. Watching my macros and exercising. I have joint issues so I do cardio pool 2xs a week pretty hard. This exhausts me. Recovering from cancer treatment from 3 years ago. So how much have I lost? NOTHING. I have been almost perfect with my eating. I am so disgusted. Need to lose at least 30 pounds. Yes, I am drinking water. Yes, I have tried keto. Yes, I have tried intermittent fasting. Nothing works. Any suggestions?

lulehlu

Use a food scale to help achieve a calorie deficit.

kimny72

TammyGermiller wrote: »

30 days in low carb. Watching my macros and exercising. I have joint issues so I do cardio pool 2xs a week pretty hard. This exhausts me. Recovering from cancer treatment from 3 years ago. So how much have I lost? NOTHING. I have been almost perfect with my eating. I am so disgusted. Need to lose at least 30 pounds. Yes, I am drinking water. Yes, I have tried keto. Yes, I have tried intermittent fasting. Nothing works. Any suggestions?

You mentioned carbs and a bunch of other stuff, but are you sticking to your calorie goal? Using a food scale for all solids food you possibly can? Double checking that the entries you are choosing in the database are accurate?

Check out the Most Helpful Posts threads pinned to the top of each forum, lots of great info there!

TammyGermiller

I have been coming in under the calories I was told to eat. I just can’t get to 1800 with the macros given to me. I will check out the posts. Thank you

rileysowner

TammyGermiller wrote: »

I have been coming in under the calories I was told to eat. I just can’t get to 1800 with the macros given to me. I will check out the posts. Thank you

For weight loss calories are king. Macros may help for satisfaction and perceived stomach fullness aiding in sticking to your calorie goal, but in themselves don't affect weight loss in significant ways.

Who gave you your macro guidelines and your calorie guidelines?

30 days is a good stretch of time and zero weight loss shows that you are not in a calorie deficit.

TrishSeren

TammyGermiller wrote: »

I have been coming in under the calories I was told to eat. I just can’t get to 1800 with the macros given to me. I will check out the posts. Thank you

Always, always use a food scale. It will open your eyes to how much you actually eat.

bosque1234

Good advice above here. My first thought was start measuring something other than carbs, too. I'm in a wheelchair, can't exercise much obviously. Doing it all with 1200 calories a day. 53 days, and I'm losing. You can too for sure.

lgfrie

Good advice above. My two cents: you've got some conceptual diet clutter going on - keto, macros, calories, etc etc. Clear the decks and simplify.

1. Put aside macros and other distractions for a while, and eat strictly to your calorie target using a scale to measure everything. Forget all the carb theories for a while; they only affect water retention, not fat loss, in any event. If you would love a slice of pizza, have one, same goes for pasta, a sub, whatever. Just eat what you like -- up to the calorie target and never beyond it, that's the key.

2. Lose weight for a month or two. You will lose weight if you do step 1.

3. Then, when you have a solid success under your belt, maybe take another look at macros if you feel that is important.

Panini911

what works is eating at a calorie deficit regularly over a long period of time. Keto, low carb, IF are way of eating that helps SOME people keep to the calorie deficit more easily but it's still the calorie deficit that leads to weight loss. (calorie deficit - eating/drinking fewer calories than your body burns).

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1399829/step-by-step-guide-to-losing-weight-with-myfitnesspal

a food scale is crucial for most. and while it seems lik ea no brainer thing a child can do, there is a learning curve. we all made lots of errors at the beginning and those can stall any progress.
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10634517/you-dont-use-a-food-scale/p1

However, if you have been working out a lot, your muscles may also be retaining water to repair themselves masking any losses.
http://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations/

TammyGermiller

Thank you

Panini911

Panini911 wrote: »

what works is eating at a calorie deficit regularly over a long period of time. Keto, low carb, IF are way of eating that helps SOME people keep to the calorie deficit more easily but it's still the calorie deficit that leads to weight loss. (calorie deficit - eating/drinking fewer calories than your body burns).

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1399829/step-by-step-guide-to-losing-weight-with-myfitnesspal

a food scale is crucial for most. and while it seems lik ea no brainer thing a child can do, there is a learning curve. we all made lots of errors at the beginning and those can stall any progress.
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10634517/you-dont-use-a-food-scale/p1

However, if you have been working out a lot, your muscles may also be retaining water to repair themselves masking any losses.
http://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations/

ok WHY was my post flagged?!?!? what am i missing?
hopefully an accidental slip of a finger...

paperpudding

oh my posts are woo ed all the time - even the most innocuous ones.

