what am i doing wrong?

boohooboo

after hitting a record high weight last weekend, i vowed to start eating more healthfully and exercising consistently. i made a goal -- shoot for 1200 calories/day and make it to the gym at least 5 times this week (no mean feat considering i'm a mom :-) i have written my food down every day honestly, and i have worked hard - pushing myself and working my way from 35 minutes on the elliptical to 45, which is a new record for me. i have also introduced some weight lifting into my life

so you'd think it would be all good, right? i feel pretty darn good, better than when i was a couch potato last week, so that must count for something <VBG>

i'm using a fitbit along with MFP (so motivational!), and the fitbit has started to tell me to eat a lot more calories than i am eating. i have gone over my 1200 200-300 calories every day, though the fitbit tells me to eat even more (one day, it told me to eat nearly 900 extra calories -- yikes!) something about that doesn't seem right, so while i don't want to starve myself, i am not eating that many extra calories.

and the scale? barely budging. you'd think in week one, i would see much more progress, what with all the exercising and careful eating. but nope.

what am i doing wrong? thanks for any advice, encouragement, or assistance :-)

RoosMommy01

I was in the same boat as you!! I strongly suggest that you check out the group "Eat More to Weight Less"

I was only eating 1,200-1,400 a day and exercising like a mad woman 5 days a week with Saturday and Sunday being a "rest" day. After checking out that group and figuring out my BMR and TDEE I realized that I should be eating 2,477 day!! At first I was thinking "oh hell no" because I was in the mind set of "eat less and exercise more" but that's not the case.

While eating 1,200 I was losing and gaining the same 2lb for the last 3 months. I just started eating more last week so I'm going to give myself one more week before I weigh in. I've had ppl tell me to expect a weight gain because of all the extra food but that I need to give my body a chance to adapt to eating all that good again.

lindsy721

I'm having this problem too. Eating less = staying the same, for me. I think I'll go ahead and increase my calories, and just try to make better choices... I'm nervous about eating much more, but ok I'll try it I guess!

Robin_Bin

One week is not enough. Repeating from another post... another person asking about why she wasn't loosing weight after one week:

To paraphrase someone else's ticker, you didn't gain it all in one week did you?

Keep at it... I find that for me there is often a lag time. The weight gain or loss shows up the week after I eat more or less. The only weight change that tends to show up immediately is whatever you just ate or drank because it's still in your digestive track, but it's not part of your body (bones, muscle, fat, etc.) yet. A pint of water weighs about a pound. Right after you drink it, the scale will say you weigh more, even though you really don't and the liquid is probably good for you.

But just in case, check that you're really recording accurately. Are you really listing everything you eat? Some people think that the exercise-calorie amounts aren't quite right. If you spend an hour outside gardening, but are really only active for 40 minutes of the time, don't count the 20 minutes that you were standing there admiring the new flowers or sprinkling seeds around. Is your scale reasonably accurate? (If I step on mine 3 times, I may get 3 different weights.) Are you weighing yourself in the morning before eating or drinking (or if you do shift work, at a consistent time, before you eat or drink)? Did you maybe firm up instead of losing weight? Check your measurements. How do you feel -- better? more agile?

If you're doing everything right (or even just most of it, you don't have to be perfect), I bet it will start making a difference.

Good luck!

And in your case, make sure you're eating enough that you don't slow down your metabolism ("starvation mode"). See many posts on that on the boards here.

toysbigkid

RoosMommy would you get back on here when you do weigh and let us know how it went?

jiggalude

I went from 0 to 60 (seemingly)...I started going to the gym 4 times a week minimum and now am up to 6 times/week. I purchased a food scale and a heart rate monitor so I can accurately track EVERYTHING! I began the first week of April by just calorie counting then by the second week added in the gym. I actually gained a pound the first week, stayed there the second, and by the third had lost over 5 pounds! I only check my weight every few days...but I would also recommend taking your measurements as well. I've lost 17 pounds so far, but several inches as well. Since muscle weighs more than fat, it can seem like nothing is happening on the scale, when really you're losing inches. It also made a HUGE difference when I started using the scale and HRM. The accuracy made a huge difference in tracking.

Good luck! Stick with it!

wackyfunster

Don't sweat the weight in the short term. Eating that much (even if you are eating 1400 or w/e) and exercising regularly WILL result in weight loss. Over short periods of time (sometimes even weeks), your weight loss will be obfuscated by water retention, because:
1) Carrying a significant caloric deficit results in water retention
2) Exercise results in water retention
3) Being female, you will retain water depending on hormone levels, etc.

What you will see is basically what jiggalude said... your weight may stay constant or fluctuate for a couple of weeks, followed by dropping several pounds as your body flushes out excess water.

My advice:
1) Make sure your nutritional intake is good.
2) Eat low caloric-density, high nutrient foods when possible (fruits, veggies, lean meats, whole grains)
3) If you start to feel extreme fatigue, either increase caloric intake, or back off on exercise.
4) Do weight training. It is 100x more efficient than cardio for losing weight and looking great.

Hope that helps

AFitJamie

Don't sweat the weight in the short term. Eating that much (even if you are eating 1400 or w/e) and exercising regularly WILL result in weight loss. Over short periods of time (sometimes even weeks), your weight loss will be obfuscated by water retention, because:
1) Carrying a significant caloric deficit results in water retention
2) Exercise results in water retention
3) Being female, you will retain water depending on hormone levels, etc.

What you will see is basically what jiggalude said... your weight may stay constant or fluctuate for a couple of weeks, followed by dropping several pounds as your body flushes out excess water.

My advice:
1) Make sure your nutritional intake is good.
2) Eat low caloric-density, high nutrient foods when possible (fruits, veggies, lean meats, whole grains)
3) If you start to feel extreme fatigue, either increase caloric intake, or back off on exercise.
4) Do weight training. It is 100x more efficient than cardio for losing weight and looking great.

Hope that helps

^^^^^^ this

Aside from potentially eating too few calories, I'm not sure you are doing anything wrong. The scale is fickle. Our bodies retain water for multiple reasons (salt/sodium task cause water retention, exercise /muscle repair by the body causes water retention, women's cycles cause water retention. - and water is HEAVY. One cubic foot weighs about 64 lbs.) so, you can imagine if you happen to have lost 2 lbs of fat in the week, but retained water for whatever reason, the scale doesn't report any progress. Take measurements and stick with it, be patient and remember the key is simply eating fewer calories than you burn in a week - and don't eat too few!! It will play havoc with your metabolism eventually. This is a true case of slow and steady wins he race!

Best of luck in your progress and I'm confident if you can make slow and small adjustments, you can do this. The are hundreds of examples here I'm MFP that show you it can be done! One
At comment : and maybe most important.... Don't get tied up in rules - you don't *have* to eat breakfast,you don't *have to eat 6 times a day... The only real rule you need to stick with is: eat less calories than you burn.. Truly it is that simple.. I just sometimes doesn't seem easy! God bless....

boohooboo

thank you all SO MUCH for the support. i am completely wigged out by the fitbit telling me i need to be eating somewhere north of 2400 calories/day -- but maybe i am eating too little? based on what some of you are saying, i need to up my intake. heheheh, i will try not to do so with m&ms and make good choices :-)

in any event, what i'm trying to focus on at the moment is the fact that i feel good after i work out -- and that's a great accomplishment right now in and of itself.

thank you all SO MUCH for the ideas and the support. hoping this week, i see some sort of difference -- clothes feeling a little looser, or feeling more energy. i figure maybe if i focus on those sorts of things, i may obsess less about the numbers... i hope!