Unintenionally Maintaining.

SpicesOfLife

it may also help to get a heart rate monitor and make sure you are within the "fat loss zone" while doing cardio. i havent actually tried this but read a great deal about it.

What a quaint throwback to the 1980's!!

The importance of training in the so called fat burning zone has been comprehensively debunked. If you are exercising you are burning calories - it's the number of calories burned that are important for weight loss and not what heart rate you are training at.

sorry for the misinformation then.

and thanks for making me look into it. it seems the whole "burning more energy from fat (percental) in the fat loss zone" is true but just not the whole truth, which makes it obsolete. found this on it: http://www.builtlean.com/2013/04/01/fat-burning-zone-myth/

im actually glad about this cause i hate staying in a lower heart rate zone.

Fivepts

Are you logging all your butter/cooking oil/broth/etc.? You have some entries that include a scrambled whole egg without also listing butter/oil, buckwheat without any oil or salt, or 200 g of spaghetti without oil/sauce/anything else. What everyone else has been saying is correct -- if you're not losing, you're not in a deficit -- and I'd bet you're eating more than you think due to inaccurate logging.

Ok, I guess I've overlooked this. It seems silly to weight such a small portions and I try to use water to cook as much as possible. I try (emphasis on try) to overestimate when in doubt. Obviously since I'm not losing, I'm not overestimating. I know I was overestimating my calories burned so maybe I've been seriously underestimating my calories eaten. I'll try to be more attentive to that.

Fivepts

_freckles, Ok I admit I'm not weighing everything. I need to do better weighing what I can (when I eat at home). Thanks for the reminder.

Fivepts

Also my flex says I'm burning an average of 2000 calories/day but I'm eating around 1200. Could that be a variable?

1200 doesn't sound like enough calories for someone with only 20 lbs to lose. Are you sure that's correct for your situation? That just doesn't sound right to me.
Perhaps your flex is incorrect? You say you're weighing everything.

Nope. I'm not sure of any of this really. As I said, or meant to say, I'm trying to weigh most everything. I have thought I might be eating too little but then look at what others say and say to myself "Wow, maybe I need to eat less to make up for all my poor measuring."

Fivepts

it may also help to get a heart rate monitor and make sure you are within the "fat loss zone" while doing cardio. i havent actually tried this but read a great deal about it.

What a quaint throwback to the 1980's!!

The importance of training in the so called fat burning zone has been comprehensively debunked. If you are exercising you are burning calories - it's the number of calories burned that are important for weight loss and not what heart rate you are training at.

Haha. Don't worry I didn't understand anyway and I already know that I'm in the fat zone (or at least the moderately overweight zone)!

Fivepts

At least you are not gaining -- this is good.

Most of the time, this issue is the result of overestimating exercise and underestimating intake. Pull back a tad on your portion sizes and try to pick up your activity a little more and you should see some movement in the right direction.

Ok. I'll keep at it.

Fivepts

I get muscly pretty easily for a woman. I lift weights about once a week but I can't say I've worked up to lifting "heavy".

Sigh, I *really* doubt this. Women cannot gain more than 0.5lb muscle/week even when they're doing everything possible (calorie surplus + heavy lifting) to try and achieve it. It took me 18 months of gaining weight and heavy lifting to get this muscular, and I am genetically gifted in that area. Go to the 'women who bulk' group and you'll see what I mean. More to the point, what does this statement have to do with anything else in your post? Are you trying to get a muscular physique, or trying to avoid it? You're aware that women who have decent muscle mass are going to weigh more than their skinny-fat counterparts, right?

If you are not gaining weight, you are not gaining muscle. If you are not losing weight, you are not losing fat -> revealing muscle. If you are not lifting heavy, you are not doing anything for your muscle mass, period.

---

Anyway, back to your real question...

1. If you aren't losing weight you're not at a deficit, so you need to create a calorie deficit by eating less, burning more, or a bit of both. You may want to double check whether weight loss is really your goal at this point, as has been suggested.

