Help?! 1000-1200 cal. A day plus 1 hr exercise and not loosing an ounce....
Replies
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janejellyroll wrote: »gazpainter wrote: »Walking 15 to 20 mins total a mile burns around 80 calories
Exercise like hiit for 20 mins burns about 250 to 350.
Its all down to how quickly you want results.
You walk a mile a day 7 days a week, you burn 760 a week on top of daily burn.
Hiit 5 times a week for 20 mins (which is no time at all) will burn 1500.
So less exercise days but same amount of time and double the burn... Double the calories burned... Simple as that...
If you have more than 20lbs to lose... Trust me from experience, walking and diet will take over a year easily... And how long can you stay at a big calorie reduction without falling off the wagon?
20 minutes of true HIIT, 5 days a week, is not something that is realistic for the vast majority of people. You may be talking about the current fad of calling certain types of workouts HIIT, but there's really no compelling reason to do one of those if you really prefer walking.
There's no one right way to exercise. Some people will find walking much more pleasant and sustainable. I personally would be much more likely to take a walk than to either do a fake "HIIT" workout or an actual HIIT workout.
Exercise that you enjoy (or at least don't dread) is a key component of lifelong fitness.
Yep, I did the Les Mills BodyAttack classes for about six months and I think the only reason I endured it that long is that I had it bad for one of my classmates at the time. 😅. Ultimately it felt like punishment to me and I gave it up. Walking, however, is exercise I have done nearly everyday for years and years, and I love it.
I guess ultimately I am one of those true believers that exercise is for fitness and well-being, and diet is for weight loss. I just don't see the sole purpose of exercise as needing to burn the most calories in the shortest amount of time (and I haven't gained that weight back, either, BTW.)18 -
gazpainter wrote: »Walking 15 to 20 mins total a mile burns around 80 calories
Exercise like hiit for 20 mins burns about 250 to 350.
Its all down to how quickly you want results.
You walk a mile a day 7 days a week, you burn 760 a week on top of daily burn.
Hiit 5 times a week for 20 mins (which is no time at all) will burn 1500.
So less exercise days but same amount of time and double the burn... Double the calories burned... Simple as that...
If you have more than 20lbs to lose... Trust me from experience, walking and diet will take over a year easily... And how long can you stay at a big calorie reduction without falling off the wagon?
Fast is not always better. I’ve lost 24 pounds since June 6 by a calorie deficit and “only” waking as my exercise. And I still eat cookies and chips and pizza (gasp). No reason to be miserable while we improve our health, so if more vigorous workouts aren’t enjoyable or appropriate walking is absolutely a good idea.
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gazpainter wrote: »Walking 15 to 20 mins total a mile burns around 80 calories
Exercise like hiit for 20 mins burns about 250 to 350.
Its all down to how quickly you want results.
You walk a mile a day 7 days a week, you burn 760 a week on top of daily burn.
Hiit 5 times a week for 20 mins (which is no time at all) will burn 1500.
So less exercise days but same amount of time and double the burn... Double the calories burned... Simple as that...
If you have more than 20lbs to lose... Trust me from experience, walking and diet will take over a year easily... And how long can you stay at a big calorie reduction without falling off the wagon?
If you can do HIT workouts 5X a week, odds are extremely high you are not really doing HIT workouts.28 -
gazpainter wrote: »Walking 15 to 20 mins total a mile burns around 80 calories
Exercise like hiit for 20 mins burns about 250 to 350.
Its all down to how quickly you want results.
You walk a mile a day 7 days a week, you burn 760 a week on top of daily burn.
Hiit 5 times a week for 20 mins (which is no time at all) will burn 1500.
So less exercise days but same amount of time and double the burn... Double the calories burned... Simple as that...
If you have more than 20lbs to lose... Trust me from experience, walking and diet will take over a year easily... And how long can you stay at a big calorie reduction without falling off the wagon?
I burn 30-45 cal per mile. This may be accurate for you, but everyones numbers are different.4 -
Noreenmarie1234 wrote: »gazpainter wrote: »Walking 15 to 20 mins total a mile burns around 80 calories
Exercise like hiit for 20 mins burns about 250 to 350.
Its all down to how quickly you want results.
You walk a mile a day 7 days a week, you burn 760 a week on top of daily burn.
Hiit 5 times a week for 20 mins (which is no time at all) will burn 1500.
