If you follow this plan... You should lose 0.0 lbs. by April

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lebuda
lebuda Posts: 8 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi all,
I have signed up here to help my husband lose weight by keeping his food journal but quickly got excited myself and made another account to keep my own food journal.

I've been carrying around 2 extra kilos for a few years now. I don't eat much, I exercise, and I love healthy food yet nothing seem to work for those 2 extra kilos.

So I got very excited about this site thinking that since dieting and exercising is not an issue all I have to do is make sure my calorie deficit is just right, and voila I reach my goal.

So I create my profile, the settings are

Current Weight: 133.4
Goal weight: 127
Activity: Sedentary
Exercising: 3 times a week / 40 minutes

So far so good, I chose "lose 1 pound per week", save and

If you follow this plan... Your projected weigh loss is: 0.0 lbs/week. You should lose 0.0 lbs. by April 15

Huh? What am I doing wrong? Shouldn't the system work no matter how many you need to lose?

Replies

  • dcw8636
    dcw8636 Posts: 9
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    At the bottom of the page it says, how many pounds do you want to lose in a week?

    If you choose one of those, it will tell you.
  • tayner
    tayner Posts: 372
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    a
  • rtrautmann
    rtrautmann Posts: 57
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    What I've found is that it doesn't only depend on your calories - sure that's a huge part of it, but if you're way over in sodium or protein you're going to retain water weight and other bad nutrients.
    You can add what else you want to monitor besides calories in settings.
  • lebuda
    lebuda Posts: 8 Member
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    At the bottom of the page it says, how many pounds do you want to lose in a week?

    If you choose one of those, it will tell you.

    Yes of course I chose my goal.
    I went for 0.5 lb a week as this should be quite doable
  • lebuda
    lebuda Posts: 8 Member
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    What I've found is that it doesn't only depend on your calories - sure that's a huge part of it, but if you're way over in sodium or protein you're going to retain water weight and other bad nutrients.
    You can add what else you want to monitor besides calories in settings.

    I've set my profile to count carbs, fat, protein, sodium and saturated fat.

    I just don't see any sense of tracking anything if my projected goal is zero?
  • Iceprincessk25
    Iceprincessk25 Posts: 1,888 Member
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    Youhave such a small amount of weight to lose that it might take a while to lose it. Especially at .5lbs a week. That's probably why it's showing 0.0lbs lost.
  • lebuda
    lebuda Posts: 8 Member
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    Youhave such a small amount of weight to lose that it might take a while to lose it. Especially at .5lbs a week. That's probably why it's showing 0.0lbs lost.

    discouraging... I am trying to grasp the idea, shouldn't it be simple math in my case as well, - 3500 Kal a week = - 1 lb?
  • PJilly
    PJilly Posts: 21,696 Member
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    What I've found is that it doesn't only depend on your calories - sure that's a huge part of it, but if you're way over in sodium or protein you're going to retain water weight and other bad nutrients.
    You can add what else you want to monitor besides calories in settings.

    I've set my profile to count carbs, fat, protein, sodium and saturated fat.

    I just don't see any sense of tracking anything if my projected goal is zero?
    If you set your goal at 1/2 pound a week and eat exactly the number of calories MFP tells you to eat, it should tell you your weight will be 2.5 pounds less in 5 weeks.
  • lebuda
    lebuda Posts: 8 Member
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    If you set your goal at 1/2 pound a week and eat exactly the number of calories MFP tells you to eat, it should tell you your weight will be 2.5 pounds less in 5 weeks.

    I did set my goal to 1/2 pound a week, and what I see is
    If you follow this plan...
    Your projected weigh loss is: 0.0 lbs/week
    You should lose 0.0 lbs. by April 15
    Get Started Now!
  • PJilly
    PJilly Posts: 21,696 Member
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    I bet I know what's going on. MFP will subtract 250 calories/day from your maintenance calories for every half pound/week you say you want to lose, EXCEPT that it won't go below 1,200 calories. If the info you gave MFP works out that you need 1,200 calories to maintain, it's not going to subtract anything from your total. Hope that makes sense. Try changing your activity level to lightly active and see what that does.
  • lebuda
    lebuda Posts: 8 Member
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    I bet I know what's going on. MFP will subtract 250 calories/day from your maintenance calories for every half pound/week you say you want to lose, EXCEPT that it won't go below 1,200 calories. If the info you gave MFP works out that you need 1,200 calories to maintain, it's not going to subtract anything from your total. Hope that makes sense. Try changing your activity level to lightly active and see what that does.

    You are right, it shows my net calories with "Sedentary" at 1200, so it won't let me go below
    If I change to lightly active my net calories are still at 1200 but now I do see "If you follow this plan... Your projected weigh loss is: 0.2 lbs/week. You should lose 1.0 lbs. by April 15"

    The problem is I am not slightly active :smile:

    I'm thinking I'll keep it at slightly active but won't log my exercises and see how this will go..
  • PJilly
    PJilly Posts: 21,696 Member
    Options
    I bet I know what's going on. MFP will subtract 250 calories/day from your maintenance calories for every half pound/week you say you want to lose, EXCEPT that it won't go below 1,200 calories. If the info you gave MFP works out that you need 1,200 calories to maintain, it's not going to subtract anything from your total. Hope that makes sense. Try changing your activity level to lightly active and see what that does.

