Doing the plan now for over 5 weeks nothing is changing?!

junfanjeetkunedodevon8873

I decided something needed to change, I'm 1.86m tall and weigh 100kg, at age 53, sedentary job, but I do some martial arts, however I decided I want to get leaner, stronger and lose a bit of weight. So for the past 5+ weeks I've been working out (mostly HIIT sessions) about 3-4 times per week next to my martial arts classes, so total 5-6 workouts each week. I track my calories (most days I was short between 200-400cals) and eat generally healthy / fresh foods. I don't touch any junk food. I've increased my water intake from virtually 0 (usually teas and coffees only) to 1.5 -2 L per day (plus the same coffees and teas, all no sugar and semi skimmed milk), but I haven't lost any weight yet. My measurements (waist, chest, hips, arms and tighs) have not changed either... what's going wrong here???

tomcustombuilder

You are eating at your maintenance calories. Drop your weekly calories.

yirara

What Tom says. You've found your maintenance calories. Congratulations. Now you only need to eat less. All the other things you did, a bit extra exercise, eating healthier or drinking more water (no need for that, tea and coffee is also good for hydration) don't lead to weightloss. How good was your food tracking? How did you determine your calorie amount?

junfanjeetkunedodevon8873

tomcustombuilder wrote: »

You are eating at your maintenance calories. Drop your weekly calories.

that's the point, according to the app, I'm at least 200-400 calories under my target for me to lose 0.5kg (1 pound) per week, so I would have thought I would see results....

junfanjeetkunedodevon8873

yirara wrote: »

What Tom says. You've found your maintenance calories. Congratulations. Now you only need to eat less. All the other things you did, a bit extra exercise, eating healthier or drinking more water (no need for that, tea and coffee is also good for hydration) don't lead to weightloss. How good was your food tracking? How did you determine your calorie amount?

I used the app and logged everything that went past my lips. where there was a barcode , I scanned it, where it was a meal prepped from scratch, I selected one from the various options to choose from and made sure I selected one of the higher calorie counts rather than the more modest results...

Lietchi

junfanjeetkunedodevon8873 wrote: »

yirara wrote: »

What Tom says. You've found your maintenance calories. Congratulations. Now you only need to eat less. All the other things you did, a bit extra exercise, eating healthier or drinking more water (no need for that, tea and coffee is also good for hydration) don't lead to weightloss. How good was your food tracking? How did you determine your calorie amount?

I used the app and logged everything that went past my lips. where there was a barcode , I scanned it, where it was a meal prepped from scratch, I selected one from the various options to choose from and made sure I selected one of the higher calorie counts rather than the more modest results...

Sounds like logging accuracy can be improved.
If you're making food from scratch, you need to weight and log the individual ingredients, not just select a generic entry for the dish in question from the database.
Scanning doesn't guarantee accuracy either, make sure you check the database entry against the nutritional label.
Are you using a food scale?

tomcustombuilder

junfanjeetkunedodevon8873 wrote: »

yirara wrote: »

What Tom says. You've found your maintenance calories. Congratulations. Now you only need to eat less. All the other things you did, a bit extra exercise, eating healthier or drinking more water (no need for that, tea and coffee is also good for hydration) don't lead to weightloss. How good was your food tracking? How did you determine your calorie amount?

I used the app and logged everything that went past my lips. where there was a barcode , I scanned it, where it was a meal prepped from scratch, I selected one from the various options to choose from and made sure I selected one of the higher calorie counts rather than the more modest results...

Your body doesn’t know numbers and it doesn’t know apps and it doesn’t know anything about MFP. All it knows is if it’s given energy to either gain mass lose mass or maintain mass.

kshama2001

junfanjeetkunedodevon8873 wrote: »

yirara wrote: »

What Tom says. You've found your maintenance calories. Congratulations. Now you only need to eat less. All the other things you did, a bit extra exercise, eating healthier or drinking more water (no need for that, tea and coffee is also good for hydration) don't lead to weightloss. How good was your food tracking? How did you determine your calorie amount?

I used the app and logged everything that went past my lips. where there was a barcode , I scanned it, where it was a meal prepped from scratch, I selected one from the various options to choose from and made sure I selected one of the higher calorie counts rather than the more modest results...

Since you've been diligently logging and have not lost weight in five weeks, the most likely cause is that you are inadvertently using bad entries.

It's possible we might be able to spot some bad entries if you change your Diary Sharing settings to Public. In the app, go to Settings > Diary Setting > Diary Sharing > and check Public. Desktop: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings


Unfortunately, the green check marks in the MFP database are used for both USER-created entries and ADMIN-created entries that MFP pulled from the USDA database. A green check mark for USER-created entries just means enough people have upvoted the entry - it is not necessarily correct.

To find ADMIN entries for whole foods, I get the syntax from the USDA database and paste that into MFP. All ADMIN entries from the USDA will have weights as an option BUT there is a glitch whereby sometimes 1g is the option but the values are actually for 100g. This is pretty easy to spot though, as when added the calories are 100x more than is reasonable.

https://fdc.nal.usda.gov

Use the “SR Legacy” tab - that's what MFP used to pull in entries.

Note: any MFP entry that includes "USDA" was USER entered.

For packaged foods, I verify the label against what I find in MFP. (Alas, you cannot just scan with your phone and assume what you get is correct. Note: scanning is mostly only available with Premium these days.)

For recipes, I create my own in the recipe builder. After you've been doing this for a while and have a sense for how many calories are in meals, you could occasionally select someone else's recipe, but for now never trust someone else's recipe in the database.

PAV8888

Here is a dirty secret: a barcode records a portion. But is the portion what you actually ate?

