Hitting my calorie goal and exercising but still not losing weight
mattmstrvch97
Posts: 2 Member
Been on a 1600 calorie diet each day. Most days I meet the goal or go under. Rarely do I go over 1600 calories. I exercise 3-5 times a week (my work schedule permitting) and I still haven’t lost any weight. I haven’t gained any either but I need to lose 15 more pounds and I have only lost 2 the entire 45 days I’ve been here. Help!
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This is an inexact science and calorie counting is subject to a lot of human error...using incorrect entries, forgetting or neglecting to log certain things, eye balling servings or using volume measurements for things that should be by weight, overestimating exercise calories, etc.
Your situation would suggest that you are actually eating maintenance calories despite what is going into your diary.8 -
Here are some suggestions:
Weigh out ANYTHING you consume. No eye-balling or estimating.
Log everything, hidden calories from things like ketchup, dressing, or even prepared foods like a restaurant salad can in fact add up. Once again, weigh everything or measure everyrhing.
If you eat out, order food, and estimate the calories for example, it could be inaccurate. If you're serious, I'd try to only eat foods you prepared and weighed out personally. I know this is a lot of work, but ask yourself do you really want to achieve your goals?
Let's say you order a salad: the staff will often grab handfuls of cheese for example, and the food won't be consistent. Think of a salad with walnuts or blue cheese for example.... inconsistent prep can indeed cause wild fluctuations in calories.
There is a possibility you're putting on muscle, especially if you're strength training with weights, and you're slowly re-comping your body. You could be slowly gaining muscle while simultaneously losing fat. This is possible.
Have you taken before/after photos? Have you taken body measurements? These are additional ways you can track your progress.
Take waist measurements, arms, legs, neck, etc.
My go to response is almost always that you're underestimating your caloric intake. If you aren't weighing all food, this is def a possibility.7 -
OP, I agree that you're most likely eating close to maintenance unintentionally. I'm thinking that the most probable contributing factors could be:
1. Calorie goal too high, which can happen either through estimation issues (daily life, exercise, or both), or the possibility that you're unusual and require fewer than average calories for your demographics. (That latter's unusual, but possible.)
2. Logging issues. That's not a diss: Food logging is a surprisingly subtle skill, and most of us who've done it for a while have stumbled into some significant face-palm moments along the way. Your diary is closed. No pressure, but if you open it and say so, some of the old hands here could take a look and see if anything jumps out. Totally optional, just an offer of help.
3. Water retention (from new exercise or other factors) masking some fat loss on the scale. After 45 days, this is pretty improbable, but it's still in the realm of possibility. If this is happening, time should sort it out.
One option is simply to cut 100-200 or so calories from your daily goal, and continue your experiment for another month, see if that helps. Or, you could try to work at it from a more detailed level, with food weighing, tightening logging, and that sort of thing.
As long as you don't give up, you can find a route through this to success, I'm certain. Hang in there - I'm cheering for you!
(snip some really good advice, for reply-length reasons)
If you're serious, I'd try to only eat foods you prepared and weighed out personally. I know this is a lot of work, but ask yourself do you really want to achieve your goals?
(snip)
I'd suggest caution about cutting off social life entirely (even for a month) to lose weight, especially if not so obese that bodyweight itself is an acute physical health threat. Mental health is important, too, and social connections are therefore a good thing to sustain.
It's possible to eat out sometimes, keep choices moderate, and estimate conservatively, then still do fine. Eating out every meal, yeah, it'd probably be better to cook some oneself.(snip more good advice)
There is a possibility you're putting on muscle, especially if you're strength training with weights, and you're slowly re-comping your body. You could be slowly gaining muscle while simultaneously losing fat. This is possible.
Sadly, in 45 days, with exercise 3 times a week, type of exercise not specified . . . this is unlikely. A half pound a week of muscle gain would be a really good result from progressive strength training for a man, maybe half that for a woman, and would normally require a calorie surplus, not a calorie deficit (among other favorable conditions that may or not apply in OP's case).
There can be some muscle-mass gain even in a calorie deficit, but it'd be even slower. On the flip side, half a pound a week would be about the slowest fat loss most people would consider satisfying, and even that could take a month or more to show up on the bodyweight scale amongst normal daily water retention fluctuations.
It's therefore improbable than any realistic rate of muscle mass gain will offset any satisfying fat loss rate on the scales.
