what am I doing wrong :(

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  • thavoice
    thavoice Posts: 1,326 Member
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    If you are not weighing your food then you are not tracking correctly and are probably eating more than 1200 calories. tea/tablespoons and cups do not accurately measure food.
    Agreed.

    Food servings are very tricky. I love me some PB, and until you truly see what a recommended serving of it is then it is quite possible you are eating way more than you thnk!
    I didnt always pay a whole lot of attention to the likes of peanut butter and thinking one spoon full was a serving size.....but in reality it was way more@
  • squirrelzzrule22
    squirrelzzrule22 Posts: 640 Member
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    you say you're a college student. Are you maybe drinking a lot of alcohol on the weekends? Not saying this with judgement, that's what always screws up my diet and I "conveniently" tend to not log those crazy weekends.

    If you're really only eating that much, you WILL lose weight, don't listen to any nonsense about starvation mode. That's not very much food for someone your size.
  • klkateri
    klkateri Posts: 432 Member
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    Do you take body measurements?!

    I've only lost 20 pounds in 3 months but on the flip side I've lost 18 inches off my overall body... to me that is more the victory!! Sometimes the scale is more trouble than its worth. I find more comfort in the measurements because i KNOW i'm losing inches and my body is changing.

    I would suggest, maybe for a short while, to just ditch the scale and focus on body measurements.
  • cadaver0usb0nes
    cadaver0usb0nes Posts: 151 Member
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    Let's start from scratch.

    You are 20 years old, 5'8" and 182 pounds. You have a Basal Metabolic Rate of 1672. If you were in a coma, your body would be burning 1672 calories every day. You say you are sedentary, but you are 20 years old and you go to the gym every - day? Every weekday?

    Assuming you go to the gym 3 times a week, you're not sedentary - that makes you lightly active. We can say your gym days are "lightly active days" and your non-gym days are "sedentary days." On your sedentary days, your body burns 1672 x 1.2 = 2006 calories. Let's use 1.4 as your multiplier for your lightly active days. 1672 x 1.4 = 2340 calories. Those are your maintenance numbers.

    Forget adding in your exercise calories. MFP and gym equipment have one major thing in common: they are terrible at estimating exercise calorie burns. Using this method, you know what you burn when you go and when you don't, and all you have to do is subtract 20% to lose weight. On your sedentary days, this gives you a goal of 1604 and on lightly active days you have a goal of 1872. Though these deficits add up to less than one pound of weight loss per week, it is a sustainable way to lose weight. You are welcome to try a slightly more aggressive deficit, but I wouldn't go below 1600 calories a day, so perhaps it's just up to you whether you eat more on days when you exercise. If you need the fuel for your workouts, eat more.

    That being said, if you have been eating at 1200 calories a day and NOT losing weight, then eating more probably won't help you. It's unlikely that eating too little would stall weight loss. Logging inaccuracy is the #1 most common reason for this, and it's not your fault. Volumetric measurements can be wrong, and nutrition facts can be rounded down. First of all, measure everything. If you can buy yourself a digital food scale, do so because it is worth it. If using cup and spoon measures, always measure slightly below the rim. Never take a bite of anything and "forget" to log it. Make sure you are logging condiments, spices, low-cal drinks, etc. because they often have some calories in them. It's a big pain in the butt, but accuracy makes all the difference.

    - VERY Good advice!

    also make sure you are getting enough protein/fat and not so many carbs.
  • gotogirl81
    gotogirl81 Posts: 278 Member
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    ^^^^ greaaat advice.
    and DO NOT use mfp/gym machines calorie burned guides.
    i got a polar ft4 heart rate monitor.... the machines have been anywhere to 80-150 calories higher than my heart rate monitor.

    invest in one.. amazon.com you can get one reasonable. best decision i made in months regarding my fitness.
  • lemonsnowdrop
    lemonsnowdrop Posts: 1,298 Member
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    Do you take body measurements?!

    I've only lost 20 pounds in 3 months but on the flip side I've lost 18 inches off my overall body... to me that is more the victory!! Sometimes the scale is more trouble than its worth. I find more comfort in the measurements because i KNOW i'm losing inches and my body is changing.

    I would suggest, maybe for a short while, to just ditch the scale and focus on body measurements.

    Not to take this too far off topic, but "only 20 pounds" in three months is 20 pounds in 12 weeks, which is a good amount.

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