weight at a standstill

LadyYoga1

So I am working out about 4 times a week for the last wek up from doing three times a week and my workouts are over 40 minutes and I am staying under 1300 calories and still not going past the 9 pound mark of weight loss. what am I doing wrong?

SonicDeathMonkey80

Open up your diary. And probably eat more.

LadyYoga1

ok so eating more would boost my weight loss? Is that gboosting my metabolism or something?

Sabine_Stroehm

Opening your diary would help.
It would also help if you told us a bit more about yourself. Why did you pick 1300?

How tall are you?

LadyYoga1

I am 5ft9 and I let my fitness pal choose my cals based on the info I put in. I normally either walk a mile then get on the precor machine for about forty minutes. I do Zumba twice a wekk and do some cardio after that normally only about 15 mins though all I can stand after zumba

LadyYoga1

also I take Bp meds that slow my heart rat but once I geet going with cardio it is not heart to reach my target heart rate. I see inches dropping but to get off BP meds I must lose 25 pounds.

princessbride42

When you say you're eating 1300 calories, does that mean that you're eating your exercise calories too? Myfitness pal recommends that you eat those exercise calories to make food calories minus exercise calories to equal 1300. The 1300 calorie goal already figures in that you're going to lose weight just eating 1300. So for example last night I burned 480 calories. That means I "earned" another 480 calories of food to eat that day. I didn't eat all of those back, but I did eat most of them.

LadyYoga1

Yes I have been eating some of my workout calories back last night with the workout calories I only had 21 calories remaining. Is that the problem?

princessbride42

It's good that you're eating your workout calories.

Food in is another issue. It might be that your food isn't healthful enough, or it might be that you're not estimating correctly how much you're eating. If you get a food scale and weigh out everything you will know for sure. There's a big difference between four and six ounces of meat.

Can you change your settings to allow us to see your food diary? If you go to settings, then diary settings, there's a choice to make it public. Then we can check to see if what you're eating is a good food choice.

LadyYoga1

ok I will change my settings one sec

concordancia

A week? Keep it up for two or three more and see what happens.

cwolfman13

Do you use a food scale for anything that has weight as a measure of serving size and spoons and cups for anything else or do you just eyeball your portions, ingredients, etc? Do you use generic MFP entries like "homemade chicken noodle soup" and such or do you use the recipe builder?

Calorie counting is all about being as precise as possible..."calorie creep" is very easy and it doesn't really take much to wipe out your deficit. Before I started using a food scale I thought I was eating around 1700 calories....reality was I was eating around 2300 calories which is pretty much my non-exercise maintenance number which is why I wasn't losing.

Also, weight loss isn't linear...you can expect little stalls here and there along the way. When I was losing I would have weeks that were pretty steady...then nothing for two or three weeks...then all of a sudden I'd drop 4-5 Lbs in a big woosh, etc. You have to look at this as a general trend over time, not a linear function. You're not going to lose exactly X Lbs per week.

LadyYoga1

when I was doing the raw vegan detox and just eating cooked food for dinner I lost 9 pounds in 10 days more tan I have lost since then . The good news is it broke my soda addiction and fried food addiction

LadyYoga1

thanks

princessbride42

I personally think detoxes are okay but mostly that weight loss is just what was in your digestive system since you cleaned it out. It's a great jump start but then the long haul will look more like a pound a week, counting calories, etc. I've been working on this weight loss thing and being more healthy for 10 years and it's hard work. What works for me? Counting calories accurately, eating fewer boxed foods and more fruits and veggies and lean meat. I barely eat any bread products at all, very few dairy products, and cook from scratch a lot. Hang in there, keep logging your food and giving it an effort, and it will come off eventually.

LadyYoga1

Thanks so much for responding all of this really helps!

maillemaker

So I am working out about 4 times a week for the last wek up from doing three times a week and my workouts are over 40 minutes and I am staying under 1300 calories and still not going past the 9 pound mark of weight loss. what am I doing wrong?

Plateaus are normal. When I start a diet, I lose about 10 pounds in 2-3 weeks, and then nothing happens for 3-4 weeks.

This is because for some people when you start to lose body fat your metabolism slows down to fight the weight loss. It is your body's defense mechanism to save fat. You may feel cold and hungry.

Eating more calories won't fix this. It is the loss of body fat, not the calorie intake, that causes this.

You just have to push through it. Eventually, if you consistently run a deficit, you will start losing weight again. However, it gets harder than a person of the same body mass who has never been obese because your metabolism will be 10%-20% less than that person. This condition lasts for years and may be permanent. Hope you have the willpower to sustain it.

princessbride42

I agree, pushing through it is hard but it's what you've got to do long term to be successful.

I've been really happy with my heart rate monitor too. Tells me what exactly my body is doing.

cwolfman13

when I was doing the raw vegan detox and just eating cooked food for dinner I lost 9 pounds in 10 days more tan I have lost since then . The good news is it broke my soda addiction and fried food addiction

Not going to sugar coat this...most of that was water and waste. One does not simply lose 1 Lb of fat per day...the human body can only mobilize and oxidize so much fat in a given period.

firstsip

Sorry, going to pipe up to say that, as nice as it is that princessbride took the time to answer you, some of what she's saying is myth.

Detoxes are not a "jumpstart" for anything other than water weight loss. Once the water weight is gone and you eat normally, it'll come back. Conversely, if you somehow stayed at that lower weight for a bit, are you just going to get trapped in doing more detoxes? Etc. etc. Eat and drink appropriately.

Eating more "healthful" is also not necessary for weight loss. You could eat McDonald's, drink adequate water, and still lose weight every week if it fit within your calories. Many, many, many people have done so on here and maintained doing so.

As others said: be more accountable for your food. Weigh and measure (emphasis on weight, with a food scale) everything you can. Try using HRMs for cardio burns. Add in strength training to keep muscle while you lose weight. Stay hydrated. Make sure you get rest.

Keep at this, give yourself a few more weeks, and then see if it makes a difference.

I'll agree with others, too: at 5'9" and with how much you have to lose, 1300's on the low side. You might find yourself losing at the same rate (or even faster) at a lower deficit.

Also: make sure you're taking pictures of yourself and/or using a soft-tape measure to record measurements. Often, people think they're in plateaus when the scale doesn't budge. If you're making progress by losing inches despite what the scale says, you're still doing something right.

LadyYoga1

when I was doing the raw vegan detox and just eating cooked food for dinner I lost 9 pounds in 10 days more tan I have lost since then . The good news is it broke my soda addiction and fried food addiction

Not going to sugar coat this...most of that was water and waste. One does not simply lose 1 Lb of fat per day...the human body can only mobilize and oxidize so much fat in a given period.

LadyYoga1

yes you are correct it was water and waste . It is meant to jump start weight loss I have coworkers that started with the raw vegan cleanse which is just uncooked veggies and fruit all day. The good news is none of that weight came back for me or them. I am going to keep my workout plan 4 days a week and see what happens thanks!!!