So less exercise days but same amount of time and double the burn... Double the calories burned... Simple as that...
If you have more than 20lbs to lose... Trust me from experience, walking and diet will take over a year easily... And how long can you stay at a big calorie reduction without falling off the wagon?
I burn 30-45 cal per mile. This may be accurate for you, but everyones numbers are different.
I don't think you're negating his point because I was going to say the same thing.
God, I'd love to be able to burn 80 calories a mile.
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gazpainter wrote: »Walking 15 to 20 mins total a mile burns around 80 calories
Exercise like hiit for 20 mins burns about 250 to 350.
Its all down to how quickly you want results.
You walk a mile a day 7 days a week, you burn 760 a week on top of daily burn.
Hiit 5 times a week for 20 mins (which is no time at all) will burn 1500.
So less exercise days but same amount of time and double the burn... Double the calories burned... Simple as that...
If you have more than 20lbs to lose... Trust me from experience, walking and diet will take over a year easily... And how long can you stay at a big calorie reduction without falling off the wagon?
For peak fitness, that's exactly what all the elite athletes did to get fit: HIIT workouts, every single day.
For weight loss, that's exactly what every successful weight loser/long-time maintainer over in the MFP "Maintaining Weight" forum (or anywhere else) did to lose/maintain weight.
Except that they didn't - either group. (*Some* of the latter group? Sure, maybe. Not most.)
So maybe there are multiple paths to success, and different ones could work better in different situations, or for different people?
Trust me from experience, a person can lose 50+ pounds in less than a year, without ever doing HIIT or having "a big calorie reduction" that causes "falling off the wagon".
As an aside, I get that people have busy lives, but it always makes me feel a little sad (beyond that ultra-busy scenario) when people hate their exercise so much that they want it to be over quickly. I guess exercise purely for calories is sometimes necessary, but still . . . .
😆13 -
Noreenmarie1234 wrote: »gazpainter wrote: »Walking 15 to 20 mins total a mile burns around 80 calories
Exercise like hiit for 20 mins burns about 250 to 350.
Its all down to how quickly you want results.
You walk a mile a day 7 days a week, you burn 760 a week on top of daily burn.
Hiit 5 times a week for 20 mins (which is no time at all) will burn 1500.
So less exercise days but same amount of time and double the burn... Double the calories burned... Simple as that...
If you have more than 20lbs to lose... Trust me from experience, walking and diet will take over a year easily... And how long can you stay at a big calorie reduction without falling off the wagon?
I burn 30-45 cal per mile. This may be accurate for you, but everyones numbers are different.
I don't think you're negating his point because I was going to say the same thing.
God, I'd love to be able to burn 80 calories a mile.
If you are over 150 lbs you most likely do burn 80 calories or more in 1 mile of walking at a casual pace. 😊
https://www.verywellfit.com/walking-calories-burned-by-miles-3887154
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Dogmom1978 wrote: »Noreenmarie1234 wrote: »gazpainter wrote: »Walking 15 to 20 mins total a mile burns around 80 calories
Exercise like hiit for 20 mins burns about 250 to 350.
Its all down to how quickly you want results.
You walk a mile a day 7 days a week, you burn 760 a week on top of daily burn.
Hiit 5 times a week for 20 mins (which is no time at all) will burn 1500.
So less exercise days but same amount of time and double the burn... Double the calories burned... Simple as that...
If you have more than 20lbs to lose... Trust me from experience, walking and diet will take over a year easily... And how long can you stay at a big calorie reduction without falling off the wagon?
I burn 30-45 cal per mile. This may be accurate for you, but everyones numbers are different.
I don't think you're negating his point because I was going to say the same thing.
God, I'd love to be able to burn 80 calories a mile.
If you are over 150 lbs you most likely do burn 80 calories or more in 1 mile of walking at a casual pace. 😊
https://www.verywellfit.com/walking-calories-burned-by-miles-3887154
LOL I know. I just miss those days. I often say I want to gain weight so I can burn more calories exercising. 6 -
Muscleflex79 wrote: »Strudders67 wrote: »I only went back a few days in your diary and, thankfully, you're probably eating more than you think.
2 slices white bread. 3 slices white bread.
How much did they weigh? What brand? Two slices of bread, even from the same loaf, won't weigh the same.
You're also selecting a different brand every day - do you really buy different loaves daily?
