Troubleshoot me?

aubreeshelley

I have not been losing and would like some advice.

Stats:
Age 39
Height 5.5
Weight: 202
Desired weight: 145
WOE: Vegetarian (with very occasional meat)
Calorie Goal: 1300
I don’t eat back my calories from exercise.
Exercise: Tabata 1x, walking 2x, Zumba 1x per week
Water: 78-120 oz/day
Sleep: 6-8 hours
Stress: moderate

I am having trouble getting my food scale to work so I have been measuring and scanning barcodes and taking the larger option on the lists.

It’s been about two months and not much has happened yet. I am a mom of 5 so sometimes I missed logging but I’m a pretty habitual eater and don’t stray much beyond what you see in my diary, which I have made public.

When I went to a doctor a year ago the initial blood panel came up clean and all he could tell me was to maybe stop going out to eat for dinner once a month- Not helpful, as I have logged those meals and still been within caloric deficit.

Advice would be wonderful. Thank you to those who give of their time and expertise to help others with their goals! I hope to be a success story so someday I can help too.

spiriteagle99

If you open up your food diary (make it public) people might be able to see where you are making mistakes. Sometimes it's in not weighing everything, sometimes not including things like oil used in cooking or cream in coffee, sometimes it's using erroneous entries in the data base.

heybales

So the 1300 was a goal based on how much deficit for about 55 lbs to lose?

Are you using a TDEE deficit method with MFP to create a 1000 cal deficit you think?
That's what it appears as. Should always be mentioned to help people know you are not using the tool incorrectly, just differently.

Because if using MFP and it's NEAT method as the tool - are you set to Sedentary (not active) activity level, or since you have kids the more honest lightly active?

Just to be aware you can be causing stress to body that won't feel like stress to you, but it is under stress anyway.

How long are the exercise sessions you may or may not be accounting for, but will be counted by your body?
To get a TDEE of 2374 for you I used 45 min zumba, 10 min tabata, 120 min walking weekly.

Just TDEE Please spreadsheet - better than rough 5 level TDEE charts from 1919 study.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1G7FgNzPq3v5WMjDtH0n93LXSMRY_hjmzNTMJb3aZSxM/edit?usp=sharing

So it would seem difficult to overcome a 1000 cal deficit by inaccurate logging alone, unless it's just really dishonest logging, which you aren't.

But stress related cortisol increasing water weight can go up to 20 lbs slowly. How many weeks of no movement on scale could that be?

Are you doing measurements of several body parts to give a better story than mere scale weight can give?

Accuracy of the food logging, and database entries used, could be an issue.
But then likely would mean deficit isn't that great, so less chance of stress water weight.
Though inaccuracy can go the other way too - and bigger deficit than you think, more stress.

Measurements would be really good to know.
Use that spreadsheet to track once you make a copy.

aubreeshelley

Is this the TDEE you’re talking about?

I inputted my stats into every online calculator I could find and the recommended calories was alway between 1200 and 1400 so I decided to average them for my goal.

aubreeshelley

I haven’t been measuring, but have used one pair of jeans as an indicator. No change there.

aubreeshelley

So that link that you so kindly inputted for me was confusing... it seemed like my recommended calorie deficit still had me up in the 2000+ range for daily calorie intake. Is that right or am I reading it wrong?

Lietchi

What does 'not much has happened yet' mean. No weight loss at all? Slow weight loss?

With a calorie goal of 1300, I'm guessing you have chosen a fairly agressive weight loss rate. Combined with not eating back your exercise calories, you are close to what I would consider the minimum intake for a woman (with your stats).
I am nearly the same age as you, same height and a similar starting weight, and I lost weight eating quite a few calories more than you. More slowly than most people want to lose weight, I will admit (50lbs in 14 months), but the upside was that I wasn't feeling deprived.
I'm also wondering what activity level you chose on MFP? If you chose sedentary but you are actually more active (you don't mention if you have a job, but being a mother of 5 is probably a job on its own), you are creating an even bigger deficit.
An agressive calorie deficit can cause water retention, which will mask fat loss on the scale.