I can't even tell you how sincerely I wish this weren't true. Unfortunately, muscle mass gain is pretty slow under the best of circumstances, but it's certainly worth pursuing. Besides, strength gain can be much faster (from better recruiting/using existing muscle fibers), and strength is useful in daily life.(snip more good advice)
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What are your stats?
It’s always fishy when someone says I NEED to lose…
Why? According to who? In comparison to who??
You mean you would like to lose my body fat to be able to see your muscles more? Be specific please2 -
mattmstrvch97 wrote: »Been on a 1600 calorie diet each day. Most days I meet the goal or go under. Rarely do I go over 1600 calories. I exercise 3-5 times a week (my work schedule permitting) and I still haven’t lost any weight. I haven’t gained any either but I need to lose 15 more pounds and I have only lost 2 the entire 45 days I’ve been here. Help!
I did the same exact thing during one of my weight loss endeavours. I was eating under calorie and exercising my socks off the scale did not budge at all. Then I weighed myself on some pharmacy scales and was shocked to realise that I had been losing weight. Turned out I had been placing the scales on carpet which never reflects true weight. The other way to tell is how your clothes fit. Are they loose?
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I could show you my diary but im not sure how to make it public. Also I only log cardio but not my strength training because it doesn’t count the calories for strength workouts.0
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mattmstrvch97 wrote: »I need to lose 15 more pounds and I have only lost 2 the entire 45 days I’ve been here. Help!
A lot of people will try to get you to address your calories--perhaps even correctly--but given that you admit that you're losing, albeit slower than you believe you should, I will ask you to first address your measurement of your rate of loss.
How many "weight samples" have you taken? Have you plotted them on a graph? Are you female with your weight periodically fluctuating according to the time of the month? If yes, are your 45 days comparing two points during the same phase in your monthly cycle?
A weight trend app or web site could help you better visualize your progress... AND I can't help but notice that you ARE on track to lose >16lbs in 52 weeks. So why the hurry?
Is it because you're planning to change things once you hit your goal? If you are, what mix of old and new behaviors are you planning to adopt?
Inquiring minds and all that! ;-)1 -
I would add to this that many household scales are shockingly inaccurate and inconsistent. Inaccuracy does not matter much, if that inaccuracy is consistent, because trends will be revealed anyway, but inconsistency can be deadly. For example, my personal scale showed a certain weight, then I went for a good pee or poop, and it showed weight gain instead of loss. Needless to say that such instantaneous weight gain is an impossibility in these circumstances. So, I bought a mechanical beam-style medical scale and that enabled me to track my weight accurately and –more importantly– with consistent (in)accuracy. It is one of the best purchases I have ever made.Charocheris wrote: »Then I weighed myself on some pharmacy scales and was shocked to realise that I had been losing weight. Turned out I had been placing the scales on carpet which never reflects true weight.1 -
mattmstrvch97 wrote: »I could show you my diary but im not sure how to make it public. Also I only log cardio but not my strength training because it doesn’t count the calories for strength workouts.
In web MFP, it's Home > Settings, scroll to the bottom of the page, click "public" (that's just MFP-member public, IMU, not the whole world). Looks like this:
In the Android phone/tablet app, from home page, it's under More > Settings > Diary Settings > Diary Sharing. (I assume Apple/iOS is similar.) I'm not going to try a screen shots, because it's just a sequence of menu clicks.
Again, I'm not saying you ought to do this: It's up to you. If you want others to take a look, this is how to do it. It's completely optional.0 -
mattmstrvch97 wrote: »I could show you my diary but im not sure how to make it public. Also I only log cardio but not my strength training because it doesn’t count the calories for strength workouts.
Yeah, this is a common source of confusion. To get calories for strength training, log it under cardio. I use "Strength training (weight lifting, weight training)" but not "Weight training, free weights" which seems inflated.1 -
Curious, how big a difference is there between the two? I'd check myself, but don't want it added permanently to my frequent choices.kshama2001 wrote: »To get calories for strength training, log it under cardio. I use "Strength training (weight lifting, weight training)" but not "Weight training, free weights" which seems inflated.
I use the one you mention. I also drop about 20% from the listed amount, since I prefer to have conservative estimates. It's all a wild guess anyway, based on a MET multiplier which can vary widely due to intensity, type of weight training, etc. That may match better my net calories too, i.e. not counting the "at rest" calories I'd have burned doing nothing instead of working out.
e.g. it suggests to me 308 calories for 60 mins, so I enter 250. If I do about 75 mins, I call it 300 instead of the suggested 385. Then what I've entered is fair game to eat back.1 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »This is an inexact science and calorie counting is subject to a lot of human error...using incorrect entries, forgetting or neglecting to log certain things, eye balling servings or using volume measurements for things that should be by weight, overestimating exercise calories, etc.
