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evolving_fish

Hello MFP friends! So I have been struggling with losing weight the past couple weeks. Here are a couple of highlights to share my journey.

-I (23 yo female) just graduated college and have struggled to lose weight for a while. I am currently working with a personal trainer who advised me to track my macros (113 protein, 150 carbs, 50 fat) and weigh all my food so that I track accurately. I would say I am eating 1500 or less per day except for Fridays. Some days the macros are a little off from my goal but I usually stay under my calorie goal.
-I work with my personal trainer 3 times a week and the workout generally consists of weights, endurance, and resistance training - I have been training with a PT for 4 weeks now and so far only manage to lose 2 lbs but the 3 weeks I have weighed exactly the same
-I have a Fitbit and I reach 10,000 steps a day - I work a sedentary job but I try jogging in place about every two hours to reach 1,000 - 2,000 steps each time.
- A few years ago, I did 1,200 calories a day excluding Fridays and lost weight successfully until college life caught me again and I gained the weight back, with a few extra pounds. I was not sure if maybe I should go back to doing 1,200 calories a day.
- I have never weighed more than 200 lbs

Any advice to help a poor soul that has been struggling to lose the last 50 lbs? Has anyone experienced the same problem and mind sharing with me what you did? Please and thank you!

ceiswyn

What's your height and weight?

It sounds like you've just started a new training programme within the last month; that can cause fluid retention, which would make it look as if you weren't losing weight.

Your logging generally looks pretty tight, although you seem to be eating a lot of processed foods and takeaways, which depending on the individual server may be made differently from, and contain more calories than, the 'official' listing.

evolving_fish

@ceiswyn ; my height is 5'4, weight is 184

Tacklewasher

evolving_fish wrote: »

Any advice to help a poor soul that has been struggling to lose the last 50 lbs? Has anyone experienced the same problem and mind sharing with me what you did? Please and thank you!

I think the best advice is to be patient. Give the program (MFP and your workouts) more than 3 weeks before considering making changes. See what your weight does over a couple of months.

lgfrie

There's nothing wrong with the macros your trainer provided but it might be better to nail down a calorie target and for now just focus on hitting that one number religiously, day after day. The weight will come off.

Go to the MFP goals tool, tell it how many pounds you wanna lose each week, give it your height, weight, etc., and it'll spit out a calorie number. Just eat that amt and no more, and no less, and you will lose that amount of weight. That tool has been very accurate for me, down to within 2 pounds accuracy when measured against my scale, after losing almost 50. I think you can trust that tool. It will help you get the weight loss you want.

Good luck.

quiksylver296

http://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations

jjpptt2

A couple of things jump out at me...

First, be patient. 10x as patient as you think you should be... 100x more patient than you want to be. There's no way around it... this is a slow process. The sooner you come to terms with that, the better off you'll be.

Second, what's the deal with Friday? It's very possible to make small strides every day, then completely undo those small strides in 1 day. I'm not saying that is or isn't happening for you, but it is important that you know don't discount the role Friday plays in the big picture.

callsitlikeiseeit

heybales

evolving_fish wrote: »

Hello MFP friends! So I have been struggling with losing weight the past couple weeks. Here are a couple of highlights to share my journey.

-I (23 yo female) just graduated college and have struggled to lose weight for a while. I am currently working with a personal trainer who advised me to track my macros (113 protein, 150 carbs, 50 fat) and weigh all my food so that I track accurately. I would say I am eating 1500 or less per day except for Fridays. Some days the macros are a little off from my goal but I usually stay under my calorie goal.
-I work with my personal trainer 3 times a week and the workout generally consists of weights, endurance, and resistance training - I have been training with a PT for 4 weeks now and so far only manage to lose 2 lbs but the 3 weeks I have weighed exactly the same
-I have a Fitbit and I reach 10,000 steps a day - I work a sedentary job but I try jogging in place about every two hours to reach 1,000 - 2,000 steps each time.
- A few years ago, I did 1,200 calories a day excluding Fridays and lost weight successfully until college life caught me again and I gained the weight back, with a few extra pounds. I was not sure if maybe I should go back to doing 1,200 calories a day.
- I have never weighed more than 200 lbs

Any advice to help a poor soul that has been struggling to lose the last 50 lbs? Has anyone experienced the same problem and mind sharing with me what you did? Please and thank you!

With that many steps from daily activity - if your stride length setting is off by small % - the difference in distance and calories given could be decent sized.

