Weight loss stopped? Eating too little or too much?

monkeygirl351

Hi all, I started about a month ago on MFP. Had a little setback with my knees but back on track. Well over that month I lost 6 pounds. Now it seems to have stalled so I want to make sure I'm doing it right. I am set to sedentary as I have a desk job. I am doing cardio for an hour mon, wed, fri. I'm doing 30 min lighter cardio and 30 minutes of weight training on tues, thurs. sat and sun are my rest days aside from light walking with the dog. I add my exercise calories minus 20 percent into MFP, I try to eat most of them but sometimes I'll bank them. Sunday's, I sometimes go over calories cause I visit my parents and eat dinner there so am at the mercy of my mothers cooking. I usually have banked calories during the week so shouldn't be too bad. What I'm wondering is am I eating enough for the exercise, or am I eating too much. My diet is much better than it was although it isn't super clean or anything which would probably be impossible in my house as my fiancé is a super picky eater. As it is I'm making modifications to dinners the best I can. I know I'm eating way less and a lot healthier than I was before. Plus the exercise is all new to my body. My body is toning up I can tell. My belly is a tad smaller and I see a little definition. My arms are getting more toned as are my legs. I have to cinch my belt a notch tighter, but I'm stuck on that dang scale at 178. I want to get down to 165-160 and then maybe down to 150 where I felt my healthiest. The 165 is my goal by the end of summer, but my body is being stubborn. It likes to gain weight and not let it go.

monkeygirl351

Bump

michellekicks

What's your BMR? What's your rate-of-loss goal set to? How much weight do you have to lose? Age, height? The more information you provide, the easier it will be to make suggestions.

neurochamp

I don't know your height, but I'm 5'4", and if you're close to that, then your total calorie intake looks OK to me (especially since you look like you're getting a lot of exercise in).

It does look like you have a lot of processed foods in your diet - are you tracking your sodium at all? I only ask because it doesn't look like you regularly get at least 8 glasses of water per day, and if your diet has too much sodium, you may be retaining a lot of water weight. I'm not perfect - I'm usually over on sodium, too - but I drink at least three 750ml bottles of water every day, plus other fluids...if you try to limit your overall carbs and salt, drinking plenty of water will help you a LOT.

BeetleChe13

I'm going to take a gander and say you should up your calories. If you have your calories set to "sedentary" but are exercising six days a week, then you probably need more fuel than what you've been eating.

Tandi_S

I agree with mrsbigmack, to get some detailed suggestions, a bit more info is needed.

That being said, the scale is not your friend. It picks up water weight gain from a sodium laden meal, TOM, muscle repair from a particularly hard workout....it's finicky. The fact that you have to cinch your belt tighter, are seeing definition and other changes in your body is what speaks well of your progress! Keep up the good work, the scale WILL follow....it just takes time.

neurochamp

Also, what do you have your macronutrient ratio set to? Your carbs look high and your protein looks a little low, so I'm guessing you're using MFP's defaults? If you go into My Home -> Goals -> Custom/Continue, you can see what your % is set at for carbs, protein, and fats. I have mine set to 40% carbs, 30% protein, 30% fat...it's a little tough to keep carbs that low, but the extra fats and proteins are WAY more filling than carbs, and will help you keep your overall dietary goals on track (stuff that has a lot of carbs - like processed cereals and sauces - often also have a lot of salt, so sticking to more homemade food that is high in protein and healthy fats is also helping me tone down the amount of sodium in my food).

If you're not ready to make a drastic shift in your goals, something like 55% carbs/25% protein/20% fat might be a good place to start (I have no idea anymore what MFPs defaults are or how far off you are from that)

P.S. my food diary is open, so you're welcome to see what a 40/30/30 plan looks like...just only look at today and yesterday (these are the first two days I've actually stuck to those numbers pretty closely)

Disneymale5000

It's true that more info is needed for more accurate suggestions but keep in mind that muscle weighs more than fat so as you tone up the scale might not show weight loss and might even show a little gain if you're getting bulked up. Just stay the course and DON'T let your scale discourage you. Body measurements and BMI are more important.

monkeygirl351

Thanks guys! I am 5 foot 6 inches 33 yo female. Currently I am at 178 pounds. My bmr that I calculated at several sites is about 1580. I know I have a slower metabolism so it might be a little lower and that is why I like the exercise cause it fees like it bumps that up. I even had to hold ack last weekend and relax lol. I actually am drinking 2 to 2.5 liters of water. I have a one liter jug that I fill up a couple times a day so I figure that is 8-10 glasses a day. This is quite an accomplishment for me as before I never drank water and diet soda was my main source of fluids! Now I can barely finish 1 can and would rather have my water. I do know I have to work on sodium as it can sometimes be a little higher on certain days. Trying to counter act it with more water though. I also have my goals set to 1 pound a week and eventually want to lose 15-20 pounds. 178 is where my body likes to settle and is difficult to bust past for some reason. I've done it before, but it goes back. I never did the weights in my past weight loss endeavors but I want to get stronger too. I will also play with the settings for carbs and stuff. I usually have carbs left over but tend to go over on protein and fat anyways. I love peanut butter and nuts and stuff like that. In the past it was either diet or exercise for me so this is the first time doing both. I'm determined, just a little worried I'm going to get stuck at 178 again and give up. The difference though is I have a lot more determination this go around.