1tbs peanut butter. 1 tbsp jam. 1tsp brown sugar. 2tbsp salted butter.
How much one person fits in a tbsp may be vastly different to how much you put in. Did you use a level spoonful or a heaped one? What did the database entry use? You don't know how much your pb or jam or butter weighed and you don't know how much was in the serving that you selected from the database. There's a pic somewhere on this forum that illustrates that perfectly with spoons of peanut butter.
2 cups of Special K cereal. 1 cup of pasta. 1 cup of spaghetti. 1 cup of pasta with meaballs. 1 cup cooked rice.
Too vague. As above, what I'd measure as a cup could differ to how much you fill your cup.
Chili no meat - 2.4cups. How did you measure .4 of a cup?
Generic ground beef - 2.5oz Do scales accurately measure .5oz? (certainly mine don't)
Whey double rich chocolate - 30.4g. You must have much more accurate scales than me if you can measure .4 of a gram, so use grams for everything.
Steak frites - the portion says "about 2 pieces". So was it two pieces or not? does three small pieces count as two? What if one's a bit bigger?
I didn't see any mention of cooking oils, but maybe you didn't use any in the last few days.
You could continue as you are but, as I said before, give it 6 weeks then compare your weight then to your weight now and see what rate you've been losing at. That'll tell you how much of a deficit you're really in.
Or, weigh anything solid, preferably in grams. Anything calorie dense should definitely be weighed. When you're accurately logging what you're eating, you'll know how many calories you're actually consuming. But remember thta it's your net calories (what you've eaten - exercise calories) that should be 1200 or above.
yup - this is exactly what I noticed.
OP - your diary is full of "pieces," "cups" and "slices" without any mention of weight. start there - it will be eye opening!
Well - if I pick an entry that has the correct nutritional info that matches the label in my grubby little hand, and even if the entry says cups or spoons or volume measurements..... I have the label in my hand that says grams per serving.
If I weighed it, and I know how much of a serving I ate - it really doesn't matter what the database reports it's being logged correctly.
That's how you end up with 2.4 cups. Because it was weighed and exact servings eaten.
Something that always bugs me with these finds of volume measurements being used from the database - they are likely dead on accurate - and to suggest everyone should go make a new entry merely to have grams on there is exactly how the database has become so stupid with incorrect entries and such.
Now - outside that complaint which others commented on too - great call on confirming what is used.
But to use a database entry that is perfectly correct but happens to show volume (I've even used ones that showed no serving units because it was the first correct entry that came up for nutritional info) is just fine.16 -
Muscleflex79 wrote: »Strudders67 wrote: »I only went back a few days in your diary and, thankfully, you're probably eating more than you think.
2 slices white bread. 3 slices white bread.
How much did they weigh? What brand? Two slices of bread, even from the same loaf, won't weigh the same.
You're also selecting a different brand every day - do you really buy different loaves daily?
1tbs peanut butter. 1 tbsp jam. 1tsp brown sugar. 2tbsp salted butter.
How much one person fits in a tbsp may be vastly different to how much you put in. Did you use a level spoonful or a heaped one? What did the database entry use? You don't know how much your pb or jam or butter weighed and you don't know how much was in the serving that you selected from the database. There's a pic somewhere on this forum that illustrates that perfectly with spoons of peanut butter.
2 cups of Special K cereal. 1 cup of pasta. 1 cup of spaghetti. 1 cup of pasta with meaballs. 1 cup cooked rice.
Too vague. As above, what I'd measure as a cup could differ to how much you fill your cup.
Chili no meat - 2.4cups. How did you measure .4 of a cup?
Generic ground beef - 2.5oz Do scales accurately measure .5oz? (certainly mine don't)
Whey double rich chocolate - 30.4g. You must have much more accurate scales than me if you can measure .4 of a gram, so use grams for everything.
Steak frites - the portion says "about 2 pieces". So was it two pieces or not? does three small pieces count as two? What if one's a bit bigger?
I didn't see any mention of cooking oils, but maybe you didn't use any in the last few days.
You could continue as you are but, as I said before, give it 6 weeks then compare your weight then to your weight now and see what rate you've been losing at. That'll tell you how much of a deficit you're really in.
