Not losing weight? You're asking the wrong questions!

Onesnap

Very well-written and helpful post. Thank you for taking the time for always being so informative and helpful in the forums.

Huskeryogi

Bump!

SHBoss1673

Why can't a women in her 30s lose 2 pounds a week? I'm truly curious. I'm now 31 and this is the first time I have struggled to lose weight. Before in my 20s I could drop 2 pounds a week without a problem. Now that I've hit 31 I can't. I'm lucky if I can get half a pound a week even though I am working out just as hard as I did in my 20s. Anybody have any ideas?

It's not about a woman in her 30's particularly, it's a woman in her 30's with 15 POUNDS TO LOSE. That last part is very significant, and in reality, you could say it about someone at almost any age or gender. It's the body fat % that will usually dictate how much weight per week you can lose. I.E. in general a woman in her 30's with 15 lbs to lose probably has between 20 and 30% body fat, that's a big margin, someone with 20% body fat (a woman) can't expect to lose much more than 1/2 lb a week at most, where a woman with 30% body fat could reasonably expect 1 and 1/2 lbs a week. It's all about how much energy your body can liberate at any one time to make up the deficit.

robinso5

Okay i feel i am in category number 1 but my problem isnt settign my goals wrong or that sort of thing, i cant get my scale to move unless its up. I exercise, daily, but i dont always eat my calories! i eat good food just not enough of it and i know yeah i know my body is in starvation mode but come on now, starving people lose weight at some point in time, when is my body gonna kick in? and i know there are some of you who are gonna say starving isnt the right way well right now i just want this scale to go down, i will worry about the hair loss and all that at another time!

erickirb

Banks, could a #4 be added to your info regarding someone that has under eaten (900 cals/day while burning 400) over time, that they may have slowed their metabolism down and therefore will not lose at the rate chosen by MFP for that reason?

Barneystinson

Why can't a women in her 30s lose 2 pounds a week? I'm truly curious. I'm now 31 and this is the first time I have struggled to lose weight. Before in my 20s I could drop 2 pounds a week without a problem. Now that I've hit 31 I can't. I'm lucky if I can get half a pound a week even though I am working out just as hard as I did in my 20s. Anybody have any ideas?

It's not about a woman in her 30's particularly, it's a woman in her 30's with 15 POUNDS TO LOSE. That last part is very significant, and in reality, you could say it about someone at almost any age or gender. It's the body fat % that will usually dictate how much weight per week you can lose. I.E. in general a woman in her 30's with 15 lbs to lose probably has between 20 and 30% body fat, that's a big margin, someone with 20% body fat (a woman) can't expect to lose much more than 1/2 lb a week at most, where a woman with 30% body fat could reasonably expect 1 and 1/2 lbs a week. It's all about how much energy your body can liberate at any one time to make up the deficit.

And let's say you're a woman with 20% bodyfat - you may want to evaluate your goals and say - SHOULD I keep my weight loss goal where it is or focus more on body fat percentage and composition?

Onesnap

Why can't a women in her 30s lose 2 pounds a week? I'm truly curious. I'm now 31 and this is the first time I have struggled to lose weight. Before in my 20s I could drop 2 pounds a week without a problem. Now that I've hit 31 I can't. I'm lucky if I can get half a pound a week even though I am working out just as hard as I did in my 20s. Anybody have any ideas?

What you do in your 20s (as a woman) will not work in your 30s. This is speaking from experience. Also, I've read that it has a lot to do with changing hormones and both bone and muscle loss that begins for women in their 30s. That's why weight-bearing exercise and strength training is so important for women in their 30s and beyond. A 30-something female body is way different than a 20-something one.

Mindful_Trent

Fantastic post. Well explained!

SHBoss1673

Banks, could a #4 be added to your info regarding someone that has under eaten (900 cals/day while burning 400) over time, that they may have slowed their metabolism down and therefore will not lose at the rate chosen by MFP for that reason?

I would (I should) but then I'd be violating my own pet peeve rule about re-posting since we've already covered that ad-nauseam.

