help :/ not losing weight

csandra1219

i'm going to be completely honest so everyone has all the info and can give me some advice!
i'm just under 5'3 and weigh 133lbs. so keep in mind my bmr (~1424) is going to be much lower than a taller girl's or any man's bmr.
i weigh myself everyday.
if you look at my diary - that past 2 days were bad days for me lol, i feel like giving up bc i dont see any results. i set very high standards for myself and feel discouraged when i dont meet them. i want to lose at least 1.5lbs/week.
caution: the past week was definitely not healthy even though i was under in cals. except for this past week, ive been eating Very healthy - loads of veggies, spinach, protein, organic everything, etc. absolutely no fast food or processed food.

i started basically june 1 with a goal of 1200cals. i Always met that goal, usually a bit under every day - i think there Might've been 1 or 2 days that i went over. i was rly busy with school so i tried to run cardio as much as i could but even if i didnt, my net was always <1200. 2 weeks went by and didnt lose anything.
so i did cardio 4-6 days/week - i think i saw maybe .5-1lb lost.

then something personal happened and i felt rly sad for a a couple days, and i could barely eat - i was netting like 500-600 cals and in a week i lost 2-3lbs...which is why i started looking into the whole restricting cals and starvation mode thing.
btw here is a great link: http://fitnessblackbook.com/main/starvation-mode-why-you-probably-never-need-to-worry-about-it/
i have no opinion on starvation mode at the moment bc i havent done enough research on it - but i sincerely hope everyone at least reads up on Both sides of the argument before forming an opinion/going off on someone for being low on cals just bc everyone else on MFP seems to be against it.

but i know that netting that low is probably unhealthy so i still kept my goal at 1200 and started swimming every day (trying to) and playing tennis and mountain biking as much as possible. my net was consistently 900 or lower - so cals were restricted a bit.
one night i went out drinking and so didnt drink water and when i woke up i had lost 2lbs!
so i thought okay, maybe it's water weight?

now my net is even lower because i wanted to try it out to see if i would get results - i just changed my goal to 800 yesterday.

another hypothesis is that i like to have a drink or glass of wine or something at night and just found out how many cals are in that! im going to start logging All of it.
BUT i think even if i drank and didnt log it, it wouldnt matter because i was netting low all the time anyways. including the alcohol, ide still be at 1200 at most - so if it was the case that im not losing weight Because i dont have enough cals consumed, that's not it.

yarwell

The post drinking weight loss was probably dehydration from the alcohol.

I would imagine your goal is in the 120s (?) so you are looking to lose ~10 lbs in which case 0.5 or 1 lb/week is probably sufficient loss rate.

MFP can catch you out with its 1200 minimum - if your BMR is 1400 that's 1680 sedentary take off 500 for 1 lb/week and you have 1180 left which it sets to 1200. Aiming for 2 lbs/week it still sets you to 1200.

So eating 1200-1400 and exercising moderately should work. "Eating 1200 and exercising like mad" is a regular posting of people not losing weight - you'll be advised to eat more and exercise more. Good Luck.

You BMR could be lower than the 1400, it's an estimate +/- 10% that catches about 70% of the population in its range. Bear that in mind.

rose313

Are you logging everything or no? It was hard to understand from your post. In your diary one of your entries is only like 300 cals so I'm assuming you're not logging everything, and you said you think you're going to start logging drinks so sometimes you do and sometimes you don't?

If you don't log accurately you won't know what helps and what doesn't, and it's hard for us to help as well, because it's incorrect data.

DanaDark

You are creating MASSIVE deficits that your body will not be able to maintain at all.

You are not getting enough nutrition at such low calorie goals in order to properly maintain the body. The body requires SUPPLIES and ENERGY to maintain itself. Without enough supplies, it won't spend the ENERGY to maintain it. Why would it? So, by reducing calories so much, you've reduced the supplies (protein most importantly), so the body spends less calories per day. Doing this, can actually cause weight gain depending on the severity of the caloric restriction and how many nutrients are missing.

So, you basically gave your body a MASSIVE pay cut, and then told it to do TONS more. Just like a regular employee, it won't be happy at that at all.

Additionally, at your weight and size, 1.5lbs a week is an unrealistic weight loss goal. That immediately sets you for failure in the long term.

Re-do your goals using MFP's advice. Set your goal weight loss to 0.5lbs or 1lb a week TOPS. From there, go back to setting your goals, input manually, and set your protein intake to 30%. Track your protein intake.

Now, when you exercise, log that and eat back those calories. Do not worry about ensuring a deficit. So long as you stay under the green number MFP shows on your home page (which will add in calories for exercising), you will reach your goal.

Additionally, given your size, water weight will cause significant fluctuations in the scale readings. You will want to ensure your sodium intake is no greater than 2500 and to drink at least 8 cups of water a day. Given you are exercising a TON, you will need to drink more than 8 cups.

I am not bashing you or anything. I just want to ensure you get your weight loss goals in the healthiest way possible. I know what it is like to put in FULL effort and get NO results. I ate UNDER my BMR for YEARS (roughly 7 years), and GAINED weight the entire time. The very week I adjusted myself to eating above my BMR with proper macro settings, I started losing weight faster than I ever have before. Even with reduced exercise. heh.

csandra1219

thanks for all the input,
to answer some questions yes I log everything, even if one day says 300 calories that's what happened ( that was only 1 day and not on purpose, i was just extremely busy).
about alcohol, when I go out and drink I try to log it. but yes alcohol is the 1 thing that I'm bad at logging some nights. But my point is that I always have a calorie deficit so even if I didn't log a glass of wine it should not affect my ability to lose weight right?

and with the nutrition thing, I feel like as long as you eat tons of veggies and protein you are fine... it's like saying people who are on the raw diet were you only eat raw vegetables and fruits are mal nutritioned.. they definitely eat very few calories, but lose weight like crazy because they have the discipline, and feel great and energetic and are probably healthier than all of us combined.

if you look at my diary from before this past week, you'll see that I've been consistently eating very healthy everyday, I only eat when I'm hungry, I don't eat to feel full I eat to feel satisfied. I don't feel like increasing my calories and then feeling stuffed will make me lose weight...

I guess if I still don't lose any weight this week then I'll try increasing my calories and see what happens
I'm just afraid that if I do I will gain weight and then the 2 step backwards