extreme diet to healthy NOT WORKING HELP

maryamd05

I have to say a little bit about me so that someone will hopefully understand and have some clues for me. My whole life I have been over weight either 5lb or 50lb.. I have never been happy with my weight.. I have worked out and dieted.. I have starved.. I have done a lot to my body. I have done HCG and lost and re-gained... and now i am working out.. *doing a great job* and eating healthy.. THE SCALE WILL NOT MOVE... I REPEAT WILL NOT MOVE... i am doing cardio i am doing strength training.. I am doing all the right things... Have i messed up my body? will i be able to lose weight with my current healthy eating and workout... I am wearing bodymedia and tracking calories out calories in.. and am burning about 3300 a day and eating about 900-1100... I am scared to eat more.. but I am just not sure.. does anyone have any advice.. or words of wisdom?

carlypreiss

Eat more, I promise. I was doing the same thing, I bumped it up to somewhere between 1200 and 1350 a day and I started losing! Eat lots of protein too.

TinaS88

You def. need to eat more.

AZKristi

Rule of thumb is that women should never eat less than 1200 calories per day. If you are burning 3300 calories per day, it sounds like you are exercising at a fairly high intensity for significant duration. You have to give your body energy to recover from workouts.

Alexandria1213

Your muscles could also be swelling up and it could also be water weight. I had this problem at first too. I was doing everything I was suppose to be doing and it took about a month or so before the scale went down at all. Good luck

Galletakek

.. try eating more : /..... try 1400 - 1700 cal

xraychick77

i highly doubt you are burning that much

ErikaNichele

Definitely eat more... Your body is probably in starvation mode and is storing everything you eat instead of purging... Eat at the same times everyday and drink lots of water. Stay around 1200 to 1350 cals per day and you wont even need to exercise like you do. If you burn about 300 cals a couple days a week you would loose weight more rapidly... With the amount you are burning you are using up superficial energy and muscle fibers not the stored fat you want to loose.. Good luck!

missfluffyuk

Also, if you make your food & exercise diary public, then we can probably have a look and see if there's anything there that might need work.

But agree you are probably eating too little.

sammywil

Forget whatever it is you are using to count calories in & out! You are on MFP for a reason & this does all the calculations you need. So its not an exact science, but its good healthy advice. YOu are eating far too few calories & Im sure you are not burning 3300 in a day. Maybe this device is faulty.

Stick to MFP it is set up to give you healthy achievable goals.

Good luck!

papastu

maybe try eating more.....

Nos150

If what you say is true that you are burning 3300 calories and only taking in 900 or so then i would think that your body is in starvation mode. it is working very hard to keep any and all weight on you because you have your body scared that it may not get a decent meal anytime soon.


you need to stop treating your body like *kitten*.

extreme anything is stupid and dangerous.

mrsvatitagain

You for sure are NOT eating nearly enough, what is your body suppose to get its nutrients and things from if you are burning 3300 a day, which seems very high unless you are on like the biggest loser ranch with nothing else to do but dedicate your day to exercise. But for the sake of argument, lets believe its right, you are not eating enough, period!

Jugsie23

I was getting nowhere and then I made friends with helloitsdan on here who gave me a bollocking for eating too little.

He introduced me to eating clean, upping my protein and resting. It's only been a week but I feel so much better. My bloat has gone, I feel strong and I've lost 1lb with an inch off mt waist and hips in a week.

I bought a book by Tosca Reno called the Eat Coean Diet, it makes loads of sense. And I'm buying a heart rate monitor this week so I never waste anymore time training wrong and getting nowhere.

Good luck! X

tawnicollier

I think you should be getting at least 1600 to 1800 calories a day. Eat some carbs and protein before you work out and protein after. Like Greek yogurt with a scoop of protein powder mixed in and an apple. Your body burns way more calories after you worked out too. And your body will retain water when you start working out. If freaks out thinking it needs to store it because you are sweating so much. After about six weeks your body will start shedding pounds. BUT! Don't let that discourage you because you will lose inches! Get a body measuring tape and take your measurements and then do it again in two weeks. I think inches are more motivational. I went from a size ten/twelve to a four and only lost 15 pounds because I put on so much muscle!

justle

just gonna echo what everyone else has been saying. Eat More

whether your scared or not its for the best for your body your deficit is too extreem and your body is not getting enough fuel to keep you moving for the day - your in starvation mode.


i had my calories set to 1200 and didnt loose an ounce now they're set at nearly 1700 and i'm dropping 1-2lbs a week - i'm eating clean foods and drinking lots of water and i'm only exercising once or twice a week right now.

judgejava

I am not saying you lying, but 3300 calories a day is a lot. Depending what you do and your weight obviously.

As an example:

A 165lb Runner would burn on average about 2800 +- calories during a marathon (26.2 miles)
A 210lb Runner would burn on average about 3500 +- calories during a marathon (26.2 miles)

So are you doing that sort of physical exertion on a daily basis ? Unlikely.

