Am I not eating enough?

Cat_A_89

So I've started logging my food in late May and went from 225 to 189/188 since, im a 5'2 female aged 29. I tend to eat around 1000/1100 calories during the week and normally end up eating 1500 to sometimes 2000 on the weekend (my dad is home on the weekends and likes to cook high calorie foods lol)
I started working out 5/6 days a week recently with a mix of running and strength training but have not lost any weight for the last 2 or so weeks. I'm wondering if im not eating enough now that im exercising almost daily even though i eat more on weekends or are daily calories more important then weekly? I dont tend to eat back exercise calories as im not confident they are always accurate ( some days it gives me over 800 exercise calories)
Could I be retaining water? I dont think I've already built up that much muscle yet.
Help
Getting frustrated lol

MikePTY

Well there are two things:
1. You are not eating enough, especially if you are exercising. You need to be eating back at least some of your exercise calories. I understand that you may not be confident you are burning 800, but you are certainly burning more than 0.
2. This is not causing you to retain weight. Undereating has a whole host of negative side effects, but weight stall or gain is not one of them. Rather you are likely retaining additional water from exercise. Your muscles use this for repair. I retain a couple of pounds more water when I am exercising vs when I am not. So that is likely the cause of this.

You still need to eat more if you are exercising. Just not for the reason you are thinking.

Cat_A_89

MikePTY wrote: »

Well there are two things:
1. You are not eating enough, especially if you are exercising. You need to be eating back at least some of your exercise calories. I understand that you may not be confident you are burning 800, but you are certainly burning more than 0.
2. This is not causing you to retain weight. Undereating has a whole host of negative side effects, but weight stall or gain is not one of them. Rather you are likely retaining additional water from exercise. Your muscles use this for repair. I retain a couple of pounds more water when I am exercising vs when I am not. So that is likely the cause of this.

You still need to eat more if you are exercising. Just not for the reason you are thinking.

So should I be eating closer to 1500? I guess I have to overcome the whole if I eat less I'll lose more. I've recently started using protein powder as I know I dont get enough protein in the day especially now that im trying to build muscle. I still have close to 60 pounds to lose
Thats what I meant with retaining water from the workout not from the not eating enough

LyndaBSS

What did mfp give you for a calorie allotment?

divinehipster69

Cat_A_89 wrote: »

So I've started logging my food in late May and went from 225 to 189/188 since, im a 5'2 female aged 29. I tend to eat around 1000/1100 calories during the week and normally end up eating 1500 to sometimes 2000 on the weekend (my dad is home on the weekends and likes to cook high calorie foods lol)
I started working out 5/6 days a week recently with a mix of running and strength training but have not lost any weight for the last 2 or so weeks. I'm wondering if im not eating enough now that im exercising almost daily even though i eat more on weekends or are daily calories more important then weekly? I dont tend to eat back exercise calories as im not confident they are always accurate ( some days it gives me over 800 exercise calories)
Could I be retaining water? I dont think I've already built up that much muscle yet.
Help
Getting frustrated lol

It could be swelling from exercise, or bloating. Last time I started exercising again I stayed the same weight then a few weeks later I dropped weight quickly. I'd been lifting weights and using the treadmill at a high incline, my muscles ended up sore and swollen, but it went away. Also, if you've started exercise and haven't had a period yet it could just be bloat. My weight fluctuates a bit throughout the month, that's hidden weight loss from me before too. Honestly, people will say "if you don't eat enough you won't lose weight" but that's BS. Your maintenance calories will be lower when you lose weight, but that's normal, not the supposed starvation mode lmao. The Law of Conservation of Energy states that energy can't be magically created from nowhere. Fat is just stored energy. If you eat less calories than you burn your body won't magically create energy from nothing. That's just not possible. And for someone who's 5'2" you can keep your calories pretty low anyway. I'm 5'2" and at my goal weight finally, my TDEE is 1413. The last few lbs I had to cut my calories down to about 1000-1100 a day, or else progress would be so slow that I'd get discouraged. I ate that much starting out too and since I was so heavy I dropped 20 lbs in like a month or 2. As long as you get enough protein (70-80g protein for our height is fine for weight loss, kept my appetite down too) and take a multivitamin you should be ok.