2. It doesn't matter whether you get over x% of carbs because...
a: % macros ars meaningless, you should be calculating macros in grams
b: so long as you hit your minimum protein and fat grams you can eat whatever the hell you like to make up the rest of your calories, since it's a calorie deficit you're after

Sorry to exasperate you about the muscle comment. Actually, what you said is very helpful because maybe what I'm seeing is that I am loosing fat because some of my long lost muscles are starting to show. (I was active in a number of sports in my pre-asthma life and maybe? some of them are still there). But, based on your picture and comments our idea of muscles may be vastly different. I'm happy if I can see a resemblance of a muscle and am not yet aspiring to more than that at this point.
I have to admit I'm still pretty baffled by the macros. It's pretty much hit and miss for me and I change my settings regularly. Got a good link to clear that up for me?
As far as heavy lifting goes, I'm still pretty weak and just started lifting any weights for the first time this year (thanks to the encouragement of my MFP friends) but I am working at it and willing to lift more. I'll need to chew on the rest of your comments awhile.
Congratulations on all your hard work. You look beautiful.

Fivepts

You can take this with a grain of salt, or not, totally up to you -

I am a bit shorter than you (5'2) but was otherwise in pretty much the same lull. 144 pounds, 46 years old, and I spent about 4 months putting on and taking off the same three pounds (fluctuating between 141 and 144 in what seemed an endless cycle). I started logging in November with a friend and it took me nearly a month to drop the three pounds the first time, and a week to gain it back. Then I spent three more months repeating the cycle. I tried both 1200 calories and 1600 calories (net - eating most exercise back). I averaged 30-60 minutes of working out 5-6 days a week (Jillian, my endless dvd rack from BeachBody, Zombies, Run!, etc).

Then, my SO who has digestive issues and a variety of food allergies decided to go on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (it's basically a no polysachcaride, no dairy, no starch "elimination" diet that cuts a whole slew of stuff out of your diet to weed out what's giving you digestive trouble). It is NOT intended as a weight loss diet. I decided to just make it a household project and join in. 'Cause, you know, what could it hurt to eat less grains/starch/sugar except in the "wanting them" category and it was a big enough diet change that being supportive and joining in just felt like the nice thing to do.

The first week I dropped to 141 (which was the lowest I'd gone in the previous four months), the second week I dropped another pound and a half ... and in the six weeks we've been on it (and yes there have been days where I just said "I know you can't eat it but I will probably literally die without some sort of grain so I'm going to have some popcorn if that's ok") I'm down a total of 11 pounds.

Now, I know there's a million and one "a calorie is a calorie" posts on here, and for all I know that's totally true and maybe I am just way crappier at measuring milk, sugar, and grains than I am at measuring meat, olive oil and roasted veggies ... but what it FEELS like is that the resultant carb drop in my diet kicked my metabolism up a notch.

Obviously, I'm pretty crappy at measuring everything. What you're saying make a lot of sense to me. I've been moving in that direction for a while now. When I lived in the US, I had terrible GERD from milk products etc but in spite of how my dairy appears the food I eat here is more natural (I sometimes substitute a store bought item in my diary for something homemade to get the grams/oz) and I don't have the problems here. Maybe though, there's something to cutting back the sugar, milk and simple carbs... Thanks.

Fivepts

Hi everyone. It's four years later. I maintained pretty well for a while based on all your good advice. Then in the last 3 months I had 6 family members die suddenly and I put on 40lbs. So, I am rereading what you all have said and getting back to measuring my food. Don't know if any of you are still around but thanks again.

cheryldumais

So sorry for your losses! That's awful. I wasn't here back then but just wanted to say that most of us who reached goal and maintained had our share of failures before getting it right. You just have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and move forward. Good Luck.

kami3006

Fivepts wrote: »

Hi everyone. It's four years later. I maintained pretty well for a while based on all your good advice. Then in the last 3 months I had 6 family members die suddenly and I put on 40lbs. So, I am rereading what you all have said and getting back to measuring my food. Don't know if any of you are still around but thanks again.

Very sad to hear about your losses.

You know what you need to be doing since you've been here before. I'm sure you'll get back into the swing of things before you know it.

Fivepts

Thanks. It's nice to be back in a routine again. And for the anonymous hugs

AudreyJDuke

Great suggestions!!!

JohnnytotheB

You have seen to have done great! Now, I think you laid it all out well and from what I see you need to only do tweaking. Like instead of pasta, use quinoa or something else like that. Cutting back on the sugar may be hard and so far you have failed (per your words) you would probably find that the last bit of weight would come right off. Substitute fruits, veggies for that. Also, start weighing the food or at least using measuring cups (if you don't already) to log more precise.

Fivepts

Thanks Johnny. I haven't eaten sugar or flour for a month and am losing. You are right, that seems to do the trick for me.