"Junk" Calories

twixlepennie

I'm sorry but Saturday's quick added exact 2500 calories is a big red flag to me about your logging. You're not losing weight because somewhere, you are eating up your deficit. That's all I can think of to suggest. I just had oral surgery Friday and I've eaten nothing but high sodium soups, chocolate pudding and ice cream and I managed through to lose .8 lbs in the past week. While I think balancing your macronutrients is important, calories is 100% the reason for loss or lack thereof in weight loss.

This.

Mr_Knight

I use a Hrm for exercise.

In your most recent exercise diary entry, you have 70 minutes of walking/running. How far did you walk, and how far did you run? Because that is looking like a 500 calorie over-estimate on the burn, which means apart from everything else, you would have been in a surplus that day.

ItsCasey

This is not a diet. It is a life style change. Try eating cleaner. If it has a label, it should be avoided. Are you drinking lots and lots of water? Green tea? I have a wicked sweet tooth. I eat sugar free pudding and jello when I can't ignore it. Good luck.

I hope you took the labels off the sugar-free pudding and jello first.

glassyo

MFP asks your activity level for a reason, and deducts those calories based off of the level of activity and THEN gives you a number. Sorry, but, you're wrong.

I wouldn't say wrong. It pretty much depends on what she put for her activity level and if she took her exercise calories into consideration when picking it.

lrmall01

I think your calorie burns for the walking/running might be a little generous. Perhaps be a little more conservative with your estimate on those and see if it gets your weight moving. I would guess that you are probably only burning about 1/2 the calories you are logging.

mamahannick

I notice a lot of Weight Watcher's products logged...I would suggest cutting out those kinds of packaged diet foods and start eating REAL foods. Get the tub of quick oats and make your own oatmeal instead of the packets, and add fruit (I like peanut butter and either raisins, banana, or apple in mine). Snack on apples, oranges, grapes, baby carrots, celery, cucumber. Make your own things. Make your own pizza with a whole wheat thin crust and load it up with fresh veggie toppings. Marinate your own meats rather than the Jennie-O pre-marinated ones that most likely have a lot of sodium and preservatives. There are plenty of recipes floating around online for "bars" made with real ingredients that could replace your Special K bars. Go for whole, real foods over the pre-packaged diet foods that contain "junk".

cwolfman13

So, re-evaluate and stop eating back calories and see what happens.

I agree with the first part and disagree with the second. If she set mfp up to lose weight, she's already in a deficit so not eating her exercise calories back would just give her more of one which could end up being too much of a deficit. Plus she's already not eating all of her exercise calories back.

If you've lost weight consistently weighing your food, eating whatever junk food you've eaten, being over on carbs and sodium, and using your hrm for your calorie burned count, it's either....wait, has Aunt Flo come to visit?

MFP asks your activity level for a reason, and deducts those calories based off of the level of activity and THEN gives you a number. Sorry, but, you're wrong.

If that were the case I would be losing weight (which I don't want to) instead of gaining lean mass.

Technically, with MFP you're only supposed to include activity from your work and day to day kind of stuff in your activity level. Then you log exercise as "extra activity" because it isn't accounted for in your day to day...thus MFP gives you those calories back. There are many people who include all activity, including exercise...and at that point you would be double counting...but if the OP has established her profile as per the MFP format then she would eat back exercise calories. I lost 40 Lbs using this method and was right on pace with what I told MfP I wanted to lose...1850 net calories to lose 1 Lb per week and grossing 2100 - 2200 calories for the same results once i started exercising.

To the OP...you are having an estimation error somewhere in there...you are either underestimating your intake and/or overestimating your burn...probably both. If you're adding in stuff like housework, etc then stop doing that...it isn't exercise and regardless of whether you're only eating back 1/2 or not, you're overestimating there.

I would personally recommend reducing the junk, but purely from a nutritional POV...a deficit is a deficit is a deficit...it doesn't really matter where the calories come from.

GamerLady

I think your calorie burns for the walking/running might be a little generous. Perhaps be a little more conservative with your estimate on those and see if it gets your weight moving. I would guess that you are probably only burning about 1/2 the calories you are logging.

Aye, I agree.
Also, I'm not trying to be mean, really I'm not so please don't take it that way, but I've never known anyone that's tried to lose weight and did so quickly by walking. They always looked the same and stayed the same weight or kept gaining when their exercise was just walking. Maybe try and do a bit more exercising in that long period of time you usually use, an hour of walking you could do half an hour of say, spinning or even for free from fitnessblender.com some HIIT training. It will cut your hour in half and you'll burn more calories from it than you will from walking twice the amount of time. I'd also add some strength training in your routine if you possibly can.

lrmall01

I think your calorie burns for the walking/running might be a little generous. Perhaps be a little more conservative with your estimate on those and see if it gets your weight moving. I would guess that you are probably only burning about 1/2 the calories you are logging.

