What am I doing wrong?
Options
Replies
-
sounds like you aren't weighing or even logging all your food - start there.3
-
-
Ok as others have said there is a lot take in here so I'll start off with the basics and then some strategies that will set you up for success.
First if you made all these changes at once then congrats you're doing what I and 90% of the others did in the beginning when we kept trying over and over again. Time to upgrade your status from beginner to lets get this *kitten* done! Start off by making 1-2 itty bitty tiny changes. Some examples: I'll go for a walk for at least 5mins I can walk more if I want however it must be for at least 5 mins. Do this for a week or two. Your mind will eventually trick you into staying out longer. Other example is weigh food. If the family is making food ask if you can be a part of it and help them by getting the ingredients for them and weigh them. You can ignore weighing spices. Meat, carbs, and veggies, etc always need to be weighed. (pro tip, you can create a Recipe for future use to make it easy to add to your list although you still need to weigh the food every time).
Now some things to remember, those calories on the treadmill are nice but those are to be left alone. Whether your using a fitbit, heart rate monitor, etc. 90% of your success will come from the food(calories) you eat. The other 10% will come from the gym/workouts. Food is for losing/gaining weight and working out is for sculpting it. Your body is like clay it can be shaped and molded you either add more clay (calorie surplus) or you take clay away (calorie restriction) and then you use a chisel (workouts) to define the overall look. There are no ways to pinpoint certain areas to lose fat faster.
Things to remember:
Eat less calories (figure out your tdee or use mfp estimations)
Don't eat back calories
your going to screw up it's part of the process
workouts are for shaping your body
Calories matter most then macros (define your goals)
Protein has been shown to help most out of macros with weightloss and it's needed for muscle gain.
You can lose weight and gain muscle at the same time (body recompisition).
MAKE ITTY BITTY TINY CHANGES
1 -
For the basics:
- Put your stats into MFP and pick sedentary to start, also set your tracker for sedentary. See how many calories per day it gives you and eat that.
- Use what your tracker gives you for exercise calories, not what the treadmill tells you
- Eat back 50% of calories burned. After a few weeks, adjust as needed. Also adjust your activity settings as needed
Now for the most important part:- Weigh ALL solid and semi solid foods (like peanut butter, mayo, and butter) and measure all liquids. Log everything that goes in your mouth
- If you are feeling fatigued, get thee to a doctor for a general work-up
- Most of your meals should be nutrient dense whole foods, minimally processed. Obviously, almost everyone has to compromise somewhere (for example I eat prepared lunch meats a lot on my sandwiches) but eating foods rather than supplements is generally a good idea.
I am seeing a lot of generalizations and guessing in your OP which usually means you are eating more than you think and burning less.
5 -
Hey, I'm sorry for my eventually bad english but it's not my mother language. And sorry if that's a long comment I really hope that you will read and I'm sure that will be helpful
I don't really think you are eating too much. I think that you can eat more in quantity if you start being smarter. I am a nutritionist and I often see that people's problem is that: they eat little but badly and exercise too much and that way they cant keep doing the diet for more than one mount and then they become desperate :'D It's not about the calories but the MACROS and the vitamins/minerals! then below I will list my general tips and advice to correct your meals. That's not medical advice because I should see your blood tests and hormonal analysis but I can swear to you that something will really change if you follow my advices. You should just change your nutritional habits FOR EVER. In the beginning it will be hard (I did that too when I was younger) but then you will never go back to your unhealthy habits. When I was little I was overweight and I always ate cheese, fried things...now my body got so used to a healthy diet, that I can't eat even a mouthful of fried or generally high-fat and processed foods, that makes me sick
General tips:
1) Stop intermittent fasting. It's not good if you are overweight and want to get lean, because you will need LOTS of energy (physical and mental) for that. It also doesnt basically work for everyone
2) You mostly eat processed foods. Stop eating protein bars, deli meats, protein drinks. A "beautiful body" derives primarily from good health. Good health is not just the sickness that you will develop when you will be old. It's also the energy (that's the key word!) that you have now. Processed foods are usually full of chemicals, refined sugars and salt, that aren't good for your methabolism (= convert food to energy and burn that!). EAT WHOLE FOODS!
