Reached goal during Covid but now - eating too much?

CeeBeeSlim
CeeBeeSlim Posts: 1,347 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi. Anyone did kind of the opposite - their fitness goal during the height of Covid and now losing their hard-earned results?

Need some KISS, cold-water-in-the-face feedback.

I reached an ultimate weight loss goal during March 2020- April 2021. Lost about 30lbs to get to 112 although I would’ve been over the moon at 125. Not due to Covid but I guess I was homebound, anxious, did not eat out, exercised daily, etc. 5’3, 57, small/med frame. Was eating 1200 max, 2 days strength training, cardio 2-3 other days.

I’m been slowly gaining since fall 2021 - bouncing back from 128-130 since really trying to lose in March 2022.. 3 days of strength training, progressive overload. Not much cardio, just 10,000 steps through NEAT and some walking. Clothes fit almost the same and I’m stronger. i’m more filled out in my pants folks say I look better now and was scrawny before.


BUT - if I’ve haven’t lost SCALE weight since the beginning of the year, and still bouncing around 128-130, is it simply that I’m eating at maintenance or more, period - end of story?!

I’m aiming for the still 1200, still measuring counting, logging - but the scale is stuck. I thought that given my activity level, even if I went to 1300 or even 1400 (hardly), I’d be still losing, but if I’d have to go back to 1200 consistently and obsessively I will.

Is it just that simple - I’m eating more?







BUT - if I’m trying to get

Replies

  • MsCzar
    MsCzar Posts: 1,070 Member
    I also lost weight and got fit during the height of Covid. In February 2020 I was very obese, pre-diabetic and had borderline high BP. By March 2021, I'd lost 85 lbs., was exercising every day, and had a great blood-work profile, BP and resting heart rate.
    Once I returned to work, travel, restaurant expense accounts, crazy schedules and mega-stress, I began eating more, skipping exercise and - the biggest sin of all - stopped logging my food. Result: the inevitable steady slow creep of weight gain!
    The struggle continues.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,183 Member
    CeeBeeSlim wrote: »
    Hi. Anyone did kind of the opposite - their fitness goal during the height of Covid and now losing their hard-earned results?

    Need some KISS, cold-water-in-the-face feedback.

    I reached an ultimate weight loss goal during March 2020- April 2021. Lost about 30lbs to get to 112 although I would’ve been over the moon at 125. Not due to Covid but I guess I was homebound, anxious, did not eat out, exercised daily, etc. 5’3, 57, small/med frame. Was eating 1200 max, 2 days strength training, cardio 2-3 other days.

    I’m been slowly gaining since fall 2021 - bouncing back from 128-130 since really trying to lose in March 2022.. 3 days of strength training, progressive overload. Not much cardio, just 10,000 steps through NEAT and some walking. Clothes fit almost the same and I’m stronger. i’m more filled out in my pants folks say I look better now and was scrawny before.


    BUT - if I’ve haven’t lost SCALE weight since the beginning of the year, and still bouncing around 128-130, is it simply that I’m eating at maintenance or more, period - end of story?!

    I’m aiming for the still 1200, still measuring counting, logging - but the scale is stuck. I thought that given my activity level, even if I went to 1300 or even 1400 (hardly), I’d be still losing, but if I’d have to go back to 1200 consistently and obsessively I will.

    Is it just that simple - I’m eating more?







    BUT - if I’m trying to get

    I didn't do that, exactly. I was on a course to (re-) lose a few vanity pounds super-slowly when the pandemic started, and the pandemic helped - less temptation from restaurant meals, social events, etc. I lost the pounds I wanted, went back to maintaining OK.

    When things started opening back up, I regained a few pounds. It was mostly about dulling of some skills I needed to keep myself in check with those restaurants and social eating back in the picture. I'm doing a bit better now, I think, but am reaching my annual Fall challenge season. (My appetite seems to spike as days shorten and weather gets colder.)

    You say you're aiming for the 1200, but not losing. Are you achieving the 1200 consistently (how consistently?), and still not losing; or finding the 1200 not to be entirely achievable?

