What Am I Doing Wrong?!

Lyns180

According to MFP my daily calorie allowance should be 1470, plus any calories gained from exercise.

Last week I was 375 calories over my weekly calorie goal. I stayed the same.

This week I was 178 calories over my weekly calorie goal. I gained 0.5lbs.

What am I doing wrong?! (Other than going slightly over my calorie allowance!!) I know my diet is far from great but I am trying to improve it bit by bit but I thought at 237lbs a daily intake of around 1500-1520 calories per day would have shown at least a small loss.

I know it can take up to a month for changes to start showing but it just doesn't seem right somehow.

Hildy_J

Hey there,

It's usually something simple - like food logging. If you're comfortable opening your food diary then people can take a little look and identify why things aren't adding up for you.

All the best

yarwell

your diet is pretty bad - chocolate biscuit for breakfast, sugar in tea, etc. Carbohydrate festival !

Try eating 1400 a day every day and ignoring the exercise. Your BMR etc can be 10% or more out in the predictions, I guessed your highet and got a BMR (Katch McArdle forumula) of 1450.

Lyns180

I'm 5ft 3.


I tend to have sweeteners in my tea at work, and sugar in my cuppa at night at home. I don't have a chocolate biscuit for breakfast, I had it as part of my breakfast on a few occasions, not everyday. I know it's not perfect, but it's a hell of a lot better than it used to be.

Hildy_J

your diet is pretty bad

Disagree - food has no moral value, ya get me?

I think I know what it is OP - in your diary you have things like 20g butter, 10g jam, 1 serving (100g) roast potatoes... so it looks to me as if you are estimating instead of measuring exactly? For things like butter and jam it might be an idea to use little measuring spoons so you know exactly how much you're having. If you put every little morsel you eat on the weighing scale before you eat it, you'll soon see the weight coming off because you'll know exactly how much you're having.

All the best xx

talamer

Hi,

First of all, I think u should change the type of food u are eating!

I think u always exceed your fat level daily! also calories with carbs as well! that will lead to gaining weight even though u are eating back your calories after workout!

I would suggest you eat more salad and stay away from soda or junk food..!!

I always recommend TDEE-15-20%! if you want to read about it please search on it on the form bcoz there were many subject discussed about it and many successfully stories and I'm one who use this and guess what? IT WORKED FOR ME as well !!

Good luck,

Tal

a_crotty

I must agree, if I take in soda..reg or diet and any carbs like breads etc I will NOT LOSE at all, no matter how hard I try. I am doing my best to almost eliminate those foods and yes it is hard as hel but it needs to be done for some.

Lyns180

I do measure my potatoes and things for dinner. At work I use a teaspoon to measure my spread/jam.

I used to be a total pepsi max addict, it was the only thing I drank, I've now cut this out completely, the only time I have had soda/fizzy juice is when I've been out for dinner (twice in three weeks, family celebrations). I now drink water and tea/coffee instead of around 1.5l of pepsi max.

Hildy_J

I know it sounds daft but a 'teaspoon' is an exact measurement (ie not just the piece of cutlery you're using to dish the food :bigsmile:) - I think it's 5ml? You might be better using a measuring spoon - they're kind of ladle shaped.

Lyns180

Thanks, I'll have a look for them at the shops tonight :-)

Acccording to the Scooby site and the fitness frog site, my TDEE is 2200. Both of these are with desk job, no exercise as the activity level. If I put it to lightly active (30min walk with dog each day plus boxercise once a week) it jumps to 2544.

Could the problem be (apart from the bad diet that's already been established) that I'm not eating enough calories?

gigglesinthesun

You can lose weight on a crap diet (just google twinkie diet) provided you are actually under the amount of calories you need. It probably would hurt to add more vegetables and all, they are not all evil.

Part of the problem might actually be your exercise. Have actually determined that you are walking at 3mph when you are walking your dog (last time we had a dog we actually had to stop occasionally to let him do his thing)? When you log that you are doing 10 min of sit-ups do you do one after the other without any breaks?

Anyway, it is probably just water or a fluctuation depending on your monthly cycle, keep going and see how it is next week. Good luck :-)

Lyns180

The dog walking is logged via Run Keeper, I've synced it to MFP. I just assumed that it was worked out on how long it took to walk the distance, never actually thought about the toilet stops.

The sits ups etc, we do 3 minute rounds of sit ups, two rounds with the gloves and two rounds with the pads, so 12minutes all in, I just put it at 10mins because towards the end of the last round I am a lot slower than the other rounds lol.

babyluthi

Are you hungry a lot?