Your situation would suggest that you are actually eating maintenance calories despite what is going into your diary.
Yeah, short and concise. Took the words right out of my mouth. Cheers0 -
You need to drop 3,500 calories a week or if sedentary get out and walk also.
Lifestyle? Sedentary or...?
Age?
Weight?
Height?
Exercise doesn't really burn as many cals as most think plus it has a tendency to increase appetite so don't overdo it. Your major cal burn is your NEAT. Make sure protein is sufficient or even a bit more than sufficient as it has a TEF 0f 25% which is 5X more than carbs and fat. Limit or eliminate alcohol and ultra processed carbs
You can do all the math you want however your body doesn't know numbers, only if it's given energy to maintain weight, lose weight or add weight.
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tomcustombuilder wrote: »You need to drop 3,500 calories a week or if sedentary get out and walk also.
Lifestyle? Sedentary or...?
Age?
Weight?
Height?
Exercise doesn't really burn as many cals as most think plus it has a tendency to increase appetite so don't overdo it. Your major cal burn is your NEAT. Make sure protein is sufficient or even a bit more than sufficient as it has a TEF 0f 25% which is 5X more than carbs and fat. Limit or eliminate alcohol and ultra processed carbs
You can do all the math you want however your body doesn't know numbers, only if it's given energy to maintain weight, lose weight or add weight.
Don't forget fibre. It has an energy extraction value of around 40-50% and that is less than any other macronutrient. On top of that, it is highly beneficial in making waste expulsion a less unpleasant experience.0 -
BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »
Lol, waste expulsion my new favorite term.tomcustombuilder wrote: »waste expulsion .1 -
Retroguy2000 wrote: »
Curious, how big a difference is there between the two? I'd check myself, but don't want it added permanently to my frequent choices.kshama2001 wrote: »To get calories for strength training, log it under cardio. I use "Strength training (weight lifting, weight training)" but not "Weight training, free weights" which seems inflated.
I use the one you mention. I also drop about 20% from the listed amount, since I prefer to have conservative estimates. It's all a wild guess anyway, based on a MET multiplier which can vary widely due to intensity, type of weight training, etc. That may match better my net calories too, i.e. not counting the "at rest" calories I'd have burned doing nothing instead of working out.
e.g. it suggests to me 308 calories for 60 mins, so I enter 250. If I do about 75 mins, I call it 300 instead of the suggested 385. Then what I've entered is fair game to eat back.
Here are the values for me for an hour:
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Thanks. For me, the first estimate would imply an MET of about 4 per hour. Google for resistance training tells me it's about 3.5-6 depending on intensity.kshama2001 wrote: »Here are the values for me for an hour:
Extrapolating the second estimate for me would imply an MET of about 6.3 per hour, so yeah it's way too high.
Note, in case anyone looks closely at the numbers there, I included 1 MET to the implied effort in the estimate, since we should subtract about 1 MET per hour which is the resting calories already accounted for in MFP's TDEE estimate.2 -
Forget the numbers, people, they’re insignificant at best. They’re fun and seem like a legit factor but they’re not. If no loss after 2 weeks your calories are too high regardless off what your device says.1
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I'd take about a month, but I completely agree. the numbers for exercise are just as trustworthy as horoscopes and prayer. If weight is not lost, and you do not have some type of edema, you are simply ingesting too much energy. In my own case, MFP is telling me that I exercised away 566 Kcal today. That is complete nonsense. All I did, was walk from my front door to my window and back while playing some video on a tablet and have my phone count the steps.tomcustombuilder wrote: »Forget the numbers, people, they’re insignificant at best. They’re fun and seem like a legit factor but they’re not. If no loss after 2 weeks your calories are too high regardless off what your device says.
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Something wrong with your tracker? According to a calculator I just checked, I'd have to do 9500 steps to burn 566 cals.BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »In my own case, MFP is telling me that I exercised away 566 Kcal today. That is complete nonsense. All I did, was walk from my front door to my window and back while playing some video on a tablet and have my phone count the steps.1 -
Not as such. I had over 13thousand steps, but it is obvious that this doesn't consume nearly as much energy as claimed, at least in my case. I usually divide the result by 2 but I don't even take that seriously. I simply see it as a fun number, nothing more.Retroguy2000 wrote: »
Something wrong with your tracker? According to a calculator I just checked, I'd have to do 9500 steps to burn 566 cals.BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »In my own case, MFP is telling me that I exercised away 566 Kcal today. That is complete nonsense. All I did, was walk from my front door to my window and back while playing some video on a tablet and have my phone count the steps.
