Why haven't I lost?

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  • emilyfh
    emilyfh Posts: 291 Member
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    were are your snacks? you really need to eat something before you workout. I think your in the starving mode. try eating your exercise calories and see if that helps. 3 meals and 3 to 4 snacks a day (snacks 100 to 200 calories) And drink alot of water 8 to 12 glasses a day.
  • unknownndoll
    unknownndoll Posts: 161 Member
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    I would suggest eating more healthy foods more often thought the day to get all your calories in. Maybe protein shakes would help? they have soy, whey, and egg whites depending on your dietary tolerances. Also maybe switch out all bad foods for good foods, like the white bread for whole wheat/whole grain bread. Maybe add yogurt, peanut butter, oatmeal, etc to up your calories and proteins.
  • Mom2Emery_Liam
    Mom2Emery_Liam Posts: 149
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    I also agree you need to snack more. Your breakfasts look healthy and filling- eggs and oatmeal are great. Eat more at lunch if u can or have a healthy snack around 2pm. I love the 100cal almond packs. Then at 4pm, have another 100-150 cal snack. This will prevent you from feeling famished at dinner time. I try to keep dinner around 400 cals. Some healthy snacks are yogurt, whole wheat toast w/1tbsp of pb, almonds (no salted nuts), banana, apple, baby carrots, cheese stick, even some crackers are ok.
    Try to switch to diet soda. Or zero calorie vitamin water or sobe. They taste awesome!
    Also eat the extra calories u gain from working out- u need most of them or else you'll be dizzy and weak.
    1200 should be your minimum.
  • coold
    coold Posts: 85
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    A couple of things.

    The most problematic is your net calories was just over 400 yesterday (total calories eaten minus exercise calories) ... is this typical? If it is, you're looking at a depressed metabolism. That number shouldn't be less than 1200.

    Also, most of your calories are in the evening. Spread your calorie allowance more or less evenly throughout the day. Try not to eat more than 550 calories in one sitting.

    What is a depressed metabolism? How do I fix it? I had no idea I only had 400 net calories yesturday I thought I had went over my 1200 by 200. I am now planning on makeing better choices and drinking alot more water but I just don't know how to eat that much and still have it be healthy calories. I only eat till I am full and feel sick if I eat past that piont. I would add more milk products like the chocolate milk Idea but I am somewhat lactose intolerant. I can eat minimal amounts of cheese and other milk products but just straight milk or ice cream makes my stomache hurt for days. I want to thank everyone for replying to my post.
    this is probably EXACTLY what is going on. a depressed metabolism is when your body goes into starvation mode. If you have 1200 or so calories to consume a day, and you exercise 1 hour or so a day 5 days a week, on those days, you earn more calories for that day.

    When you consume 1200 (or a little more) and burn 500 or so exercising...subtract that from the 1200...and you have your net. (700). Anything below 1200 puts your body into starvation mode, lowers your metabolism, and stores fat. When you exercise, eat most of the calories back that you burned. (Sounds strange, but i've lost 1 pound a week for 5 weeks doing just that.)

    I also eat fast food almost every day. IF you eat something high in sodium, double the water intake. I had to cut out the drinks and sweet tea for a few weeks b/c they were HIGH IN CALORIES! ugh....so i totally cut out soft drinks.
  • agrasty2002
    agrasty2002 Posts: 33 Member
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    Hello,

    There are several things that come into play. I'll share my thoughts with you. The first thing is that when people engage in physical activity and if it is strenuous enough, then they may gain weight instead of lose or they may stay the same. Why? Well, if your muscles get shocked by this new activity, to protect themselves they may retain water. This causes a temporary weight gain or a plateau. This gets a lot of people that try to lose weight discouraged and they tend to give up at this point. I just want to let you know to keep with it and trust me, give it another 3-4 weeks and the weight should start coming off.

    The second thought is that your weight can vary from hour to hour or day to day based on what goes into it and what comes out. There is a free book online called the Hackers Diet and I encourage you to read it, if you want the link, let me know...otherwise you can google it. In any event, it also has online tools that take your daily weight fluctuations into consideration and use trend analysis to find your true weight and you can graphically see if you are losing weight or not despite the fluctuations on the scale. Very helpful.

    Another thing is, are you eating enough. You shared info about your physical activity but did not tell us how many calories you burn at rest and how much you are burning during your exercise. This will help determine how much you should eat. If you are not eating enough, your body will go into starvation mode and hold on to all of the calories that you put into it...so I might go as far as to encourage you to eat a little more for a week or so and see what happens. I've had to bump my calories up several times to get over plateaus.

    You may also be gaining muscle while losing fat....which is a good thing because muscle burns fat but muscle weighs more than fat. So try not to be so fixated on the scale and go more on how your clothes fit and how you feel, or better yet take your measurements on a regular basis (like monthly). If people can notice changes, chances are you are losing fat but gaining muscle which means you are losing inches and that's good. :)

    Lastly, you could invest in a calorie counter (kind of like a bodybugg or fitbit) and then you can get a real idea of the calories you are burning daily and change your food habits based upon that. I hope this was helpful. Good luck to you. Let me know if I can help in any other way.
  • doug_corbett
    doug_corbett Posts: 2
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    You should eat more for breakfast. Your 2 days for breakfast you had 130 one day and 93 the other day. I always try for more calories to get my matabolism going early. (I would even suggest 2 eggs instead of just 1) (and do whole quaker oats instead of the strawberry and cream) Oatmeal is good, peanut butter is good, whole grain toast is good. This will keep your stomach feeling full for most of the morning and your matabolism will burn more calories digesting that food.
  • Felixanvk
    Felixanvk Posts: 69
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    What has help me too is to have a "not to hard" work out, for example, if I am in a stationary machine for an hour, after the 4th day I will walk around the neighborhod for a hour.
    I hope it helps

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