Scale isn't budging.....

BrittneyOD · August 2012

I need advice....I have been around the same weight for about a year now, it ranges from 159 - 167 depending on the day. I am 5'6'', 31 years old.

A year ago I started zumba and love it and although the scale didn't move alot, I did lose some inches. In May due to injuries I had to take time off from zumba, but started going to my local gym and doing the treadmill and elliptical and started Jamie Eason's strength training program (3 times a week). I have pretty much maintained the same measurements and pounds on the scale and its frustrating.

I have tried eating 1200 calories for a few weeks, bumped it up to my BMR recommendation of 1500 and still nothing, heck I even tried eating 1800 calories and nothing happened. (this is all within the past year)

I need advice on how to get the scale to budge and to get some more inches off. A couple weeks ago I signed up for Jamie Eason LiveFit Trainer and Insanity....so far....nothing!

Rambo313 · August 2012

Can you make your diary public?

BrittneyOD · August 2012

Just did....don't mind the last 2 days lol

southernGIRLgetsFIT · August 2012

I am in the exact same situation you are in, minus the injury. Working out and eating my calorie goal to a T yet still the scale isn't moving. I don't even feel like my clothes are getting looser.

Curious to hear what others will give as advice!

khowlett1 · August 2012

Bump... would also like to hear what others say... similar thing happening here.

BrittneyOD · August 2012

At least I'm not the only one

I know I'm not perfect every day, but, ugh, somethings got to give!

Rambo313 · August 2012

Listen I am no expert either as My scale isnt budging but I am losing inches.

You should start to track A lot foods have hidden amounts of a lot of sodium whoch can cause weight gain due to water retention.

How much water are you drinking?

Also how are you coming up with your calorie burns? going by the website when you plug in the numbers or by the machines at the gym? Machines and websites sometimes can over estimate a burn by alot. I would recommend an HRM or a fitbit to track your burn, now they are by no means 100% accurate but they are a little more precise then say a machine at the gym.

Also I quickly skimmed about 8 days of your diary, the days you go over on fat is by a lot, I would try not to go over as much as you do when it comes to fats, as fats are needed in a diet and good for you, going over by a lot is not in my opinion.

I also have a low functioning thyroid so I have another strike against me.

thisisheatherr · August 2012

Personal experience below, of course YMMV:

I had the same experience for several months. I made the following 3 changes in early-ish July and it worked like a charm:

1) Increased my cardio intensity as well as my cardio volume. To do this I added running 2-3x per week and HIIT 2-3x per week. Also changed my weight workouts to circuit training (I went with 30DS).
2) Decreased my calories pretty drastically. I manually set my MFP calorie goal to 800 per day, so that with my exercise calorie gain I'd be eating right around 1200 per day. I know I could have accomplished the same by leaving my goal at 1200 and just not eating my exercise calories, but psychologically it worked better for me to change it. I know that both of those options are VERY controversial here on MFP. Note that I am not advocating what anyone else should do, just telling what I did.
3) Decreased my animal fat & protein intake to nearly none - eating mostly fruit & veg, with some grain too. Ate healthy fats like avocado and olive.

At first the scale didn't move at all but boy did my waist trim down quickly! To me, losing the fat and inches is much more important than the number on the scale. And losing inches on the waist specifically is a great indicator of decreased body fat. Then just in the past two weeks the scale started moving, too ...

Very shortly (this week? next?) I'll move back up to a 1200 cal baseline because I believe that's a more sustainable place for weight loss. I'll re-introduce animal fat/protein probably, too. I've already dialed down the cardio again which I should probably ramp back up and maintain because it's just so darn good for you. And I'll probably head back to the gym and yoga for my strength workouts because I need more variety than just Jillian and her 30DS. But doing this for 6-7 weeks really broke my plateau and got me some progress that is VERY encouraging and motivating.

Plateaus suck. They can make you just quit. Don't quit, tweak something (or several somethings) instead!

BrittneyOD · August 2012

Rambo313:

Yea I did notice my fat intake is high, the last few days have been bad (dinner was provided to me) but regardless, I'll keep an eye on that. I drink on average 1 gallon of water a day. Calorie burns come from my HRM

thisisheather:

I'm afraid to drop my calories that low, I've always read that a female should never eat less than 1200
I've tried jogging and/or sprinting, but due to low back issues I was advised against it.
I may try to decrease animal fat....now when you say protein...does that mean you're not eating anything with protein? I thought you need protein to repair/build muscle...am I wrong?

weird_me2 · August 2012

Honestly, I think you need to do more measuring and recipe building with your diary. Just looking at entries you've put, some of them appear to either be ones you've found that other people have entered or ones you've entered yourself. The calorie counts could be way off on these things. The next time you have a homemade horseshoe or whatever, measure each portion individually, in grams on a digital scale. I see you've had homemade salsa quite a few times, too. I think it's more than 20 calories for a cup. Just 1/2 cup of chopped tomatoes is 25 calories (from a can), and the tomatoes are the lowest calorie foods in that recipe, I think. Measure how many grams of tomato, onion, etc. you put in your salsa and build it as a recipe. For a week, measure EVERYTHING you consume in grams on a digital scale adn record them as such. While your protein powder label may state that 1 rounded scoop is 29.4 grams, in reality it might be 40 grams. What exactly is rounded? What is a leveled scoop? People's perception of measurements can vary but grams are grams.

