help!!! i'm so confuse?????

chenrytc2

This is a common problem people have that are rather knew to weight losss and fitness. However, MFP is a great community to help you!

First off, heed the advice everyone has stated: "YOU ARE NOT EATING ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Generally speaking, and I mean really really general, it can be said less calories will result in "losing" weight.

However, with proper diet and exercise your body will change and require different calories amounts. I will not go in depth with nutrition cause it may bore you.

If you are exercising daily on the treadmill the result will be an increase in your cardiovascual system which is composed of muscles. You will also have an increase in overall body muscle gain, predominatly the legs/buttocks. One pound of muscle gained will require approximately 50 calories to maintain.

I am sure you have lost fat and gained, to some extent, muscle. You need to feed that muscle to keep burning fat and your metabolism normal.

What you are doing is putting your body into starvation mode when you eat 1200 calories (the bare minimum for women) or less (which is absolutely counter-productive to what you want to accomplish). When you do what you are doing, your body will use muscle for engergy and the engery stores (fat) you want to get rid of. The end result is a loss in muscle (which burns those calories to maintain) and stores fat. So you end up where you are, not seeing gains because you are losing muscle and store above normal amounts of fat or at least trying to maintain it.

Eat your calories, take body measurements (neck, chest, waist, upper arms, forearms, hips, thighs together, thighs individually, and calves). You will see where your hard work is going. You can use the scale once a week, if that.

Monitor your diet closely, and see what you need to modify. Maybe you need more protein, or carbs, or fats (yes fats help burn fats).

Once you get your calories and see how you feel, those pounds will literally fall off because your body will use the stored fat because it knows the calories expended will be replaced.

- p.s. - I tried to look at your journal but it is set to private.

Best regards and keep going!

slkehl

I had a similar experience, and eating more worked for me! It's weird at first and you might feel like you're eating more than you need, but just get that food in and see what happens you're not losing anyway, so might as well!

ddtwitch

My brother and I started using myfitnesspal and had very different results. He also said he wasn't losing weight despite following the calorie recommendation. What I found was that if we ate the same food and did the same exercise, he would enter many fewer calories for the food and many more for the exercise. Unless you are eating at restaurants that officially list their calories, you may be underestimating how much you are eating. Get a food scale and use measuring cups. Track your calories VERY closely for a week and see what 1200 calories truly looks like. At the same time, most exercise machines vastly overstate how many calories are burned while using them. My treadmill will claim I've burned 250 calories after doing what most scientific estimates would regard as 100 calories worth of work. I'm not sure what exercise you are doing, but be careful not to take any of those machines' estimates at face value. While human metabolism does vary from individual to individual, the variation is relatively slight. It is a much smaller variation than most people would like to believe. It is almost impossible to eat between 1000 and 1200 calories for three weeks without losing weight.

jodycoady

yikes. you are starving yourself!!!! Eat more....eat good....keep up the exercise.

mcarter99

Oh lordy, no wonder you are confused. Isn't the "eat more" concept a little self serving?

Simple suggestion, google "weight plateau" or something to that effect and check those sites you have heard of, Mayo Clinic and Livestrong both are respected and not just repeating internet nonsense.

A voice of reason.

How overweight are you? For each excess pound, you have... get this... 3500 calories of energy readily available to you to burn! That is why overweight people do not starve, their metabolisms do not grind to a halt, their "fire" does not go out. Yes, there is a small conservation effect with deficit eating. My BMR might drop from 1450/day to 1400. I'm still going to lose twice as much weight by eating say 1200/day and burning 1800 total than eating 1550/day and burning 1850. If you're HAPPIER eating 1550 and losing half as fast, that's fine, too!

BosBruin5

Definintely eat your recommended calories. Try adding some nuts and olive oil to your diet. I would start lifting weights if you are not doing that already. Strength training is great for your metabolism, firms you up, and is a great way for women to prevent osteoporosis. I'm sure you'll notice a difference soon.