There are some woo happy and I'm sure flag happy readers here.

Maybe somebody skim read post (very skim read!! ) and thought your links were to advertising sites??

Panini911

paperpudding wrote: »

oh my posts are woo ed all the time - even the most innocuous ones.

There are some woo happy and I'm sure flag happy readers here.

Maybe somebody skim read post (very skim read!! ) and thought your links were to advertising sites??

woo i get it's an opinion. flagging means moderators have to check it!

TammyGermiller

Who the heck flagged? I don’t see a problem. Thank you for your response

SpeeGirl

One possibility not yet mentioned is that your personal metabolism is slower than the average guidelines given by MFP. Try re-calculating based on your current calories apparently being maintenance. (Subtract 250 calories if trying for .5 pounds a.week, etc.) They say metabolism rates usually only vary by ten or fifteen percent, but that's actually pretty significant, and the heavier you are the more off the calculations will get. For me I have to adjust down almost 20%, and I do weigh and measure foods.

Danp

Possible misunderstanding. Someone may have thought that flag was a way of marking the response for later reference like you'll 'flag' important emails.

smoofinator

lgfrie wrote: »

Good advice above. My two cents: you've got some conceptual diet clutter going on - keto, macros, calories, etc etc. Clear the decks and simplify.

1. Put aside macros and other distractions for a while, and eat strictly to your calorie target using a scale to measure everything. Forget all the carb theories for a while; they only affect water retention, not fat loss, in any event. If you would love a slice of pizza, have one, same goes for pasta, a sub, whatever. Just eat what you like -- up to the calorie target and never beyond it, that's the key.

2. Lose weight for a month or two. You will lose weight if you do step 1.

3. Then, when you have a solid success under your belt, maybe take another look at macros if you feel that is important.

^^^ This. x100.

MostlyWater

Use a tape measure instead of the scale to assess your progress.

paperpudding

I think most people will find scale readings more accurate way of tracking weight loss myself

Although, yes, one can also corroborate with other things: waist measurements, clothes fittings etc.

If OP has lost no weight, I doubt the other things would of changed.

shoebarb

You mention you are recovering from cancer. Is it possible that you are on a medication that is inhibiting weight loss?
As a fellow survivor, it has taken several years to get back on track for me.

kshama2001

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

TammyGermiller

Thank you all for your input. I changed my diary settings

Panini911

I am seeing mostly cups and teaspoon and "pieces" measurements in your diary for today as an example. for accurate measuring it's best to weigh and select appropriate weight based entry. ESPECIALLY with nuts and nut butter.

yirara

Tammy, I think the problem is really in your logging. You're nearly exclusively using cups and spoons.

How do you measure 1/4 cup of trail mix correctly? You can get a lot of it into a cup if you squeeze it in. Doesn't mean it has the number of calories of 1/4 cup of trail mix.

Or yesterday I see "2 Egg Cheese Omellette - 2 Egg Cheese Omellette, 1 cup" Is this something you did or that you chose from the database? First of all, how do you measure an omelette in a cup? And secondly, 2 larger eggs can easily be close to 200 calories. 100 calories of cheese is probably about 20 grams. Plus you'd need oil for the omelette.

Black Beans, 1 tbsp(s): it's not a lot of calories, but measuring something with a spoon that reaches out over the top of the spoon gives you more calories than an actual spoon-full. Thus you can pile a lot of beans onto that spoon that remain unaccounted for.

Homemade - Oatmeal Protein Cookie, 3 cookie: Did you make this cookie recipe? If not you don't know what went inside and how big they are.

There are a few days where you hardly logged anything. What happened at those days?

I know you want a simple explanation, and the simple explanation is that you're just not thorough enough with measuring. The second comment already urged you to get a food scale, and I have to repeat this. Use a food scale for a few weeks, look for proper entries in the database in grams, and log in grams.

If you cook something yourself then use the recipe builder or create an own menu. If you cook just for yourself for 3 days you could measure everything that goes into this meal and enter this information right into MPF while cooking. Then safe as a meal, delete the entries in your diary and go to your meals, find this dish there, and add 0.33 of it. Or you can also leave it in your diary and later divide all measurements by 3 (I usually do that for meals that are not worth repeating). On the other days I eat this again I chose 'copy from date', and the right portion size is right there.