Aye, I agree.
Also, I'm not trying to be mean, really I'm not so please don't take it that way, but I've never known anyone that's tried to lose weight and did so quickly by walking. They always looked the same and stayed the same weight or kept gaining when their exercise was just walking. Maybe try and do a bit more exercising in that long period of time you usually use, an hour of walking you could do half an hour of say, spinning or even for free from fitnessblender.com some HIIT training. It will cut your hour in half and you'll burn more calories from it than you will from walking twice the amount of time. I'd also add some strength training in your routine if you possibly can.

If you open up her exercise diary, she also has some 30 day shred entries. I just pointed out the walking / running entry because it is so large (about 700 calories per entry).

jennegan1

This is not a diet. It is a life style change. Try eating cleaner. If it has a label, it should be avoided. Are you drinking lots and lots of water? Green tea? I have a wicked sweet tooth. I eat sugar free pudding and jello when I can't ignore it. Good luck.

Huh...Everything has "labels" on them....Even Greek Yogurt...You eat sugar free pudding and jello? Dont they have a label on it?

Sabine_Stroehm

In the end, it comes down to your Macros.

While junk calories are not helping your overall nutrition, I suspect that you are off on either the true cals eaten or the true cals spent in exercise.

I suggest that you compensate for that potential and adjust both by 5% for a month and see what happens. Target 5% less cals eaten and give yourself credit for 5% less cals burned while working out.

Best!

And what of her macros?

Annie_01

This is not a diet. It is a life style change. Try eating cleaner. If it has a label, it should be avoided. Are you drinking lots and lots of water? Green tea? I have a wicked sweet tooth. I eat sugar free pudding and jello when I can't ignore it. Good luck.

How do you avoid things with a label?

Most everything that you buy at the grocery store has a label...even the green tea that I buy. My bananas have a sticker on each one...which is the same thing as a label.

It is not the label that makes things not as healthy for us but the choices that we make...how much we eat...if it is calorie dense...etc...etc.

Unless you grow and raise everything yourself or buy it from the farmer down the road...most things will have a label.

Annie_01

This is not a diet. It is a life style change. Try eating cleaner. If it has a label, it should be avoided. Are you drinking lots and lots of water? Green tea? I have a wicked sweet tooth. I eat sugar free pudding and jello when I can't ignore it. Good luck.

Huh...Everything has "labels" on them....Even Greek Yogurt...You eat sugar free pudding and jello? Dont they have a label on it?

LOL You beat me to it!

Riemersma4

Macros: Is she staying within the guidelines (C, F and P), has set them up properly and is reporting accurately.

Often, when people comment on 'not being able to lose weight but living under my Macros/TDEE', there is a mistake somewhere in the basics.

Best!

Francl27

Do you weigh those bars etc? I've found they often underestimate how much a serving is. So that 50g bar could be 60g, and it adds up pretty fast.

Sabine_Stroehm

Macros: Is she staying within the guidelines (C, F and P), has set them up properly and is reporting accurately.

Often, when people comment on 'not being able to lose weight but living under my Macros/TDEE', there is a mistake somewhere in the basics.

Best!

I know macros. I just thought it odd that you told her "it all comes down to your macros" then proceeded not to talk to her about her macros.
In theory, if it's calories in/calories out, her macros should not matter for weight loss, however, I believe they do.

elsyoommen

I just went back to your original post and noticed that you asked for suggestions to replace your bars etc. So here are some:

- 1/2 cup of greek yogurt topped with slivered almonds and some berries
- cut up a bunch of celery and put them in little Ziploc bags to take as a snack to work
- Baldersons 2 year aged cheddar snacks.

I used to have about 2 kashi bars per day, they are great, but I found that lowering my sugar, lowering the carbs and increasing the protein really helped. So this involved cutting out the bars. I have also started to have a protein shake some days. This helps me get to my protein goal and since I have it at about 4pm it takes care of that time period when I'm most prone to snack on things like bars etc...

Khushi22

wow... learned few stuff from this post! Thanks all.

jennegan1

This is not a diet. It is a life style change. Try eating cleaner. If it has a label, it should be avoided. Are you drinking lots and lots of water? Green tea? I have a wicked sweet tooth. I eat sugar free pudding and jello when I can't ignore it. Good luck.

Huh...Everything has "labels" on them....Even Greek Yogurt...You eat sugar free pudding and jello? Dont they have a label on it?

LOL You beat me to it!

Lol....I am trying to eat "cleaner" lmfao I soak my food in chlorine lol jk all joking aside though alot of processed foods arent evil either. As long as the person watches the servings and eat at a deficit then they should be fine

buffgirl79

2500 calories?? who can eat that in a day and lose weight anyway? I am the same weight 184 and i eat 1200-1500 a day (do my best to stay closer to 1200) and don't eat back any of my exercise calories..I am losing steadily..7 pounds gone since day after Christmas, and I work out like a mad woman 5-6 days a week. Mine seems slow to me since i'm working so hard, but my body is changing and I'm gaining muscle too.