Example of diet you may follow:
BREAKFAST: It's already quite good. I suggest to drink a large glass of water when you wake up better if with some lemon in it, it will help your body get rid of fat and bloating. I don't know what PB is but I would recommend: 1 Use protein low fat milk for the oatmeal like soy milk (without added sugars) to feel fuller all morning and dont eat too much "bad" fat 2 Dont eat too much fruit, like 60g banana and 70g of strawberries or raspberries would be perfect 3 Add 10g of dried fruit like almonds or hazelnut 4 Dosage for oatmeal: 70g oats
SNACK: one fresh fruit + 15g dried fruits
LUNCH: THATS BAAAD GIRL! The largest part of your meal should be made up of fresh vegetables, better if greens; cabbage is also reeeeally good for your health. If you don't like vegetables, you are not used to eat them, just go on the web and learn how to cook them with spices to make them yummy. If you want to eat meat, you should eat chicken or turkey (low fat meat), NEVER deli meat. I suggest you to avoid also cheese for a little bit of time; it's full of bad fats and doesnt help you with your goals; when you will get leaner and develop muscles, you can start to eat A LITTLE BIT of that again. Examples of lunch: a LARGE plate of vegetables + 120g chicken/200g legumes + 50/60g of whole/rye bread or 60g of brown rice + 1 tsp of olive oil to cook. If you have to eat outside you can cook in the morning and carry food with you in a box made for that
SNACK: 10g dark chocolate 85% + 125g yogurt low fat and no added sugars (better soy yogurt)
DINNER: if you want to eat what your family makes, make sure that you mostly take vegetables (that souldnt be cooked with oil, or cheese, or things like that), and protein (NOT cheese or deli meat) and a small portion of cereals. If your family isn't used to cook like that, just cook your stuff like: always LARGE plate of vegetables + 100g tofu or seitan, maybe cooked with some soy sauce and thurmeric (that's how i cook them to make them tasty) + 40g of whole bread or whole pasta + 1 tsp of olive oil to cook.
If you feel you need a dessert after dinner (not everyday) you can go for another yogurt like the ones I mentioned before, or warm up one cup of soy milk with some honey or stevia (NOT sugar) + eat ONE biscuit you like/10g of dark chocolate. Dont starve yourself! We are women I know sometimes we need a sweet hug :P
You can replace the protein portions that I suggested with: [(one time a week) 1 egg + 100g of egg whites only] or [(two times a week) 120g fish (NOT breaded fish or things like that. You should still see the form of the fish before you cook it :'D)]
That's a diet of almost 1700 kcal but as you see you would eat much more in quantity and variety than now.
Things that you shouldn't eat as "vegetables": potatoes (high in carbs, you can eat them sometimes instead of bread or rice), avocado (high in fat, you can eat 100g once a week).
Do not put too much salt, just try to put less and less everyday (but find the way to keep things tasty for you or you will binge).
You can freely add spices that are good for methabolism and maybe 2 tbsp of seeds like flax seeds or sunflower seeds.
DRINK WATER! At least one liter and a half.
Just start eating like that and you will see that your energy will boost and you will do your things better (and burn more calories). This also will help you develop muscles, to increase your methabolism. Muscles are heavier than fat, so, especially in the beginning, you shouldn't normally weight yourself. If you can't be patient to see results, just go to a doctor and measure your body fat percentage like one time a mounth. That will show your progress and maybe suggest you that you have to exercize more (more weight lifting/free weight to increase muscle mass!). Of course when you will get leaner and develop muscles, you will need to increase your portions. Just listen to your body for that. I'm just a little taller than you and now I can eat about 2100/2300 kcal a day. It took me two years of workout and healthy diet to get here but now I'm happy and full of energy. We can all do that!
A HUGE HUG AND I WISH YOU ALL THE BEST FOR YOUR MIND AND BODY
THANK YOU! BEST to you 0 -
Some general tips to consider, may or may not be good for you. YMMV.
- Get a food scale and weigh your food
- Log your food in MFP (including dinner)
- Try to hit your calorie and macro goals in MFP. You probably need ~60 grams of protein per day which should be easy to get without shakes or bars.