Or, weigh anything solid, preferably in grams. Anything calorie dense should definitely be weighed. When you're accurately logging what you're eating, you'll know how many calories you're actually consuming. But remember thta it's your net calories (what you've eaten - exercise calories) that should be 1200 or above.
yup - this is exactly what I noticed.
OP - your diary is full of "pieces," "cups" and "slices" without any mention of weight. start there - it will be eye opening!
Well - if I pick an entry that has the correct nutritional info that matches the label in my grubby little hand, and even if the entry says cups or spoons or volume measurements..... I have the label in my hand that says grams per serving.
If I weighed it, and I know how much of a serving I ate - it really doesn't matter what the database reports it's being logged correctly.
That's how you end up with 2.4 cups. Because it was weighed and exact servings eaten.
Something that always bugs me with these finds of volume measurements being used from the database - they are likely dead on accurate - and to suggest everyone should go make a new entry merely to have grams on there is exactly how the database has become so stupid with incorrect entries and such.
Now - outside that complaint which others commented on too - great call on confirming what is used.
But to use a database entry that is perfectly correct but happens to show volume (I've even used ones that showed no serving units because it was the first correct entry that came up for nutritional info) is just fine.
I agree that there is no need to create a new entry just to put the grams in. If you are weighing and using the correct entries in the database, it doesn’t matter.
I only make a new entry when EVERY SINGLE ONE I find is wrong... I’m like how did 6 different people enter this wrong?? Or maybe the recipe changed slightly and the old entry USED to be correct but isn’t anymore.
OP make sure you weigh accurately and check for correct entries and you’ll know how many calories you are taking in.8 -
It's sad when I even entertain the thought that I won't try this new product (to me but been around awhile) because of the likely difficulty with MFP.
Sometimes I get it anyway, but I have skipped a few and went to an old standby.
And then that nutritional info changed on new and improved product!2 -
AshHeartsJesus wrote: »Another thing to watch is sodium!! If you are eating lots of bread pasta rice fries and not paying attention to the sodium you will bloat very quickly I can eat 500 calories and go over on my sodium and feel like poo 💩
Bloat is due to carbs not salt. Your body needs and holds more water when you eat lots of carbs.0 -
gazpainter wrote: »
Exercise like hiit for 20 mins burns about 250 to 350.
I do 20min s of HIIT every day. I can assure you that I almost never burn over 250 cals - I'm 66kg/172cm. It all depends on your existing weight and a variety of other factors. My calorie burn this week has been around 160-200.
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that is probably for professional athlete. Some people uncounsciosly cheat while doing hiit. It should be very high intensity, you can do the same exercise and get a lot of different results.gazpainter wrote: »
Exercise like hiit for 20 mins burns about 250 to 350.
I do 20min s of HIIT every day. I can assure you that I almost never burn over 250 cals - I'm 66kg/172cm. It all depends on your existing weight and a variety of other factors. My calorie burn this week has been around 160-200.
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Dogmom1978 wrote: »Muscleflex79 wrote: »Strudders67 wrote: »I only went back a few days in your diary and, thankfully, you're probably eating more than you think.
2 slices white bread. 3 slices white bread.
How much did they weigh? What brand? Two slices of bread, even from the same loaf, won't weigh the same.
You're also selecting a different brand every day - do you really buy different loaves daily?
1tbs peanut butter. 1 tbsp jam. 1tsp brown sugar. 2tbsp salted butter.
How much one person fits in a tbsp may be vastly different to how much you put in. Did you use a level spoonful or a heaped one? What did the database entry use? You don't know how much your pb or jam or butter weighed and you don't know how much was in the serving that you selected from the database. There's a pic somewhere on this forum that illustrates that perfectly with spoons of peanut butter.
2 cups of Special K cereal. 1 cup of pasta. 1 cup of spaghetti. 1 cup of pasta with meaballs. 1 cup cooked rice.
Too vague. As above, what I'd measure as a cup could differ to how much you fill your cup.
Chili no meat - 2.4cups. How did you measure .4 of a cup?
Generic ground beef - 2.5oz Do scales accurately measure .5oz? (certainly mine don't)
Whey double rich chocolate - 30.4g. You must have much more accurate scales than me if you can measure .4 of a gram, so use grams for everything.
Steak frites - the portion says "about 2 pieces". So was it two pieces or not? does three small pieces count as two? What if one's a bit bigger?
I didn't see any mention of cooking oils, but maybe you didn't use any in the last few days.