As for your exercise: you don't specify the intensity or duration of the exercise, but if this is an increase compared to when you weren't trying to lose weight, this could also be causing water retention.

As for your food: your diary isn't public actually. But weighing is really important, without it you can't be sure of your calorie intake.

aubreeshelley

Oh, I thought I put the settings on public! I will go double check that. Thank you, Lietchi.

1. I would like to lose 1lb a week, but at this point would be happy with .5/week
2. I chose lightly active. I have a job supervising a dance class where I’m standing and walking around for 3 -4 hours 2 days a week.
3. My exercise is 5 min warmup followed by 30 min of Tabata where my heart rate gets up to 160 five times. Not sure how to explain that, followed by 15 min of light toning and then a 5 min stretch. The walking is not intense but lasts an hour.

nanastaci2020

Get a functional food scale. It will improve your logging accuracy. Scanning labels? There could be an extra 10-20% in the package. Measuring cups? Not accurate for solid food. So aiming for 1300 could mean you're eating much more.

By 'not much has happened in 2 months' what are your actual results in that time? How much weight have you actually lost in 2 months?

aubreeshelley

In 2 months I have lost about 3lbs

nanastaci2020

The good news is you are losing. If you improve your logging accuracy, you could reasonably lose a little more consistently.

I'm not sure if you're not comfortable using the food scale, or that you don't have a functional one. They are inexpensive, and once you get in the routine: simple to use. I have this one: it is high capacity so it can give me a readout of food in my heaviest casserole dish. And it is USB rechargable - so no worries about batteries being dead at a time when you can't find batteries.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07XZKBSDJ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Eating 1300-1700 is NOT unreasonable, in my opinion, given your stats. Having a range is SO much easier mentally - also my opinion. Trying to hit a certain # every day would drive me mad.

For comparison, I am 46/5'5"/135ish now heading for about 130. I lost ~50 in 2014, found some of it over the past couple of years, and since mid June I've gone from 148 to where I am now. My present routine: cardio 60 minutes walking daily, strength/body weight exercises 4-5 times a week, desk job. Older kids so I'm no longer chasing them! I eat 1400-1700 daily and am now losing about 2-3 pounds per month. (A smaller body uses less energy.

Diatonic12

aubreeshelley wrote: »

I haven’t been measuring, but have used one pair of jeans as an indicator. No change there.

You've got a great personality. No trouble there. Keep tooling along and best regards.

Dogmom1978

A food scale is less than $20 at Walmart. Invest in one and weigh and measure your portions.

Also, you set yourself as lightly active. That is before any additional exercise you are logging correct? If the lightly active INCLUDES your exercise, you wouldn’t also add the exercise into your diary.

heybales

aubreeshelley wrote: »

So that link that you so kindly inputted for me was confusing... it seemed like my recommended calorie deficit still had me up in the 2000+ range for daily calorie intake. Is that right or am I reading it wrong?

3 different deficit levels are given there, at non-MFP % rates rather than block 250 cal deficits (500, 750, 1000).
The 20% max is indeed higher eating goal than MFP usually, it's a very non-stressful recommendation for slow and steady.

So you are using MFP's NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity) method though (it's not showing you a TDEE figure), but that spreadsheet is a TDEE (Total Daily Energy) method like you'd find on all other sites besides MFP, I believe the spreadsheet is better than those sites because it's based on more recent research and better options for daily and exercise activity.
And I've redone it for your stated exercise times and now increased daily activity - 5 kids and 2 days daily walking work! Oh yeah more than Lightly-Active probably.

MFP method means a daily variation in eating goal based on extra activity done - the exercise.
To keep the same deficit when you burn a different amount - you would eat a different amount, right?
Hence after logging exercise your eating goal goes up.
Even though you haven't been doing that.
So your deficit is even higher.
But frankly not awful - lucked out.

