“Why didn’t I lose weight?!” Ok. I know. And I’m an idiot

Losingthedamnweight

I thought I did well. I got some exercise everyday of the week and I thought I stayed within my calorie range. At least close to it. I felt really confident that after all the sweating I did. All the exhausting workouts! That that would net me a pretty solid weight loss. And I mean…I didn’t go all out on any of these days the past week and just stuff my face carelessly.

I get on the scale. Moment of truth. Expecting something damn good. And I see… +5 lbs. What…the hell. Makes no sense. None. I’m like standing there getting on and off the scale like 5 times and grumbling to myself in the bathroom “I would get up before working everyday and go for a walk. Then the next day I would do some workouts and burn a lot. I should have sweated off at last 5lbs. Not gained!”

It just made no sense. And I was pissed off and I felt like giving up in the bathroom standing over my scale because I gave it a real good shot. Maybe I’m just screwed? I’m meant to be fat.

I just wanted to confirm with myself how well I did so I opened my phone and I always promised myself that even if I was over my calories or ate too much. I’d log! So at least I would know what I ate and I could figure myself out. Well…I opened Apple fitness to check on my workouts and wow. Total, everyday I was burning about 3400 calories. My exercise ring was full. Lots of steps. I’m good.

Then I checked the lose it app. Oh man. Reality check. I looked at the graph for the past 7 days and I was in the red just about everyday. Yesterday I ate within my budget. Nice. But my sodium was super high like 5300mg. The day before I was over by 600 calories. I didn’t even realize that. Maybe I figured I’d burnt so many it was somehow ok? The past couple days were over. A lot. I vaguely remember seeing I burned a lot of calories on a workout, so I ate like 3100 calories. Lots of sodium too.

Just going over all my days it doesn’t feel like it matches my memory. I thought I did really well but most days I was over by at least a little bit and some a lot. And it made total sense why I saw what I saw on the scale. And I felt like an idiot. I’m glad I counted the bad days. I thought I had been going good for days in a row but the most days I stuck to my calories was 3. Then it was up and down up and down.

I don’t know? It just kinda shocked me. The whole thing. So now I’m making a hard rule to stick to my calories and don’t try to do these little justifications I do. “Well I worked out a lot so. And I sweat alot” or “oh well I did good yesterday” or “eating a bit over this one day won’t kill me”. Well it won’t but it’ll sabotage myself and if I keep doing that every single day, I won’t be losing anything! Real wake up call for me

snowflake954

You are a creative writer and I enjoyed your story---all too true, unfortunately. I'd just like to make a comment on "sweating" in a workout. So many people think they are burning scads of calories because they're sweating so much during a workout. They are very disappointed that this isn't so. Think about it. If you do a workout on a hot day (sweating like crazy) and then months later do the exact same workout in the snow, do you think there will be a difference in calories burned? Sweating is loss of water weight. When MFP gives you a calorie burn for an exercise they never ask if you sweated during the exercise.

It's funny how we get these ideas and how many people are really convinced.

Good luck and keep logging. That's the best thing you can do.

PAV8888

Logging food very very good.
Reviewing logs even better.
Looking at weight TREND instead of isolated weight ins spaced far apart (that sodium and similar issues) even better-er.

marius_paps

Welcome to the club of idiots 😜 (shakes hands)
I'm happy to see I'm not the only idiot 🤣

Underestimation of calories burnt and underestimation of calories eaten are a surefire way to gain weight.

This is one of the reasons why I'm here.

If I'm very very active I think I deserve and can eat whatever I fancy. Wrong!

Gawd 3100 calories of workout? How long a workout is that?
It'll take me 2+ hours to burn 2000...

It's so frustrating that our bodies are so energy efficient (like a handful of peanuts is half an hour walk). Argh!

Good luck and keep going

cmriverside

That 5000 of salt is going to make a huge water retention problem. That's more than double the recommendation. I'd suggest stepping on that scale every day instead of once a week, and watch the salt. That's not actual "weight." You didn't over-eat by 17,500 calories. That 600 calories wouldn't cause weight gain if you're eating at a deficit. That wouldn't even have put you at weight Maintenance calories.

~Signed,
Been There, Got The Tee Shirt

wunderkindking

Yeah, I had to learn pretty early on to look at the weekly report to see what I was doing over a week and rely on that. I never tried to eat the same calories every day, but I cannot be relied on to keep the math for a WEEK in my head. And a hard ceiling on my calories (as well as a 'I will not eat less than this, NET') worked out ok.

wunderkindking

marius_paps wrote: »

Welcome to the club of idiots 😜 (shakes hands)
I'm happy to see I'm not the only idiot 🤣

Underestimation of calories burnt and underestimation of calories eaten are a surefire way to gain weight.

