Eating 1500 a day.. I'm not losing any weight.. Help!

hill8570

Are you logging everything that goes into your mouth including all beverages and things used to cook with (butter, oil, marinade, etc.)?

Are you using a digital food scale to accurately weigh everything in grams? Measuring cups/spoons are deceitful. Most people drastically underestimate the amount of calories they're consuming.

How would you recommend measuring your food? What if I want to eat mini wheats and it says the serving size is a cup? How would I measure that on a scale?

On every cereal I've seen (in the US, anyhow), just to the right of the volume measurement (cups, etc.) is the number of grams in a serving.

Carolyn321SD

Nutrition panels general give the volume and the weight of the serving. Pulling out my own cereal, it's 3/4 cup (55g).

So, I would place my bowl on the digital scale and turn it on. This will tare the scale, or zero out the weight of the bowl.

With it set to grams, I would then pour in the cereal until I hit 55g. If I over shoot, I pick it out till I hit the mark.

Then I'll tare the scale again and switch the setting to ounces. Grab the milk and pour slowly till you hit the desired amount. 1 cup of liquid = 8 ounces.


You may want to use your measuring cup at first to first pour the cereal into before transferring into the bowl. This can help you learn what the serving size *truly* is in relation to your measuring cups. Weighing in grams is way more accurate though. So I would use the cup and then weigh it. You'll be surprised to see how much more cereal can fit into a measuring cup and how many more calories you'll be eating because of it.

hennaj22

Make sure you are drinking at least 8 glasses of water a day. In your log you had a few days with 0 glasses (maybe you forgot to fill it out?) and then a couple days with 2 glasses. If you are dehydrated your metabolism and digestive system doesn't work as well as they would if you were fully hydrated. Also, don't weigh yourself every day. Try for once or twice a week. Always weigh yourself first thing in the morning after using the bathroom for the most accurate weight. Good luck!

pitterpatti

My general advice, too, is to try to eat more whole foods instead of processed diet foods. Many times when food manufacturers make "diet" foods, they tend to add more sugar or salt to compensate for reducing the fat in the food to increase the flavor. If you balance your diet with a whole food diet of fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins, you may also feel better than when eating the processed foods.

crystal075

Hello, im not an expert on fitness by all means. Looking at your diary, it seems that you might be eating too much if you are just sedentary, and there isnt much of a deficit when discussing your tdee and goal calories. Feel free to check out my diary if you want, its open. I work out up to 5xs a week with 2-3 of those days burning over 800 calories in those workouts, on those days, I replenish and can eat up 2000 calories. On days I dont work out, my daily goal is 1400. Please be patient with progress. It may take months to get some really noticeable results depending on your body, and your goals.

annamariecoldman

Thanks my diary is now public x
[/quote


I would suggest that you re-evaluate some of your entries because some didn't seem right to me. It seems odd that coffee with skim milk, skim milk by itself, broccoli, and Slim Fast show 0 protein, fats and carbs. Crumpets do have carbs, scrambled eggs and ham have protein, hazelnut chocolate has carbs., etc.

Please check the labels; many entries in the MFP database are wrong and you are cheating yourself by not registering the correct macros and maybe even calories.

Hi I don't always log everything just the calories. If things are coming up as 0 carbs etc it's probably because I haven't put it in myself

annamariecoldman

Based on my own experience, I recommend filling out the MFP profile with your stats and leave the activity as sedentary. Then, and this is very important, log all of your exercise. While many people may advocate for not "eating back your calories" I think it'll give you a more reasonable view of what you really need to eat. Also, just because you "earned" them back doesn't mean you have to eat them.

My top two recommendations for you is to first measure, measure and measure. Weigh all your food. It really helped me realize that I had no concept of what serving sizes really looked like. Especially my favorite, peanut butter. Don't trust pre-packaged food either. Still weigh it as they're allowed a margin of error that could lead to excess calories you're not taking into account.

Second, get a heart rate monitor that calculates calories burned. There's loads of brands at all sorts of price points. Do your research and figure out what bells and whistles you prefer. You can easily get one for less than $100 and you won't regret it when you start seeing how much you can burn. *Get one with the strap you wear around your chest. They're much more accurate.

