Is it my food?

gr14

I weighed myself for the first time in a month today and I had only lost 2lbs. I am doing a gym programme, c25k, spin and I go to a boxing club. On the plus side I had lost 6 inches around my waist!

I'm almost certain it's my food that is the issue.

Breakfast I have porridge and a banana each morning.
Lunch I have been having 80g pasta, chicken breast, peppers and onion with a packet of propercorn popcorn (80 cals)
Dinner I usually have some form of meat and veg. Any pasta or rice is weighed and nothing is cooked in fats and oils.
Snacks through out the day are raisins and carrots.
I drink around 3 litres of water a day. More if I am exercising.

I weigh 220lbs so it isn't as if I am near my goal.

Any advice would be brilliant. Why are the pounds not coming off as easy?

Thanks.

Riemersma4

you need to get more protein in your diet, especially if you are working out.

MFP sets protein WAY too low for people that work out. Try resetting your macros to 40/30/30.

Good luck!

rosebarnalice

Pasta for lunch and pasta or rice for dinner? A lot of empty carb calories there.

imtrinat

It's hard to say if it's your food because it is so easy for us to underestimate our calorie intake and overestimate our exercise. This probably isn't what you want to hear, but a half pound a week isn't bad! It's likely that you could be retaining some water if you are new to working out and you have to focus on the fact that you are losing inches. The overall goal of losing weight is to take up less space, right? It looks like you are accomplishing that! Be patient with yourself and keep on tracking your measurements along with your weight.If you've never exercised before, your body will likely pack on quite a bit of muscle first (this is a slow process, but a likely one). That will make the scale more downward at a slower rate but you will see inches melt off. Focus on the bright side that you are indeed shrinking and getting stronger/healthier. The weight loss will follow as long as you keep on keeping on.

CoraGregoryCPA

It depends on how much you are eating of these items.

If you ask for advice, can you share your diary so we can help even more?

Plus 2lbs. Is great! That's .5 lb/week. Was the last 4 weeks "hard" or liveable/sustainable?

angiechimpanzee

You lost 6 inches, the pounds don't matter.

jemimasmum

Well done on the inch loss! Snacking on raisins,,, lots of cals there - too many for your deficit?

CoraGregoryCPA

Raisins can have a scarey amount of calories. So, again, it depends on how much you are eating. A looong time ago, I remember I used to eat LOTS of trail mix everyday because I thought it was a "healthy" option. I gained 5lbs in a month, and didn't realize until I looked on the back of the package. It was bad.. bad.

cwolfman13

Could be any number of things going on here....

1.) Too large a deficit...not fueling all of that exercise and thereby creating an even larger deficit than MFP gives you. This will ultimately work against you, especially if you're exercising a lot because your body is smart and it is saying it's not getting enough fuel so it stalls the metabolism to conserve energy source.

2.) If you're losing inches and that's not reflected on the scale, you could be retaining a lot of water and glycogen. This is common with a lot of exercise as muscles need a lot of water to repair.

3.) Calories in diary do not reflect actual calories...common place when people don't weigh and measure their foods.

4.) Overestimating exercise burn and eating too many exercise calories back because of it. Very common when people use arbitrary estimates from the data base, etc.

5.) Your metabolism is slower than average for any number of reasons...mine is because of a certain medication I take. The calorie goals MFP sets for you are based on averages for people of the same sex, height, weight, activity, etc. They're just estimates...ones metabolism can be over or under those estimates for a variety of reasons.

Also keep in mind that 1/2 to 2 Lbs weight loss per week is in the healthy range. Slower is actually better...but it really depends on how much you have to lose. General rule of thumb:

50+ Lbs - 2 Lbs per week loss goal
20-50 Lbs - 1.5 Lbs per week loss goal
10-20 Lbs - 1 Lb per week loss goal
0-10 Lbs - 1/2 Lb per week loss goal

Also, more protein in your diet. With all of that exercise, you need way more protein than MFP default macro settings gives you. I set my macros to 40c/30p/30f and has worked really well for both my weight loss goals and fitness/strength goals.