I found 3 meals, 3 snacks work for me.
I found eating a lot more protein worked for me.
I found not eating any bread, flour, rice and one potato once or twice a week works for me.
I allow treats within my allowance only, but not at the expense of my "real" food, that works for me.
I drink lots of water, it works for me.
I do the TDEE thing and wear a fitbit one all day and night, except in water. This works for me.

I am a shift worker and work 13 hours shifts. I have to be super organized. This works for me.

I am short 5'2". Short like you. I am large, very large. Have been on every diet you could imagine.

I REFUSE to ever go on a diet again.
I have been at this since the 6 June 2013.

So far it is working for me.

We are all different.

My diary is not open, but if you would like to see my diary, I am happy to show it to you.

I wish you all the best. You can do this. You just need to find what works for you. Find something that will work for you forever:)

Edited to say: I weigh every single thing that goes in my mouth wherever humanly possible.

Lyns180

Thank you

cafeaulait7

It's so early as far as seeing a concrete number If you've made changes, they'll work! Water weight, a heavy dinner (literally) the night before, etc. will make the scale register changes that don't matter. Wait until you should have lost at least maybe 4-5 lbs before you worry at all about it.

Being accurate about portion sizes and exercise is important, of course. But I think it might just be too early to know how your plan is working, other than knowing you are sore or more hungry than usual, lol. Can you feel any new muscles tightening up? That sort of thing.

Lyns180

I can't see any changes whatsoever. I feel better in myself and my skin is a little better from cutting out the soda and drinking lots more water but that's it.

I just don't get it. When I've tried diets in the past I've always lost straight away, even with my bad habits and no exercise back then.

In the past few months I've gone from no exercise what so ever, to walking the dog for around 30mins every day plus boxercise once a week. I've cut out soda, upped my water intake. I've started eating more veg, although granted still not enough, I've went from a typical diet of White toast/Butter and biscuits or Bacon Roll for breakfast, baguette or ready meal and chocolate for lunch crisps and chocolate in the afternoon, ready meal or takeaway for dinner then more crisps, chocolate and cake at night.

Granted my diet now isn't great by any means but its a lot better than that.

nicoleisback

I am the same height as you, and am currently working my way down from 105kg. In about a month and a half I am down to 100.6. I find the things that affect my weight day to day the most are

-Water intake. If I drink only water (apart from my brekkie drink) in a day and drink at least 2 litres, I lose weight
-Exercise. I too have a pretty sedentary lifestyle, but have taken the habit of long walks, sometimes up to 10k a day. I also get in an exercise video when I can, but find the MORE exercise I do in a day, the LESS results I see on the scales. I figure this is just because my body is keeping more of the nutrients and water consumed within the day inside to help muscle development/repair.
-Medication. I suffer from hayfever, and find whenever I need to take a tablet, my weight will always be up the next day. No idea why, just happens.

Those are my main things, hope this helps you

Also, feel free to add me as a friend if you like. I love swapping motivation and support

Lyns180

Thanks Nicole.

mabelbabel1

I don't think you're doing anything wrong as such except maybe expecting too much too soon. We're all different, it can take a few weeks for the body to adjust to weight loss.

Keep plodding away at it. Weigh everything you eat, a food scale is best, if you take food to work weigh it out at home first. When teaspoons or tablespoons are given as measurements they have to be level/flat. Personally I can get a huge amount of jam on a teaspoon, well over what it should be! Lol Scales really are the only weigh to be sure.

It doesn't really matter what you eat, you don't have to be super clean, just make sure you have a decent sized deficit for you and it will start to happen.

Good luck :drinker:

Lyns180

Thanks Mabel

nicoleisme

I'm still learning how to eat healthy too so I won't talk about what you're eating but instead about weight. You said you weighed 0.5 pounds more, you can gain and lose up to 5 pounds a day depending on when you weigh yourself and what you've ate that day(high in sodium.) etc.
Here's what I do, weigh yourself ONLY in the mornings after you pee right after you wake up. Because you were sleeping your body will of taken care of the food in your stomach for you.
Even if you did that and still gained 0.5(which I highly doubt if you were only 178 calories over but maybe.) then that's okay! Just eat healthier, drink lots of water and keep on working on it!

Lyns180

Thanks Nicole.