I just checked. I had 13218 steps on Sunday. Today is Monday and I have 3086 steps so far, which is bound to go up substantially, depending on how busy the day will be...
The steps are quite accurate, even if some are missed, it is really merely the energy conversion were my results are very improbable.0 -
Retroguy2000 wrote: »Note, in case anyone looks closely at the numbers there, I included 1 MET to the implied effort in the estimate, since we should subtract about 1 MET per hour which is the resting calories already accounted for in MFP's TDEE estimate.
MFP sedentary is 1.25 MET per hour, 1.4 for lightly active, 1.6 for active, 1.8 for very. Which would have to be subtracted to get the net additional. That's when doing things manually on MFP. Which explains a LARGE percentage of the "eat no more than half your calories back", especially when dealing with a low MET long duration activity.
Tracker integration without manual exercise inputs is supposed to take care of the subtractions automagically... when it works.
As to whether it is accurate or not. Your mileage will vary BOTH based on how closely you track to the population mean AND on how accurately and consistently you track your inputs.1 -
if it were me, i would assume i am not burning as much as i think or not eating as little as i think and shave another 100 calories off my daily.2
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Retroguy2000 wrote: »Note, in case anyone looks closely at the numbers there, I included 1 MET to the implied effort in the estimate, since we should subtract about 1 MET per hour which is the resting calories already accounted for in MFP's TDEE estimate.
MFP sedentary is 1.25 MET per hour, 1.4 for lightly active, 1.6 for active, 1.8 for very. Which would have to be subtracted to get the net additional. That's when doing things manually on MFP. Which explains a LARGE percentage of the "eat no more than half your calories back", especially when dealing with a low MET long duration activity.
Tracker integration without manual exercise inputs is supposed to take care of the subtractions automagically... when it works.
As to whether it is accurate or not. Your mileage will vary BOTH based on how closely you track to the population mean AND on how accurately and consistently you track your inputs.
Unless OP is regularly taking many hours of long, slow walks (or something similar), this isn't the reason for meaningfully slower than expected weight loss, I would guess. He mentions workouts 3-5 days a week, and also that he doesn't count calories at all for his strength training. How he estimates the cardio may matter, but there's a decent chance the strength training (error of underestimating burn) would cancel out the cardio overcount, or close, from activity level issues or gross-to-net issues with METS estimates. For many activities, the gross-to-net adjustment just isn't that arithmetically large or proportionally significant, for quite a range of people.
Geekery follows in the spoiler, with various approximations. If you don't geek out on this stuff, stop now. You were warned.I know the above quoted post is theoretically correct, but I'd encourage folks to understand what one MET (estimated) is in their individual context, even when multiplied by the activity factor, and think about how excitable they choose to be over the differences. For young, big, male people it may be more numerically large, but they also are likely to have a larger TDEE, so the proportions may not be that different. (That's if I'm doing the math right, which is not necessarily always true.)
Example for me, someone pretty old (67), female, not all that big (5'5"), around 130 pounds now. Mifflin St Jeor would have my BMR at 1226. That puts a simpleminded MET at about 51 calories per hour, 1.25 MET at about 64 calories, 1.6 MET at 82 calories, 1.8 MET at 92 calories.
So, yeah, if I take a long, slow walk, that error adds up (because the actual exercise calories are low per hour).
But for a more normal half hour doing what people might think of as an actual workout, where I burn maybe 150-200 calories (conservative lowball estimate), we'd be subtracting (0.5 X 1 MET X activity factor), which is in the range of 32-46 calories. Even in context of my estimated TDEE at sedentary, which is 1351 (still Mifflin St Jeor), that's not a big worry: Arithmetically, not make or break. (In context of my actual TDEE, typically more like 2000+, it's truly trivial as a source of estimating error.)
When we quibble about subtracting 1 vs. even 1.8 METS for something like a half hour of exercise, we're talking (in my example) something like 41 calories.
I'm not saying no one needs to worry about this distinction, what I'm saying is that if someone wants to be more accurate, and is able to do some math, it's worth considering how much effort or angst to invest in this particular question, given their estimated BMR, activity level, exercise type/duration/intensity, and that sort of thing.