This is one of the reasons why I'm here.

If I'm very very active I think I deserve and can eat whatever I fancy. Wrong!

Gawd 3100 calories of workout? How long a workout is that?
It'll take me 2+ hours to burn 2000...

It's so frustrating that our bodies are so energy efficient (like a handful of peanuts is half an hour walk). Argh!

Good luck and keep going

I read it as calories they've burned total in a day and that's partially dependent upon size. I got a lot more calories from exercise when I was heavier - and just general life - since it takes more to maintain a heavier (or taller) size. If it's just exercise yeah, a lot. Daily burn for life + workout not too shocking. For me that's only a | 600/800 above daily activity. Still a lot but less 'I wanna die now'.

Also I would super like the impression we all get that 'worked hard, got very sweaty and tired' meaning we burned a ton of calories to go away. It's inaccurate but so, so hard to shake.

kshama2001

My "I'm an idiot" thinking is, "I got a lot of exercise today; I don't need to finish my food log until tomorrow" - at which point I'd realize I'd gone over.

Caralarma

Personally I don't eat exercise calories back. It's too hard to really get a true reflection of how many cals you burned so I would rather go a little bit over sometimes on days I exercise... but don't take the exercise cals too seriously.

elisa123gal

Anytime I rely on exercise to lose weight...it goes slow. Not only do you think you burn more calories than you do... it will actually make you more hungry when you work out really hard and long. You would lose more weight fast by concentrating on your eating. Eat to lose weight. exercise to get fit and tone.

Xellercin

Personally, I'm not a fan of tackling two habits at once, I don't find it overly sustainable.

When someone has a lot of weight to lose, I always recommend that they tackle either sustainable exercise or sustainable diet first. Preferably diet.

If someone doesn't have a nice, comfortable, long term healthy relationship with food and exercise, it can be very difficult to develop either if they connect the two in their heads.

Instead, I recommend getting a grip on eating first and only doing light, comfortable exercise that feels good. Nothing intense and nothing for the express purpose of "burning fat". That's not really a great way to conceptualize exercise anyway as it tends to encourage people to push too hard and burn out.

If you can focus on your eating and get your relationship with food to a healthy, long term sustainable place, then you never need to depend on intense exercise to offset your eating.

Then once the diet is well in hand and self sustaining, then add exercise, but with the aim of improving health and mood. This will naturally lean the person more towards the kind of exercise that is enjoyable and that they will want to do every day, rather than the punishing routines that people over do when they are trying to rack up calorie burn numbers.

I divorced exercise from weight loss in my head years ago, and it's made losing weight a much, much simpler, easier, and more comfortable process. I was obese, lost down to lean healthy weight, have maintained healthy weight for years, and from obese down to high-normal BMI, I barely exercised beyond taking walks and stretching. Those ended up being the easiest lbs to lose because being obese, it was so easy to run a small deficit. I basically just sat back and a year later, I was just barely overweight.

Only at that point, when my body was more comfortable and I never even had to think about my diet, did I start adding more vigorous exercise, but it was never with the purpose to burn more calories. It was always for more strength, stronger heart and lungs, better posture, and to stave off aches and pains. It was never about pushing myself as hard as possible, it was about living my best life and my best life includes exercise.

It's hard not to be in a rush and throw everything at your weight loss, but at the end of the day, time will pass. And in a year from now, would you rather have unpredictable results from trying to rush it, or would you rather have developed a stable diet, a healthy relationship with eating, that produces predictable, slow, sustainable results, and have discovered exercise that you truly crave every day because it lifts your spirits and makes your body feel calm, loos, and comfortable?

That's just my 2c as someone who spent a few decades yo-yo ing until I separated diet and exercise completely as habits, and made my life so much easier.

nooshi713

elisa123gal wrote: »

Anytime I rely on exercise to lose weight...it goes slow. Not only do you think you burn more calories than you do... it will actually make you more hungry when you work out really hard and long. You would lose more weight fast by concentrating on your eating. Eat to lose weight. exercise to get fit and tone.

Yep, this has been my experience!

yayamom3

marius_paps wrote: »

Welcome to the club of idiots 😜 (shakes hands)
I'm happy to see I'm not the only idiot 🤣

Underestimation of calories burnt and underestimation of calories eaten are a surefire way to gain weight.

This is one of the reasons why I'm here.

If I'm very very active I think I deserve and can eat whatever I fancy. Wrong!

Gawd 3100 calories of workout? How long a workout is that?
It'll take me 2+ hours to burn 2000...

It's so frustrating that our bodies are so energy efficient (like a handful of peanuts is half an hour walk). Argh!

Good luck and keep going

I assumed OP meant they burned 3100 calories over the course of the whole day from living, which also included their calories burned during exercise. TDEE