I weigh myself every Monday morning, same scales in the same spot, right after my morning pee before I get ready for work, I'm quite particular about it haha

harleygroomer

You may be close to your calorie count BUT--high fat or high sugar foods will block any progress you try to make. I tell people all the time that this is a LIFESTYLE CHANGE not a diet. People fail at diets. Step back and look at your food list and then try to clean it up. EAT CLEAN, no processed foods or meats as they are HIGH in sodium, no sodas either for the same reason. And if you are still stopping at fast foods places, then you need to make the effort to stop that as well. There are lower count foods thee as well. Most of them have fruit or salad dishes for lunch and supper. Just step back and look at your diary and look at your goals and then set small goals. Do it day by day. Today I am going to walk one lap and eat 2 salads, tomorrow I am going to walk 2 laps and eat one salad---things like that--small attainable goals that will slowly get bigger and bigger. YOU CAN DO THIS

Celuwen

The only thing I can think of that might help would be to get a food scale. When I first started I didn't use one and I did struggle to lose consistently. I thought using a teaspoon of something was fairly accurate, but it wasn't. I was out by miles. Once I started weighing food (mostly starchy carbs and butter/mayo/jam etc), I started to lose weight.

I use these (I managed to find them on sale for a tenner too!): http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/8422219.htm

When I changed my diet, I went from eating a lot of takeaways to slowly cleaning up as I went. I think you're doing a fab thing and adding in "heathier" options in stages is a great idea. Best of luck.

kr1stadee

So, before getting into the TDEE business (which I AM a huge fan of), I want to tell you that you can lose weight eating 1500 calories worth of bread, pastries, anything labelled "junk", so long as you are under your goal. You won't feel great, but you'll lose weight.

You DO NOT need to cut out breads/carbs/follow any fancy fad to lose weight. You DO need to weigh and measure everything (EVERYTHING!!), an electronic food scale is the best, it's most accurate. You want some jam on bread, etc? Put the bread on the scale, press the tare button (to zero it out), and put jam on top until it reaches the gram amount listed as a serving (or however much you're accounting for).

Make sure you count everything (cream/milk in tea, milk and butter in mashed potatoes, etc) until you start losing the way you want to. Any calories you could be drinking too

In regards to the exercise calories, if you aren't using a heart rate monitor, then eat back half to 3/4 of the exercise burns. MFP usually overestimates the burns.

I lost a very good chunk of weight following MFP's suggestions and calorie levels. It did eventually (I mean 8 months or so in) stop working for me, and I wanted to focus more on muscle retention and fat loss, so I started looking into the Eat More to Lose Weight method (or is it Eat More to Weigh Less?.. lol), and now I am eating 2000 calories and I just lost a pound this week! woot woot!

gypsyrose64

I'm not going to tell you that food in general (of any kind) is "bad' but I can tell you from my experience that some of us do not burn off carbs (good or bad ones) very well. I hovered at the same weight for MONTHS eating at a deficit and measuring every morsel, but ate whatever I wanted in moderation. Budgeting light breakfasts for a slice of pizza that night. The scales would not move and neither would my waistline.

On 9/5/13, I changed my goals to keep carbs UNDER 100g NET carbs per day. I strive to make them nutritional carbs like fibrous veggies because fiber isn't absorbed by the body. (Net carbs are when you subtract fiber from the carb intake.) Some days I am over, and I had a couple days where I said screw and ate that piece of bread. By no means am I in ketosis either.

All I know is I lost 3 lbs since the 5th, and 2" off my core. I'm not exercising because my back is wonky and hurts right now, so this is pure dietary results. I looked at your last 2wks and you have many days where you well over 200g carbs. Try cutting those back and shooting closer to 100g, while keeping protein up. See what happens.

Lyns180

Thanks for all the tips

evilangelwings

As others have posted, don't worry about 0.5, I can "gain" multiple kilos over the weekend from drinking less water, too much beer and too many salty snacks on a Saturday night... I find it's just water weight, that clears after a day or 2 of more water, fruit and veggies.

You say you're new to this and that your diet is better than it was, and that's great! This eating better thing takes time to get into and to find your feet. Just a tip for the future: I see from your diary that you sometimes skip lunch and have tea and biscuits/cake as a mid-afternoon snack. Is this because you're not hungry at lunch? I find that I try to listen to when my body is hungry, but if by 2pm I'm still not hungry I make myself eat a small lunch anyway, just because I personally find that if I skip a meal through not being hungry I over-eat on snacks later in the day.

Hope that helps!

Lyns180

Thank you.

The days I skip are normally at weekends when I'm out first thing and due to lack of planning/organisation have opted to skip rather than get something 'bad' from the shop/café, it's not very often.

yarwell

I'm 5ft 3.

1500 BMR, 1800 sedentary TDEE at 42 BMI, 51 % body fat, give or take.

1800 - 20% = 1440 calories daily. You were well over that 6 days out of 7.

Double check the food entries too, I noticed a couple logged as zero carbs when they would be high carb as per the calories.

Lyns180

Thanks.

Should that total be including exercise calories then, ie, not eating extra when earned through exercise