fear of 213.8 lbs and all muscle

I'm 5'3" and my maintenance is 2250. I am not obese. Proven to be true by actually eating that amount and maintaining. I would lose at 2000 without exercise. With exercise, It's totally doable.

OP- you just need to be patient. 12 days isn't a long time. I know it FEELS like it is and that you should be seeing results, but just give it time. Don't mess with things, stop stressing out, just keep on keepin' on. It WILL happen. Weight loss isn't always linear, just give it time. Seriously.

ETA: If anything, you might want to back off the intensity of your workouts. You may actually be doing yourself a disservice by having such a large deficit.

Thank you all for all the good information. It is hard to know what to do and what to go by, information overload! I get the gist of it, eat less, work out less. I am wondering if my body bugg is actually hindering my efforts at this point? should I get rid of it? also I get so hungry all the time, because of the amount I work out. It is hard for me to go under 2000 calories. like today, I ate 2100 and I still feel hungry... wtf? my goals for next week is to ditch the body bugg, and only work out 2 hours a day. running and strength. again thank you all.

I had the same issue .. feeling like I was super hungry at my deficit. Someone peeked at my food diary and I was loading up on empty calories (LOVE my Mt. Dew soda!) .. and lot's of sugar in my coffee/tea. Okay .. so I had to reduce the amount of sugar I use in coffee/tea .. and painfully gave up my beloved sodas :sad:

However .. that gave me more calories to actually eat with and I increased my protein/fiber intake instead .. I feel plenty full now! I even take a day and call it my "sunday splurge day" where I eat/drink whatever .. I still log it .. but I don't bother with sticking with the plan .. I will not deprive myself and heck .. there will always be days like those coming up soon .. holidays, birthdays, special occasions.. where you might not be able to stay within your limits.. but you don't have to go gorging yourself on junk at those times either.

Take a look at my diary .. I think it's open to MFP'ers .. take a look at this week all the way back to Sunday if you want ..

P.s. I wouldn't give up the Body Bugg .. just take a good look at Californiagirl's advice .. and take one step at a time :-)

thank you

FYI I use a body bugg to calculate all of my calories I burned. ONE OF THE MOST ACCURATE calorie counters out there. IT is the amount of calories I burn in an entire day... not just the 3 hours I work out.

So...why do you add the calories you burn while working out along WITH what your body bugg calculates? Aren't you double entering the calories you burn then...? Maybe I am confused...

she's not counting the workout calories burned twice .. the bodybugg calculates her whole 24 hour caloric burn .. even what she burns during her sleep. It monitors your sleeping pattern to help you as well since getting the proper amount of uninterrupted sleep also aids in metabolism and weight loss.

She stated she burns up to 3000 calories in a day .. and most likely burns about 1000-1200 calories during her 3 hour work outs. Her BMR is around 1700 (24 hour period of mere existence) .. so it's safe to say that her workouts are expending around 1000-1200 calories bringing her 24 hour calorie burn up to 3000.

and she's eating around 2100 calories .. approx. 900 calorie deficit a day .. so this is where she is confused as to why she hasn't lost any weight in the 12 days she's been here

I plan on keeping this up for the rest of my life. I have no issues with working out, it is something I love to do. I can fit 3 hours in, any day, on any schedule. I dont plan on losing 5 lbs a week. 1-3 at the most. as I stated mathematically I should have lost at least 2 by now. I am not in this to lose the most, the fastest.

Weight loss is not linear - it is 'overshadowed' by water weight, which women are particularly susceptible to (annoying but true unfortunately). You need to look at your weight loss over at least a 4 week period.