Most nutritional labels talk about an amount of the item and the energy it will provide once consumed.

Back when I believed that the world was not out to get me, I assumed that one package = one label = one portion = done deal. Now I know that games are played! The package has two pop tarts... but the nutritional information is for one.

On top of that cooked entries are... random efforts by people just like you.

Can you work with all that? Of course you can.

You can either go the higher accuracy route, or just drop another few calories from the numbers.

HOWEVER, I would also make sure that you are using a scale on solid surface (not carpet) and that you weigh in similar conditions and that you have enough weight samples to know what is taking place in terms of your weight trajectory.

Are you saying you have literally not lost an oz or a gram or are you saying that you haven't seen a 10kg movement? i.e. is there truly zero movement or is it slower than expected?

These are all some questions to ask.

Workouts sound awesome. A reminder that higher intensity workouts are great for increasing your athletic ability but may be quite taxing on the body increasing risk of injury and need for recovery time. In fact if they leave you exhausted and unable to move around the rest of the day they may decrease as opposed to increase your total daily energy expenditure, even while continuing to be awesome for your body in other ways!

AnnPT77

So much good advice above. Weight loss is about the calories, eating the right number. The right number is anything fewer than you're burning, but not so low it's hard to stay the course.

The weight trend you see on average on the scale over 4-6 weeks is the most useful estimate of your actual calorie deficit. (Women of relevant age should average over whole menstrual cycles.) Not losing weight, no deficit.

Calorie calculator or even fitness tracker estimates are inferior guides, compared to real life multi-week individual average results.

With a parallel goal of getting stronger/leaner, slow fat loss is your best strategy, especially if you have relatively little in total to lose. Eat a little less than you have been, go another 4-6 weeks at that consistent calorie level. Assume that if your weight has held steady for 5 weeks, eating 275 calories fewer daily is likely to have you losing 0.25 kg per week. That will show up in the weight trend over several weeks, not immediately.

In the abstract, HIIT is not the best modality for your strength/leanness goal. (HIIT is way oversold these days, both for weight loss and for fitness.) Traditional weight lifting is more effective and efficient for that goal. Sure, if you don't like lifting, a higher-rep lower-weight thing like HIIT can be one possible substitute (just slower and less effective).

As PAV observed, HIIT - or any exercise - that is exhausting, can be counter-productive. If we drag through the rest of the day, we burn fewer calories in total than expected. The touted afterburn from HIIT (EPOC, excess post-exercise oxygen consumption) is arithmetically pretty trivial in practice, even though the percentages look dramatic. HIIT has higher risk of injury (from poor form at high speed, especially as one fatigues).

Don't get me wrong, high intensity work has its place, but it's not the be-all/end-all that some sources will claim. Elite athletes don't do buckets of ultra-intense exercise at every workout. Why would us regular duffers want to do so?

If you're literally weight stable over 4-6 weeks, high odds you've found maintenance calories. Eat a little less, and don't overdo exercise.

Best wishes!

Corina1143

Exercising is so important for your overall health. Overall health makes you feel better. Feeling better helps you do the things that will help you lose weight. Keep exercising!
Drinking water is important for your overall health. Mild over-hydration probably won't hurt you, but probably won't help, either. Keep drinking water.
Eating fresh food is healthier than fast food. Keep eating fresh foods.
At a little over 6 feet 1 inch and 220 pounds, you aren't really considered overweight by many people.
I respect the fact that you'd like to lose a little more weight. But it's going to be a lot harder and a lot slower for you than for someone who is overeating by hundreds of calories per day.
You don't have many calories to play with. If you've been logging carefully, figure out what your daily calorie average is, subtract a few calories, set your calorie goal in MFP and try again.
Good luck!

junfanjeetkunedodevon8873

thanks all for the feedback received so far , much appreciated. I like to take a methodical approach to this and take one change at a time to see what has effect and not jump from one solution to another... I've increased my weight loss target in the app by a small amount to get a lower calorie total, and try to aim for that (or below), with no other significant changes. If I continue with my current routines but with a lower calorie total, then compared to current situations, I should now start to see a slow but gradual reduction, and that's fine, as long as there is a downward trend, I'll get some idea that things are happening. I mean not that things aren't already. Whilst my weight and measurements haven't changed yet (after 5 weeks), I do feel better, so the workouts etc. do have that positive impact already, just need to find that nudge more.. Will keep you posted!

kshama2001

Thanks for the update! Do keep us posted

nossmf

In the original post, the volume of water consumed spiked along with workout frequency. Personally, when I did both together, my weight went UP due to additional water being pulled into the muscles, both to combat the exercise effect as well as simply because I was likely under-hydrated to begin with. Over a few weeks this excess water weight began to taper off as the body got used to both the workouts and the idea that I wasn't living in a desert.

kshama2001

nossmf wrote: »

In the original post, the volume of water consumed spiked along with workout frequency. Personally, when I did both together, my weight went UP due to additional water being pulled into the muscles, both to combat the exercise effect as well as simply because I was likely under-hydrated to begin with. Over a few weeks this excess water weight began to taper off as the body got used to both the workouts and the idea that I wasn't living in a desert.

Yep, this happened to me as well - up SEVEN pounds. I would have mentioned it but for the time period being 5 weeks - it started dropping back off for me within two weeks.

junfanjeetkunedodevon8873

kshama2001 wrote: »

Yep, this happened to me as well - up SEVEN pounds. I would have mentioned it but for the time period being 5 weeks - it started dropping back off for me within two weeks.

Thanks, that is somewhat encouraging, yes mine is a longer period, but I may be more dehydrated than you were and perhaps my age (= slower everything perhaps... ;-) ) may be a factor at 53...