Feeling Frustrated with the scale

laclar123

I am feeling very frustrated with the scale theses days. I'm working out everyday in some fashion - either cardio (like Spinning, Elipitcal or walking) and/or lifting weights. Over the last two weeks I have not lost a single pound or gained a pound. My average exercise per day is about 75 minutes and by HRM says I'm buring about 800-1000 calories. MFP has my calories set at 1250 - most days I eat about 1200. I'm starting to wonder if perhaps my calorie intake per day is wrong. I have my activity level set at sedentary since I sit all day at work. I am down a total of 65 pounds from my highest weight and have about 55 more pounds to go so I want to get this right.

Any thoughts on what is going wrong???

psych101

Are you eating back your exercise calories?

I'd say you need to eat more

laclar123

I eat back some - may 100 or 200. I work out at night after work and dont get home until 730 so I dont want to eat a huge amount of calories before going to bed in a few hours.

sunsetzen

You eat 1200 but burn 1000 and only eat back 1-200 calories? For a net of 400 calories?

psych101

Timing of your meals doesn't make any difference.

You're not eating enough hun. Your body needs fuel to keep going - you're surviving on like 400 calories.

The way that MFP is set up is that you already have a calorie goal set with the deficit you need to lose weight - when you workout you make that deficit larger so you need to eat back most if not all of those calories you burned.

STC1188

Sounds like you are burning out of energy and your workouts are probably suffering, which means you are burning fewer calories in your workout. Also, you are probably stressing shooting out all sorts of cortisol, leading to water retention and subcutaneous weight issues.

Eat more or work out less. Your body needs fuel and the chance to recover.

leon0897

Yeah based on info that I read from other users I would say two things, either you hit a plateau and you just need to keep plodding along and eventually you will breakthrough or you are starving yourself based on not consuming enough calories after workouts. I know I was stuck at a weight for awhile too so I know how frustrating it can be. I literally just broke through this morning after working out.

georgesanchez7737

I agree that you are starving yourself, if you are using a HRM to get your exercise cals (as far as I understand that is one of the most accurate means) you need to eat them back. try it for a few weeks and you should see the weight start to melt again.

I started this 2 days ago and just got done with a 35 minute jog ion the treadmill and was able to go faster and was pouring sweat, it might be the cortisol going down and water weight leaving!!

Best of luck!

laclar123

Thanks everyone. I agree with everyone, I think I am eating too few calories and need to eat them back. Going to start trying that tomorrow.

akaMrsmojo

Think of your body like a car, the more you drive the more fuel you need. You will run out of gas and damage your body. Eat all your calories back and see what happens. Time does not matter.

polluxy

I have to chime in here: I hate it when I see these threads pop up where someone is frustrated with stalled weight loss and everyone jumps and says:

"You're not losing weight because you're not eating enough."

False. That is a ridiculously silly statement. If you're consistently netting less than 400 kcal/day that's physiologically the equivalent of anorexia or orthorexia. (I'm not saying you have an eating disorder --- those are psychological conditions --- I'm saying that the effects on your body are roughly equivalent). If your food intake and your calories burned are correct, there is no way you are not burning fat. You are probably retaining water and you are probably burning slightly less than you think you are due to less energy, as one of the other comments pointed out. But it is a thermodynamic impossibility that you are not losing fat (and probably some muscle mass too) due to undereating combined with lots of exercise. If you were to continue like this for another couple weeks, I guarantee that you would see the retained water drop off as your muscles get accustomed to your workouts, and you would start to see that fat loss reflected in the scale with a massive weight drop.

However, this is neither healthy nor sustainable. I wholeheartedly agree with the comments saying you need to eat more. You'll lose weight more slowly (overall) by eating at a 250 or 500 kcal deficit (0.5 - 1 lb/week) than you would by starving yourself, but you'll also maintain your muscle mass, not have water retention issues that can frustrate and demotivate you when weighing yourself, have more energy for workouts, not have nutrient deficiencies or a host of other health issues, and won't suffer the psychological effects of undereating. That's a good tradeoff.

Good luck, stick with it!

Siansonea

I have to chime in here: I hate it when I see these threads pop up where someone is frustrated with stalled weight loss and everyone jumps and says:

"You're not losing weight because you're not eating enough."

False. That is a ridiculously silly statement. If you're consistently netting less than 400 kcal/day that's physiologically the equivalent of anorexia or orthorexia. (I'm not saying you have an eating disorder --- those are psychological conditions --- I'm saying that the effects on your body are roughly equivalent). If your food intake and your calories burned are correct, there is no way you are not burning fat. You are probably retaining water and you are probably burning slightly less than you think you are due to less energy, as one of the other comments pointed out. But it is a thermodynamic impossibility that you are not losing fat (and probably some muscle mass too) due to undereating combined with lots of exercise. If you were to continue like this for another couple weeks, I guarantee that you would see the retained water drop off as your muscles get accustomed to your workouts, and you would start to see that fat loss reflected in the scale with a massive weight drop.

However, this is neither healthy nor sustainable. I wholeheartedly agree with the comments saying you need to eat more. You'll lose weight more slowly (overall) by eating at a 250 or 500 kcal deficit (0.5 - 1 lb/week) than you would by starving yourself, but you'll also maintain your muscle mass, not have water retention issues that can frustrate and demotivate you when weighing yourself, have more energy for workouts, not have nutrient deficiencies or a host of other health issues, and won't suffer the psychological effects of undereating. That's a good tradeoff.

