HELP! Why am I not losing weight?

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Smp9886
Smp9886 Posts: 3 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
OK, so i will give you the background and maybe someone can help me figure out why I'm not losing weight. I have a bodymedia link arm band to track my intake and burn of calories. I eat about 1500 a day and burn about 2500 a day, sometimes more than that. So I normally have a 1000 calorie deficit, sometimes I have went as high as a 1500 calorie deficit per day. I am really stirct with my tracking and if anything I overestimate what foods are worth so i dont go over my goal. Last week I gained a pound??? WTF!!! I am working out everyday, I mainly do cardio, either walking, biking, or eliptical for 30-60 minutes. I know muscle weighs more than fat and I could be gaining muscle but i should still be losing weight. I weigh 202 lbs, I am 5'2", I am a 26 year old female. Am i not eating enough? Why am I not losing? I starting losing at Christmas and am down 29 lbs but for 3 weeks now I've lost nothing.

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  • kikicooks
    kikicooks Posts: 1,079 Member
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    If you make your diary public people might get a better idea of things and be able to offer suggestions. The gain could just be water weight from high sodium, muscles retaining water, that time of the month. Many factors could make you gain but that doesn't mean it's fat. If you are mostly overestimating food so your deficits are 1000 or more then it could just be that you aren't eating enough. Maybe try slowly adding more calories in and see what happens.
  • MissMeg95
    MissMeg95 Posts: 8
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    Sometimes that scale will stall for a few weeks and then suddenly drop. This seems quite likely after you've lost 29lb so quickly. If you give it another couple of weeks of consistenly eating at 1500 then I'l sure you'll find the scale starts to drop again. If after another couple of weeks you migth want to consider adjusting your calories or rechecking all the counts of things you're eating.

    Also, have you been taking progress photos/measurements? In two weeks I lost about 2.5lb, but the difference in pictures was noticable, especially for such a short time period. Even when the scale isn't showing changes, pictures might. :)
  • amandamorse61612
    amandamorse61612 Posts: 1
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    Sounds like you could be just at a little plateau. I would continue with the way you have been doing things for the next week or so. If you still don't loose anything then maybe try eating just a little more. A 1000 calorie defecit is alot, so you may want to try that if this plateau remains throughout the next week or so.
  • Smp9886
    Smp9886 Posts: 3 Member
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    I haven't been logging on here, I log everything on the bodymedia site but maybe ill try doing it on here too, to make sure my calorie totals are accurate, thanks for the advice!
  • LokiOfAsgard
    LokiOfAsgard Posts: 378 Member
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    Wait I re-read it. You eat 1,500 and burn 2,500 for a negative 1,000 calorie NET?
  • Melo1966
    Melo1966 Posts: 881 Member
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    You are under eating and over training. You need to learn to breathe and relax. Take a yoga class.
  • alaskabrat
    alaskabrat Posts: 40 Member
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    You know, I too sometimes gain when I think I should have lost. I recently discovered that I go way over on my sugar intake even though I don't go over on my calories. I think since sugar turns into fat, that may be my mistake. It's little things we have to pay attention to. I am going to try cutting out some sugar and see if that makes a difference. Thought my story may help you look into your detailed nutrition facts as well. :) Good luck!
  • captainsgirl88
    captainsgirl88 Posts: 4 Member
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    start taking raspberry ketones. if you dont believe me that they help search it yourself. but make sure you get the kind that is PURE raspberry ketones. no extra stuff. nothing with caffeine or addivates... i take them every morning and they're helping hugely... you can do it. stay strong!
  • dawnfromia
    dawnfromia Posts: 8
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    You need to eat more! Your body is probably holding on to weight because it thinks you are starving it! I don't think you should have 1000 cals left. It should be more like 400 or 500. Hope this helps and good luck:)
  • ThickMcRunFast
    ThickMcRunFast Posts: 22,511 Member
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    start taking raspberry ketones. if you dont believe me that they help search it yourself. but make sure you get the kind that is PURE raspberry ketones. no extra stuff. nothing with caffeine or addivates... i take them every morning and they're helping hugely... you can do it. stay strong!

    If you want to throw away your money, you could just send it to me. The results would be about the same as taking that woo.

    Sounds like you're not eating enough, but its hard to know with a closed diary.
  • wdprice3
    wdprice3 Posts: 3
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    I also think your 1,000 net burned is too high. If you are truly burning 2,500 and eating 1,500 then you need to bring those a little more in line. Use myfitnesspal's (or your preferred service's) calorie calculator to determine how many calories you burn during the day and how many you should eat.

    Not eating enough is very detrimental to losing fat. This is especially true when working out. Remember that you still need to replace nutrients and calories from workouts. If myfitnesspal says you need 1,500 calories/day, then you need around that number (1,350-1,650); and if you workout, then you need to add back in most of those extra burned calories.

    If that's not the case, then you may have simply hit a plateau. You can try to get over this by: a week of very intense workouts (if you workouts are not extremely intense now) or, counterintuitively, workout less and add in more calories for a week - have an off week with some of your favorite foods, don't worry about being under you calorie count - you want to bust it. Changing up your caloric intake and workout routines can really impact your physiology and jumpstart a new session of weightloss (eating more calories than normal actually raises your metabolism temporarily, thus a week of slacking off when you hit a plateau can help restart these processes and provide you more motivation. Don't go crazy, just loosen up a bit.