Alacey88

Bump!!

anthony438

Ok, so why am I not losing weight? :huh:












Just kidding! - what, some had to do it :laugh:

Onesnap

Okay i feel i am in category number 1 but my problem isnt settign my goals wrong or that sort of thing, i cant get my scale to move unless its up. I exercise, daily, but i dont always eat my calories! i eat good food just not enough of it and i know yeah i know my body is in starvation mode but come on now, starving people lose weight at some point in time, when is my body gonna kick in? and i know there are some of you who are gonna say starving isnt the right way well right now i just want this scale to go down, i will worry about the hair loss and all that at another time!

Hurting your body like this now could have serious long-term consequences. It's not worth it in my opinion. You can use MFP for tools and habit creation that will last the rest of your life. You sound very nervous and agitated about the whole process (as well as brushing aside harming your body). People on MFP are here to support you and there's great resources on here. You only have one body. Don't harm it intentionally.

djthom

If I can't afford a HRM what is the most accurate way to figure out how many calories I'm burning? Is there a more accurate calculator on the web than MFP's?

webdiva1

Insanely great post. Thanks, man.

dkk1953

"like"

mikeyml

Awesome post as always! My weight loss has drastically slowed down in the past 2 months, but I am still losing. Sometimes I feel frustrated because I think I should be losing faster and I don't think I really fall into any of the 3 categories that you listed. But overall, I'm much happier with the way I've been eating and the subtle changes I'm seeing in my body. It's really all about having the patience and desire to make this stick for good.

elizabethblake

Amen, brother!

I've learned so much from links on these forums - I've listened to The Body Fat Solution on audio cds from my library, I've read almost all of the articles on bodyrecomposition.com, and now I've discovered bodyrock.tv! It's really amazing the amount of information out there FOR FREE!

CARNAT22

Can I play devils advocate here and and say I think the issue predominantely number 2 on the OP's list!

I wonder what % of people here log EVERY little thing they eat / every little dribble of milk they have in their coffee / every splash of salad dressing, every dribble of olive oil they cook with? All those things add up!

How many people weigh ALL of their carbs and proteins?

I think the main issue is the inaccuracy of people's logging (then the inaccuracy of the exercise cals)

I only needed to lose 20lbs and MFP and if I took the 'lose 2lbs per week' option I was on the same number of calories as if I picked the 'lose 1lb per week'. You cannot go below 1200 cals per day ? So on that basis OP I have to say I don't think setting the wrong goals is the main reason people do not get the results they want! I think they do not log truly and accurately

SHBoss1673

If I can't afford a HRM what is the most accurate way to figure out how many calories I'm burning? Is there a more accurate calculator on the web than MFP's?

google perceived rate of exertion scale, there are quite a few good websites out there that can help you relatively accurately judge your burn.

erickirb

Can I play devils advocate here and and say I think the issue is an equal mixture of number 1 and 2... In fact I would say number 2 is the main issue!!

I wonder what % of people here log EVERY little thing they eat / every little dribble of milk they have in their coffee / every splash of salad dressing, every dribble of olive oil they cook with? All those things add up!

How many people weigh ALL of their carbs and proteins?

I think the main issue is the inaccuracy of people's logging (then the inaccuracy of the exercise cals)

I only needed to lose 20lbs and MFP would not let me go to 'lose 2lbs per week' on my settings so on that basis I have to disagree with number 1 being the main problem OP!!

That may be so but they may only miss by 100 or so calories, but if your goal is off by 1 lb from what it should be (0.5 vs 1.5/week) that would be a 500 cal difference.

With 20 lbs to go if it let you do 1.5 lbs/week, 1.5/week would be too aggressive of a goal given your goals. 0.5-1.0 would be a more reasonable weekly loss goal.

SHBoss1673

Can I play devils advocate here and and say I think the issue predominantely number 2 on the OP's list!

I wonder what % of people here log EVERY little thing they eat / every little dribble of milk they have in their coffee / every splash of salad dressing, every dribble of olive oil they cook with? All those things add up!

