I can't see what I am doing wrong

Is it possible you have overestimated your activity level? If so, MFP will tell you that you may have more calories than you should. I made this mistake.

BMR - imagine you are lying in a hospital bed with coma. your body needs this much to keep up organ function.
That you would be 1384 calories for you.
They would pretty much tube feed you this much and you would not gain or lose.

Now, obviously as you are not in a coma (thank goodness), you get up every day and do your chores so your body needs more energy than 1384 to function.
Like you brush your teeth and probably go shopping, etc etc so you burn more.
Add up everything you do: here comes your TDEE.

So if your TDEE is around 1700 calories, that means if you ate 1700 every day your weight would not move. Because that is exactly how much you need a day normally.

You see the conclusion now? If you are eating "aroundish" 1600 calories and your TDEE is "aroundish" 1700 it is not really going to get you anywhere - or maybe on a very long run (and you should not go over 1600 at all).


My opinion: you up the exercise (>> raises you TDEE) or you down the calories. Either way, the deficit would change from 100-150 that you have now to 200-400. Now 200-400 would bring visible changes faster.


(you decide how you do it. generally it is agreed that more exercise and more calories are better. unless you hate to exercise or have injuries or that sort.)

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How long have you been on your current calories?

Caz,

I see you are perplexed, and all the people advising you think you are doing something wrong.

But I checked your age, and you are in a metabolic minefield,just like me if you are in or around menopause time.
Our body's don't work like we were in our twenties,no longer efficient machines with calorie deficits and exercise having any effect.

Just relax, follow what feels right to you. EVENTUALLY, SLOOOOOOWLY you will lose weight .Yes two weeks is NOT enough. I lose at the rate of ounces per week,not pounds. Sorry but that's the menopause way for some.

Patience, stay the course!

I didnt notice anyone mentioning this but something else might be your sodium intake. You have some days very very low which is almost impossible to be under 500mg/day believe me I know as I aim for 1000mg/day. A vegetable stock cube which you had zero for probably has around 500mg. Maybe you are taking the food from the MFP database that works for you diet. ie: if there is more than one of an item in there you pick the one that has the least calories or sodium or sugar which isnt always correct. Try to be sure to use what's on your label I was super suprised to see that pastrami 4 slices only has 72 calories.. Seems like to me it ought to be more.. just a thought! Good luck!

The human body is a complex machine and if you change your diet to fewer calories it can think its going into 'famine' mode and start to metabolise fat which means initially you can put weight on. Generally it takes about 3 days for a stomach to shrink to expect less food and about two weeks for your body to metabolise/demetabolise fat so it is I'm afraid a case of just being patient.

I wouldn't weigh yourself any more than once a month and if you have bathroom scales which also measure body fat they can help as well. That way you can see what your body fat weight is in comparison to your body weight.

I also do know how you feel. Although I have been a triathlete for 22 years (well apart from 5 years after I had meningitis and had to let the after effects settle down, they didn't!) I struggled with my weight even though I was training for a half ironman last summer it didn't go down much. Clearly I was eating too many calories even with the exercise I was doing (I took 6 weeks off work to train and also volunteer at the Olympics) and it really got me down.

So be patient, if you want to friend invite me for some moral support then please feel free to do so, and you will get there but everyone is different and whilst there are some basics around calories, food and exercise, your body will try and fight to stay at the weight it is so it might be a bit of a roller coaster for a few weeks. Good luck

Thanks for this - so how does this lie with eating or not eating back exercise calories? Recommendation is to eat them back but then I will be back to minimal deficit so should I not eat them back? I am quite happy to exercise more as I do enjoy it but then if I also have to eat those calories when I am struggling to eat 1550 a day already i will still not lose in theory.

Can I just be honest with you? It seems to me that for some reason you avoided all the questions that come to facts, like how tall you are, what you weigh, what weight you would like to get to
(there is nothing on your profile either)
and especially, how long it's been like you felt like you were a failure (=the scale doesn't move)... we asked like 3 times


I totally understand the shyness and the fear of critisism but remember everyone on this portal is here for the same reason: w are ALL overweight and made the wrong choices through years and now have this problem. I may have given you some smart looking advice and I may have lost 19 lb but I am still another overweight woman looking for a way out.

So many may not agree with me but I feel first of all there is a psychological barrier that needs to be opened here. You don't need to hide how you ate, what you weigh, how old you are or what you did for many years, there are people here over 300+ lb, over 65 years, whatever, teens admitting to triple McDonalds binges or whatnot...


I hope I am not sounding harsh. Just wish you open up. Share your numbers, it's not shameful, we're all here for a change.

I wear a fitbit one and have noticed that with driving to and from work and sitting at a desk and other than that just waling to and from the car park and through the building and up and down a couple of flights of stairs my activity ranks as sedentary. According to my fitbit I was covering 2 miles so I wouldn't think your 2 miles is lightly active if mine isn't. I do my calcs off that premise and slice off 750 for a 1.5lb per week deficit.
I then account for workout exercise separately. Which is just over 300 cals worth for me.
In theory I should then eat back the cals of the exercise so I am still at a 750cal deficit, but a lot of the time I don't and am luck to eat back 1/2 of them on a good day.

In 3 weeks I dropped 8lbs.

The first week was with no exercise and weight dropped off rapidly as it can do.

The 2nd week I started the exercise and the weight loss stopped or was very slow.
In the 3rd week I was initially not losing weight then it dropped 0.5lb one day (I weight every day which is not a good idea in terms of seeing progress, but I know I tend not to weight myself when I know Ive been naughty so do it every day regardless).

See how you go for another week. If it still doesn't start to drop then I'd question your sums. Namely your burn is probably not what you think it is if you're honestly counting the cals.

Good luck, it must be very frustrating!