    You are right, it shows my net calories with "Sedentary" at 1200, so it won't let me go below
    If I change to lightly active my net calories are still at 1200 but now I do see "If you follow this plan... Your projected weigh loss is: 0.2 lbs/week. You should lose 1.0 lbs. by April 15"

    The problem is I am not slightly active :smile:

    I'm thinking I'll keep it at slightly active but won't log my exercises and see how this will go..
    Sometimes you have to play with, or even "trick," the settings to get the numbers that work for you. For instance, I have a desk job, so I initially set my level at sedentary, but following everything else by the letter, I was legitimately hungry at the end of the day. I changed it to lightly active. It didn't add a ton of calories, but the slight increase made all the difference in the world, and I started having success. The key is being really accurate with your tracking so that you can make those small adjustments, either up or down. Once you find your sweet spot, you'll be golden! And then things will stall and you'll have to play around with numbers again. LOL. But it's worth sticking with. :happy:
  • kiffypooh
    kiffypooh Posts: 1,045 Member
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    I'm not sure how much I would believe that thing. I know when you complete your food diary it says, "if every day were like today you would be at blah blah blah in 5 weeks). So I logged my food hit the button and it said something like 185 in 5 weeks. I realized I forgot to log my water so I went back in, logged my 8 glasses or water and hit the button again. It said something like, 195 in 5 weeks. I realized at that moment some of the stuff on here is for entertainment purposes only :O)
    I would eat the 1200 exercise when you can (maybe more then you have planned to) and see what happens. You really shouldn't go below 1200.
    Best of luck, this is a wonderful site!!!
  • lebuda
    lebuda Posts: 8 Member
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    Jill - thanks for your comments. I will try to find my sweet spot :) I'll have it on slightly active and see how it goes.
    kiffypooh - lol about water. I don't log water, and after your comment I'm scared to even try!
  • stormieweather
    stormieweather Posts: 2,549 Member
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    Are you sure you're sedentary? Several descriptions I've read say that this activity level applies if your activity is confined to one small room, ie: so someone in a wheelchair/bed (invalid) or someone who has extreme difficulty walking. Sometimes, people whose activity levels vary greatly day to day, use sedentary and then log their exercise on a case by case basis.
  • lebuda
    lebuda Posts: 8 Member
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    Are you sure you're sedentary? Several descriptions I've read say that this activity level applies if your activity is confined to one small room, ie: so someone in a wheelchair/bed (invalid) or someone who has extreme difficulty walking. Sometimes, people whose activity levels vary greatly day to day, use sedentary and then log their exercise on a case by case basis.

    I think I am sedentary - I really don't move much with my long desk-job hours. I have changed my settings to slightly active for now and will see hot this goes
  • Shuutnstar
    Shuutnstar Posts: 46 Member
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    I'm kinda in the sedentary boat. I am having some severe problems with my leg. I partially tore my ACL a while back, and while it started healing I ended up wrenching it again... So now even walking to the car and from the car to my desk and back at the end of the day has been hard for me.

    Should I still be eating the 1200 calories right now since I am not really able to do much cardio right now? I am doing strength training on my leg... But I'm just concerned about the calories, because I my wedding is in 6 months and while I don't know if I can meet my goal... but I am terrified I will gain more weight back and now I will have to re-fit my dress. I had it taken in once already.

    So... If I am eating about 1100 calories... will that really put me into starvation if I am not expending the energy?
  • fivefatcats
    fivefatcats Posts: 368
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    I'm kinda in the sedentary boat. I am having some severe problems with my leg. I partially tore my ACL a while back, and while it started healing I ended up wrenching it again... So now even walking to the car and from the car to my desk and back at the end of the day has been hard for me.

    Should I still be eating the 1200 calories right now since I am not really able to do much cardio right now? I am doing strength training on my leg... But I'm just concerned about the calories, because I my wedding is in 6 months and while I don't know if I can meet my goal... but I am terrified I will gain more weight back and now I will have to re-fit my dress. I had it taken in once already.

    So... If I am eating about 1100 calories... will that really put me into starvation if I am not expending the energy?

    Shuutnstar -

    JMO - but I don't think that 1100 calories is enough for any body.

    I am on a plateau right now, but at 181 lbs, I eat no less than 1500 calories a day (non exercise days) and usually eat most/all of my exercise calories as well. My numbers aren't changing right now but I feel great and can tell my clothes fit better. Hopefully my body is readjusting my lean/fat ratio and once it reaches its goal I will begin losing weight again.

    I just think that eating so little may sabotage your 'diet'.
  • aippolito1
    aippolito1 Posts: 4,894 Member
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    First off, April 15 is 2 weeks away so yeah, you probably won't lose anything by then... or you may lose a lot depending on how far extreme your diet & workout routine is changing. I had 40 lbs to lose when I first started and I was going from overeating, eating a lot of sugar, drinking a lot of soda, to drinking clean, healthy stuff, drinking a TON of water, no soda, no sweets, etc. and I lost 12 lbs in 2 weeks. So if you don't have that much to lose... you may not lose much in 2 weeks.

    I don't know why it wouldn't just change the date to further off to show how much you'll lose weight. When I started in January, mine went straight to April 12 so that just doesn't make sense to me. :\

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