If you wanted to eat the same amount daily for easy planning, because your exercise is just that consistent, you can use the TDEE method with MFP, selected activity level really doesn't matter, estimating workout calories burned and entering is not done - you just manually set your eating goal to a reasonable amount and adjust as needed. And 500 deficit is very reasonable.
But with the changes in that spreadsheet, I show estimated TDEE of 2400 to 2700 depending on that job and running around daily for household duties.

Now back to the regularly scheduled and appropriate discussion of food logging accuracy.

@nana - nice scale recommendation with rechargeable battery.

aubreeshelley

Dogmom1978 wrote: »

A food scale is less than $20 at Walmart. Invest in one and weigh and measure your portions.

Also, you set yourself as lightly active. That is before any additional exercise you are logging correct? If the lightly active INCLUDES your exercise, you wouldn’t also add the exercise into your diary.

Yes, lightly active is the rest of my life besides the above mentioned exercise.


I have a scale- but there must be something wrong with it or I’m using it wrong. I just tested it again. I put a bowl on it, then hit the TARE button, then just for testing purposes put a package on that has its net weight listed as 206 g. When I placed the bowl with the package in it back on the scale it says it is 412 g.

Lietchi

Did you remove the packaging and add only the contents to the bowl?

nanastaci2020

For your test package on the scale - the net weight listed of 206g should be the food inside the box/can/canister/bag. And it can be +/- up to 20%. What was it contained in? The package has weight also. So a glass jar would add more than a small plastic bag.

aubreeshelley wrote: »

Dogmom1978 wrote: »

I have a scale- but there must be something wrong with it or I’m using it wrong. I just tested it again. I put a bowl on it, then hit the TARE button, then just for testing purposes put a package on that has its net weight listed as 206 g. When I placed the bowl with the package in it back on the scale it says it is 412 g.

aubreeshelley

Phew! I got it to work properly.

Dogmom1978

Test it with a nickle if you are in the US. Set the scale to grams, make sure it is at 0 and place a nickle on the scale. A nickle weighs 5 grams.

I periodically check my scale as I assume that it won’t weigh true forever. I do the nickle test about once a month or so now that I’ve had the scale for awhile (over a year) and once every 3 months or so when it was newer.

aubreeshelley

Lietchi wrote: »

What does 'not much has happened yet' mean. No weight loss at all? Slow weight loss?

With a calorie goal of 1300, I'm guessing you have chosen a fairly agressive weight loss rate. Combined with not eating back your exercise calories, you are close to what I would consider the minimum intake for a woman (with your stats).
I am nearly the same age as you, same height and a similar starting weight, and I lost weight eating quite a few calories more than you. More slowly than most people want to lose weight, I will admit (50lbs in 14 months), but the upside was that I wasn't feeling deprived.
I'm also wondering what activity level you chose on MFP? If you chose sedentary but you are actually more active (you don't mention if you have a job, but being a mother of 5 is probably a job on its own), you are creating an even bigger deficit.
An agressive calorie deficit can cause water retention, which will mask fat loss on the scale.

As for your exercise: you don't specify the intensity or duration of the exercise, but if this is an increase compared to when you weren't trying to lose weight, this could also be causing water retention.

As for your food: your diary isn't public actually. But weighing is really important, without it you can't be sure of your calorie intake.

How much of my weight could be water retention?

I like knowing that you lost weight eating more calories than me- but shouldn’t the calories in/calories our principle mean that I should be losing the less I eat? (I know within reason- I did Optavia where they have you eat 900 cal/day and I lost weight, but felt like I had the flu the whole time).

lynn_glenmont

aubreeshelley wrote: »

Lietchi wrote: »

What does 'not much has happened yet' mean. No weight loss at all? Slow weight loss?

With a calorie goal of 1300, I'm guessing you have chosen a fairly agressive weight loss rate. Combined with not eating back your exercise calories, you are close to what I would consider the minimum intake for a woman (with your stats).
I am nearly the same age as you, same height and a similar starting weight, and I lost weight eating quite a few calories more than you. More slowly than most people want to lose weight, I will admit (50lbs in 14 months), but the upside was that I wasn't feeling deprived.
I'm also wondering what activity level you chose on MFP? If you chose sedentary but you are actually more active (you don't mention if you have a job, but being a mother of 5 is probably a job on its own), you are creating an even bigger deficit.
An agressive calorie deficit can cause water retention, which will mask fat loss on the scale.

