Advise please!

Sara2184

Hi, I eat around 1200 a day & don't feel hungry. The only days I cross 1200 is like today when I eat some dessert (not regularly). From what I remember, my TDEE is around 1400. I was happy to lose 4kgs last month, but I haven't lost weight the last 10 days, sometimes gaining a pound or so. Should I go low-carb? I increased my fruit intake this week, could that be the reason? My answers below, thanks for your patience


1) What's your current intake of calories gross, on average?
1100

2) What's your current average intake of protein, carbs, and fats, in grams?
Around 50% carb, 26 fat & 24 protein

3) Do you use a food scale and measure everything?
I use a cup, my hand or visual approximation

4) Do you track all of your intake, daily? (Everything?)
Yes

5) Do you take cheat days or days off?
Rest days from exercise & light dessert(around. 300cals) with around 3 meals a week, but I'm mostly under with calories, No cheat days

6) How much weight have you lost so far?
3.9 kg

7) What is your activity like, both exercise and non-exercise?
Exercise around 40 mins (most days its 20 mins of Shred or Ripped in 30, 20 mins of basic Zumba), 5 days a week. Extremely sedentary otherwise

8) How long have you eaten at your previous amount and what happened in that time frame?
Sorry don't understand this

9) What's your height, current weight and if you know it, bodyfat%?
93kg, 5'4. 43.5% fat

10) If you're stalled, for how long and is it a complete stall (zero change in weight)?
Around 10 days, either zero change or slight gain, depending on the day.

SideSteel

Before addressing your intake, is it feasible for you to get a food scale?

Long term, it will be very beneficial in terms of portion control and logging accuracy, to get a good "frame of reference" on things.

See here:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/872212-you-re-probably-eating-more-than-you-think

Sara2184

I haven't actively looked for it, but I don't think I ever saw it in the local stores. I'll check & also go through your link thanks

Sarauk2sf

I haven't actively looked for it, but I don't think I ever saw it in the local stores. I'll check & also go through your link thanks

A digital scale is best.

Sarauk2sf

How long have you been eating at the 1,100 calories for?

Sara2184

Consistently for about 35 days, but I never had an over-eating regular food problem, I over-ate dessert & didn't move

Sarauk2sf

Sorry, one more question...over what period was the 3.9kg lost?

Sara2184

Jan 29- Feb 22. I lost 0.3 kg this week, happy to finally see a lose, but it's not what the numbers I used to see before

Thanks:)

Edit - your signature picture is distracting me from your awesome profile picture

Sarauk2sf

4kg in as many weeks is pretty high. With the weight you have to lose you should only be aiming for 1lb a week.

There are two main reasons weight loss slows down, assuming calories are kept the same (ignoring the first couple of weeks a lot of which is water weight anyway):

- the natural decrease in your BMR and therefore TDEE due to the fact that you are lighter - metabolic slowdown as a result of less food

The second is normal, but a combination of factors such as the size of the deficit, the length that you have been restricting and your leanness can impact it to a much larger degree, which is why large deficits for any length if time can be counter-productive in the long run. Due to more hormonal sensitivity, women are usually impacted to a greater degree than men.

However, that being said, I doubt you have much of this going on, especially as you have not been dieting for that long (assuming that you started dieting in your start month of September last year), plus you not that lean based on your BF% (sorry, not trying to be rude). Your losses, based on your theoretical TDEE seems not to be too far off what would be predicted.

Your ticker says that you have only lost 4kg, but you say that your weight loss was much quicker before the last month, but you lost 4kg in the last month. Did you reset your ticker?


I do have a thing for ice-cream :happy:

Sara2184

Haha it's not rude, but a fact.

I lost a good number during the period I mentioned, but since Feb 22, I didn't lose much. I lost some weight this week but I changed my exercises, so maybe I didn't lose before because I got used to the previous schedule??

Thanks for your help, I'll try to take it slow. I hate it because I'm impatient, but slow & steady wins the race

Sarauk2sf

The change in the exercise is unlikely to have made a difference to the losses, in fact when changing routines it sometimes increases water retention.

Weight loss is not linear - water weight fluctuations can mask 'real' weight loss, which is why it is important to look at it on a longer term and be patient (easier said than done I know).

In the long run slower (as long as it's not too slow) is better for a number of reasons.

Sarauk2sf

Locking as part of our new procedure to try to help is track open threads: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/914180-thread-locking-and-intake-follow-ups

Feel free to PM either myself of SideSteel to unlock of you want to add anything. Also, it would be great if you could keep us updated with your progress so we can suggests tweaks if necessary.