    Short-term weightloss measurements are a tricky thing - it could simply be water retention due to high sodium/dietary changes, or due to amount of water intake, or due to typical female physiology. If you go 2-3 weeks with no changes, then I'd start to be a little more concerned.

    You can also look at other dietary information to insure that you aren't overdoing sugars, sodium, carbs, proteins, etc.
  • kikicooks
    kikicooks Posts: 1,079 Member
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    Wait I re-read it. You eat 1,500 and burn 2,500 for a negative 1,000 calorie NET?

    The 2500 calories is all day, TDEE, not just exercise.


    A good and safe deficit for fat loss is 15-20% less than your TDEE. So if your TDEE average is 2500 then take 20% off of that for calorie goal. So, 2000 a day. If you've been eating at 1500 and lower for a while that might seem like a shock to your system and you will see a slight gain at 1st so my suggestion would be to up it to 1700-1800 for a couple weeks 1st.
  • Smp9886
    Smp9886 Posts: 3 Member
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    I am going to start using this site for tracking, I found out I can link my bodymedia band and my fitness pal accounts. I am confused though, do I want a NET of 0??? Or a negative one to lose weight?
  • wdprice3
    wdprice3 Posts: 3
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    ^yes, close to it (I typically go about 10-15% negative net).

    You must remember, that myfitnesspal calculates how many calories you need based on daily activity, weight loss rate, and exercise. Therefore, a deficit is already built into whatever MFP says you need (if it says 1,500, you likely "need" 1,800 calories to maintain current weight; the 1,500 includes a deficit already. If you workout, you must replace those calories to bring the net back to 0, or close to it)
  • kikicooks
    kikicooks Posts: 1,079 Member
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    I am going to start using this site for tracking, I found out I can link my bodymedia band and my fitness pal accounts. I am confused though, do I want a NET of 0??? Or a negative one to lose weight?

    This site has a much better database so I'd suggest tracking here instead of BMF. Yes you can link your accounts. As long as you have your settings correct it will give you a suggested calorie goal with a deficit. You will have to link up your BMF to see where your burn is at and it will show up on here as exercise. So you won't see til the end of the day what your suggested calorie goal is but after time you will get a good idea. I had my BMF linked for a while and it would suggest I eat at about a 400 calorie deficit. I think it's just easier to set my goal based off of my average TDEE so I unlinked my accounts. Try it and find what way works best for you.
  • bizco
    bizco Posts: 1,949 Member
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    Read, learn, succeed:

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/937712-in-place-of-a-road-map-ver-3-0
  • kikicooks
    kikicooks Posts: 1,079 Member
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    ^yes, close to it (I typically go about 10-15% negative net).

    You must remember, that myfitnesspal calculates how many calories you need based on daily activity, weight loss rate, and exercise. Therefore, a deficit is already built into whatever MFP says you need (if it says 1,500, you likely "need" 1,800 calories to maintain current weight; the 1,500 includes a deficit already. If you workout, you must replace those calories to bring the net back to 0, or close to it)

    If you link your BMF to here don't log your workouts separately because then it will be like double counting your exercise calories since the BMF numbers will already include any exercise you do. I always just logged my exercise as 1 calorie so I could still track that I worked out in my diary without double counting the exercise calories.
  • Saucy_lil_Minx
    Saucy_lil_Minx Posts: 3,302 Member
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    It is important that you eat the right foods at the right part of the day as well. How many meals a day are you eating? when do you incorporate your carbs. How soon after you wake up are you eating breakfast? Do all your meals, and snacks contain protein? Are you changing up your workout routine at least every thirty days? Most of all remember that a plateau, or some water weight gain happens to the best of us DO NOT GET DISCOURAGED! For example I workout 6 days a week. I eat five meals a day (considering adding a sixth), I am 5' 7" and 215 lbs, and eat 1,660 calories a day. I have 15- 20 grams of protein at each meal, and 20-30 grams of carbs for breakfast, and mid- afternoon snack (pre-workout). This is b/c I need the energy in the morning, and before I hit the gym. I also make sure breakfast is within half an hour after I wake (to kick start my metabolism). I do 3 days of cardio (40 to 50 mins. including warm-up and cool-down), two days strength training (active strength training), and one day of Yoga or Pilates (keep me stretched and limber.) I alternate cardio , strength training, cardio, yoga, cardio, strength training, rest. I also have a cheat day where I can eat what I want (provided it is in my afternoon meal), and I plan it out (gives me something to look forward too, and stops me during the week from giving into temptation). Even with all this I had a plateau for two mos. where I maintained and did not lose any weight. I am sure it will happen again. Also, do not weigh yourself more than once a week, and always at the same time. It gives you a better measure of progress, and prevent overly scrutinizing your weight loss. Remind yourself it is OK to not be perfect. Do not feel guilty about a slip up, embrace it and move on ;). Most important try to educate yourself about Healthy Living at least three times a week.
  • Goosiesnougs
    Goosiesnougs Posts: 420
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    I have a body media too.............I gained weight steadily while using it! It is now in a drawer until I can sell it!
  • ademiter
    ademiter Posts: 176 Member
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    start taking raspberry ketones. if you dont believe me that they help search it yourself. but make sure you get the kind that is PURE raspberry ketones. no extra stuff. nothing with caffeine or addivates... i take them every morning and they're helping hugely... you can do it. stay strong!

    If you want to throw away your money, you could just send it to me. The results would be about the same as taking that woo.

    Sounds like you're not eating enough, but its hard to know with a closed diary.
    ^This...Tried Raspberry ketones. Total. Waste. Of. Money.

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