How many people weigh ALL of their carbs and proteins?

I think the main issue is the inaccuracy of people's logging (then the inaccuracy of the exercise cals)

I only needed to lose 20lbs and MFP and if I took the 'lose 2lbs per week' option I was on the same number of calories as if I pick the 'lose 1lb per week'. Yo cannot go below 1200 cals per day ? So on that basis OP I have to say I don't think setting the worng goals is the main reason people do not get the results they want!

I don't think it's devil's advocate, It wouldn't shock me one bit if calorie logging inaccuracy were actually higher than incorrect goal setting, I think they are probably neck and neck anyway.

although I would say that as to your example, that's only true in some cases, and I would say that in the majority of those, if you're maintenance goals are low enough that you won't see a difference between 2 lbs a week and 1 lb per week, you should (in most cases) not be trying for either as that's to big of a deficit.

SHBoss1673

here's a little visual aid I created, it may help some people.

vertically speaking, the higher up you go, the more calories you are consuming. the goal is to be in the sweet spot area
which is the lighter green area.

You'll notice I put in "gray areas" because, the body doesn't work linearly, you gradually transition from one stage to the next.

Obviously this is super simplistic, but it's a good visual representation.

CARNAT22

That may be so but they may only miss by 100 or so calories, but if you goal is off by 1 lb from what it should be that would be a 500 cal difference.

With 20 lbs to go if it let you do 1.5 lbs/week, 1.5/week would be too aggressive of a goal given your goals. 0.5-1.0 would be a more reasonable weekly loss goal.

My point is some people may miss by way more than 100 calories per day... Just say for example someone is overestimating their calories burnt and underestimating what they eat yet eating all their daily calories?

It's easily done, after all we are all here because we ate too much and / or exercised too little!

I corrected my post - MFP would let me go to 'lose 2lbs per week' when I started (in fact they will let me do it now with 4lbs to lose) but I was always on 1200 calories regardless of my weekly weightloss goal?

Mindful_Trent

That may be so but they may only miss by 100 or so calories, but if you goal is off by 1 lb from what it should be that would be a 500 cal difference.

With 20 lbs to go if it let you do 1.5 lbs/week, 1.5/week would be too aggressive of a goal given your goals. 0.5-1.0 would be a more reasonable weekly loss goal.

My point is some people may miss by way more than 100 calories per day... Just say for example someone is overestimating their calories burnt and underestimating what they eat yet eating all their daily calories?

It's easily done, after all we are all here because we ate too much and / or exercised too little!

I corrected my post - MFP would let me go to 'lose 2lbs per week' when I started (in fact they will let me do it now with 4lbs to lose) but I was always on 1200 calories regardless of my weekly weightloss goal?

MFP calculates your calories goal by taking estimated normal daily calories burned (before exercise) minus your deficit to reach your goal = your calorie goal. The catch is that MFP will not recommend a calorie goal less than 1200. I burn about 2000 calories/day, so if I want to lose 2 lbs/week, that would put me at 2000 - 1000 = 1000 calories/day. MFP won't go below 1200, so while MFP may let me select 2 lbs/week as my goal, it is essentially telling me that's not an option for me, because that would put my calorie goal too low.

Even then, someone with only a little to lose should be eating way more than 1200 calories/day - but MFP doesn't police that, so there's still very much a chance that people will pick a goal loss too high for them (which will give them 1200 calories/day when they should be eating more than that). MFP uses a very general assumption that 1200 calories is the minimum for everyone, when in reality that's not the case.

ladyhawk00

That may be so but they may only miss by 100 or so calories, but if you goal is off by 1 lb from what it should be that would be a 500 cal difference.

With 20 lbs to go if it let you do 1.5 lbs/week, 1.5/week would be too aggressive of a goal given your goals. 0.5-1.0 would be a more reasonable weekly loss goal.

My point is some people may miss by way more than 100 calories per day... Just say for example someone is overestimating their calories burnt and underestimating what they eat yet eating all their daily calories?