You could continue as you are but, as I said before, give it 6 weeks then compare your weight then to your weight now and see what rate you've been losing at. That'll tell you how much of a deficit you're really in.
Or, weigh anything solid, preferably in grams. Anything calorie dense should definitely be weighed. When you're accurately logging what you're eating, you'll know how many calories you're actually consuming. But remember thta it's your net calories (what you've eaten - exercise calories) that should be 1200 or above.
yup - this is exactly what I noticed.
OP - your diary is full of "pieces," "cups" and "slices" without any mention of weight. start there - it will be eye opening!
Well - if I pick an entry that has the correct nutritional info that matches the label in my grubby little hand, and even if the entry says cups or spoons or volume measurements..... I have the label in my hand that says grams per serving.
If I weighed it, and I know how much of a serving I ate - it really doesn't matter what the database reports it's being logged correctly.
That's how you end up with 2.4 cups. Because it was weighed and exact servings eaten.
Something that always bugs me with these finds of volume measurements being used from the database - they are likely dead on accurate - and to suggest everyone should go make a new entry merely to have grams on there is exactly how the database has become so stupid with incorrect entries and such.
Now - outside that complaint which others commented on too - great call on confirming what is used.
But to use a database entry that is perfectly correct but happens to show volume (I've even used ones that showed no serving units because it was the first correct entry that came up for nutritional info) is just fine.
I agree that there is no need to create a new entry just to put the grams in. If you are weighing and using the correct entries in the database, it doesn’t matter.
I only make a new entry when EVERY SINGLE ONE I find is wrong... I’m like how did 6 different people enter this wrong?? Or maybe the recipe changed slightly and the old entry USED to be correct but isn’t anymore.
OP make sure you weigh accurately and check for correct entries and you’ll know how many calories you are taking in.
Recipes change. They’ll “improve” taste or texture and the composition will shift.
As new labeling requirements come into being, manufacturers change serving sizes to “maintain” the nutritional “image” of the food. The two where I’ve seen the biggest impact over the years was the addition of labeling “trans fat” and “added sugar.”
With trans fat, manufacturers were allowed to say the food had “0” grams of trans fat per serving if it had .5 grams or less. So, until manufacturers could alter their recipes, they made their serving sizes smaller. Anyone else but me remember six months or so of really tiny servings of chips.
I saw a similar shift in servings of preserves. Only tiny amounts of added sugar, they declared! But they were teeny, tiny servings.2 -
gazpainter wrote: »Walking 15 to 20 mins total a mile burns around 80 calories
Exercise like hiit for 20 mins burns about 250 to 350.
Its all down to how quickly you want results.
You walk a mile a day 7 days a week, you burn 760 a week on top of daily burn.
Hiit 5 times a week for 20 mins (which is no time at all) will burn 1500.
So less exercise days but same amount of time and double the burn... Double the calories burned... Simple as that...
If you have more than 20lbs to lose... Trust me from experience, walking and diet will take over a year easily... And how long can you stay at a big calorie reduction without falling off the wagon?
For peak fitness, that's exactly what all the elite athletes did to get fit: HIIT workouts, every single day.
For weight loss, that's exactly what every successful weight loser/long-time maintainer over in the MFP "Maintaining Weight" forum (or anywhere else) did to lose/maintain weight.
Except that they didn't - either group. (*Some* of the latter group? Sure, maybe. Not most.)
So maybe there are multiple paths to success, and different ones could work better in different situations, or for different people?
Trust me from experience, a person can lose 50+ pounds in less than a year, without ever doing HIIT or having "a big calorie reduction" that causes "falling off the wagon".
As an aside, I get that people have busy lives, but it always makes me feel a little sad (beyond that ultra-busy scenario) when people hate their exercise so much that they want it to be over quickly. I guess exercise purely for calories is sometimes necessary, but still . . . .
😆
Ya, now that the hot, muggy weather is over I was outside most of the day, being active, loving life. Also had lovely walks in the woods yesterday and the day before. The calorie burn is a nice bonus.5 -
A week is too early to tell when starting a new diet plan and also new exercise plan... As well if you're close to your TOM it'll throw the scale through a loop (sometimes it'll tell me I gained 10lbs just because of that!) ...highly likely it's water retention because your muscles are getting use to exercising.
The amount of calories you're eating is not enough, 1200 at min making sure to eat your exercise calories back or else you'll under eat, which will eventually lead to malnutrition.
