Calling all smarty pants

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wannaberunner33
wannaberunner33 Posts: 55 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I need help. I have been here on MFP since 11/11. I have lost 52 pounds. While I am happy with this, I have 50 more to go. I started here eating 1200 as per MFP recommendation. After not much success I upped it to 1500 and then 1800. I started to workout and based on some websites they said to up even more. I thought for someone who had so much to lose that the weight would be coming off more quickly. There was on and off exercing during that time. I have been on 1730 calories for a couple of months and have been losing consistently. I added steady workouts 3 to 4 times weekly c25k 3-4 times a week and bicycling or elliptical on some of the off days. Since starting the workouts January 3rd, I have not lost anything. On the days I exercise I try to eat a little bit of the calories back. I am a 44 year old female. I am 5'6", and weight 192. I like to set it up to eat like a sedentary person and maybe eat some exercise calories back on the day that I work out.
Can someone please give me a suggestion to break the stall that I am? I would TRULY. Appreciate any comments. I know we have some super smart weight loss gurus on the site and would love responses. Thanks. I just need some help.

Replies

  • PakiBoom
    PakiBoom Posts: 21 Member
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    What kind of help do you need!? It looks like you got it all under control. You already by now know what works for your body :) . just keep up the good work :)
  • WBB55
    WBB55 Posts: 4,131 Member
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    52# in 3 months?!? You're doing awesome! Keep it up! Since you've lost so much weight, have you reconfigured your BMR and TDEE for your new weight?

    Edit to add, I must be old, I don't remember what year it is!
  • wannaberunner33
    wannaberunner33 Posts: 55 Member
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    Not 50 pounds in3 months. 50 pounds in a year and a half. I was losing weight and now that I added exercise the weight loss has screeched to a halt. No more loss in the past 7 weeks
  • Ed98043
    Ed98043 Posts: 1,333 Member
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    She joined on 11/11, so it's been 15 months.

    I think that no weight loss since early January means that you've reached equilibrium in your eating and exercising and are actually in maintenance phase before you're ready to be. I personally would cut back on calories a bit and see if anything changes. I'm sure someone will be along shortly to tell you to eat more calories. Either way, try it and see.
  • majope
    majope Posts: 1,325 Member
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    I think people could give more targeted advice if you opened your diary.
  • michellekicks
    michellekicks Posts: 3,624 Member
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    Based on the Scooby's Workshop calculator if you were truly sedentary/sitting at a desk and not exercising you'd be burning about 1850 calories daily. To lose about 3 lbs/month you'd drop down about 20% from that to 1480 plus your exercise calories if you have a good idea of your burn.

    Or, if you include 3-5 hours/week of moderate exercise, you'd want to eat about 1900 calories daily without adding exercise calories.. just be sure you are actually getting 3-5 hours/week of moderate exercise. If your exercise is more like 1-3 hours light, then eat about 1700 without adding exercise calories.

    I like doing the net method because I find the high and low days seems to help me lose fat somehow... so rest days you'd eat about 1480 and workout days you'd eat 1480 plus all your exercise calories burned.

    Also, one of the keys for me was protein. As soon as I got my protein up to over 100g daily, the weight started falling off like magic. If you're not doing this already that's a good place to start.

    EDITED TO ADD: When I came to MFP I was 180 lbs at 5'7". I ate net 1660 daily to lose... which was about 2100 calories daily.
  • katevarner
    katevarner Posts: 884 Member
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    Do you work out every day? If so, you are not sedentary, even if you don't move at all the rest of the time. Even if you just work out 3-4 days (it appears that is your minimum?), then you are not sedentary. Where did you get your goals? If MFP, please refigure your goals with at least the lightly active setting, and you need to eat your exercise calories, or at least some of them. If you got them from an online calculator, then refigure with moderate activity (or whatever level your actual activity is--most calculators only count workouts, not "active all day").

    52 lbs. in a little over a year is great. I lost 40 in 19 months and I'm thrilled. Slow and steady is fine as long as you reach your goal.

    I have my settings on MFP at very active, and I eat back my exercise calories, and my BodyMedia says most days that I burn even more than that, sometimes 300 calories more. I go to the gym 5 days a week, and I walk between 2 and 5 miles most days at or during work. On most online calculators, I am somewhere between very and extremely active.
  • happierandstronger
    happierandstronger Posts: 63
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    In your workout do you include any form of strength or ab exercises? From my understanding from your post, you only seem to be doing cardio training that mainly uses the lower part of your body, so you may have some muscle confusion happening. This happens to the best of us and even if you do everything right nothing seems to help. I went through this whole not losing hard to budge the weight down business last year, and recently started doing the 30 Day Shred to see if that would help. I've only completed this routine for 4 days this week but I have noticed a difference and am starting to see the numbers on the scale go down again.

    Go on google or even YouTube and have a look at some workouts. Many of these workouts only require basic equipment - a yoga mat if you have really hard floors and dumbells (and too be honest you don't even have to buy these - I made some using empty 600 ml water bottles filled with rice and for me they are the perfect weight :D )

    I hope this helps you! Good luck!
  • Energizer06
    Energizer06 Posts: 311 Member
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    IMHO anyone who needs to lose 50+ lbs does not need to eat calories back....this is really my only exception to that rule....everyone else should eat their calories back. I would try eating anywhere between 1800 - 1900 (probably closer to 1900) good calories with a 40%P/30%C/30%F. Keep working out as you are....there's nothing wrong with your routine, just be consistent.
  • aec20879
    aec20879 Posts: 2 Member
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    You could be building muscle and changing body composition as a result of the workouts so there are benefits that you might not see right away on scale. However, I would recommend eating fewer calorie to adjust to your lower current weight. I am similar age (45). I weigh 187 and I'm 5"8. I work in an office so I am pretty sedentary at home and work. I go to the gym regularly but I think most people over estimate the calories burned in the gym. I set MFP to sedentary and I get 1470 for goal. I am averaging 1440 cal per day and losing. I think you could safely eat 1200-1500 calories based on your stats.

    If it helps for comparison, I use the body media fit to measure calories burned. On a completely sedentary day I burn 1700-1800 calories. On a busy day with trip to gym I burn 2200-2400. My average daily burn is 2047 cal and my average daily intake is 1447. so my average daily calorie deficit is 600. That should lead to about a pound a week which is about what's happening. I have read that anywhere from 500-1000 deficit is good per day with a minimum daily intake of 1200 calories for most women.

    I hope this helps.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,131 Member
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    You're not Sedentary. Use Moderately active on MFP. Eat back your exercise calories if you use the MFP method (which, I would. It works.) Set your weight loss goal to "Lose 1 pound per week."

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