It's easily done, after all we are all here because we ate too much and / or exercised too little!

I corrected my post - MFP would let me go to 'lose 2lbs per week' when I started (in fact they will let me do it now with 4lbs to lose) but I was always on 1200 calories regardless of my weekly weightloss goal?

This issue has more to do with size than anything else, IMO. When you are petite, you have very little leeway with your deficit. But because MFP has the 1200 floor, it limits what your deficit can be. So petite women often simply aren't ABLE to choose the 2 lb per week option (or sometimes even 1 lb.) because it would take them below 1200. Now, in general for MOST petite women, that is the proper way to do it - because again, when you're working with less calories to begin with (a lower maintenance cal level) you simply can't make the same "big" changes that someone who is taller/larger can. It's not fair, but that's just how it is.

Now, there are SOME rare cases with VERY petite women, who are willing to be pretty dedicated to eating clean and making sure they get all of the micros/macros, who can safely go below 1200. But for most, it's not necessary or appropriate. As Eric said, it's usually the case that the higher goal just isn't appropriate for how much you have to lose.

SHBoss1673

MFP calculates your calories goal by taking estimated normal daily calories burned (before exercise) minus your deficit to reach your goal = your calorie goal. The catch is that MFP will not recommend a calorie goal less than 1200. I burn about 2000 calories/day, so if I want to lose 2 lbs/week, that would put me at 2000 - 1000 = 1000 calories/day. MFP won't go below 1200, so while MFP may let me select 2 lbs/week as my goal, it is essentially telling me that's not an option for me, because that would put my calorie goal too low.

Even then, someone with only a little to lose should be eating way more than 1200 calories/day - but MFP doesn't police that, so there's still very much a chance that people will pick a goal loss too high for them (which will give them 1200 calories/day when they should be eating more than that). MFP uses a very general assumption that 1200 calories is the minimum for everyone, when in reality that's not the case.

All true, but to be fair (cuz I'm a Mike advocate ) the goals wizard is really something you should be using just to start out, once you learn enough about calories and deficits, ideally you should manually set your calories (and everything else) to whatever you need, which means that if someone DOES happen to be super little (like say 4'10" or so) and wants to set their Net calories to something lower than 1200 (perfectly reasonable possibility for a very small person) then they could, but they'd have to do it manually.

PJilly

I have a theory. What I think contributes to inaccurate tracking more than overestimating calories burned and underestimating calories eaten is people going the other direction: overestimating calories eaten ("just to be safe") and underestimating calories burned (again, "just to be safe"). This can backfire in a couple of ways, in my opinion: (1) those "just to be safe" estimates can add up to undereating by quite a bit, OR (2) people think they have more of a cushion to play with than they actually do, and they end up splurging here and there because they've been so "safe" with their estimates, and then they actually overeat. In my mind, if you're going to bother tracking, you might as well do it as accurately as possible. It gives you so much better data to work with if it turns out you DO need to make some minor tweaks, and often the tweaks really *are* very minor to make a big difference in results.

Mindful_Trent

MFP calculates your calories goal by taking estimated normal daily calories burned (before exercise) minus your deficit to reach your goal = your calorie goal. The catch is that MFP will not recommend a calorie goal less than 1200. I burn about 2000 calories/day, so if I want to lose 2 lbs/week, that would put me at 2000 - 1000 = 1000 calories/day. MFP won't go below 1200, so while MFP may let me select 2 lbs/week as my goal, it is essentially telling me that's not an option for me, because that would put my calorie goal too low.

Even then, someone with only a little to lose should be eating way more than 1200 calories/day - but MFP doesn't police that, so there's still very much a chance that people will pick a goal loss too high for them (which will give them 1200 calories/day when they should be eating more than that). MFP uses a very general assumption that 1200 calories is the minimum for everyone, when in reality that's not the case.