Seconding this. 12 days is nowhere near long enough to know if you are losing. I lose around 1 pound a week, but it doesn't disappear 1/7th of a pound a day. I usually "lose" nothing or even "gain" for a few weeks, then drop five pounds in a day or two. Of course, I didn't really lose 5 pounds overnight, it was just the water fluctuations hiding the loss. I also always go up the day after a lot of exercise due to water retention. If you are exercising 3 hours a day, you are probably retaining some water from that alone. Keep doing what you're doing and give it some time (a month at least). Weigh yourself every day if you can stand it and record the weight, that way you can start to see the fluctuations. You'll know when a real loss occurs.

FYI I use a body bugg to calculate all of my calories I burned. ONE OF THE MOST ACCURATE calorie counters out there. IT is the amount of calories I burn in an entire day... not just the 3 hours I work out.

So...why do you add the calories you burn while working out along WITH what your body bugg calculates? Aren't you double entering the calories you burn then...? Maybe I am confused...

she's not counting the workout calories burned twice .. the bodybugg calculates her whole 24 hour caloric burn .. even what she burns during her sleep. It monitors your sleeping pattern to help you as well since getting the proper amount of uninterrupted sleep also aids in metabolism and weight loss.

She stated she burns up to 3000 calories in a day .. and most likely burns about 1000-1200 calories during her 3 hour work outs. Her BMR is around 1700 (24 hour period of mere existence) .. so it's safe to say that her workouts are expending around 1000-1200 calories bringing her 24 hour calorie burn up to 3000.

and she's eating around 2100 calories .. approx. 900 calorie deficit a day .. so this is where she is confused as to why she hasn't lost any weight in the 12 days she's been here

Ok that makes sense. Thank you!

I am 5'4, 213.8 lbs. ( used to be 135 lbs 6 years ago ) I work out 3 hours a day, one hour running, one hour walking, one hour strength training. It has been 12 days since I started, and I eat clean, rarely have junk. I burn about 3000 calories a day, and eat about 2100. My BMR is 1700. I have not lost any weight yet. I am a bit nervous since it has been almost 2 weeks.. I know muscle weighs more then fat, and so on and so forth, but I have like 90 lbs to lose! mathematically I should be losing weight.. but I am not! How is this possible? I also drink a **** ton of water everyday, no less then 15 cups. I am doing everything right... so what am I doing wrong?

BodyBugg will be great for the running and walking calorie burn estimates.

But useless on the lifting.

Now, here's where it can mess up your entire day estimate.

It has to start somewhere as a basis for calculating calories - your BMR.

Your Harris estimated BMR to be specific, the least accurate most inflated when overweight BMR calc.

If you know your bodyfat% or can estimate it within 5%, you can get a much better Katch BMR estimate. If there is a 200-400 calorie difference like I've seen many have, then the foundation of the calculations is inflated by a decent amount.
Your walking/running is still probably decently estimated since that is just calculations on steps and moving your mass, but the other 21 hrs of the day, majority of which is probably non-moving enough to count, get's the BMR usage for calorie burn.

That could be explaining how you don't really have a 900 calorie deficit.

Also, that much exercise is actually counter productive.

Diet is a stress, extended or frequent intense exercise is a stress, stressing over your weight, got any other stresses?
All that stress will mess with hormones that will fight fat and weight loss.

Try the spreadsheet in this link, because you got the right idea of eating enough for your activity.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/717858-spreadsheet-bmr-tdee-and-deficit-calcs-macros-hrm

After you get your stats in the Simple Setup tab (how does that TDEE compare with BodyBugg?), go over to the TDEE Deficit tab.

Section on TDEE calculator 1B.
Find 3 non-exercise days you can enter in there, and see what happens when the Katch BMR is used rather than the Harris BMR estimate. May be significant, may not be.

Might also confirm the running day after a leg strength day is kept easy to allow proper recovery.
And you don't workout sore muscles intensely, right, but allow rest to rebuild?