Lastly, if you eat over your TDEE on some days you will gain a little, but then when you eat at a deficit later in the week it should come off again. Which sounds bad but like, if you're able to keep the 1000-1100 cals the rest of the week going from 1 cheat day at this point I wouldn't worry about it. When you get to a lower weight you might want to eat less on weekends, but since your maintenance calories are higher it shouldn't hurt you too much. I looked up your TDEE. You would need 1843 calories to maintain your current weight, 12899 calories per week without exercise. If you're eating 1100 calories a day on week days, and 2000 on weekends you would be in a weekly deficit of 3399, almost an lb of fat loss per week. Another thing you can do is track your measurements. If your weight isn't changing but you lose inches around your waist/hips then you're still making progress, especially if you had very little muscle to begin with. Though at some point your weight should drop anyway even if you're gaining muscle. If it doesn't after a few weeks you might want to invest in a food scale to make sure you're tracking things accurately.

https://tdeecalculator.net/
There's the calculator I used for that. The 'sedentary' option is accurate for me, even when I'm exercising it's only off by 100, but the 'light exercise' adds 250 calories.. Last time I chose 'light exercise' I put on weight. Being short sucks x'D

Strudders67

I'm also 5'2" and although I try to aim to be on target daily, I'm more interested in my weekly average figure as I don't exercise every day and I don't eat the same stuff every day.

Presumably you've already put your stats in to MFP and have a calorie target per day. Track your exercise in MFP as well and eat the majority of the calories given. What MFP gives for running (and walking) is pretty accurate, in my experience, if you know your speed. Strength training can be logged too, but it won't give you many calories.

I found that MFP's calories is more off-target when tracking time spent on exercise machines such as the cross-trainer and rowing machine, as speed and intensity vary so much from person to person.

After 6 weeks you can assess whether you're losing too fast or too slow and adjust if necessary.

WinoGelato

Finding an approach that is sustainable while losing AND easily transitions into maintenance is important to ensure long term success.

Losing weight comes from creating a sustained calorie deficit over time. So yes, less calories can lead to faster weight loss.... but with consequences. Cutting calories too low can lead to fatigue, sallow skin, brittle nails, hair loss and make it difficult to get adequate nutrition. Calories also fuel your overall activity level so often people who cut too low find they don’t have energy to keep up with their exercise routine or have enough energy to achieve a high NEAT through ancillary activity. What many of us strive for is a modest deficit, slightly slower rate of loss, to make the long term success more achievable.

For what it’s worth I’m also 5’2 and lost most of my weight eating b/w 1600-1900 cals per day. When I started I was Sedentary but I added exercise and walking and toward the end of losing weight my TDEE was around 2200-2300. That was easy for me to then transition into maintenance and keep up the activity to keep the weight off for several years. In the last year or so I’ve changed jobs and not had as much focus on activity, my weight has crept back up as a result so I’m tightening things up again to lose 5-10 lbs but applying same basic principles as before.

A wise rabbit used to say the winner is the one who eats the most and still loses the weight and I’ve always found that to be some of the most helpful advice offered.

1BlueAurora

You might have just hit a temporary little plateau. You've lost a good amount of weight in a short period of time, an average of 2.25 pounds a week which is a little faster than recommended by MFP. You should definitely eat back 50% to 75% of the exercise calories you've earned - it's factored in and you'll still lose weight. WARNING: I was losing 2 pounds a week for 4 months and I lost muscle tone in my arms despite some light weight lifting and lost a ton of hair. I slowed down to 1 pound a week, but it took almost a year to get my hair to stop dropping out. You're losing about 9 pounds a month, and 6 pounds a month would be 1.5 pounds a week. Perhaps try that for a while, keep drinking and eat more.