WTF? Barely losing weight

My weight started at just under 200 and I would *estimate* that I was eating around 2000-3000 calories - lots of carbs, white bread, pasta, etc. Basically I would eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted.

A few weeks ago I had the flu and lost about 8 pounds. I used that as a new jumping point for reducing my calories. In the last week of November and first few days of December I was eating about 1400-1500 calories - with one or two days being under 1200 calories. The first week of December we got sick and my appetite was gone for about 5 days so I ended up losing those 8 pounds.

For the past 2 weeks I've been eating - on average - 1200 calories. I've had a 2 or so days that I've been over by 50-100 calories, and a handful of days where I've been under. The problem is ... in those 2 weeks, I've BARELY lost 1.5 pounds. I'm not eating high fat foods (breakfast usually consists of yogurt and granola, lunch is a salad with chicken breast, and dinner is usually meat and veggies. Snack might be organic salted popcorn or a half cup of frozen yogurt.

MFP set the 1200 calorie goal based on the fact that I'd like to lose 2 pounds a week, have a desk job and generally don't exercise but I do try to get in 20-30 minutes of something a few times a week.

What is going on? How can I fix this. Motivation is a HUGE problem for me ... if I'm hungry and not losing any weight I won't stick with it. I SHOULD be losing quite a bit of weight since I went from eating anything and everything to eating very little. My calorie deficit is anywhere from 500 calories to 1000 calories a day!

A few things strike me
1. You may be underestimating how much you were eating before, you are unlikely to get to 200 pounds eating 2000 calories a day, nor does eating anything and everything usually equate to that little. If you were previousl gaining some of the food you have cut out takes you from overeating to maintainin, the remainder takes you from maintaining to losing
2. You didn't drink much before so may have been dehydrated. The 8 pounds you lost was partly more water weight and possibly muscle, you can't shed that much fat that fast unless you are exercising like a Biggest Loser
3. You should not be hungry nor eating "very little" on 1200 to 1500 calories, if you are you are eating the wrong foods. Fill yourself up on modest portions of protein, fibrous and watery foods with a little healthy fats (avocado, olives, block creamed or dessicated coconut, nuts, seeds, cocoa)
4. Nine servings of low sugar fruits and non starchy vegetables is a HUGE amount of food yet few calories. Moderate your portion sizes of meat and fish to something supplying 25 to 30g protein if you are not already, weigh or measure your salads because just one serving of raw leaves is a MASSIVE plateful, so you may well only be eating two of your nine servings
5. Granola is not a low fat or low calorie food by the UK definition, it's actually calorie dense and many brands contain loads of added sugar and fat - more calories from them than from the oats! - are you measuring your bowl or guessing? Try reducing the portion and/ or filling up on berries and other low sugar fruits and/ or switching to a sugar free wholegrain cereal
6. Maximum of 10% of daily calories should come from fatty/ sugary/ processed foods: probably granola or frozen yoghurt not both. Consider snacking on fruit, veg, nuts and seeds
7. Don't forget oily fish and make sure you get your three servings of reduced fat dairy each day - both of these are critical for health and supply nutrients which help with weight management
8. Don't see enough mineral rich foods (beans, lentils, nuts, seeds, cocoa powder, dark green veggies)
9. Consistently losing two pounds of fat a week may be a little ambitious if you are sedentary, unfortunately you don't generally burn many calories in 20 to 30 minutes, and you likely are not even hitting the minimum 10,000 steps each day with that.

Also just looked at your diary.

McDonalds...?

Pizza Hut....??

Yep, we were out and my son wanted to eat, so I grabbed a grilled chicken wrap as well.

They don't have anything listed for our pizza place, so I figured PIzza Hut would be a good comparison.

How old is your son? I never take my kids to Mcdonalds, they've never been. I usually get them a jacket potato with tuna to share when we're out.

I'd take measurements if I were you so you can see the loss clearly. I've found that inch loss has been more regular for me than weight loss.

When I first started losing weight, after my 2nd baby was 7 weeks old, I started gymming 5 times a week and eating probably 1200 calories a day, plus looking after a newborn and a just turned 2 year old. After the first month my personal trainer took my measurements and weight. I'd only lost 2lbs, but i'd lost significant inches.

That was 17 months ago and I am 55lbs down now, and lots and lots of inches down!

Please don't stress too much about what you weigh and don't let it derail your efforts!

He's almost six. I appreciate everyone's concern, but I'm not here for judgements on what my kid eats. For the record, YES my son occasionally eats at McDonald's where he has a glass of white milk, a yogurt, grilled chicken wrap, and apple slices. For the rest of the time, he eats healthier than 90% of the people I've ever run into. His diet is plum full of raw veggies and fruit, lean organic meats, and whole foods. So please, let's get off that topic immediately.

I am going to take your advice on the measurements though - obviously, my clothes are fitting less snug so there's definitely been a weight loss ... maybe it's just not registering on the scale as much as it will on those inches. Congratulations on all your weight loss - that's absolutely terrific!!

Sorry, I didn't mean to judge. I have a real hatred of fast food places, but that's just me! I live in England and there's a certain sort of person who hangs out at places like Mcdonalds!

Weight loss sometimes takes a while to show on the scales. Also, ignore MFP when it says 'in 5 weeks you should weigh x amount'. I have never lost the amount it predicts!

Honey you're not eating enough calories. Even if you don't get to exercise every day you should still eat more than that. I'd say don't go under 1500 since you are exercising as often as you can. If you were doing nothing but sitting around all the time then that many calories would be okay, but you're not. Check out these vids on youtube. Jayme explains things pretty well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24Iw1thBlLA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypygfB3wKVs

Thank you to everyone for all the help and encouragement so far! I just have another quick question so I can get my calories in line for next week and moving forward.

When I found my BMR (using my current weight instead of my actual goal weight) and it gave me the 2130 calories for light activity ... is that the number I need to subtract 15-20% from to obtain the number of calories I should be eating? So I'm looking at 1700-1800 calories then. WOW that's a big difference from the MFP guide.

What is the number I should set for fat, protein, carbs and sodium? I read in one of the links that fat and protein should be around 30% and carbs at 40% ... is that about right? I didn't see anything for sodium though.

1. BMR is NOT TDEE. Go back and read those threads I linked on page one
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/804485-in-place-of-a-road-map-2-0-revised-7-2-12

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/186814-some-mfp-basics

2. I would guess that you should be at 1700-1800. Yes. The reason MFP gave you 1230 is because you chose too agressively on the weight-loss goals and you under-estimated your Activity Level. It's a normal human reaction to want to lose as fast as possible, but you really need to take into account that little chart:

If you have 75+ lbs to lose 2 lbs/week is ideal,
If you have 40-75 lbs to lose 1.5 lbs/week is ideal,
If you have 25-40 lbs to lose 1 lbs/week is ideal,
If you have 15 -25 lbs to lose 0.5 to 1.0 lbs/week is ideal, and
If you have less than 15 lbs to lose 0.5 lbs/week is ideal.

I have about 30 other links if you still don't believe me, but do some more research. No reason to under-eat in order to lose weight. That's why so many fail.

Your Macros can be set anywhere along that scale that you mentioned, and more protein is better, so 40Carb/30Protein/30Fat is a very good place to start.

If you calculated your food out and stuck within your goals, who cares if you eat at McDonalds all day long?? You may feel crappy, but a calorie is a calorie!

When you say you measure your food, without a scale, how are you measuring the meats? (Honest question - I'm thinking I'm missing something here.. but then again, my digital food scale is frickin fun!! haha)