Also calories burnt is a difficult thing to measure, how are you doing it ?

The 3 main methods are:

Leaf Test Vo2 profile (tested with Vo2 max training at a given centre such as leaf)

First beat algorithm (heart rate combined with your given variables such as age/gender/weight etc)

Speed/distance (how much work at a given speed over a given distance) which is the least accurate yet the most common and can be out by a few hundred calories at times.

Most people i know measure calories based on there weight and how far they walked/ran etc and then guess for strength exercises such as weights which is hard to gauge.

The real key to it all is eating healthily, try to burn more calories then you put in and measure what you put in, alot of the information on MFP is user input based and i have found the nutritional data to often be a little incorrect for given measurements.

Make sure you read your food labels often in per 100g and divide or multiply by your food measurement to get an accurate nutritional output.

remember that 3500 calories is about a pound of weight, but weight is funny thing it can be muscle. fat or water weight, you can lose fat but put on weight by gaining muscle, you can lose weight by losing water but retain the same or even gain fat from food etc.

3500 calories = 1lb approx, so cut 250 calories a day from your diet, that is 1lb every 2 weeks, or 2 lbs a month. Doesnt sound a lot but over a year it is 24 lbs. of course you can do more than that and combines with exercise even more.

Eat more and often, every 2 to 3 hours, anything consumed is a meal, try 4 to 6 meals a day. (a snack like an apple is a meal in this context). Increase protein intake and reduce carbs but keep enough for energy, no carbs after about 8pm is a good idea.

Good luck

baristanatorLL

Try doing Atkins. It's the only thing proven to work for me. Try staying under 20 carbs a day for 2 weeks and see what happens. (Meat, poultry, fish, eggs, vegetables and certain dairy like cheese). I go over on my calories every single day, and have lost 17 pounds in less than a month. Good Luck

tracym17

when I first started on mfp I was eating around the same amount as you, though not burning nearly so much. I asked for advice from the mfp community about why I was not losing weight and got the same answers - to eat more. I had never before bought into the 'you must eat to lose weight' thing but thought I would give it a try, since I've tried everything else.

I upped my calorie intake to at least 1200 a day, and I eat back some of my exercise calories too. For the first 2 or 3 weeks, I didnt lose anything. In fact, I think I gained a couple of pounds but luckily I had been warned this might happen and stuck with it. I then started to lose weight, not at a great rate, I am losing around 0.5 pound a week, but it is coming off.

So, in a nutshell, the advice that everyone else has given is sound - eat more and you will see a difference.

Elleinnz

I am not saying you lying, but 3300 calories a day is a lot. Depending what you do and your weight obviously.

As an example:

A 165lb Runner would burn on average about 2800 +- calories during a marathon (26.2 miles)
A 210lb Runner would burn on average about 3500 +- calories during a marathon (26.2 miles)

3300 a day includes your BMR - which is around 2000 a day (in my case I burn 1.4 calories a minute when I am inactive)

Her calorie burns does not sound all that wonky - I also have a Bodymedia Fit, and my calories burns range between 2800 (low exercise day) and 3600 (high exercise day)

Having said that I must agree with everyone else - you should eat more - your history should have proven to you by now that your "extreme dieting" does not work - so why persist with it.....

Try a 1000 calorie a day deficit - which should give you a 2 pound a week loss....that is sustainable - you will see the scales move, and it will be easier to maintain once you have lost the weight....

judgejava

3300 a day includes your BMR - which is around 2000 a day (in my case I burn 1.4 calories a minute when I am inactive)

Her calorie burns does not sound all that wonky - I also have a Bodymedia Fit, and my calories burns range between 2800 (low exercise day) and 3600 (high exercise day)

yeah i realise that, i was assuming the poster meant from cardio and strength training, but if they meant BMR then it is within reason.

Though in my experience with people i know, gadgets often make things harder for them based on what they report.

For example a daily measure weight is psychologically weakening IMO, it needs to be done on a weekly basis.

The thing i have noticed with things like bodymedia is people tend to panic on a daily or even hourly basis and it detrimental overall, for the people i know of course, everyone is different so use whatever works for you.


Weight loss is calories in vs calories out, weight however can be fat, muscle or water, losing weight needs to be specific in terms of what you are losing and are you meant to or want to.


Cheers

M_lifts

I would say you need to eat more. Plus im not sure how body media works. are you burning all the calories from actual exercises? or do you wear the thing all day? Id also say you need to open up your diary so we can have a look at it.

shakybabe

try having a week off exercise to give your body to heal the muscles and let go of any additional water it might be keeping to heal them.. I went intense and scales wasn't budging.. took an enforced 2 week off due to an injury and the water dropped off. drink lots of water during your week off, try cutting carbs for a week or two.. I dropped half a stone in first week of wheat free/low carb.