Dropped soda completely .. Pounds not falling off??

ig109

Hello,

My name is Josh P. I am 27years old and have recently started using the 'pal for tracking my daily intake.. I am 6'5" tall and was 270lbs when I began back on January 13th. The tracker teamed with our company's virgin health miles is helping me keep tabs on what I eat and helping me make changes..

Well as a little background I was used to consuming on average 3 - 4 44oz Mt Dews a day.. which is about 1400 - 1600 calories worth of SODA alone. The soda was the first to go.. I went straight cold turkey on it.. straight to water and koolaid made with splenda. My friends assured me that the pounds would just fall off.. but as of yet they haven't.. I know that perhaps I am being a bit impatient.. but I would have thought that cutting 1400 calories out of my daily intake would have made the pounds fall off..

As of now I am not exercising yet.. Plan to start but just haven't yet. Will this help..

Also I am consuming a large amount of sodium in my daily diet.. Can this cause me to hold water / consume alot of water?

My blood pressure has been extremely high lately (144/99 is most recent reading) , can this be tied to the lack of caffeine? Dietary Change?

How can I lessen my sodium intake?

I usually eat a bowl of cereal for b-fast, a deli meat sandwich and a serving of chips for lunch, and some sort of meat/potato/salad for dinner..

Any chimes in or help would be appreciated

diannethegeek

Would you be comfortable setting your diary to public so that we can take a look?

Are you not losing weight at all or is it just slower than you'd like? Dropping the soda is a great start! But your weight won't move in the right direction unless you're eating less than your body uses in a day.

Yes, sodium can cause you to be retaining some water weight, which can mask fat loss for a couple of weeks. Getting rid of it usually means cutting out the preprocessed foods. Without seeing your diary it's tough to be specific.

ninerbuff

Your BP is high. Your sodium should be reduced. By sticking to more of a whole food diet (deli meats, cured meats have LOTS of sodium) you can reduce sodium.
Also if you're not losing weight after cutting 1400 calories, then somewhere you're recouping the calories back in your diet.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness industry for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Phoenix_Warrior

Your BP is high. Your sodium should be reduced. By sticking to more of a whole food diet (deli meats, cured meats have LOTS of sodium) you can reduce sodium.
Also if you're not losing weight after cutting 1400 calories, then somewhere you're recouping the calories back in your diet.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness industry for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

^I agree with this! ♡

MysteriousMerlin

Your blood pressure may be from eating so much sodium. I'm hypertensive myself, and I try to keep my limit at 1500mg a day.

Your best bet there would be to replace the cereal with something like shredded wheat, which has no sodium, or oatmeal or yogurt, which are low in sodium and just as quick as cold cereal.

Knock out the lunch/deli meat for REAL meat, or a salad every so often. Watch the salad dressings, and toppings like cheese and croutons, which can be high in sodium. Swap the chips for a vegetable side. Frozen veggies (no sauces) are often very low in sodium and can be popped in a microwave for easy side dishes.

Are you eating a lot of prepared foods? These are also likley high in sodium, and often high in calories.

Do you weigh and measure what you eat? You may be overestimating serving sizes. A helping of something calorie dense, like peanut butter or salad dressings, can add up if you're just trying to eyeball it.

I would also suggest not adding salt to foods. It takes a while to get used to it, but unless you go to extremes, you'll be getting enough sodium from the rest of your diet.

ig109

I agree.. The deli meats are killing me.. The preprocessed foods are in the process of being cut with our lifestyle and with a new baby in the house dinner time is short.. so we are often forced to make something quick and dirty...

Dianne the loss is slower than I would have liked.. I was hoping that by cutting so much soda out it would fall away IE 6 lbs a week.

Niner.. the only place that I have added any food to my diet to replace soda is breakfast.. I never used to eat breakfast I would grab a 44oz soda or two instead.. with my calculations I think that the addition of 300ish calories of breakfast should still outweight the soda calories..

Could the lack of caffeine be effecting my metabolism?

jayjay12345654321

Hi Josh. Since you're tracking now, what is your sodium intake? I know deli meat is shockingly high in sodium, and if you have cheese on your sandwich, that's even more sodium. Potato chips are obviously high, but what do your numbers look like?

Regarding exercise, you don't have to jog or lift weights right now if that's what's holding you back. Start with walking and go from there. I lost 40 pounds just walking 5 to 6 nights a week around my neighborhood.

Cutting the soda should make a difference, but be sure you're logging absolutely everything, weighing it if necessary to keep it accurate. If I sprinkle No Salt onto my tofu, I log a 1/2 teaspoon of No Salt. If I snag 3 raspberries from the fridge when I pass by, I log them. It's the only way to know what's really going on.

And don't worry about your bp. Mine was 220/150 and 200/140 the two times I went to the ER last year. My doc is happy if I can get it below 150, and I don't add salt to anything, nor do I eat deli meat or cheese. He said my bp was in direct correlation to being obese and losing the weight would fix it. And it did.