Thank you all for all the good information. It is hard to know what to do and what to go by, information overload! I get the gist of it, eat less, work out less. I am wondering if my body bugg is actually hindering my efforts at this point? should I get rid of it? also I get so hungry all the time, because of the amount I work out. It is hard for me to go under 2000 calories. like today, I ate 2100 and I still feel hungry... wtf? my goals for next week is to ditch the body bugg, and only work out 2 hours a day. running and strength. again thank you all.

Youre hungry all the time due to all the exercise... your body needs to repair so your metabolic rate increases. The best thing to do is cut exercise to an hour a day and eat at a moderate deficit. In fact taking a week off and eating your maintenance calorie will help with your weight loss to help regulate your hormones like geekyjock stated. Dont get rid of your bodybugg... just because it didnt work for one or two people doesnt mean it wont work for you. Just like the equations.. it's effective for 70-80% of the people. Unfortunately, the outliers want everyone to believe its ineffective. Its why people jump all over the post about those who got bmr testing and its lower then the calculations.

I'd just double check your numbers. Are you overestimating your calorie burn? For cardio stuff you can use a monitor like a fitbit or iphone based GPS to give you a more measured readout of your burn. Also, your intake is still quite high and I'd double check that you are not actually eating more than you think. Your kitchen scales are more important than your bathroom scales. Weigh everything as much as possible and try to log as accurately as you can. If you don't it'll amaze you where the extra calories creep in.

Muscle doesn't weigh more than fat, you didn't build significant muscle in a couple weeks, drop about 2 hours a day of exercise and lower your food intake. Quit eating exercise calories back.

You're kidding right? Muscle doesn't weigh more than fat? That's possibly the dumbest thing I've ever heard.


Do drop your exercise, take two rest days in a week, adjust your food intake appropriately, and DO eat back your exercise calories.
Stick to the plan, the rest will happen with time.

Muscle indeed DOES NOT weigh more than fat. 5 lbs is 5 lbs. no matter what it is. Muscle is indeed DENSER than fat and takes up less space. It's heavier by volume. Is why we can burn fat, lose inches, be smaller in size but still weigh the same due to body recomposition.

There really is lots of good advice on this post, from everyone. I appreciate all of it! I am going to not use my body bugg. I think I rely on it too much, very OCD about it. I think this will also help me eat a little bit less. I really dont want to change the amount I am eating yet, just because I have just started, but part of me thinks I am eating too much since I have been maintaining. I am not sure what to drop my calories down to... just 100 less a day, or 200 less a day? I dont weight/strength train on weekends, but I still walk and sometimes run.

Stick to what you are doing for a couple more weeks - it will give you a base line that takes water weight fluctuations out of the equation. If the loss is still not as predicted, drop your calories by 100 - 200 (depending on your energy and hunger) and then stick to that for another 4 weeks and see how that goes. It is far too early to tell whether your calorie intake is at the right level at the moment.

I am 5'4, 213.8 lbs. ( used to be 135 lbs 6 years ago ) I work out 3 hours a day, one hour running, one hour walking, one hour strength training. It has been 12 days since I started, and I eat clean, rarely have junk. I burn about 3000 calories a day, and eat about 2100. My BMR is 1700. I have not lost any weight yet. I am a bit nervous since it has been almost 2 weeks.. I know muscle weighs more then fat, and so on and so forth, but I have like 90 lbs to lose! mathematically I should be losing weight.. but I am not! How is this possible? I also drink a **** ton of water everyday, no less then 15 cups. I am doing everything right... so what am I doing wrong?

I was going through the SAME thing at the SAME weight (im 5'6'' not much of a difference). After 2 weeks I started to lose .5 pounds. FInally this week I lost 4 lbs! Ive been doing this for about 4 weeks. Take your measurements and just keep going. It will start to come off! (trust me after week 2 i was crying and I got the same advice stuck it out and it worked!)

ur cal intake is to high.

Not sure if trolling, or just bad advice.

You are double counting your exercise calories if you add your BodyBug and your walking. Also, you eat a ton of sugar. I'd cut back on the sugar/carbs and add more protein.