    If the latter, maaaayyybeee the solution is cutting more strictly.

    If the former, or consistently hitting some level that ought to be loss (1300, 1400), then I'd be thinking about maybe adaptive thermogenesis effects, and/or stress effects.

    I do think there are things to consider in the part I bolded in your post (depending in part on who the "folks" are). Trying to lose "too far" (ill defined) usually involves more bodily snap-back. There are things that are more important than an arbitrary number on the scale, but it's easy to get focused on a specific number/range.

    Do you have any kind of idea what your body fat percent range might be - even a rough estimate from something like the so-called Navy calculator or similar**, BIA scale, photo comparison, trainer guess, other sources? Multiple different poor estimates from different methods could give more insight than one poor estimate. 😉

    ** https://www.calculator.net/body-fat-calculator.html
    https://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/body-fat-percentage-calculator/
    http://www.gymgoal.com/dtool_fat.html
    etc.

    If the estimates converge, I'd think you might have some rough indication there. The closer to a low bodyfat for women, the higher odds of push-backs like hunger/appetite hormones, cortisol, adaptation, etc. . . . I suspect.

    Your calorie numbers seem pretty low, speaking as an older woman of similar weight (only 2" taller), but I admit I'm biased by unusual personal experience in the opposite direction. If you can get a rough BF% estimate - or better yet, if you have a good one from something like DEXA - you could run a TDEE calculator that uses BF%, as Sailrabbit *** does for some of its formulas.

    *** https://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/

    MFP and other calculators seem, to me, to have a bias built in about declining muscularity with increasing age - which is a statistically reasonable thing, even if unhelpful in particular cases. Your age/height/weight suggests a BMR (not TDEE) around 1200. If you're down around 25% body fat, it would be estimated more like 1300-1400.

    That kind of estimate, with a body fat estimated considered, could also give you a hint about whether increasing calories for a while, or creeping them up gradually, could have some benefits.

    You're already in the central zone of normal BMI (22.7 at 128). You're shooting for 19.8 at 112, which isn't below the normal range (underweight starts below 18.5), but if your muscularity has increased materially compared to age norms, it could still be unnecessarily low. I understand that you have a small/medium frame, though, so no way to be definitive.

    I kinda hate tagging people in without their buy-in, but this is a case where I wonder if @springlering62 has any thoughts as a woman of similar age, with strength training experience maybe more similar to yours (no pressure, Spring, if you don't). I'm a lackadaisical strength trainer, at best, though I have a little more lean mass than average for my age, I think.

    Just some thoughts. Kind of rambling ones . . . apologies for that part.


  • CeeBeeSlim
    CeeBeeSlim Posts: 1,347 Member
    @MsCzar. A struggle it is!! I figure it we did it once we could do it again, right?! 😀

    @AnnPT77 Thanks so much for your always helpful response. I have to learn how to copy and paste or how to embed my replies to posts, but in the meantime, here goes:

    1) I would honestly say I haven’t been totally consistent - maybe two takeout meals and a ice cream treat SOME weeks, but I would say that given my activity, even at 1400 calories, - which I rarely come close to, just not that hungry) would account for some more loss than what I’m experiencing.

    2. Could I also answer that while the 1200 is achievable, I was a bit too happy once the COVID restrictions - the timing coincided with when I was to enter maintenance. I think given all that was going on with COVID I had no plan for maintenance - I was just happy to see friends which meant more eating out, simply went overboard and didn’t catch it until I was 10+ pounds heavier.

    3. Thank you for the links. Based on those calculations and body fat percentage photos, I would say I am 25% body fat.

    4. You are correct - my bmr is around 1140. My tdee according to sail rabbit is 1356. And now that I’m writing this and looking back at my mfp diary entries - I was ranging from 1100-1200 calories max during my weight loss phase.

    If I added a strength training day and progressively overloading, water retention couldn’t hide scale weight loss for weeks right.