Ever walked a known distance 1/2 - 1 mile at about 2 mph to see if the Fitbit gave correct distance?
That is about avg daily pace you'd want the setting for - it'll ramp up or down depending on your actual stride - but needs to start in the middle.

If that jogging is kicking in the HR-based calorie burn (and it likely is) - it could easily be the most inflated part of the calorie burn calculation.
If it's using the distance-based calorie burn calc, those impacts from jogging in place may or may not be equal to a distance that effort would normally cause.

With 50 lbs to go - you have your settings at 1.5 lbs weekly?
You may even be at 1 lb, which is fine too.

1200 is bare minimum to usually get your required nutrients in for average Sedentary female.
You aren't Sedentary, and perhaps you don't want to be average anyway and better than minimum.

Besides, if a reduction of only 300 calories was actually the difference between losing weight and not losing weight - you should see only a change of 1 lb every 2 weeks.

It's likely your normal monthly hormone changes would hide that fact until you had 6-8 weeks of data on a weight trending app.

If you saw more than that - then you corrected something else that is really having an effect.

But I'm betting your Fitbit, even after a stride length correction if needed - is saying you are burning decently more than 2000 calories daily.

Cat_A_89

1500 calories should put you in a decent deficit. Im 5'2 186/87 and im at 1400 calories. I workout 30 mins 6 days a week one day cardio one day strength. I had a small plateau for a little over 2 weeks once I started working out on the regular and have now dropped around a poind and a half in the last two days. Like mentioned it could be water retention. Its a big problem for especially us females with our stupid hormones lol. Salty food can also cause it. Muscles retain water when healing so if your workouts are pretty intense it can happen.
Do you drink enough water everyday?

kshama2001

jjpptt2 wrote: »

A couple of things jump out at me...

First, be patient. 10x as patient as you think you should be... 100x more patient than you want to be. There's no way around it... this is a slow process. The sooner you come to terms with that, the better off you'll be.

Second, what's the deal with Friday? It's very possible to make small strides every day, then completely undo those small strides in 1 day. I'm not saying that is or isn't happening for you, but it is important that you know don't discount the role Friday plays in the big picture.

Yes, what's the deal with Fridays? I see nothing logged the last three Fridays or anything for today yet.

If Fridays are a "cheat day" you could easily be wiping out the deficit you worked hard to create the other 6 days. I know I sure could!

igutt

Try intermittent fasting it’ll help a little with the fat loss

mathandcats

You do not need to do intermittent fasting to lose weight.

My guess is that you are overindulging on Fridays and counteracting the rest of the week. Log every day. If you want to eat more on Fridays, either allow it to be a maintenance day, or eat less throughout the week to save calories for Friday.

lynn_glenmont

igutt wrote: »

Try intermittent fasting it’ll help a little with the fat loss

Meal timing is pretty much immaterial.

LKArgh

Are you sure about your logging? Can you open your diary?

Cahgetsfit

kshama2001 wrote: »

jjpptt2 wrote: »

A couple of things jump out at me...

First, be patient. 10x as patient as you think you should be... 100x more patient than you want to be. There's no way around it... this is a slow process. The sooner you come to terms with that, the better off you'll be.

Second, what's the deal with Friday? It's very possible to make small strides every day, then completely undo those small strides in 1 day. I'm not saying that is or isn't happening for you, but it is important that you know don't discount the role Friday plays in the big picture.

Yes, what's the deal with Fridays? I see nothing logged the last three Fridays or anything for today yet.

If Fridays are a "cheat day" you could easily be wiping out the deficit you worked hard to create the other 6 days. I know I sure could!

This. I can easily eat the week's worth of deficit budget in one day if you let me. What I do instead is eat at maintenance on one day of the week. That way i'm still in an overall deficit for the entire week.

ceiswyn

I didn't notice the cheat Fridays the first time I skimmed through the post. Yes, it's easy for cheat days to wipe out progress!

Start by logging your 'cheat' days. That should give you more accurate information.

cheryldumais

WinoGelato

igutt wrote: »

Try intermittent fasting it’ll help a little with the fat loss

Only if it helps OP create a calorie deficit when she isn’t already. Since she said nothing of struggling with hunger or overeating in general I’m not sure why you feel IF would be particularly beneficial here?

WinoGelato

OP my advice is the same as others, be patient and log everything including your intake on Fridays. By missing an entire day’s worth of data each week it will be impossible to accurately troubleshoot your situation.