I Cant lose weight

AnnPT77

csplatt wrote: »

this is a question about the app in general as opposed to a criticism or suggestion — if you set your activity level to “very active” then also log all your workouts, are you double dipping in a way? double logging activity? i have always just selected sedentary — THEN logged my workouts

Not to be snarky, but to be graphic:

If you are a bricklayer's apprentice by trade, carrying hods of bricks up ladders all day, plus you're remodeling your sprawling suburban home at night, and set your activity level to "very active"; then log exercise calories because you're also training for an IM triathlon; and you eat the exercise calories . . . you are not double dipping.

If you are a reference librarian who is tied to a phone at a desk all day because your job is answering calls from the public, and you go home at night to your ground-floor studio apartment (with attached carport) where you cuddle with your cat and knit while watching TV, and you set your activity level to "very active" then log exercise calories when you go for a walk after dinner, and you eat the exercise calories . . . you are double dipping and then some.

In between those extremes, there are some judgement calls, but the 4-6 week trial period will yield an answer.

If you're sedentary in terms of job and daily life activity (home chores, non-exercise hobbies), you wouldn't want to set activity level to "very active". If you are "very active" before intentional exercise, then it makes sense to set activity level that way.

Zachor717

Perhaps some words of encouragement? From your data you may be overtraining and risking puting yourself into starvation mode - which will shut down most everything. Also, increased muscle mass has weight associated with it. You may have lost bodyfat while simultaneously added muscle mass. Added muscle mass can lead to attainment of your goals. Finally, attempt to not look too closely at things. relax, and perhaps attempt to attain more than weight loss and achieve a healthy sustainable life. Much good health to you.

yirara

Zachor717 wrote: »

Perhaps some words of encouragement? From your data you may be overtraining and risking puting yourself into starvation mode - which will shut down most everything. Also, increased muscle mass has weight associated with it. You may have lost bodyfat while simultaneously added muscle mass. Added muscle mass can lead to attainment of your goals. Finally, attempt to not look too closely at things. relax, and perhaps attempt to attain more than weight loss and achieve a healthy sustainable life. Much good health to you.

I'm sorry, but all of this is whoo.
1. Starvation mode is a myth, or how do you think people would starve to death? Yeah, if you undereat your body makes sure you move less, fidget less, increases cortisol which might increase waterweight and a few other things. But undereating does not stop weightloss.
2. Eating in a deficit and building a substantial amount of muscle, especially for a woman is just not possible. You might create some noob gains, but those are so insubstantial that this won't really show on the scale.
3. it looks more likely that TO is not tracking properly and not for a long enough period. Relaxing more would achieve exactly what?

mtaratoot

@Zachor717

The idea of a body going into "starvation mode" and somehow not burning fuel is common and also incorrect. It would be the equivalent of your car getting better fuel economy when it was almost empty compared to when it was full. Most of the calories you burn daily go to keeping you alive, and your brain is the biggest user of fuel. If you're not familiar with it, read about the Minnesota Starvation Experiment. Maclolm Gladwell did an episode on his podcast "Revisionist History" about it.

It is possible that if a body is underfueled, some movements that we aren't even aware of might slow down, like foot tapping and the like. That would reduce our caloric expenditure, but doesn't alter our metabolism.

Adding muscle mass does indeed affect our total mass as shown on the scale. It's a slow process. Gaining any appreciable mass from muscle growth wouldn't show up quickly, and it would be hindered if a person was in a caloric deficit. I had to look up what the 75 hard day challenge is, and it incorporates 90 minutes of working out each day. A person eating 1400 to 1500 calories per day while working out for 90 minutes would almost certainly be in a deficit, so no - the issue isn't muscle mass.

zebasschick

OP, try setting your settings to sedentary and adding your workouts - and take calories burned with a grain of salt, because i've never seen a calorie counter that was exactly right as they're all averages.

starvation mode isn't an actual thing. when i was a teenager and didn't know any better, i ate 600 to 800 calories per day, and you know what? i lost a lot of weight - including muscle, no doubt - very fast. i didn't go into "starvation mode" and stop losing weight at any point.

the only way that the OP isn't losing weight is that they're not eating at a deficit. it's basic biology.