All of this stuff is just estimates, and - even though I believe that accuracy is helpful - a person could drive herself batty trying to be super-exact about everything. It's worth a thought about how the particular issue fits into the big picture, so one doesn't end up chasing minor factors while missing more major ones. (The terribleness of some types of estimates for some types of exercise is a much bigger deal, for example.)
For me personally, it makes sense to use the ExRX calculator to get a net estimate for slow, long walks . . . but I don't much worry about gross vs. net for more normal exercise estimates that are working with a well-metered base of 400-600 exercise calories per hour (gross) in context of a 51 calorie MET. Meh. Random variability in the sweetness of fruit or fat content of packaged foods - let alone stuff I forget to log - probably looms larger.
Good reference for METS: https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/home
A person could even make a better estimate of their own MET value than the half-***ed substitute of estimated BMR that I used above, because I'm lazy and TBH don't love math.
ETA: This sub-discussion should probably go to the Debate Club zone, if anyone wants to belabor it at more length. I think what I posted outside the spoiler is on topic for this thread, but the rest . . . . hmm.1 -
@AnnPT77
For me, 1 MET is 107 calories per hour. If I use an inflated estimate for my exercise calories, that adds up to a large number over the year. Google estimates resistance training at MET 3.5-6. That's a difference of 267 calories per workout depending if I enter the low or high end. I train with weights every other day except for deloads every few months, so for most weeks that's an average variance of 936 calories, which adds up to about one pound per month. Whether I estimate 4 or 5 MET's say, each 1 MET difference is going to add up to nearly 0.5 pounds per month amount of calories.
I have no way of knowing my MET for resistance training, so I use a lower end MET estimate to better meet my weight targets. Checking it now, the round number I enter works out to an MET of 2.87 for my additional calories burned, so effectively an MET of about 4.
I'm sure there are people who over-estimate exercise calories, maybe just using the estimate a machine gives them, or using those YouTube "Burn X hundred in Y minutes doing THIS!" workout videos, not accounting for resting MET if they hadn't worked out, and so on, then if they eat all that back they could end up gaining weight which may put them off their program.0 -
@Retroguy2000, my point is that people might want to estimate and understand their METS values before agonizing over them . . . not that that issue is meaningless or trivial for everyone, universally. It can be pretty trivial - majoring in the minors - which is what my example would illustrate. It's not the only possible example.
I'm not sure how big/young you have to be to get a BMR/RMR of around 2500 calories (1 MET = 107), but it's bigger than most of us. If you mean METx1.8 or a lab-measured RMR or something like that, that's a different matter.
Again:
This is more of a debate topic than a help to OP IMO. OP is doing cardio 3x a week (when his work schedule permits, and we don't know what type/intensity), and he's not any adding calories for his strength workouts. He's lost only 2 pounds in 45 days of eating an estimated 1600 calories. It seems extremely unlikely that METS exercise estimating variability is the root of the problem. Factor? Maybe. Big factor? Ehhhh, dunno.1 -
The equation for MET is:I'm not sure how big/young you have to be to get a BMR/RMR of around 2500 calories (1 MET = 107), but it's bigger than most of us. If you mean METx1.8 or a lab-measured RMR or something like that, that's a different matter.
METs x 3.5 x (your body weight in kilograms) / 200 = calories burned per minute
I'm 102 kg. BMR is not 24 MET's.
Agreed this can be a diversion and getting in the weeds. The key point is be wary of over-estimating calories from exercise if you plan to eat back some or all of those. That could contribute to losing less weight than expected, which was OP's issue.1 -
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All those numbers are great for lab studies, which is why they were created. They are next to useless and even dangerous in the hands of most people, because they weren't created for individuals and because these individuals do not have the scientific background to interpret them properly.Retroguy2000 wrote: »
The equation for MET is:I'm not sure how big/young you have to be to get a BMR/RMR of around 2500 calories (1 MET = 107), but it's bigger than most of us. If you mean METx1.8 or a lab-measured RMR or something like that, that's a different matter.
METs x 3.5 x (your body weight in kilograms) / 200 = calories burned per minute
I'm 102 kg. BMR is not 24 MET's.
Agreed this can be a diversion and getting in the weeds. The key point is be wary of over-estimating calories from exercise if you plan to eat back some or all of those. That could contribute to losing less weight than expected, which was OP's issue.0 -
Eat a little less and check your weight in a week or two. Cheers2
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