I'm 5'3 and eat 1500 for a 1.5lbs weight-loss a week.
Weight-loss is slow and non-linear, just focus on healthy changes and you'll start to see results!6 -
I’m with you. Same situation but the scale hasn’t done more than fluctuate up and down 2 lbs.
Going on six weeks now and no change.3 -
Danielle,
First of all, stop worrying, relax, and enjoy this journey. You're doing great. DO NOT let that scale tell you differently. I have been in your shoes, and even today, 60 lbs down from where I started, I still go through these same episodes of the scale not moving. In reality, the scale is indeed moving, but, it is clouded by one simple phenomenon - water balance. Let me explain.
Everyone has heard about 8 cups of water a day. Some people do as much as 8 pints. In actuality, our biome typically works around 5 pints (10 cups) of fluid that moves in and out of our digestive, circulatory, respiration, skin and other body systems. The English have a saying, "A pints a pound, the world around". This means we have 5 lbs of fluctuation in weight over both the short and long term. Sunday, I returned from a walk, and weighed in at 234.8 lbs. I've been eating well and exercising all week. I weighed in this morning and 238.0 lbs. In reality, I'm losing weight, and at some point I will step on the scale this week, and will hit 232. I'm losing 2-3 lbs a week and have been for the last 20 weeks. I've lost 60 lbs doing exactly what you are doing.
I have 2 pieces of advice for you. First of all, don't go below 1200 calories. You can harm yourself. Stick to your plan and you will do great. Secondly, don't measure your success by that number on the scale. My current yardstick for measuring my success is on my dresser. It's a pair of Levi 505s, a pair of bright orange socks, and a bottle of Polo cologne. Someday, those sexy jeans will fit. Until then, I'll put on the sexy socks and sexy cologne. When those jeans fit, I'll get another pair, just a little smaller, and start over. The scale can kiss my shrinking behind.
Good luck, God Bless you, don't be discouraged, and friend me if you want help and encouragement.
All the best,
Mike3 -
danielle71686 wrote: »I am 34 yo female, currently at 218lb no health problems eat..
I have decided to get healthier... I count every item in fitness pal, I have been doing 16 fast /8Hr eating and have been eating clean, balanced 1000-1200 calories a day in that window and have been drinking between 80-120 oz water a day no sodas ext plus an hour of exercise reaching a good heart rate during and it “says” I’m Burning 250-300 cal during exercise but the scale has not moved an ounce. Every day for a week exactly since I have started this journey no movement at all and I am not sure what to do.....
I did this for years. I gained not lost over the years especially after I hit my 40's. I'm now eating more (around 1655c, and exercising less, (less cardio) but more weight training. ) 5 weeks in, ive lost 0, but have gone down a full size. Wore a a shirt yesterday I couldn't fit into for the last year. You're setting your metabolism very low. Trust me, this will only lead to yoyo dieting and eventual weight gain.1 -
lorimiller18 wrote: »danielle71686 wrote: »I am 34 yo female, currently at 218lb no health problems eat..
I have decided to get healthier... I count every item in fitness pal, I have been doing 16 fast /8Hr eating and have been eating clean, balanced 1000-1200 calories a day in that window and have been drinking between 80-120 oz water a day no sodas ext plus an hour of exercise reaching a good heart rate during and it “says” I’m Burning 250-300 cal during exercise but the scale has not moved an ounce. Every day for a week exactly since I have started this journey no movement at all and I am not sure what to do.....
I did this for years. I gained not lost over the years especially after I hit my 40's. I'm now eating more (around 1655c, and exercising less, (less cardio) but more weight training. ) 5 weeks in, ive lost 0, but have gone down a full size. Wore a a shirt yesterday I couldn't fit into for the last year. You're setting your metabolism very low. Trust me, this will only lead to yoyo dieting and eventual weight gain.
No that’s complete nonsense. If you eat in a calorie deficit, you lose weight. Period. Also nonsense that it will lead to yo-yo dieting. If you try some diet that you can’t stick to long term, sure. However, if you make SUSTAINABLE LIFE STYLE changes, there is no reason to yo-yo. It can’t be “once I hit x lbs I go back to eating how I used to”, because then of course, the weight will come back.
