Eatinga little under tdee-20% and not losing??

sndyxo

Hi guys been trying to eat at my tdee-20% to lose weight and I haven't lost any weight in the past month.
My stats are:
5'3
148 lbs
28% BF
21 yrs

BMR: 1490
TDEE: 2310
DAILY CALS: 1848
30/40/30 P/C/F

I put moderate exercise for activity level. I currently eat around 1,600 cals per day and try to burn 300 cals with exercise using my HR monitor.

I exercise 5x/week with strength training twice a week and cardio the rest of the time. I calculated my BMR and TDEE with the scoobysworkshop calculator: http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/#projectedweightloss

I haven't seen any progress on the scale and I take measurements and I've stayed the same there's no difference at all. What am I doing wrong?

Francl27

First you might not be moderately active. TDEE calculators overestimate calories a lot. I exercise every day (burn 300-600 a day) and I'm really only lightly active, because I don't move much the rest of the time, apart from the normal daily life stuff.

Second, you need to eat closer to your goal, you're netting 1300 and that's kinda low for your age. And make sure you're weighing everything that goes in your mouth.

QuietBloom

I second the advice to try changing your setting to 'lightly active'. Also I have seen the advice to eat back only 50% of your exercise calories (I assume this is because of overestimates on exercise calories calculated).

I'm in a similar boat, and I've subsequently set my weight loss goal to be faster than I really want, and am going to start eating back only half my exercise calories to see if that starts shifting it more for me.

MzManiak

What do you do to consider moderately active? If it's just the exercise... I'd agree with going to lightly active.

Do you weigh your food? If not, you're probably underestimating (eating more calories than you think).

LifeOfTree

"I haven't seen any progress on the scale and I take measurements and I've stayed the same there's no difference at all. What am I doing wrong?"

Just checking- are you measureing body fat? Cos of course it oculd be that you're swapping out lean for fat?
The other thing I'd check on is meal timing- are you spacing your meals out and eating roughly every 3 hours?
Your could try exercising in the morning in order to benefit from the "after burn" effect

I just checked your TDEE using the Ktch McCardle method (which also uses the body fat%) and I get a lower TDEE than yours (http://iifym.com/tdee-calculator/)
I input your stats plus 5x exercising per week.

BMR: 1416
TDEE: 2071

so 20% off that is 1656 cals per day.
What do you think?

loveswalking

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1069268-newbies-please-read-me-2nd-edition

fatfudgery

Just a thought: are you eating back your exercise calories? If so, you may be double-counting them, since you already accounted for them by putting in "moderately active" when you calculated your TDEE.

rileysowner

The other thing I'd check on is meal timing- are you spacing your meals out and eating roughly every 3 hours?

Meal timing makes no difference if daily calorie consumption is the same. There have been a huge number of studies on this all of which show for weight loss meal timing makes no difference.

To the OP there are a couple of things that could be happening:

1) You are eating more than you think you are either because the calorie counts are wrong in the database for the foods you eat or you are not measuring your portions carefully enough. If you a eye balling the amount or estimating it, start actually measuring.

2) You are not as active as you think you are. Activity level is often quite difficult to estimate. Your activity level may be one down from the one you selected. If that is the case, you are likely not eating at a deficit at all.

rileysowner

Just a thought: are you eating back your exercise calories? If so, you may be double-counting them, since you already accounted for them by putting in "moderately active" when you calculated your TDEE.

After I posted I thought of this as well. With TDEE - % you include your exercise in your activity level, don't add the calories you burn back.

theoriginaljayne

With TDEE - % you include your exercise in your activity level, don't add the calories you burn back.

This.