ETA: also, the entry for like the Tyson Chicken breast 4 oz correct--doesn't appear to be correct to me. Per most of the chicken I buy, the boneless skinless chicken has 140-160 calories per 4 oz raw serving. The raw chicken tenderloins I've bought have only gone down to 120 calories for 4 oz raw. Depending on how you cook your chicken, this could be anywhere from 2-3+ oz of cooked meat and in no way can those portions/amount possibly add up to the Tyson info. Plus, if you aren't measuring your chicken, you'd be surprised at how much one b/s breast weighs. I've had some that easily weighed over 1 lb raw. You would have to eat only 1/4 of one of those for a 4 oz portion.

thisisheatherr · August 2012

Britfossan: Not cutting protein, cutting *animal* protein. There are lots of other protein sources - I've been exploring that over the past few weeks! Grains (especially whole grains) like wheat and quinoa; legumes like chickpeas and soy; veggies like potatoes and broccoli ... plenty of veg sources of protein. Lots of people do it for years or even decades as a vegan, but I'm not that committed. But it sure helped me break my plateau!

And I've typically eaten around or above 1200 cals/day during this time: I dropped the goal number but I eat my exercise calories (it was partially a mechanism to sort of force me to burn more calories on a daily basis through exercise, if that makes sense). If I set my baseline goal calories at 800, but I want to eat 1200, that means I HAVE to burn at least 400 cals today!

weird_me2 · August 2012

Also, after looking at a few more days worth of food, I saw 2 fried eggs several times. How are you preparing them? How much fat/oil are you using? Per the calories given, they are only allowing for 1 teaspoon of oil to add up to what you are coming up with.

You also appear to eat a lot of empty calories. I don't necessarily advocate cutting fat, but fat in the form you are getting it (mostly from fried foods or highly processed foods) isn't all that healthy. Neither is all of the processed carbs you are eating.

BrittneyOD · August 2012

I appreciate the info - seriously I do and I want to learn from others - here is my rebuttal

I eat fried eggs, but I just crack them and put them in a nonstick pan - nothing added to them but maybe vegetables, no butter or oils.

I do weigh almost everything on my digital scale, I even counted out fries for my horseshoe and measured my cheese lol When it comes to chicken breast, I measured it once its been cooked. Here is the nutritional info http://www.tyson.com/Products/Grocery-Section/Frozen.aspx I figured since I didn't add anything to the meat except seasoning (garlic, pepper, etc) it was right, am I wrong?

In regards to my salsa, its just 1 tomato, some onion and seasoning (o cal), suggested 20-30 calories for a tomato...I know chips are bad lol

tajour · August 2012

I noticed you like almonds.

Do you actually weigh out your almond portions, or do you just estimate?

The only other thing I might suggest is to completely cut the alcohol from your diet. I mean completely. It could be making you retain water. Try it for a month and see what happens.

weird_me2 · August 2012

I appreciate the info - seriously I do and I want to learn from others - here is my rebuttal

I eat fried eggs, but I just crack them and put them in a nonstick pan - nothing added to them but maybe vegetables, no butter or oils.

I do weigh almost everything on my digital scale, I even counted out fries for my horseshoe and measured my cheese lol When it comes to chicken breast, I measured it once its been cooked. Here is the nutritional info http://www.tyson.com/Products/Grocery-Section/Frozen.aspx I figured since I didn't add anything to the meat except seasoning (garlic, pepper, etc) it was right, am I wrong?

In regards to my salsa, its just 1 tomato, some onion and seasoning (o cal), suggested 20-30 calories for a tomato...I know chips are bad lol

On the Tyson thing, the 110 calories still seems low, but that is for 4 oz uncooked. Try weighing your portion before you cook it and after you cook it to see how much weight is lost. I would bet quite a bit since it's probably got a lot of water/brine solution in it to make it only have 110 calories for 4 oz raw. It could be that your 4 oz of chicken breast is really 7 oz raw.

I still suggest weighing EVERYTHING, including things you can generally count. The tortilla chips, for example, might say that X amount is a serving, but upon weighing them, you might find that a serving is actually X-2. I would even weigh the fruits and veggies you are using for meals, and weigh all of your meats raw. Cooked weight isn't ever going to be as accurate as raw weight, because how well someone cooks something varies by person. When my DH cooks chicken, he might start with 10 oz and end up with 8, but I might start with 10 oz and end up with 6 (I'm known for cooking chicken to death). The total calories is the same, only if I tracked cooked weight, I would be tracking more calories for 8 oz than 6 oz.

I would say after accurately weighing everything in grams for a week or two and keeping a meticulous record, if you aren't seeing any results, you might talk to your Dr. If you are eating at what should be a calorie deficit and being honest about what you are eating and still aren't getting results, then it's worth getting it checked out.

sa11yjane · August 2012

Do hope you get some good advice or thoughts as I'm exactly the same x

nxd10 · August 2012

First, at least for me, it's really easy to not notice calories if I don't log it. Some cream in my coffee, a few glasses of whole milk, some cheese sauce, and a buttered scone and I have added 1000 calories. I put on 10 pounds last year I swear because I have chickens and I ate a slice of pound cake every morning to get rid of the eggs.

That is absolutely the first step you need to take.

You also need to log accurately by measuring or at least doing a good job estimating.

Then follow the recommended calories MFP sets for you with sedentary and log all that wonderful exercise you're doing.

For me (maybe not you), and also other people in several other studies, long term healthy weight loss and maintenance is helped by keeping your carbs around 40% of your calories.

If you try that for a month and you still don't lose, I would adjust your calories. Exercise keeps you healthy, makes you look fantastic, and keeps weight off, but diet is what really sets your weight.

Scale isn't budging.....

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