Once you have a HRM, take a full day to wear it while doing your normal activities. Don't exercise. Eat, sleep, clean the house. Whatever's normal. Wear it a full 24 hours and see how many calories you burn "just living your life". That'll be a perfect way to pinpoint your TDEE.

Great advice thank you! I will look into buying a heart rate monitor

snappingosprey

As was previously mentioned, almost all food labels contain the amount of ounces, grams, or milliliters next to the serving size (ie 1 cup).

Get a food scale that can display all these measurements - digital is easiest.

I purchased a fake bamboo looking digital one from Target for around $25 - very slim which is nice for storage, as well as allowing for a large surface area of measuring.

smantha32

A few days of consistency isn't long enough to show weight loss. Keep at it for a month, then evaluate.

This.

jenilla1

Are you logging everything that goes into your mouth including all beverages and things used to cook with (butter, oil, marinade, etc.)?

Are you using a digital food scale to accurately weigh everything in grams? Measuring cups/spoons are deceitful. Most people drastically underestimate the amount of calories they're consuming.

How would you recommend measuring your food? What if I want to eat mini wheats and it says the serving size is a cup? How would I measure that on a scale?

It's always better to measure by weight, not volume. Cereals and shredded cheese are notorious for having inaccurate serving sizes. For example, one of my cereals says a serving size is 1 cup (28g). When I measure out the volume as a cup, then weighed the cup's worth of cereal, it ended up being more like 40g. That would have been close to 50% more calories than the box stated. Depending on the type of shred or type of cheese, it often says a serving is 1/4 cup (28g). With some cheese, 28 grams could be slightly over 1/4 cup and for others it's less than 1/4 cup. If all your food is off by just a little all day long, or you are guesstimating a lot, you could end up overeating by a few hundred calories. I recommend using a scale whenever possible.

Ely82010

Thanks my diary is now public x
[/quote


I would suggest that you re-evaluate some of your entries because some didn't seem right to me. It seems odd that coffee with skim milk, skim milk by itself, broccoli, and Slim Fast show 0 protein, fats and carbs. Crumpets do have carbs, scrambled eggs and ham have protein, hazelnut chocolate has carbs., etc.

Please check the labels; many entries in the MFP database are wrong and you are cheating yourself by not registering the correct macros and maybe even calories.

Hi I don't always log everything just the calories. If things are coming up as 0 carbs etc it's probably because I haven't put it in myself

Sorry but macros are also very important. You need to accurately know how much protein, carbs, sugar, sodium, etc. you are getting. Nutrition is as important as daily calories. And you cannot manually input the macros; when you choose an item from the database, it will automatically populate all of it.

If you enter a particular item in the database yourself and only clarify calories and not macros, you are doing a disservice to yourself and to the other users. So please for everybody’s sake, do enter all the information as shown in the labels, and I think that if you have a smart phone you can scan it.

consultingfatty

you have to exercise regularly to lose weight when you eat your BMR. If you're not exercising then you have to eat clean and lower your intake to 1200-1400 calories.

annamariecoldman

Thanks my diary is now public x
[/quote


I would suggest that you re-evaluate some of your entries because some didn't seem right to me. It seems odd that coffee with skim milk, skim milk by itself, broccoli, and Slim Fast show 0 protein, fats and carbs. Crumpets do have carbs, scrambled eggs and ham have protein, hazelnut chocolate has carbs., etc.


Please check the labels; many entries in the MFP database are wrong and you are cheating yourself by not registering the correct macros and maybe even calories.

Hi I don't always log everything just the calories. If things are coming up as 0 carbs etc it's probably because I haven't put it in myself

Sorry but macros are also very important. You need to accurately know how much protein, carbs, sugar, sodium, etc. you are getting. Nutrition is as important as daily calories. And you cannot manually input the macros; when you choose an item from the database, it will automatically populate all of it.

If you enter a particular item in the database yourself and only clarify calories and not macros, you are doing a disservice to yourself and to the other users. So please for everybody’s sake, do enter all the information as shown in the labels, and I think that if you have a smart phone you can scan it.

I will try to lol I've only just discovered how to scan items so I've been doing that a lot recently