PeacefulBalance

Hormones, thyroid, and adrenal glands play a HUGE role. Sometimes when the body goes too hard or does too many HIIT style workouts it can lead to too much cortisol in the body (stress hormone that leads to weight gain). If you already have a lot of stress in daily life AND you’re stressing your body out via intense workouts it can backfire and burn your adrenal glands out which also affects your thyroid.

Underlying inflammation is also a biggie. Not sure if you experience other daily symptoms at all but gut imbalance could lead to that extra stress and retained water as well.

Just thought I’d bring a different perspective to the convo as we always jump to calories as the blame!

I’m a dietitian and deal with a lot of this again, just trying to give a different potential root cause!

Jules230730

megansaw wrote: »

I am in at least a 1000 calorie deficit a days, im doing the 75 hard day challenge so im working out twice a day, im three weeks and have lost no weight, in fact ive gained 2 pounds. What is going on.

I want to cry im working so hard!

Hi Megan, this may sound counterintuitive at first, but have you tried upping your calories? And working with a smaller calorie deficit?
Are you doing mostly cardio or weight training?
Twice a day sounds like a lot of stress on your body- have you considered working out only 3 times a week, but doing high resistance training? For the protein to work with you, you also need to grow your muscles, lift heavy.
For the weight gain you noticed: does your scales tell you whether this is muscle growth? Or fat?
Your body might be stressed out and retaining...perhaps you could try upping your food with protein and cards to a small calorie deficit ans reduce training but switch to heavy weight training? Good luck!!!

sollyn23l2

PeacefulBalance wrote: »

Hormones, thyroid, and adrenal glands play a HUGE role. Sometimes when the body goes too hard or does too many HIIT style workouts it can lead to too much cortisol in the body (stress hormone that leads to weight gain). If you already have a lot of stress in daily life AND you’re stressing your body out via intense workouts it can backfire and burn your adrenal glands out which also affects your thyroid.

Underlying inflammation is also a biggie. Not sure if you experience other daily symptoms at all but gut imbalance could lead to that extra stress and retained water as well.

Just thought I’d bring a different perspective to the convo as we always jump to calories as the blame!

I’m a dietitian and deal with a lot of this again, just trying to give a different potential root cause!

I would've just ignored this, except that you claim to be a dietitian, so I'm going to call it out, because as such, you are hypothetically giving real people this advice. None of this is true nor based in scientific evidence. You can't "burn your adrenals out". That's not a thing. It's not how it works. Furthermore, hormones would not be in your scope of practice, as you are (assumedly) not an endocrinologist.

ddsb1111

megansaw wrote: »

I am in at least a 1000 calorie deficit a days, im doing the 75 hard day challenge so im working out twice a day, im three weeks and have lost no weight, in fact ive gained 2 pounds. What is going on.

I want to cry im working so hard!

Ugh 😣 I’m having flashbacks of when I decided to be active, get a trainer, and log but not weigh my food. It was SO HARD physically, emotionally, and then to not lose weight… completely deflating. Here’s what happened to me, and many of us before going back to the basics and finding a healthier way.

Firstly, I gained quite a bit of water weight, something like 3-4 lbs immediately. It didn’t ever drop off like I heard it would.

My NEAT decreased because my planned activities and exercise made me lethargic for the rest of the day, and I had a pretty sedentary desk job so that didn’t help.

I was so hungry because I truly thought I had at least a 1000 calorie deficit. The gym also made me hungry literally the entire day. It felt like torture wanting to lose weight but feeling ravenous all the time. Oh, and the trainer put me on a diet eating food that wasn’t familiar to me or in my comfort zone so I didn’t have that joy or satiation I was used to.

Because of the hard work I was putting in my eating had little bites of things I wasn’t allowed to eat. Or I would have days where my calories were higher and some lower, which probably knocked out my deficit for the week.

I knew I had the best intentions, but this wasn’t a lifestyle I could do long term and I wasn’t happy so I stopped. I pouted for a couple of months, came back here, and got the exact same advice you got, and wow did it change things. Literally everything.

First thing, I figured out a rate of weight loss that made sense- .5-1 lb a week. Then I weighed everything I ate and drank with calories. If you’re logging already, it’s a no brainer and kind of fun actually. I also weighed myself at the same time everyday to learn my natural weight fluctuations and see my weight loss trend. I found enjoyable exercise that I was excited to do, and could find non-scale victories in all the time. Lastly, I ate MY FOOD. As long as it was in my calories, I ate what made me feel full, stuff I enjoyed, that gave me the best energy levels, and didn’t make me feel like I was on a diet. And I ate WHEN I wanted to. Not 3-5 times a day as advertised, but when it made sense for my life and my body’s cues.

So, I was happy, started losing weight (what seemed like) effortlessly, and I was able to stick to it everyday. I’m now in maintenance, eating and doing the same thing, but with slightly more calories, and I have no desire to change it because it’s my lifestyle now. Believe me, you are not alone. And I hate that we felt that killing ourselves was the only way to meet our goals, when in reality it’s the only way to yo-yo diet and be miserable. I promise you, there is a better way out there that works for you and your life. Listen to the excellent advice from the others, and disregard the myths and misconceptions that don’t serve you, they’re to sell books and magazines. This is a free platform, use it to your advantage. Read the stickies at the top. Ask questions. Check-in and let us know how you’re doing. We’ve been there and we want to help. Just keep in mind that some advice we may not want to hear but it’s what we need to hear, but it’s always coming from a good place.

claireychn074

sollyn23l2 wrote: »

PeacefulBalance wrote: »

Hormones, thyroid, and adrenal glands play a HUGE role. Sometimes when the body goes too hard or does too many HIIT style workouts it can lead to too much cortisol in the body (stress hormone that leads to weight gain). If you already have a lot of stress in daily life AND you’re stressing your body out via intense workouts it can backfire and burn your adrenal glands out which also affects your thyroid.

Underlying inflammation is also a biggie. Not sure if you experience other daily symptoms at all but gut imbalance could lead to that extra stress and retained water as well.

Just thought I’d bring a different perspective to the convo as we always jump to calories as the blame!

I’m a dietitian and deal with a lot of this again, just trying to give a different potential root cause!

I would've just ignored this, except that you claim to be a dietitian, so I'm going to call it out, because as such, you are hypothetically giving real people this advice. None of this is true nor based in scientific evidence. You can't "burn your adrenals out". That's not a thing. It's not how it works. Furthermore, hormones would not be in your scope of practice, as you are (assumedly) not an endocrinologist.

Completely agree - adrenals don’t burn out and giving endocrinology advice when not medically trained in that field is irresponsible and downright dangerous. Why does this wind me up? I had a dopamine secreting pheochromocytoma which *kitten* up my body for years. Yet you know what? That little sucker of an adrenal gland was still going for it, pumping out hormones like it was supposed to. Just massively in excess in my case.

OP: you are exercising v hard, which can definitely lead to water weight gain. But you may also (unintentionally) not be recording your food intake accurately. Set up MFP, pick a less aggressive rate of loss, and log as accurately as you can. Weight loss is a marathon not a sprint - and trust me, it’s easier that way.

tulips_and_tea

@ddsb1111 Fantastic post! I hope OP and whomever else is feeling the same way reads all the info you provided. Very helpful. And congrats on your success!

mtaratoot

@ddsb1111

Thank you for sharing that. It's an inspiring story of success after a struggle. It's not always easy, but it often can at least be easier. We are so fortunate that MFP is so easy to use and such a powerful tool. Back when people had to look up calories in a book and use a pencil to do the math, I bet there was even more failure than there is now.

PAV8888

@ddsb1111

ddsb1111

DFW_Tom

@ddsb1111
That really is a outstanding reply! The kind of first person account of what does and what doesn't work that can help a lot of folks that find themselves in the same scenario as the OP's. Since the question pops up every few days, I hope you'll repost it when it does.

ddsb1111

DFW_Tom wrote: »

@ddsb1111
That really is a outstanding reply! The kind of first person account of what does and what doesn't work that can help a lot of folks that find themselves in the same scenario as the OP's. Since the question pops up every few days, I hope you'll repost it when it does.

Thank you ☺️ Just paying it forward.