Any advice/tips

sarahjohnson5701
sarahjohnson5701 Posts: 1 Member
in Health and Weight Loss

I am 5’3 175 lbs roughly. I am have been eating more to meet my maintenance calories and I am a pretty active person. I do my best to eat clean while have a sweet treat (popsicle or something small of that nature) about a few times a week. I am struggling to lose weight and keep gaining weight. I have been focusing on eating more protein. I am aiming to tone out and ideally get down to 140/150 lbs.

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Answers

  • gemuwyne
    gemuwyne Posts: 2 Member

    Google for a Calorie Calculator and put your numbers in you be given info on how many calories you need to eat to lose weight depending on the amount of weight you want to lose. Caloric intake is where you eating below the required calories to maintain the weight, hope it helps.

  • gemuwyne
    gemuwyne Posts: 2 Member

    Go to Calculator.net

  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 7,308 Member
    edited July 25

    What time-line are we talking about with the weight gain? More than a month?

    If so:

    • See if you can tighten up your food logging: are you weighing everything, making sure you're using accurate database entries? You may be eating more than you think
    • You may have chosen the wrong activity level, be overestimating your exercise calories, be using a fitness tracker that overestimates your calorie burns and/or simply not conform to the statistical averages MFP uses to calculate your calorie goal. Whatever the reason, you may simply need to lower your calorie goal.

    I don't really see the benefit of going to an external calorie calculator, they have the same flaws as MFP and are not guaranteed to give a better calorie goal. The best basis for changes is to look at your actual calorie intake and actual weight trend and make decisions based on that.

    And if the weight gain is short term (less than a month), patience is the first step.

  • tulips_and_tea
    tulips_and_tea Posts: 5,814 Member

    "Eating clean" does not equal weight loss. You will need to calculate how many calories you need to eat daily (or weekly) to get to your goal weight. Sounds like you are eating too much if you "keep gaining weight", as you said.

  • westrich20940
    westrich20940 Posts: 950 Member

    Fellow 5'3" here! Can you describe a little bit more about what you mean by 'pretty active'? Have you used a TDEE calculator to actually calculate an estimate of the theoretical amount of calories you'd eat in a day to maintain your current weight with your current activities?

    I'd start by doing that.

    I, for example, have a desk job and unless I'm intentionally going to the gym, a run, or hike, climbing, etc…..I'm fairly sedentary. I'll say that - that doesn't leave much room to create a deficit. So, when I was actively losing weight - my deficit was 200-250….maybe 300/day. That means that accurately logging both what you consume and what you burn (if using MFP to log exercise calories as well) is important as there isn't much wiggle room for error.

    Like, right now - my BMR is somewhere between 1200-1300…..maintenance is somewhere between 1500-1700 depending on my activity from day to day. So even if I wanted to lose weight now, again I'd really only have maybe a couple hundred calories to cut out to do that. Unless I focused on becoming much more active than I am.

    MFP takes into account like your job/lifestyle for 'activity' level - NOT intentional exercise.

    A TDEE calculator is meant to include intentional exercise (like going to the gym, exercise classes, etc.) —- I'd try to use both so you can get a more accurate idea of what amount of calories you actually need, what your BMR is so you can create an appropriate deficit - and then also be as accurate as possible (without driving yourself crazy of course) with how much you are eating and how much you are burning.

  • bldnbld
    bldnbld Posts: 7 Member

    I'm 5'3" and for years have fought the same 25 lbs. Over the years I would get down to 150 but that seemed to be where I plateaued. Occasionally losing an additional 5 lbs but always gaining the weight back within a few months.

    According to those annoying charts I've been overweight or obese for decades. A few things I've changed over the past year plus and in order of that change.

    1. Quit drinking wheat beer….hardest thing for me to give up since it's not only delicious, it's also a part of my social life. I have not cut out alcohol 100% but switched to alcohol with less calories.
    2. Ramped up to exercising 6-7 days a week….not always making 6-7 days a week but pretty close.
    3. Limited bread and sugar and cut out processed food while switching to whole foods. I still cheat very occasionally and have a donut or something decadent.
    4. And finally….it's not tagging my goal weight then going back to eating & drinking like I did before. It's a lifestyle change.

    I'm sure these are the same things multiple posts over this app recommend but I can relate to being 5'3" and 175.

    P.S. I'm .6 pounds away from squarely being in the healthy range according to all those annoying health calculators. I haven't been down to this weight in literally decades.

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