As for your exercise: you don't specify the intensity or duration of the exercise, but if this is an increase compared to when you weren't trying to lose weight, this could also be causing water retention.

As for your food: your diary isn't public actually. But weighing is really important, without it you can't be sure of your calorie intake.

How much of my weight could be water retention?

I like knowing that you lost weight eating more calories than me- but shouldn’t the calories in/calories our principle mean that I should be losing the less I eat? (I know within reason- I did Optavia where they have you eat 900 cal/day and I lost weight, but felt like I had the flu the whole time).

I think rather than worrying about water retention and other issues, you should see where you're at now that you've been able to get the scales to work properly (if I'm interpreting your previous post correctly).

Easily nine times out of ten when people post looking for explanations of why they're not losing as expected, we find logging issues. Actually using a food scale is probably the number one issue in resolving such problems.

alexmose

Along with what everyone else said, I would start resistance training. @sardelsa @sijomial @cupcakesandproteinshakes @nighthawk584 and a myriad of others can tell you that lifting has changed our physiques and the bodyfat goes down at a decent rate.

Lietchi

aubreeshelley wrote: »

Lietchi wrote: »

What does 'not much has happened yet' mean. No weight loss at all? Slow weight loss?

With a calorie goal of 1300, I'm guessing you have chosen a fairly agressive weight loss rate. Combined with not eating back your exercise calories, you are close to what I would consider the minimum intake for a woman (with your stats).
I am nearly the same age as you, same height and a similar starting weight, and I lost weight eating quite a few calories more than you. More slowly than most people want to lose weight, I will admit (50lbs in 14 months), but the upside was that I wasn't feeling deprived.
I'm also wondering what activity level you chose on MFP? If you chose sedentary but you are actually more active (you don't mention if you have a job, but being a mother of 5 is probably a job on its own), you are creating an even bigger deficit.
An agressive calorie deficit can cause water retention, which will mask fat loss on the scale.

As for your exercise: you don't specify the intensity or duration of the exercise, but if this is an increase compared to when you weren't trying to lose weight, this could also be causing water retention.

As for your food: your diary isn't public actually. But weighing is really important, without it you can't be sure of your calorie intake.

How much of my weight could be water retention?

I like knowing that you lost weight eating more calories than me- but shouldn’t the calories in/calories our principle mean that I should be losing the less I eat? (I know within reason- I did Optavia where they have you eat 900 cal/day and I lost weight, but felt like I had the flu the whole time).

Sure, eating less should mean more fat loss (although there are phenomena that can mitigate that: feeling tired by eating too little can cause a person to be less active, for example; slight downshift in metabolism). But it isn't unknown for people to see more movement on the scale in a smaller deficit (a larger deficit stressing the body more and possibly causing water retention - could be a handful of lbs).

But I agree with lynn_glenmont's post that the first step should be to weigh your foods, check you are using correct database entries and verify that you are indeed consuming the number of calories you thought you were.

nanastaci2020

Eating less should result in losing more, yes. BUT there are other factors at play as well.

You want to lose body fat, I assume. If you eat at a very low calorie level, you increase the chance that your body will feed itself by depleting your muscle as well as your fat. You don't want to lose muscle. Then there is the issue that you want to get proper nutrition, to keep hair/skin/nails healthy. Oh, and your heart. It can be damaged from a VLCD.

In addition, there are other likely outcomes of eating very low calories. One is that it is not sustainable. Can you see yourself eating super low for 3 months? 6 months? If not, then doesn't it make sense to find a moderate ground that you CAN do longer term? Eating very low is likely to last no more than a few days or perhaps a few weeks. A common cycle is to get frustrated (at always being hungry, having little energy, being cranky, etc.) which can lead to a binge or simply cause a person to give up & revert to old habits. Then 6-12 months later, another try but this time the health & weight level are both worse off.