Hannah_PRprincess13

I'm going to take a gander and say you should up your calories. If you have your calories set to "sedentary" but are exercising six days a week, then you probably need more fuel than what you've been eating.

Gosh thank you for this because I needed to read this, i'm going through the same thing.

neurochamp

Alright - good info! There's a great group on here called Eat More to Weigh Less. They have a ton of info that's super useful, so you can read/watch videos there, but here's the idea in a nutshell:

If your BMR is 1580, then your NET calories should never be below 1580 on any given day. You should also calculate your TDEE (I use http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/ for mine), and make sure that your net calories every day is above 1580 and below 85% of your TDEE to lose weight. So if your TDEE is something like 2400 (and it should be something like that, based on your height, current weight, and activity level), your net calories should be between 1580-2000 every day. This will help make sure that your body has the fuel it needs to work out as hard as you do, but still not so many that you would gain weight (of course salt is still going to be an issue, but water weight is only temporary).

That said, you have your calorie goal set to 1410...so don't be afraid to bump it up to something more like 1700 (that's where I am right now). And don't be afraid to be over or under that number by about 100 calories at the end of the day...just make sure that the calories you're eating are healthy and balanced!

Once you lose 5 lbs, you'll have to recalculate all of these numbers, but that's a good sign, right?

P.S. again: I've been following this type of plan plan after having stalled on my weight loss, too... and I've lost 2 lbs in the last week, so I'm pretty sure it's helping. Just saying.

monkeygirl351

Ok went to scoobysworkshop and plugged in my info. It came out at 1578 for bmr, and tdee to maintain weight is 2499. To lose weight it is set at 1956. I set exercise to modertate 3-5 hours a week. My cardio is a combo of stair stepper and treadmill. On the treadmill I do lots of incline and fast walking. No running yet, cause of knees, but I'm sweaty when done lol. Weights are mostly free weights, and stuff like pushups, crunches, planks ect. Maybe I am eating too little. I don't feel hungry, but I think I am going to up my calories to the 1700 and then to the recommended 1900 number.dont want to do too drastic. Also I changed carbs to 45 protein 30 and at 35 as it was on scoobysworkshop. Gotta work on sodium though, although my bp is much lower with the exercise. I checked it this morning and it was 112/72.

Awkward30

I like that plan, but in that case, you should not eat back your exercise calories because you included them in tdee. A common mistake people make is to include exercise as their activity AND log it, so you are eating it twice and when that amount is quite a bit, it can stall progress. So just eat around 1900 a day regardless of how much or little you exercise that day

monkeygirl351

Cool, yeah I read that tdee includes exercise so I won't add that to what I eat, but I will log it to keep an idea of what I'm doing.

neurochamp

Right. If you go by this plan, you need to NET at least your BMR, but your total food intake should be below your TDEE. Setting this up to work with the MFP settings can be a little weird to get used to; you just need to pay attention to BOTH your net calories AND your total food calories.

Basically, I have my MFP settings set to take my exercise calories into account, since I work out 6 days per week (you seem to do the same, otherwise I wouldn't blab at you, lol). Setting an MFP calorie goal of 1700 makes sure that I net at least my BMR (which is a little under 1500) as long as I'm not more than 200 calories below my target. When I work out, I have to eat like 1900-2000 calories to finish the day with a net of 1700. This puts me in the range that the Scooby's Workshop site recommends for me (85% of my TDEE is 1953, so that's my food target to lose fat). On rest days, I just shoot to net anywhere between 1700-2000, depending on my hunger level, and ignore when MFP yells at me with its angry red numbers

Since you have reasonably similar stats to me, I would imagine that something similar should work OK for you. I wouldn't push your MFP net calories up to 1900 UNLESS you plan to "eat back" fewer of your exercise calories on workout days, but something like 1700 should work. Again, just keep an eye both on your net calories (to make sure you're over BMR) AND on your food calories (to make sure you're under TDEE) and you should be fine. Since that's a pretty big range, you should even be able to work within that when you eat at restaurants or at family gatherings.

Good luck!

monkeygirl351

Ok, got it. I set my calories to 1700 in goals so that is what I want to net in the end? So if I workout depending on how much I burn, I still try to get to 1700 or at least my bmr net. 1700 definitly seems more reasonable on weekends when i dont workout, it is really hard to stay at 1410 on weekends and going to my parents lol. I think an ideal range will probably be 1700-1900 which is my lose weight number on scoobysworkshop. I don't have a whole lot to lose so guess I gotta be diligent. Just very afraid of ruining my metabolism.

neurochamp

Yeah, if you shoot to net 1700 on days you work out, and 1700-2000 on rest days, you should be golden!

Of course, it's possible that you'll gain a little at first (since I think you've been netting below your BMR before this, right?) - just don't panic and give it at least a month or so before you decide for sure whether or not it's working.

By the way, if you're looking to add friends, feel free to send me a request. I like to think I'm generally supportive :bigsmile: