diary check please

NicksWTB

Hi

I'm on my fourth week of tracking with MFP and have been tracking everything I've eaten. I haven't seen any weight loss at all.

I'm 5.4", 44 year old female and weigh 13 stone. I exercise 5 days a week, mainly running, zumba and spinning. I cook 99% of everything from scratch and rarely have fast food (apart from this Saturday when we were travelling all morning!).

Would someone mind checking through to see if there are any glaring reasons why I'm struggling. I have raised my calories from 1200 to 1400 as I had made the error of putting "a loss of 2lbs a week" into MFP which automatically gives 1200 cals a day. Therefore, I thought it was sensible to check on another site for my BMR and have since raised it to 1400.

I would like to lose 2 stone but feel like I'm running in mud at the moment (getting nowhere fast!). I won't give up as I'm sure at some point, something will start to move.

Thanks in advance :-)

Phrick

I know you said you cook from scratch most of the time but do you actually weigh ingredients? Some of the entries look like yes and some look like maybe not - for example the Wheetabix from this morning - did you actually weigh the 2 biscuits and they both came out to 37.5g? Is that each, or total? Personally I'd also enter them separately from the 100mL of milk, which may come down to just personal preference. Additionally "Home made salad" IMO needs to be all parted out instead of added in as just "1 medium container" because even though veggies have minimal calories, if they're off by a little bit on a regular basis that can add up. Both the items in Snacks are deceptive - 2 cups of coffee with semi-skimmed milk - the coffee calories are negligible but how MUCH milk was in each cup? If you measured it out and know it was 15ml per cup or whatever, that's one thing but it doesn't LOOK like it. And unless you weighed both biscuits of the yogurt bars and matched the nutrition information exactly, those could be off too. Just one day's worth of things I noted that could contribute to inaccurate logging which is far and away the most common reason for tracking everything but not seeing weight loss.

TL;DR - weigh and accurately record (by weights whenever humanly possible, even to the point of making new entries based on weight if you can't find one in the database) E V E R Y T H I N G that goes in your mouth, and see what happens.

Branstin

Are you drinking enough water?

pennyllayne

Your protein and fats look far too low to me and your carbs a bit too high. You might want to play with your macros a bit if what you're doing is not working for you and to preserve some lean body mass. For many people too many processed foods causes problems with weight loss. If you could reduce those you might find that helpful.

I know this is only one day, but on 14th March you've quick added 500 cals for a kebab and sweet potato chips. I don't know where you got the 388 cals for the kebab, but you are more than likely underestimating the cals in the sweet potato at the very least. There are 91 cals in 100g baked potato, which is not much at all. You gotta be careful of underestimating and make sure you're accurately weighing everything. The next day another quick add cals at 700 - how can you possible know how many cals you had if you ate out? You could also be overestimating your exercises. I don't know how hard you're working out at Zumba, but 700 cals for an hour is an awful lot. Cycling for an hour only burns around 300 cals. Running for an hour burns about 500. I would find it difficult to believe that 1 hour of Zumba burns that many cals.

I really think you'd be better off with a higher protein breakfast and including more fruits and veg. There are a lot of treats in there - you might want to try trim those down and a few "bad" days. Those will all add up and contribute. You could also be retaining water, your hormones could be out of balance, overworking your body. If your diary is correct the only thing you can look at next is what you're eating and check with your doctor for any possible medical problems.

AnnaPixie

I can only imagine you're not losing weight cos you're not eating enough. Exercising 5x per week is a lot for a 1200 - 1400 intake. Especially running, which is a high burner.

If you're not eating back your exercise calories then your body could be holding on to fat for dear life!! You need to strive for 1200 - 1400 NET!! You're probably only eating 700 net per day with all that exercise.

Are you hungry?? That's a good indicator that you're not getting enough nutrition to fuel your exercise.

Good luck. You're a star for keeping going :flowerforyou:

JustinAnimal

I would think exercising five times a week with 1200-1400 calories would probably cause you to lose weight, not keep it. There are lots of great articles out there that truly explain starvation mode, but I would doubt she's truly to a point where her body would cause her to retain fat she's barely consuming. I wish I had a good link to paste here, but I don't...

Patience is a big one. Keep at it. Make sure you're eating enough protein, as this helps with burn to some degree. I wouldn't go any lower on your calorie goals, but maybe you could very, very slightly underestimate calories burned and overestimate calories consumed. I'll probably get ripped a new one for advising you in that direction, but it's what worked for me.

Phrick

I can only imagine you're not losing weight cos you're not eating enough. Exercising 5x per week is a lot for a 1200 - 1400 intake. Especially running, which is a high burner.

If you're not eating back your exercise calories then your body could be holding on to fat for dear life!! You need to strive for 1200 - 1400 NET!! You're probably only eating 700 net per day with all that exercise.

Are you hungry?? That's a good indicator that you're not getting enough nutrition to fuel your exercise.

Good luck. You're a star for keeping going :flowerforyou:

3laine75

Like others have said, weigh and log EVERYTHING. It's a personal thing but that wouldn't be enough protein (or fat) for me - maybe consider jiggling your macros a bit?

NicksWTB

thanks for all your replies folks it's much appreciated. So here's the action plan:

1) weigh and measure in far more detail every single thing which goes in my mouth;
2) drink more water (I've only drink no sugar squash after 2.30pm, no more tea or coffee);
3) eat back my exercise calories.

I will keep going, keep logging, and exercising too.

thanks again everyone