    Could you explain why an increase in calories would have some benefit if i want to see the scale number decrease?
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,183 Member
    CeeBeeSlim wrote: »
    @MsCzar. A struggle it is!! I figure it we did it once we could do it again, right?! 😀

    @AnnPT77 Thanks so much for your always helpful response. I have to learn how to copy and paste or how to embed my replies to posts, but in the meantime, here goes:

    1) I would honestly say I haven’t been totally consistent - maybe two takeout meals and a ice cream treat SOME weeks, but I would say that given my activity, even at 1400 calories, - which I rarely come close to, just not that hungry) would account for some more loss than what I’m experiencing.

    2. Could I also answer that while the 1200 is achievable, I was a bit too happy once the COVID restrictions - the timing coincided with when I was to enter maintenance. I think given all that was going on with COVID I had no plan for maintenance - I was just happy to see friends which meant more eating out, simply went overboard and didn’t catch it until I was 10+ pounds heavier.

    3. Thank you for the links. Based on those calculations and body fat percentage photos, I would say I am 25% body fat.

    4. You are correct - my bmr is around 1140. My tdee according to sail rabbit is 1356. And now that I’m writing this and looking back at my mfp diary entries - I was ranging from 1100-1200 calories max during my weight loss phase.

    Did you redo Sailrabbit with the 25% in body fat percent? Then compare the formulas that use it (the two
    Katch-McArdle formulas, and Cunningham) to the other results that don't use it (the two Harris-Benedict, and Mifflin St Jeor)?

    What I'm saying is that if your BF% is 25%, you're unusually muscular for a woman your age, so the estimates that account for BF% are likely to be more useful, and likely to suggest your BMR is higher. If your BMR estimate is higher, your TDEE estimate will be higher.

    As an aside, it seems like if you're saying your TDEE is 1356 when your BMR is 1140, then you're using one of the lower activity levels. Ten thousand steps and 3 days of strength training is not that low an activity level.
    If I added a strength training day and progressively overloading, water retention couldn’t hide scale weight loss for weeks right.
    Actually, it potentially can hide fat loss for weeks. Stress-related water retention can keep creeping on in some scenarios for a long time. I had strength training water retention hide fat loss from my weight trending app - let alone hide it from my self-perception from watching scale weight - for over a month, when I was actually losing fat slowly.
    Could you explain why an increase in calories would have some benefit if i want to see the scale number decrease?

    Yes. It's scenario specific, though, and may not be what's happening for you . . . but I'm suspicious that it could be. I'm going to link some rather long, detailed explanations from MFP threads for additional information, and encourage you to read those with an open mind.

    When we're in a calorie deficit for a long time, or an extreme calorie deficit for a shorter time, our bodies will try to conserve energy. This is not the infamous and mythical "starvation mode" where people can't lose fat at all on low calories. It's a thing where our bodies down-regulate so that we lose fat slower than would be expected/predicted, a research-documented effect more properly called "adaptive thermogenesis". (1)

    It involves anything from slowed hair/nails growth, to reduced spontaneous movement (things like unnnoticed fidgeting, but also movement beyond that), to slightly lower core body temperature, and more. If that's happening, a person's BMR can actually decrease, and NEAT (daily life movement) also decreases. It can be subtle.

    On top of that, there is the stress-related water retention effect. (2) Calorie deficit is a stress, extreme or long term calorie deficit is a bigger stress, exercise is a stress, and those are cumulative with other sources of physical/psychological stress in our lives, including self-generated stress about body weight (cruelly enough!).

    The combination of these things can result in some cases in a person losing weight more slowly (maybe invisibly slowly) on very low calories, but faster on somewhat higher calories. The idea is that getting to a calorie level where metabolism/activity recover (up-regulate again) means a person burns more calories through the day, and the net loss is better. More simply, there can be a calorie goal sweet spot, or Goldilocks calorie intake zone - not too low, not too high - where weight loss is most productive.

    Anecdotally, some people seem more subject to this kind of effect than others.

    There is a thing called "reverse dieting" where people follow a somewhat technical approach to gradually increasing calorie intake, to try to nudge metabolism/NEAT higher. There is also the idea of taking periodic "maintenance breaks" during weight loss, to try to avoid this effect happening in the first place. (3)

    -- Here are my footnotes --

    (1) http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1077746/starvation-mode-adaptive-thermogenesis-and-weight-loss/p1

    Read all the posts by that thread's OP - there are several at the top of the thread. He even gives footnotes to research sources in one of the latter of those few.

    (2) This link describes cases much more extreme than yours, but it does a good job of describing the basic science of the effect:

    https://bodyrecomposition.com/research/dietary-restraint-cortisol-levels

    I'm not saying you're that extreme - not at all - so please don't be offended.

    (3) http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10604863/of-refeeds-and-diet-breaks/p1

    -- end footnotes --

    Am I sure any of that's happening for you? No, of course not. But they're possible things that can happen, according to some pretty level-headed, mainstream researchers and experts.




  • CeeBeeSlim
    CeeBeeSlim Posts: 1,347 Member
    Wow, @AnnPT77. Thanks again for this helpful information.

    You’re correct. I did add the 25% body fat in sail rabbit but also chose the low activity setting. My intentional exercise is the strength training workouts, and maybe 5K of the 10k steps are also intentional exercise. Outside of that, I can be pretty sedentary. Ooh - but maybe that’s MFP calculation method only? I should have chosen at least lightly active?

    I haven’t read the links yet but what you describe above makes a lot of sense.

    I’m glad - although we may end there - it’s not so open and shut as as lower your calories - you’re overeating. 😬

    Thanks again for the education!
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,183 Member
    CeeBeeSlim wrote: »
    Wow, @AnnPT77. Thanks again for this helpful information.

    You’re correct. I did add the 25% body fat in sail rabbit but also chose the low activity setting. My intentional exercise is the strength training workouts, and maybe 5K of the 10k steps are also intentional exercise. Outside of that, I can be pretty sedentary. Ooh - but maybe that’s MFP calculation method only? I should have chosen at least lightly active?

    Yes, Sailrabbit isn't like MFP. It's a TDEE calculator, and wants to average in your intentional exercise along with your job and daily life activity. You want to read the text descriptions, and make your best guess, inclusive of everything you do.

    It seems like 3 days a week of strength, plus 10,000 steps most days, would be at least the "Lightly active" option, if not a bit higher.

    Don't just use the BMR/TDEE value labeled "Final". Go over and put check marks (in the "Include" column) next to the two Katch-McArdle and Cunningham, but not the others. Then click the activity level again. That will adjust the "Final" to use just the formulas that account for body fat percent. I suspect that would be more realistic, for you. Just guessing, though. They're still just statistical estimates.

    What I like about Sailrabbit (vs. other TDEE calculators) is that it has more activity levels, and better descriptions for each one.

    MFP's calorie estimate is more like BMR + NEAT, where activity level is everything except intentional exercise, then you add the latter separately, as you know.
    I haven’t read the links yet but what you describe above makes a lot of sense.

    I’m glad - although we may end there - it’s not so open and shut as as lower your calories - you’re overeating. 😬

    Thanks again for the education!

  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 8,415 Member
    My story, FWIW. I see a whole lot of me in your story. I started at 56, am currently 60.

    I reached my final goal of 145 before Covid lockdown. I was beyond thrilled at that weight.

    I vowed not to put it back on, so walked my butt off in solitary on a local trail, losing another 18. That’s a good thing right? It wasn’t. I got too thin.

    So, I added back five or six pounds, and looked exactly the same, only stronger and like you say,
    “more filled out” as I built back muscle.

    I was exercising my *kitten* off, and believe it or not, maintaining at 3200 calories per day….or so I thought, until my weight crept up a bit more, and pants got a bit tight around the waistline. I also threw my back out doing too, too much.

    So I decided to reevaluate everything.

    I analyzed my calories by the week, and realized my calories had actually crept up to over 3500 over the course of many weeks.

    I wasn’t even eating stuff I particularly enjoyed. It had turned into rote eating to fuel my insane level of exercise.

    So I’m in the process of losing again. TBH it’s a relief to cut back. I’ve still got a demanding dog to walk, too. I’ve cut calories down to lose half a pound a week- right back to a pleasant and manageable fixed 2200 a day- where I was at when lockdown started.

    Life feels simpler now. It’s also really nice to have a goal again as crazy as it sounds. Nothing major. Just five pounds.

    Maintenance can be numbing, or we relax, which makes things get away from us and creep up.

    I do a DEXA every year around my anniversary and just did one a couple of weeks ago. I was up 4.6 pounds overall. Body fat % was up 3.1% over last year. Oddly, fat was up but so was muscle, by very similar figures. It made zero sense to me, so once again, I’m back at swearing off DEXAs. All the numbers turn into number soup. It’s not worth the stress. Go by how your britches fit, if your abs pull as tight as you like, and your energy level.

    I still look fine, my back isn’t screaming, my shoulders are breathing a sigh of relief from the more relaxed schedule, and I’m back to worrying about satiety and thinking about what I eat more carefully.

    TL:DR yeah, calories DO creep up. So does exercise. Reevaluate when needed. You know when that is. Your data is a safety net for you if you’ve logged religiously.




  • CeeBeeSlim
    CeeBeeSlim Posts: 1,347 Member
    @springlering62 Thank you for sharing. Wow - our situations are very similar. I think I may allowed some unfiltered comments to get to me - and figured even if I gained 5 pounds to about 117-118, I’d still be under my ultimate goal of 125.

    Per @AnnPT77 comment - the only professional feedback I received was from a personal trainer - she suggested 125. 118 was what I recalled being happier at and 113 was the smallest I recall as an adult-ish (18 years old). The funny thing about lockdown for me the weight loss became a project I could control so it’s likely I did go too far.

    I understand what you mean about it being nice to have a goal. Back then - to your last sentence - I was logging religiously. Now, I’m probably 80-90% consistent and lax when eating the “tasters” - food or wine or ice cream my DH would say - “oh, just taste it or have just a few bites”. Just perhaps they’re adding up more than I realize although given my activity and the calculations @AnnPT77 instructed me to do, a TDEE of 1900 or so should still keep me losing.

    I’ll start the religious tracking today and see where I am in a week! Would that be a good plan?
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,183 Member
    edited September 2022
    CeeBeeSlim wrote: »
    @springlering62 Thank you for sharing. Wow - our situations are very similar. I think I may allowed some unfiltered comments to get to me - and figured even if I gained 5 pounds to about 117-118, I’d still be under my ultimate goal of 125.

    Per @AnnPT77 comment - the only professional feedback I received was from a personal trainer - she suggested 125. 118 was what I recalled being happier at and 113 was the smallest I recall as an adult-ish (18 years old). The funny thing about lockdown for me the weight loss became a project I could control so it’s likely I did go too far.

    I understand what you mean about it being nice to have a goal. Back then - to your last sentence - I was logging religiously. Now, I’m probably 80-90% consistent and lax when eating the “tasters” - food or wine or ice cream my DH would say - “oh, just taste it or have just a few bites”. Just perhaps they’re adding up more than I realize although given my activity and the calculations @AnnPT77 instructed me to do, a TDEE of 1900 or so should still keep me losing.

    I’ll start the religious tracking today and see where I am in a week! Would that be a good plan?

    Religious tracking for a while: Good plan. (And it doesn't matter if there are some over-goal days in there, count them anyway.)

    A week? May not be long enough. Are you you in menopause? If yes, maybe a couple of weeks would be enough, but 4-6 would be better. Water fluctuations can be that weird. If you don't change eating style/habits at all, results might be clear sooner than if eating patterns change.

    On the earlier in life happy weights: If your body composition now is different than it was when you were 113-118, that can make a huge difference in "ideal" goal weight. Like I said, I think 25% BF at 128ish pounds at your height/age is more muscle mass than average, which means your most desirable weight is likely to be higher than it would be if less muscle mass. Muscle is heavier per cubic inch, i.e., dense, compared to fat.

    From mucking around with the calculators, I think the calculators implicitly assume someone my height/age is more like 30% body fat, when I'm actually more like 25%. It makes a big difference in both calorie needs, and goal weight.

    I could but won't tag her, but there's a woman here who's my height (a few years younger, but not a 20-something y/o). She has very visible ab muscularity at a bodyweight that I understand is probably somewhere in the overweight BMI zone (25+ BMI) or close. She looks amazing, and is probably bodyfat in the teens during her lighter phases (but still 10s of pounds on the scale above where I am, all of it muscle). I, on the other hand, do not have visible abs at BMI 21-point-whatever. If she weighed what I do, with her current muscularity, even though we're the same height . . . well, not even sure that's possible . . . she'd be heading for a starvation situation, if it were possible - below essential body fat percent for minimally adequate health.

    Body composition matters. Former weights don't matter, if composition has changed significantly.

  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 8,415 Member
    edited September 2022
    More than a week, doll. We both know that by now.

    When I started losing again during Covid, I thought I’d try for 125, my wedding day weight.

    Thankfully I stopped before I got that low. The wedding dress fit, though, and still fits even now, at the higher weight.

    Trim is totally different size and shape at 60 versus 25. We gotta remember that when the dark thoughts occasional creep in. 😉
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,183 Member
    springlering62 wrote: »
    More than a week, doll. We both know that by now.

    When I started losing again during Covid, I thought I’d try for 125, my wedding day weight.

    Thankfully I stopped before I got that low. The wedding dress fit, though, and still fits even now, at the higher weight.

    Trim is totally different size and shape at 60 versus 25. We gotta remember that when the dark thoughts occasional creep in. 😉

    With apologies to @CeeBeeSlim for off-topic-ing, I kind of disagree with that . . . maybe because it tends in the direction of that "we should weigh more at the same height as we age" cliché which I think isn't automatically true. I don't think age per se is the big variable. Body composition matters, lots.

    (I do wonder, though, about the effect of mom-hood. (I'm not one, so no personal experience.) From reading, seeing others around me, I think that literally can change configuration somewhat in some people (pelvic geometry, breasts). Don't know, though.)

    Probably some other individually variable things matter, too.

    Mostly, I think the big deal is body composition. There's ample evidence that it's statistically average to lose muscle as we age, and it adds up to fairly big differences in the average body (male or female) by time folks reach the age bracket we're in (50s/60s). For those who push in the other direction - increase muscularity - both BMR/TDEE and good goal weight are likely to be affected.

    At any age, I think it's better to re-assess in a clear-eyed way as goal approaches, rather than target some specific goal weight that used to be perfect. We say that to the 18-20 y/o women who haven't registered that it's pretty necessary to weigh more and be shaped very differently as a young adult than they did at 12 y/o. It's not the same stuff at work as we transition older, but I think there's still stuff, some of it quite individual.

    Personally, I pay more heed to opinions of doctors and personal trainer type people, vs. random friends and family, though even the former can be biased. I'd observe that what my doctor suggested for reasonable goal when I was obese was different than what he thought when I got close to a reasonable weight. I've been asking my various (numerous!) doctors and doctor-adjacent pros for their opinion about my weight recently, just for grins.

  • CeeBeeSlim
    CeeBeeSlim Posts: 1,347 Member
    @AnnPT77 @springlering62 You are both so right. At 113-118, muscle schmuscle -😜. These were college and a bit post-college years and weight wasn’t an issue or occupied one brain cell of a thought. Didn’t even put on the freshman-15. In my head, currently, a NSV would be to get to that point again. Not worry about lower belly pudge, throwing on clothes without a second thought about size - hence aiming for that 113. Now that I know more - I defined skinny fat back then.

    I’m recalling a dancer friend during college admiring my frame and then squeezed my thigh. She remarked “oh gosh, you have no muscle”. I recall wondering why in the world would I even want that. I’m a lady 🙄🙄.


    And @springlering62 - I actually can put on the few size 4 clothes I had from back then - just like we said, I’m fuller in them now than the “mushy” look I had back then.

    The scale number is playing with my head! Thinking I could Benjamina Button my way back to a scale weight with ease. 😆

    Religious logging for at least 4-6 weeks it is. 📉😃



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