Riddle Me This MFP...

tylersass1

Hello again! I have taken the advice of the mfp community and have been logging all my food intake (all of it... O-O) and shooting for a 20% reduction of my tdee. Im not gonna lie I have missed it quite a bit but I am almost always (with the rare family celebration) been under my tdee of 2800 cals. So now for the interesting part.

I am 6'2
21 years old
240
Seditary lifestyle
Male
Tdee: 2800
Total target daily intake: 2240

I am in this for the long run and have been feeling really healthy! (Before I was kinda starving myself) so im okay with just being a few hundred below my tdee because im not trying to loose 20 pounds in a month but rather lose 1-5 pounds a month and not stess about the 50 cals in my tea.

The interesting thing is I lost some wieght after about 2 weeks i lost 5 pounds! Yey! Then I immediately gained it back (antiyey) the wierd part is I havent lost a pound but after about 3 weeks my family and friends (who dont know im on any form of a diet) have all commented that I look much thinner.

Im not to worried about it I feel like Im looking better and I am feeling much healthier! I was just curious if you guys had any idea what was going on! I am pretty darn good about measurements (use the food scale at the market for meat,measuring cups, spoons) i make most of my food from scratch or eat at places with the calories posted on them. So mfp what do you thinks up? Also If you can tell me how to make my meals public for the last month I will

richardheath

Last part first... click FOOD (on the top menu bar), then SETTINGS, then scroll down to DIARY SETTINGS and click on the PUBLIC option.

As to the weight... How often are the rare family celebrations, and how much have you actually been averaging over this period? It may be that you have unknowingly put yourself too close to your TDEE? Plus, remember that a TDEE is only an estimate, and can be off by a few hundred calories for a given individual. Sometimes, you've just got to tweak it a little to ensure you are in a deficit.

mtapia713

The human body can be a little weird. No wt. loss for weeks then bam down 9 lbs or something crazy. Just keep doing what you are doing obviously people are noticing and you feel great! Great work!

pavrg

Weight naturally fluctuates. I weigh myself everyday and have seen changes as much as 2 lbs on a day-to-day basis. Water weight, glycogen retention, the phase of the moon, etc. all effect weight.

Mr_Knight

What pavrg said.

Plus it seems that if you loose a bit of fat, and then for whatever reason retain some water, the distribution of the water in your body is different than the distribution of fat was, and you can still somehow seem to look a bit slimmer for the same overall weight.

tylersass1

Okay my diary is now public

richardheath

Looks like you are averaging about 2400 per day for the past two weeks.

So, assuming you are logging everything and everything is accurate, you should be in a deficit. Of course, assumptions are often wrong, and so the question arises are you REALLY logging everything, and are all the database entries etc correct? Or is your TDEE lower than you estimated?

It could be water fluctuations, I guess... how often have you been weighing, and how constant is your weight?

You say you lost 5, then gained it back - how rapidly did you gain it back?

Is your scale correctly zeroed and does it stay in the same spot? Moving it around can change the reading.

Are you measuring your body/monitoring the way your clothes fit?

Anyway, I'd say you seem to be pretty much on track. Give it another week or two, and if you still don't see any changes, maybe tweak your intake down a little, or add in some exercise?

tylersass1

Oh shoot I never considered the scale xD! I have it moved around alot. Ive never zeroed it in my life, sometimes its on uneven surfaces! My wieght gain was in 2 days i told myself (even if your calculation were off by double the count that wouldnt be 5 pounds) one thing that might be a consideration is my last 2 weeks ha a huge increase in salt and alcholol consumption (college life lol) but all calculations are correct within 5-10 calories. (Most are exact but you never know with some of those homemade sauces and i am naturally suspicious of fast food calories)