If not only cooking for yourself you might need to guess a bit. Significant other takes 4 serving spoons of rice, you take 3. You know the dry rice weight from cooking and then divide the total by 7 and multiply by 3. I'm sure there are better ways but that's what I did when I didn't want to annoy my now ex with this. It worked. But first of all, get the logging right. You can do it

Ahanaz

Have you tried keto and IF together? Are you tracking macros? Electrolytes? Have you tried fat fasts to get fat adapted? You might need to look into Extended fasts?

Read the Obesity Code. It makes so much sense.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIuj-oMN-Fk

nutmegoreo

Ahanaz wrote: »

Have you tried keto and IF together? Are you tracking macros? Electrolytes? Have you tried fat fasts to get fat adapted? You might need to look into Extended fasts?

Read the Obesity Code. It makes so much sense.
<snip to remove the pile of Fung>

While IF and keto may help some people, it is not necessary. Being fat adapted is not necessary, and extended fasts are really not necessary.


OP, others have pointed out some great opportunities to tighten up your logging. When I am logging accurately, I lose weight as expected. I know it's frustrating to go so long without seeing results, but you can do it. If the exercise is new, it could create some water retention, this masks weight loss. As someone else mentioned, the cancer medications can also have an impact. Let us know how it goes, once you changed your logging for a couple weeks.

paperpudding

.Have you tried keto and IF together? Are you tracking macros? Electrolytes? Have you tried fat fasts to get fat adapted? You might need to look into Extended fasts?

Just when OP has been ( correctly) told to clear the clutter, she gets presented with even more clutter


No you do not need to do keto or IF or extended fasting or fat fasting or electrolyte or macro tracking - unless you want to.

You just need to accurately log your calories.

Danp

I'll ad my voice to the posts above addressing the volume logging (cups, teaspoons, etc). It's a very inaccurate way to log and you can find yourself eating far more calories than you think. Getting a scale and weighting everything will more than likely address the problems your experiencing.

I noticed something that I think worth noting. Be honest with your logging.

I noticed a few really strange entries where you logged very odd amounts 1.13 cups or 12.5 crackers to achieve perfectly rounded calories. It appears that you might be tweaking the amounts your logging in order to achieve a desired calorie total. Log the real values regardless of the calories they give you.

There were a few days (Friday stands out the most) where your logging appears incomplete. You need to log everything you eat to get an accurate picture. The good, the bad and the ugly, everything needs to get logged and accounted for.

I'm sure if you get a kitchen scale and start to log honestly, accurately and completely you'll start to see results.

ginamcmichael

TammyGermiller wrote: »

30 days in low carb. Watching my macros and exercising. I have joint issues so I do cardio pool 2xs a week pretty hard. This exhausts me. Recovering from cancer treatment from 3 years ago. So how much have I lost? NOTHING. I have been almost perfect with my eating. I am so disgusted. Need to lose at least 30 pounds. Yes, I am drinking water. Yes, I have tried keto. Yes, I have tried intermittent fasting. Nothing works. Any suggestions?

ginamcmichael

I am at 190 pounds maybe a little bit less I was running everyday almost every day with only one day off in between and lifting weights with a total of lifting weights and running 90 minutes 5 days a week maybe six days a week and I just started losing some weight after over a month and a half to 2 months. So don't worry you'll see everything soon! The truth is for many people you literally need to work out for 90 days 3 months until you really start to see anything substantial regularly. Even though you're working out try upping one more session to three days a week in the pool. And instead of weighting if you're having problems with weighing try 2/3 rule! The three lean meats turkey, chicken, fish on a regular plate small portion regular sized and the rest of the plate which is two-thirds of the plate is full of vegetables. If you have a sweet tooth fruit only! Or anything fruit-based.

lgfrie

A person says they want to get from this town to a neighboring one a few miles away, and is advised to build a jet airplane, breed a team of Alaskan sled dogs who can then tow the airplane to the starting location, and then pilot the plane to the neighboring town.

That is what telling someone, who's trying to nail down the basics of measuring food and eating to a calorie target, to try keto, IF, electrolytes, and fat fasting, entails.

What they really need to do is put on a pair of sneakers and walk to the next town. Nice and simple. No tricks. No gimmicks. Just walk.

Measure food properly. Count calories. Stop eating at MFP's suggested calorie target. Lose weight. It is that simple.