- Find an eating schedule that works for you and your hunger. Don't worry about when you eat, just focus on the daily calories and macros.
- Read up on LISS
- Walk at .5% incline, at a normal walk pace (3-4.5 mph), for an increasing amount of time (i.e., 1 week 30 min daily, 2 week 45 min, 3 week 1 hour...). Just watch a show or listen to a book on your phone. Compare what your Fitbit calorie burn estimates to general google estimates
- I wouldn't worry about doing weights right now. Just focus on your eating and walking. These are two easily controlled variables. Add weight lifting once you see results and have these controlled.
- Drink the recommended water
- Get the recommended sleep
- In general I wouldn't go below 1100 net calories per day, assuming you hit your macros
maybe I need to stop killing myself during the workout, I know ill burn out1 -
-
-
Hi srusso2022
I am 5' 4" and 247.5 lbs. About a month ago I got a scare from my doctor and the only possible cure is losing significant weight. His nurse emailed me a list of foods I should and shouldn't eat with my immediate diagnosis which is severe gastritis. One of the points stressed to me was the need to eat at least 6-9 servings of vegetables plus fruit, NO processed foods, No sugar substitutes, No caffeine, and No carbonated beverages. The first few weeks were hard but I lost weight easily and when I was eating on the program my stomach didn't hurt. If I ate poorly, I had pain within an hour or so of eating. I had never connected the pain with eating some foods. I feel so much better getting nutrition from food. Other than your breakfast which is almost identical to mine most mornings (40 grams of old fashioned oats, 20 grams of golden raisins, 1 tsp of brown sugar and cinnamon), I don't see much real non processed foods. I am eating about 1400 calories a day, up and down a ladder painting, and am not hungry. In a bit more than a month, I have lost 17 lbs. Friend me if you would like.0 -
srusso2022 wrote: »
That is a very common myth. <== Note the word "myth".
If the goal is calorie burn, routinely doing very high intensity workouts mostly isn't really worth it.
For example: Close to the maximum intensity I can sustain at my well-calorie-metered sport (close to race pace), 10 minutes would burn around 125 calories, and I'd be feeling some effects from that for the rest of the day (maybe even enough to be less energetic the rest of the day, wiping out some daily-life activity calories).
At very moderate pace, same activity, I'd burn 88 calories in 10 minutes. You can think of that as "wow, 42% more calories per minute" at high intensity. But I can easily do another 10 minutes at that same moderate pace, so 176 calories . . . and repeat that several times over, if I want to, plus still be fine afterward. To get the same 125 calories working at my moderate pace, I just have to keep going for 14 minutes and 15 seconds. Afterwards, I won't even be fatigued for minutes, let alone the rest of the day.
(I've been working out routinely for a long time, BTW. Everyone finds it exhausting working very near their maximum capability; what differs among people is the definition of "maximum" in terms of objective output (such as speed, say). To third party readers thinking those are low per-minute calorie burns . . . jeez, I'm old, female, and not very big!
)
If the goal is fitness improvement (rather than calorie burn), then the best route for cardiovascular (CV) improvement is to start by building an aerobic base, which one does by doing relatively longer durations of lower intensity exercise (or low/moderate intervals, as in the classic C25K programs - and even those often suggest you reach the point of being able to do a 30-minute continuous walk before starting, I believe).
Only after there's a CV base in place do you start mixing in small doses of higher intensity work. Even elite athletes don't go hard every single workout (though their "easy" work would be our "very hard", in terms like speed/pace
). Typically, they do large volumes of relatively easy to moderate intensity, and seasoned with smaller bits of high intensity.
So, calorie-wise or fitness-wise, going hard every single workout is not your best bet.1
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 391.3K Introduce Yourself
- 43.4K Getting Started
- 259.6K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.6K Food and Nutrition
- 47.3K Recipes
- 232.3K Fitness and Exercise
- 387 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.4K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.7K Motivation and Support
- 7.8K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.2K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.2K MyFitnessPal Information
- 22 News and Announcements
- 913 Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.3K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions