Loser by name, not by weight

Katestar07

I'm consuming 1,200 cals per day (got about 25kg to lose), exercising 3x week (burning around 1,000 cals per week through exercise) and drinking 1.5L water per day. My clothes are loose and wedding ring now fits so I know I'm losing but the scales are not budging (in fact I gained 0.3 this week). Is this normal? What am I doing wrong? Time to buy new scales? Ive attached last week's calorie summary. Am I not eating enough? #confused #help

Retroguy2000

Those are dangerously low calorie inputs for a few days.

The 0.3 gain, is that based on a multi-day average of daily weight checks, or a single day snapshot? If the latter, it's meaningless. Water retention from exercise, or after recent salt and carb intake, period related, etc.

It sounds like you are making progress. How much have you lost, over how long? If your progress is stalling, might be time for a maintenance break, maybe go back to maintenance for a couple of weeks to let your body recharge.

SuzySunshine99

You are very seriously undereating. How long have you been doing this for? You say are eating 1,200 calories, but it looks like you are consistently under that amount. 1,200 is the absolute minimum safe level for women, so if that's your goal, you need to hit it, not be under.

If your clothes are loose, then you are losing weight. If it's not showing up on the scale, there are a few possibilities...you could be retaining water/fluid. If your exercise routine is new, then water retention is very likely. Hormonal fluctuations can also have a temporary effect on weight. You could also try changing the batteries in your scale. Remember that weight fluctuates on a daily basis, and you will not lose consistently every week.

You need to slow this way down...eating this little, especially while also exercising, will lead to a total burnout. Do you want to be able to maintain the weight that you lose or do you want to gain it all back as soon as you stop "dieting"? Stop with the crash diet and do this more sensibly. Eat more and be patient.

Katestar07

Thanks! But I'm definitely eating 1,200 cals every day (you might have been looking at my net graph which subtracts exercise burned from exercise from the total). Sometimes I eat some of my exercise calories, sometimes I don't. Weigh in day tomorrow so will see how I go.

Lietchi

Your net calories should be 1200 at a minimum, not way below as you are doing now. This is extreme stress you are putting your body under: that alone can cause water retention masking fat loss on the scale.

Second likely candidate for water retention is your exercise. You say you burn 1000 calories per week exercising, but your net calorie intake suggests you're exercising/being active quite a bit more, at least 500 calories per day (more if you're actually eating back some exercise calories).

This is not a good road you are on, as the posters above me have already stated. You are basically starving yourself.

SuzySunshine99

Lietchi wrote: »

Your net calories should be 1200 at a minimum, not way below as you are doing now. This is extreme stress you are putting your body under: that alone can cause water retention masking fat loss on the scale.

Second likely candidate for water retention is your exercise. You say you burn 1000 calories per week exercising, but your net calorie intake suggests you're exercising/being active quite a bit more, at least 500 calories per day (more if you're actually eating back some exercise calories).

This is not a good road you are on, as the posters above me have already stated. You are basically starving yourself.

Exactly this....if 1,200 is your goal, then you need to eat back your exercise calories. This is how MFP is designed to work. 1,200 NET.

Katestar07

Wow thanks everyone I'm so glad I came here for advice! I googled eating back exercise calories and everything I read said not to unless I was a hard core athlete (which I'm not!). I've unlinked my fitbit from MFP and will just manually enter my exercise and make sure I eat whatever I burn to achieve 1,200 net. Thanks again!

PAV8888

If you've linked your Fitbit to MFP, your "exercise" calories are not actually reflecting any actual exercise estimate.

They are just an accounting adjustment that, at midnight, makes your MFP TDEE equal to what your Fitbit estimated your TDEE to be.

This doesn't make the Fitbit TDEE "accurate" but neither does it make anything else a better initial estimate.

-- input food and drinks as "accurately" as you can on MFP and collect good data about your Caloric intake.
-- let Fitbit and Mfp do their thing.
-- eat anywhere from 10% to 25% less than your (actual) TDEE depending on how much stored fat you have available to lose.
-- monitor your weight change using a trending weight app or website.

After a bit of time (at least one full menstrual cycle for those so afflicted), estimate how closely your tracking and your devices predict your weight changes and make adjustments based on your results....

Caralarma

I'm not sure if you already do this but I find what works best is to link fitbit to MFP and set up a food plan. What it does, is it will tell you how much to eat each day in order to be in a calorie deficit, depending on your activity (output) for each day. For example, on a day where I am sedentary my output is usually around 1400 so I need to eat 1200 to be in a deficit. But on days I exercise, my output will be around 2000 which means I can eat around 1400/1500 and still be in a deficit. I think this works well because it makes you want to move more and is more accurate than just eating the same calorie amount every day.

I don't believe in 'eating exercise calories back' the way MFP tells you to. Like if you burn 400 I don't believe you need to eat 400 back but using the fitbit tool makes it more accurate in terms of what to eat back. I use MFP purely to log food.

Also don't worry about the scale- rather look for weight downward trend instead of exact number. I recommend following syattfitness on Instagram:) he talks a lot about the scale.