That said, if you aren’t weighing your foods and you think you can eyeball portions.... You wouldn’t be on MFP trying to lose weight if you were capable of that.14 -
From my 12 years as a WW receptionist, I certainly saw people that were struggling to lose while eating too little. Why? I don't have the science, but I did see it happen. Your numbers sound very low to me.0
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If you are not losing weight you are in a surplus. Starvation mode kicks in when you are literally starving. Eating more food will not help you lose weight that's stupid. You need to be in a deficit. If you can't restrict more food then do another hour of cardio or resistance training. You can't beat the laws of thermodynamics. Macros don't matter when you eat too much calories.7
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From my 12 years as a WW receptionist, I certainly saw people that were struggling to lose while eating too little. Why? I don't have the science, but I did see it happen. Your numbers sound very low to me.
They weren’t eating too little. They just weren’t tracking properly, so they were eating in a surplus. CICO, if you eat fewer calories than needed to maintain your current weight you will lose weight. YES it IS that simple.15 -
From my 12 years as a WW receptionist, I certainly saw people that were struggling to lose while eating too little. Why? I don't have the science, but I did see it happen. Your numbers sound very low to me.
Curious to know if this was around the time WW "improved" their tracking system for points and had a bunch of foods that counted for zero points, etc...11 -
From my 12 years as a WW receptionist, I certainly saw people that were struggling to lose while eating too little. Why? I don't have the science, but I did see it happen. Your numbers sound very low to me.
Um, nope. You're saying that POW's and people residing in areas of intense famine should be...maintaining weight? Gaining weight? No. They lose weight. Indeed, they starve (the actual "starvation mode" of misunderstood dieting lore). Why? Because they're in an energy deficit. Hard stop.
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All I can say, and it will be unpopular, is that from what I observed there is a window-ish area of calorie consumption that just messes with you. It makes no sense and you all can be mad at me as much as you want, but I am reporting what I observed, the advice that I learned to give over time to certain members, and the thanks I received the following weeks. I agree it makes no sense and I always prefaced it that way to the member. And I agree with every above argument that is against me, but what I observed is different. I just took a calculator for a second and estimated how many people I weighed in and spoke with over my years at WW, and it was over 70,000 people (edit: I should have said 70,000 weigh-ins not individual people). I can't explain what I saw.
1 -
I can't explain what I saw.
I think you either saw people lying to themselves/others or people that could not properly quantify and qualify both energy intake and expenditure (something easy to do with the WW point system). A pretty good chunk of the overall obesity problem has to do with this, after all.
Seriously, the laws of thermodynamics are immutable (as far as nutrition is concerned).
13 -
All I can say, and it will be unpopular, is that from what I observed there is a window-ish area of calorie consumption that just messes with you. It makes no sense and you all can be mad at me as much as you want, but I am reporting what I observed, the advice that I learned to give over time to certain members, and the thanks I received the following weeks. I agree it makes no sense and I always prefaced it that way to the member. And I agree with every above argument that is against me, but what I observed is different. I just took a calculator for a second and estimated how many people I weighed in and spoke with over my years at WW, and it was over 70,000 people (edit: I should have said 70,000 weigh-ins not individual people). I can't explain what I saw.
It is possible to eat so little that fatigue and weakness suck calorie burn out of daily life, and at that point, it's possible that subtle calorie expenditures (hair growth and what-not) are also reduced. This doesn't *stop* fat loss, unless it brings calories so low that the 1200 (or whatever) is now actual TDEE or above. (In the Minnesota Starvation Experiments, extreme lassitude overtook some participants in late stages. Weight loss would be expected to slow. If the deficient calorie intake continues, loss of body tissues will continue, and eventually death will result.)
it is possible to eat so little that binges occur, and shame about them causes people to hide them (perhaps even to delude themselves). Understandably, they may feel that they are being "so good" and that an exceptional eating event was deep failure, and that they are "still good" because "trying so very hard". Odds of someone reporting accurately, in those circumstances, are reduced. Depending on food tracking methods in use, portion creep can pay a similar role, though not as dramatic. Ditto for free foods, in contexts that permit them. Ditto for forgetting, in the context of record keeping. (Undereating can have negative cognitive effects, but is not the only possible explanation for forgetting).
It reportedly is possible, in a context of extreme dieting and stress about the dieting, to cause quite dramatic cortisol increases, which can involve multiple pounds of extra water retention, hiding fat loss (or alarmingly, loss of other useful body tissues) on the scale.
