What am I doing wrong?

crys30 · February 2011

I'm doing P90 and I'm not following their diet plan. I dont eat alot of processed or packaged foods either.

kimmerroze · February 2011

That would be why you are not losing weight,.

Ask yourself this if all you ate was 200 calories a day do you think you could survive? because this is basically what you are requireing of your body when you eat 1200 calories and then burn 1000 calories, its really only like you ate those 200 calories all day! this is not good for your system, and so your body will start burning that muscle instead of the fat, this is why you aren't seeing a movement in inches is because you still have the fat on your body and not that muscle.

When you lose muscle you will find that you cant lose weight as quickly because muscle is what burns that fat.

so eat your calories, so your muscle can burn the fat, so that you will lose inches and weight.

DEFINATELY eat those exercise calories.

jrt9999 · February 2011

Both my wife and I set our goals to 1 pound loss per week so we get 1500 calories per day. We both exercise daily and eat back all exercise calories. I also eat 500 to 1000 over my goals one day a week. I have averaged 1.5 to 2 pounds per week since joining November 22. You can look at my food log if you want.

So what helped me is:

Exercise
Eat back those calories
Stay at your daily goals for most days
Spread out your meals to every three hours or so each day
Drink plenty of water
Enjoy a weekly splurge meal

Good luck to you and I hope you find what works for you.

crys30 · February 2011

No I know I couldnt last on 200 calories a day, but I'm not hungry at all during the day, and then I exercise after I get home from work and I'm not hungry after that either but I drink 2 bottles of water during it all. I'm going to have to try to eat those calories back even though that seems strange to me, I'll try it.

stormieweather · February 2011

I know how frustrating it is...I even went and got my metabolism tested. As of Jan 4th, I started back up counting and exercisin and now I'm finally losing. What was wrong?

1) If there was any fudging to do on calories, I always went with the lower number in my logging. Now, I do the opposite. I overestimate if I am forced to estimate (someone brought cookies to work, and I ate one. Instead of finding the choco chip cookie with the least calories and logging it, I logged the one with the most calories from the database).

2) I use a Fitbit to monitor my actual expenditure and I burn a LOT less during fitness exercise than I thought and a lot more during normal daily living. Example: I used to log 400+ calories for an afternoon of strenuous yardwork, now I know that's barely 200 in addition to my regular burn. MFP calculates my normal living at 1710, but I normally burn 1950 but as high as 2100. I track it all on a spreadsheet and my average deficit since 01/04/11 is exactly 500 calories.

3) I don't cheat, I do occasionally eat up to maintenance, but I log every single bite. Having a free-for-all cheat meal or day or weekend is self-sabotoge and I am working on this too hard to kill it for a couple bites of something.

4) And I fuel my body. My average calories are 1439 calories per day (without workouts). I make sure it's healthy food (no junk) and in adequate portions. I get plenty of protein and healthy fats. No deprivation for me!

kimmerroze · February 2011

It will feel strange because society has trained us to think that eating less will make us lose weight but that is soo not true. try eating more calorie High foods if you cant eat very much food. Like high calorie protein bars, or 2% milk over skim milk. try peanutbutter its higher in calorie, avacados are higher in calorie but arent very big.. try that. Those calories are sooo key to losing weight. So aim for higher calorie food. The reason you cant eat very much is because your stomach has shrunk so tiny, which is a good thing. Feeling full is AWESOME! but definately try to get those calories in, you don't wanna lose that muscle.

crackerjack345 · February 2011

Instense workouts and all that water serves to decrease appetite. Don't feed your stomach, feed your body.

2bfitforever · February 2011

Where did you get your metabolism tested? How did you find the place?

lisa_lotte · February 2011

I always eat back most of my exercise calories. I have a heart rate monitor though which tells me how many calories I have burnt during an exercise. Be careful if your only using the information that is on here - What MFP tells says you have burnt isnt accurate as it will be different for everyone depending on age/sex/height weight etc, and of course how hard you have worked! Let us know how you get on :-)

crys30 · February 2011

I use a hrm so I know how many calories that I've burnt.