Good luck, stick with it!

I know, right? It seems like every time I see a thread like this, the same people chime in and say "you need to eat more calories!" Sometimes I honestly think they're just trying to sabotage people. I think the vast majority of these "I'm not losing weight" issues are simple math errors. Underestimating calories consumed combined with overestimating calories burned is probably the biggest single factor in stalled weight loss.

psych101

Sometimes I honestly think they're just trying to sabotage people.

oh no! I have been foiled! My master plan is to sabotage everyone else so they will all be overweight and I will look skinny by default!!

.....

cafeaulait7

If someone is really suddenly netting 400 calories a day over many days, I'd say the body might think something scary is up. I do think folks slow their own metabolism that way. That's not to say they won't lose weight, and I'm sure they could get their metabolism to change again, but 400 calories a day is pretty darned drastic, imho.

Don't let your body think it is actually starving. Starvation is not 1500 calories, for the record 400, though? Hmmm.

tinana_RN

Timing of your meals doesn't make any difference.

You're not eating enough hun. Your body needs fuel to keep going - you're surviving on like 400 calories.

The way that MFP is set up is that you already have a calorie goal set with the deficit you need to lose weight - when you workout you make that deficit larger so you need to eat back most if not all of those calories you burned.

This ^^^^

Thommothebear

I had the same thing, I started to eat back more calories and started losing again

graysmom2005

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/872212-you-re-probably-eating-more-than-you-think

thesophierose

You need to eat a lot more... add more calories into the meals you DO eat.

Or you are underestimating food intake.

born2drum

You should be eating closer to 2000kcals if you truly do burn 800-1000kcals per cardio session.

Siansonea

Am I the only one who took math in school? Eating tons of calories is how we got in the situation of needing to lose weight in the first place. It sure didn't "jump start" our metabolisms then, now did it? And look at, oh, every famine ever. Those people are/were REALLY in starvation mode, and guess what, none of them had trouble losing weight. Could it be that if you eat fewer calories than your body burns, you'll lose weight? Can it really be that simple?

Yeah, it pretty much is that simple.

marcelus92

Definitely do not start eating more. Whatever you are doing now has been proven to be effective from your long term success losing a lot of weight.

2 weeks is very short term in terms of looking at the scale. Your actual weight can be affected by other factors such as salt intake, carbs intake and if you drank coffee or alcohol lately.

Don't change anything, just keep doing what you have been doing for many months and be more patient about the weighing scale. I am sure you will see a big loss in the next couple of weeks after the 2 weeks that seemed to show no progress, assuming you don't change.

Francl27

Definitely do not start eating more. Whatever you are doing now has been proven to be effective from your long term success losing a lot of weight.

2 weeks is very short term in terms of looking at the scale. Your actual weight can be affected by other factors such as salt intake, carbs intake and if you drank coffee or alcohol lately.

Don't change anything, just keep doing what you have been doing for many months and be more patient about the weighing scale. I am sure you will see a big loss in the next couple of weeks after the 2 weeks that seemed to show no progress, assuming you don't change.

Wow strong first post... not.

Don't listen to that guy. Eat at least some of your calories back (at least 50% I'd say). Or cut down the cardio...

cafeaulait7

I'd suggest double-checking your calorie burn numbers (they are usually high here) and making sure to be very exact on your inputs. But you do have to start with a reasonable plan, too, and if your plan really nets 400 calories, that is not a good one.

You might try using the TDEE formula that doesn't take each exercise into account. See how close the two come to one another in any case.

Once you know the plan is reasonable, do keep at it... and for a while! If the exercise is new, you will also hold onto more water, etc, in your muscles for a while. That's typical, and it does not mean you are not already losing fat. You just have to wait out that period of time to see how much you really are losing. That's why you'll want your inputs and plan to be as close to exact as you can get them beforehand It can take some patience to tweak them later on.

Taking body measurements helps, too, I find. My scale weight looks like I'm doing nothing, but my measurements are showing a nice picture.

FrauHaas2013

Get a better scale. Seriously. Get the kind that shows you body fat %, water %, and muscle %. Those readings are more important! I pay attention to body fat and muscle; I want the body fat to go down, but not the muscle. This has been happening recently, even though I haven't lost any weight...body fat has gone down and muscle has gone up. So much more informative!

harprsbzr

Wow, popular post today and a good thing to discuss since so many are uninformed. I knew this before and I'll give you a mathematical equation but to simplify things if you go to APPS, you can find your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate). It will give you the info you need to know about how many calories to eat per day. Here is what I copied from MFP:
What is your BMR?
Your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) is an estimate of how many calories you'd burn if you were to do nothing but rest for 24 hours. It represents the minimum amount of energy needed to keep your body functioning, including breathing and keeping your heart beating.

Your BMR does not include the calories you burn from normal daily activities or exercise.

Our calculator uses the Mifflin-St. Jeor equations to estimate your BMR which is believed to be more accurate than the more commonly used Harris-Benedict equation.

Now, here is the equation I promised you and you should come up with a similar or close number:

655 + weight x 4.37
+ 4.7 x height
- 6.8 x age = BMR

Suzmp85

Sometimes what helps me stay full and make sure I fuel properly is eating in stages. I could go for 3 meals and 3 snacks in smaller portions and aim for a higher calorie goal? You don't really need to eat a ton to get those calories in..but maybe up your calories during meal/snack times. Good luck, hope with whatever solution you finds is helpful and gets your weight loss back on track.