All true, but to be fair (cuz I'm a Mike advocate ) the goals wizard is really something you should be using just to start out, once you learn enough about calories and deficits, ideally you should manually set your calories (and everything else) to whatever you need, which means that if someone DOES happen to be super little (like say 4'10" or so) and wants to set their Net calories to something lower than 1200 (perfectly reasonable possibility for a very small person) then they could, but they'd have to do it manually.

Totally agreed. I wasn't even thinking about the folks whose minimum cals are less than 1200, but more the people who should be eating more than 1200, but assume 1200 is okay because MFP gives that to them as their goal.

SHBoss1673

MFP calculates your calories goal by taking estimated normal daily calories burned (before exercise) minus your deficit to reach your goal = your calorie goal. The catch is that MFP will not recommend a calorie goal less than 1200. I burn about 2000 calories/day, so if I want to lose 2 lbs/week, that would put me at 2000 - 1000 = 1000 calories/day. MFP won't go below 1200, so while MFP may let me select 2 lbs/week as my goal, it is essentially telling me that's not an option for me, because that would put my calorie goal too low.

Even then, someone with only a little to lose should be eating way more than 1200 calories/day - but MFP doesn't police that, so there's still very much a chance that people will pick a goal loss too high for them (which will give them 1200 calories/day when they should be eating more than that). MFP uses a very general assumption that 1200 calories is the minimum for everyone, when in reality that's not the case.

All true, but to be fair (cuz I'm a Mike advocate ) the goals wizard is really something you should be using just to start out, once you learn enough about calories and deficits, ideally you should manually set your calories (and everything else) to whatever you need, which means that if someone DOES happen to be super little (like say 4'10" or so) and wants to set their Net calories to something lower than 1200 (perfectly reasonable possibility for a very small person) then they could, but they'd have to do it manually.

Totally agreed. I wasn't even thinking about the folks whose minimum cals are less than 1200, but more the people who should be eating more than 1200, but assume 1200 is okay because MFP gives that to them as their goal.

yep, this is one area I feel that MFP should be a little clearer. I assume Mike chose 1200 because of the WHO study on WOMEN in the 80's, heck most men shouldn't be below 1600 net, but yeah, I think that there should be a whole tutorial on goals before you're allowed to choose one. Like one of those "finish this tutorial" type things where the button is grayed out until you finish, or you knowingly choose "skip tutorial" and then choose "ok" to say you understand that skipping the tutorial means you already understand how MFP goals work, blah blah blah.

psuLemon

If I can't afford a HRM what is the most accurate way to figure out how many calories I'm burning? Is there a more accurate calculator on the web than MFP's?

Below is what I do and it eliminates the need to track calories burned using a HRM. I just factor it into my TDEE. If I get to teh point where plateau, I generally increase my TDEE (i started on a side of conservative) which then leads to more weight loss and body fat recomposition.

My approach looks at Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR); BMR is the amount of calories you would burn if you slept 24 hours, for me, my BMR is 2000 calories. I then mutliply it by my Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE); how many calories I should eat to make up for daily activities (walking, working out, etc) to get a total number of calories. Because I do a program like p90x, I multiply my 2000 calories by 1.725 which equals 3400 calories. This amount of calories is the amount I need to eat to maintain weight. I back off 500 caloires as my deficit and eat 3000 calories in a day. This is the website I use.


http://www.cordianet.com/calculator.htm

I then go into a custom setup under my goals and set my daily intake for 3000 calories (well I will starting sunday, right now it's 2800 because I haven't officially started p90x until sunday). Additionally, to follow the p90x food guide, I set up custom ratio's. I do 45% of carbs, 35% of protein and 20% for fats. As I progress, I will lower protein and increase carbs. This method has worked for me and others I have worked with on the site. MFP just makes it simple for anyone to come on and lose weight. I take more of a scientific approach to weight loss. When I started I was 210 & 18% body fat. Now I am 189 and 12% body fat and hoping to break single digits within 3 months.

Cliff notes: if you go by the sites calculations, you absolutely should eat back your workout calories as they preload the deficit. If you go by the more scientific method, you don't have to worry about it, it's already figured in your number.

Good luck everyone.