So if I eat my exercise calories back whats the point in exercising if you just eat those back and start back to where you were to begin with? Thats the part I'm not getting. I'll try it, but I dont get it.

edorice · February 2011

You could start with eating back half of your exercise calories. Make sure you're not going over board on carbs.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/10589-for-those-confused-or-questioning-eating-your-exercise-calo

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/69708-calorie-deficit-for-dummies-a-little-long
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/155953-should-i-eat-my-exercise-calories?hl=exercise+calories
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/138631-stupid-exercise-calories-yeah-i-said-it?hl=exercise+calories#posts-1888371

yyzdnl · February 2011

Great going so far you have lost about 20% of your goal.

Sure I will catch some heat pushing back on the prevailing wind on this thread but here goes. All the advice against the low cal (1200) diet is great. You need more fuel to keep your metabolism up and to prevent muscle loss. But and it is a big but, from what I have read and research is clear if you maintain a calorie deficit you will loose weight. The number one reason people don't is because they overestimate cals burned and/or underestimate cals eaten. If you are not loosing weight just eating more is not necessary the answer.

Here would be some of my recommendations.
Re-visit your calculations for BMR and maintenance calories required. Use your new weight since you have lost 11 pounds.
Get a tape measure to measure your body. This is a much better tool than a scale.
If you don't have one get a kitchen scale. Measure everything for a while.
Don't forget to count the extras cooking oil, spice, supplements. This was a problem for me I was missing over 100 cals a day in spice and omega 3 pills alone.
If you don't have a heart monitor get one. Don't forget to subtract your maintenance calories from what it tells you to burn.

Here is a link to John Hussman's site he has more info than I could ever post. He also has some great tools for calculating BMR and calorie targets, best of all no advertising.

http://www.hussmanfitness.org/

If you would like add me as a friend I will help best I can.
Good luck ,
Daniel

myofibril · February 2011

This is generally true, but not in all cases.

Without going into a lengthy discussion of calorie partitioning there are generally two instances where individuals can experience a short term increase in muscle mass depsite a calorie deficit: somone with high body fat who begins subjecting their muscles to overload for the first time or a formally lean and athletic individual coming back to training after a period of absence.

I guess we've all seen astonishing transformations in infomercials or marketing materials where the "results are not typical." What these "amazing or revolutionary" (yeah, right....) programmes do in general is take a previously athletic individual and train them up again. I suspect that some programmes deliberately fatten up their "participants" just so they can lean them out making it magically appear that the results are acheivable by the average user. They purposefully manipulate the results based on this training phenomenon just to try and sell more units of what is, in many cases, just an average routine.

If you don't fall into the above categories (in other words most people) then yeah, forget it. It's unlikely you are acheiving the holy grail of fat loss coupled with an increase in muscle mass (particularly sacroplasmic hypertrophy) unless you are following a very specific and advanced dieting regime either deliberately or by chance.

stormieweather · February 2011

Excellent advice.

FYI, if you (or anyone ) are logging their weight into MFP, it will recalculate your BMR/TDEE and calorie goals for you every 10 pounds lost.

kimmerroze · February 2011

The point of Cardio exercising is to work out your "cardio" vascular system, this means your heart, your lungs, all your blood vessels. If your heart is unhealthy it will have to work harder (higher beats per minute) to pump that blood through your body. when you work it out, it increases the strenght of your "cardio" vascular system making your heart get blood to your body better. it also helps move your metabolism quicker, which aids in how fast your body breaks down and processes your food.

Strength training, along with cardio is used to build muscle, muscle is what helps burn fat. If you have little muscle, you will burn fat slower, the more muscle you have the faster your burn fat. The point of exercise is to build muscle. The point of eating is to fuel your muscle.

the reason you need to eat your exercise calories is to help repair your muscles, when you dont eat them, your body will store that fat, and eat the muscle because it is trying to survive. When it does this you lose your muscle, and thus slow your fat loss.

kdiamond · February 2011

While I do not agree you are burning 1000 calories a day doing exercise (I have friends with body buggs that do not burn that many calories running marathons), I do agree you are probably eating too little.

Try upping to about 1500, give it 3-4 weeks, then reassess. Everyone is too dependent on calculations, although not one of us is built the same. You need to experiment to see what works for you.

What am I doing wrong?

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