Am I counting my calories right ?

njerimanya

Hi I have been tracking my food intake on the app and I exercise a minimum of 4 days a week but my weight doesn't seem to move ?I have been tracking for three weeks and only lost about a kilo .I do about 1200 calories a day

Grace_spaceship

How big a deficit are you trying to achieve? Have you recently started a new exercise programme? Starting to workout or trying new workouts can cause a lot of water retention and mask fat loss. Take some measurements and see if they are changing or if clothing is starting to fit more loosely. I lost 3 inches around my waist and the scale didn't budge. Are you accurately measuring food? Do you weigh food? Do you count liquid calories and sauces etc.? Also 1 kg is still a loss so good work!

yirara

1kg in 3 weeks is good! Weight loss, especially if you want to keep the weight off and learn better eating habits is slow.

But we need more information: how tall are you, gender and age, and what is your current weight?

That MFP gave you 1200 calories suggests that you've chosen a too large deficit and that you're not that heavy. 1200 is the lowest MFP will give to women, regardless of your weightloss goal as anything less would be very unhealthy. Thus you might have chosen to lose 1kg per week, but realistically you might only be able to lose half a kilo or less. Thus we need more information from you to advice.

Also it might be good to open up your diary so we can have a look to see if something's off there.

KNoceros

1kg (2.2lbs) in three weeks is actually a really GOOD rate of loss, and may even be too fast to be sustainable.

As @yirara says, we also need a bit more information about you. (Height, current and target weights, gender, age and an idea of general activity level would be great if you feel able to share).

If you are close to your target weight you’re going to have to do this slowly. It will be frustrating at times. If you’re looking to shift less than about 5kg you may even need to go slower than this (0.25kg/wk would be reasonable).

Tips to aid success:

Weigh EVERYTHING you eat. Don’t measure it, WEIGH it. Then log it in the diary here. ALL of it.

Choose your database entries careful. If you’re scanning barcodes, check the entries agree with the packet.

There are no bad foods. There are foods that are so high calorie you can only squeeze a little bit in, but that doesn’t make them “bad”

Some days you will go over target. Chalk it down to experience and move on.

Some days the scale will go up. That’s just what happens. Look for an overall trend. For this you’re going to need several weeks of data.

If all else fails, and you’re really stuck, open your diary and the gang here will likely be able to spot what’s going on. Between the people here, there are probably centuries of logging experience and thousands of kilos lost and kept off.

Good luck!