Phoenix_Warrior

Caffeine has very minor effects on metabolism. So I would say no. Could you pre plan meals the night before? That way, you can quickly throw it on the stove, erc.

ig109

I have been forcing myself to not add salt to anything I eat.. I am used to adding it so it is difficult to stop.

I have been truthful with all my dietary information on here.. anything I eat is on there.. Most of which ARE BAD DECISIONS.. I am trying to do better ..

ig109

Caffeine has very minor effects on metabolism. So I would say no. Could you pre plan meals the night before? That way, you can quickly throw it on the stove, erc.

I could likely do the meal pre planning.. but my wife tries to and it seems to fail lol..

Mr_Knight

The other day you were 2000+ calories over goal. That more than takes care of the soda you dropped, unfortunately.

Other than possibly a magical first week of water loss, the only for you to lose 6 pounds a week is to stop eating altogether - it would seem you need a more realistic goal.

Phoenix_Warrior

Caffeine has very minor effects on metabolism. So I would say no. Could you pre plan meals the night before? That way, you can quickly throw it on the stove, erc.

I could likely do the meal pre planning.. but my wife tries to and it seems to fail lol..

Hey, I understand getting into a new habit can be cumbersome at first. So, there's a curve there but once you get it into a routine, it just becomes kind of a mechanical thing Maybe try seasoning substitute like Mrs. Dash so food doesn't taste so bland. I had a baby in May and it took me quite some time to adjust between it all.

Iron_Feline

You've not even been logging a week and on one day was massively over your calories.

You also appear to have lost 3lbs since you started - so you are actually on track.

Log consistently for at least a month - have realistic expectations 2lbs a week is a great loss. 6lbs a week is completely unrealistic.

Then come back if you're still not losing.

Oh and read this

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants

Diary_Queen

Holy moly at the processed food and sodium in your diary! Bread, cheese and processed meat is rough on those numbers.

Grill your own chicken breast each weekend (usually Sundays) and shred that for sandwiches if those are one of your go to foods. Sargento offers a natural reduced sodium cheese.. also, there are some reduced fat items that are also lower in sodium (some canned soups are this way, though anything canned that doesn't say Low Sodium, Reduced Sodium or No Salt Added needs to be checked). Take a calculator with you when you buy food.

Most importantly Stop & Think before you eat... that's why preplanning works well for some people if you aren't used to thinking about what is actually in a meal. Your MFP diary is giving you the answers. You can make the changes if you want. Some people aren't as affected by sodium as others are. I am... I get swollen, cranky and bloated when I overdo it on salt. I use a salt alternative when cooking and make many trade-outs each day. If I preplan and know I'll have a high sodium lunch, then everything else gets adjusted around that. It's a balance, work it that way.

sullus

You mentioned a deli meat sandwich and chips for lunch .. That alone can get you near 1500mg sodium - over half the recommended amt for a day ... deli meats are sal-terrific and sodi-yummy but need to be consumed in moderation if you're watching sodium

ETA - look at my lunch from yesterday .. a none-too-crazy sandwich (and tater tots) put me at 2000 mg sodium just for lunch

DrFlave

Looks like you've only been logging for a few days. ? Give it time. Consistently meet your calorie goal for many weeks and the weight *will* come off.

MoreBean13

In addition to the good advice you've already gotten....how much splenda kool-aid are we talking about per day? Because of the dextrose used to fluffen up splenda, it actually contains ~3.8 calories per serving, vs 15 for sugar (talking about a packet as a serving) Gram for gram, it works out to 3.3 cals for splenda and 3.9 for sugar approximately.

It's not the great calorie saver it claims to be. If you're doubling down on splenda because it's calorie free, it's actually easy to consume a significant amount of calories.

thesupremeforce

You're not going to magically drop six pounds per week. That's just not going to happen. More importantly, you're not going to lose anything without an actual caloric deficit, which you largely killed during your first week. Sodium is a factor, but the most important thing is to eat the number of calories that you should be eating.

jackpotclown

yeah you didn't get where you are overnight....and those pounds won't come off overnight either \m/

danimalkeys

Have you looked at the calculators that help you figure out how many calories to eat? 1900 seems low for a 270lb younger man.

Just plugging your age, height and weight in here http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/ your BMR is over 2500 calories a day. That's the minimum calories you should be eating.

The sodium is clearly a problem for you- almost every meal you are eating is some kind of preprocessed stuff. Hamburger helper, manwiches, processed lunch meats- tons of sodium that could easily be removed with some meal planning and grocery shopping. Sodium was one of the hardest things to get under control for me, and I still go over a lot, but you have days where you are 3-4x the recommended amount. With your hbp, I'd get that under control fast.

tigersword

How many calories are you eating? How many calories are you burning? Cutting out 1400 calories means nothing if you were overeating by 2000 calories, as you'd still be overeating by 600 calories.

You need to set goals, log accurately, and wait a month or two to get some relevant data. At that point you adjust to meet your goals.