I'm going to go in hard for the laws of physics, and therefore the idea that calorie balance drives body weight. But it's not a simple, linear, obvious thing: CI affects CO. Things other than fat storage affect body weight on the scale. The things above are only a few possibilities.
I don't doubt the truth of what you're reporting, what you saw in other people, or that you're accurately reporting what they told you (or put in food logs, etc.). I do believe there are cases where people will see better results on the scale if they increase daily calories. But I'll bet on the laws of physics every single time, as being at work.10 -
All I can say, and it will be unpopular, is that from what I observed there is a window-ish area of calorie consumption that just messes with you. It makes no sense and you all can be mad at me as much as you want, but I am reporting what I observed, the advice that I learned to give over time to certain members, and the thanks I received the following weeks. I agree it makes no sense and I always prefaced it that way to the member. And I agree with every above argument that is against me, but what I observed is different. I just took a calculator for a second and estimated how many people I weighed in and spoke with over my years at WW, and it was over 70,000 people (edit: I should have said 70,000 weigh-ins not individual people). I can't explain what I saw.
It is possible to eat so little that fatigue and weakness suck calorie burn out of daily life, and at that point, it's possible that subtle calorie expenditures (hair growth and what-not) are also reduced. This doesn't *stop* fat loss, unless it brings calories so low that the 1200 (or whatever) is now actual TDEE or above. (In the Minnesota Starvation Experiments, extreme lassitude overtook some participants in late stages. Weight loss would be expected to slow. If the deficient calorie intake continues, loss of body tissues will continue, and eventually death will result.)
it is possible to eat so little that binges occur, and shame about them causes people to hide them (perhaps even to delude themselves). Understandably, they may feel that they are being "so good" and that an exceptional eating event was deep failure, and that they are "still good" because "trying so very hard". Odds of someone reporting accurately, in those circumstances, are reduced. Depending on food tracking methods in use, portion creep can pay a similar role, though not as dramatic. Ditto for free foods, in contexts that permit them. Ditto for forgetting, in the context of record keeping. (Undereating can have negative cognitive effects, but is not the only possible explanation for forgetting).
It reportedly is possible, in a context of extreme dieting and stress about the dieting, to cause quite dramatic cortisol increases, which can involve multiple pounds of extra water retention, hiding fat loss (or alarmingly, loss of other useful body tissues) on the scale.
I'm going to go in hard for the laws of physics, and therefore the idea that calorie balance drives body weight. But it's not a simple, linear, obvious thing: CI affects CO. Things other than fat storage affect body weight on the scale. The things above are only a few possibilities.
I don't doubt the truth of what you're reporting, what you saw in other people, or that you're accurately reporting what they told you (or put in food logs, etc.). I do believe there are cases where people will see better results on the scale if they increase daily calories. But I'll bet on the laws of physics every single time, as being at work.
I totally agree that physics makes the most sense. I spent 12 years working at WW and in the beginning as well as the preceding years when I was a member, I would have never said "eat more". That just does not make sense. Somewhere along the line, I did say it. Was that a corporate instruction, a particular leader I was supporting, or my own idea? It's been too many years and so many rule changes within WW that I honestly cannot remember but I think it came from corporate. Eventually, I tip toed into the subject. Talk about a scary instruction to give someone trying to lose weight. As the positive feedback came in, I was logically more willing to mention this instruction when it seemed appropriate for a member. It was all very odd, but happened.
Your breakdown above was great, and much of it could be the behind the scenes explanation of what was going on with a given member. I certainly saw plenty of odd things from the member eating whole water melons because they were "free" (points +), to the member angry at her gain because her cookies' points changed so now "that was all she was going to eat and it was WW's fault", and the person with a "perfect" diary that the only entries were coffee, pretzels and ice cream. I also got plenty of TMI from cycle issues, bathroom "status", and people wearing so little clothing for their weigh-in that you didn't know where to look. I gad two separate women lose their engagement rings because they took them off for a lower weight. It was a wild ride for those years. So, yes indeed, who knows what factors we behind the scene, and why the instruction to eat more helped. I did find your point about cortisol particularly interesting.
As for myself, in my bad state, I am a binger and closet eater and ironically the more you SEE me eat, the less I am actually eating because the closet and hidden binging is under control. Tracking helps me with that.3
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