And then there is that lack of energy. Eating very little and still trying to live your life, handle your obligations and exercise? Something suffers. If your body is not satiated, then energy levels dip and less gets done.

AnnPT77

Besides less getting done if energy level dips on low calories, the doing less means we're burning fewer calories. Subtle fatigue-related decisions like making the simpler evening meal, putting off some major housecleaning, walking less at the grocery store, maybe reduced exercise intensity . . . those things add up. On top of that, our bodies can slow down in near-invisible ways, like slowed hair growth (even hair loss), and other effects that show up later, maybe weeks/months later.

It's not just "eat less, lose faster". That's true within a certain range, but calorie intake affects calorie output. It's dynamic, not static. Eat so little that you get fatigued and your body slows down optional processes, weight loss slows.

There's no "starvation mode" state where you won't lose weight no matter how little you eat, but it is possible to eat so little that you lose more slowly than you expect at that calorie level, because of the slowing. There's sort of a sweet spot or range, where weight loss happens, but energy level and vitality stay strong.

aubreeshelley

Thanks everyone for the tips. I will be trying figuring out how to weigh the more complicated things like leftovers. Stuff like my lunch where it’s rice, a vegetable, sometimes beans and a plant based no oil sauce are easier to track.

nanastaci2020

aubreeshelley wrote: »

Thanks everyone for the tips. I will be trying figuring out how to weigh the more complicated things like leftovers. Stuff like my lunch where it’s rice, a vegetable, sometimes beans and a plant based no oil sauce are easier to track.

When I'm cooking food, I make a 'recipe' in the MFP recipe builder. I enter all the ingredients by weight. I weigh the final cooked food and set the recipe # of servings to the weight in grams. Such as baked pasta I made on Sunday was 3305 grams, so 3305 servings. I then can weigh my food when I'm having leftovers. Today I had 340 grams of the baked pasta for lunch, so logged 340 calories.

yirara

aubreeshelley wrote: »

Dogmom1978 wrote: »

A food scale is less than $20 at Walmart. Invest in one and weigh and measure your portions.

Also, you set yourself as lightly active. That is before any additional exercise you are logging correct? If the lightly active INCLUDES your exercise, you wouldn’t also add the exercise into your diary.

Yes, lightly active is the rest of my life besides the above mentioned exercise.


I have a scale- but there must be something wrong with it or I’m using it wrong. I just tested it again. I put a bowl on it, then hit the TARE button, then just for testing purposes put a package on that has its net weight listed as 206 g. When I placed the bowl with the package in it back on the scale it says it is 412 g.

Is your mobile phone close to your scale? I find that my phone really influences the scale measurements - big time!
If you do then try to put the phone far away from the scale, maybe on a different counter top as well. I find that my phone might influence the scale from 1m away, but it might be more.

MidlifeCrisisFitness

Exercise comes in two forms. Cardio and muscle training.

Muscle training can be for size or strength. If you add resistance training to increase your Lean Body Mass. Your muscles will burn fat faster while you are at rest than you can by eating less. You don't need to look bulky to have muscles. Look into Pilates, body weight training and progressive light dumbell exercises. Add them to your cardio routines.

NovusDies

KHMcG wrote: »

Exercise comes in two forms. Cardio and muscle training.

Muscle training can be for size or strength. If you add resistance training to increase your Lean Body Mass. Your muscles will burn fat faster while you are at rest than you can by eating less. You don't need to look bulky to have muscles. Look into Pilates, body weight training and progressive light dumbell exercises. Add them to your cardio routines.

Nope. That has been debunked.

Muscles require a small amount of energy at rest. I believe the estimate is 6 to 7 calories per pound per day.

domeofstars

I once went through a similar situation and I couldn't work out why I wasn't losing weight. It was because I was under estimating what I was eating. As soon as I started to weigh and measure everything I ate and drank, the weight came off. Also, I have noticed that sometimes the calorie values of foods are not accurate here on MFP because its been user-added so i double check on another site sometimes as well.