1,200 cals, workout, but no weightloss?

pit404
pit404 Posts: 24
in Health and Weight Loss
hi, Im new to this starting a topic thing but ive been reading other peoples success stories and wondering where i am going wrong. I have been eating roughly 1,200 cals daily for the past few weeks and have started working out, but just cant seem to shift the pounds! I've started the 30 day squat challenge as well as skipping and jump squats as workouts. I weight about 10 stones and i am 5 ft 5. I am starting to lose hope in losing weight! id really appreciate any help.

Replies

  • jen81uk
    jen81uk Posts: 177 Member
    I'm roughly 10 stones and 5'7'' and try to eat 1500 calories a day and workout. My weightloss is SLOW now as i'm on my last 10lbs so don't expect mega results. What's your target? Measure as I've lost inches recently too not lbs as started toning. I do 100-200 squats most days and hoping it'll slim my thighs.

    Unfortunately you may be like me and see your body change but not the scale... which I can deal with.

    Eat more too. I was miserable trying to eat 1200.
  • lobo_a_gogo
    lobo_a_gogo Posts: 265 Member
    eat more (look up "eat more to weigh less" or "in place of a road map" )
  • kirstyfairhead
    kirstyfairhead Posts: 220 Member
    I'm 4' 11" and currently at 139 so our stats are similar. My BMR (doing nothing) is around 1370 so if I eat 1200 every day without fail I can create a deficit of 170cals per day. This means that technically if my body does everything it should and I don't cheat on the food intake I would lose 1lb in 3weeks. At that rate 35lbs would take close to 2 years to get rid of.

    Now you are that 1" taller and you are younger than me so your BMR will be higher, you also get some extra burn through just moving around but I think you probably get the point that trying to do this without exercise is really tough for us little people. Our bodies just don't need that much fuel in the first place so creating deficits is not easy.

    I would recommend you try to find something fun, maybe see if there is a Zumba class in your area. It is a really good laugh and a good workout. Also see if you can get a friend to come and workout with you, its much less of a drag that way.

    You can always stick to the just food route but be prepared for a long haul!!!

    Sorry ignore this. This reply has just posted on wrong topic. Been a long day :-)
  • pit404
    pit404 Posts: 24
    Thanks for the reply guys!

    i was going to the gym last month but realised it increased my hunger a lot so i found myself eating so much more, which cancelled out anything I lost by working out. How much more should I increase my calories by? atm, i tend to have a glass of carrot juice in the morning, followed by a light lunch (usually boiled food with cottage cheese) then a glass of skimmed milk and fruit as a snack, and a fair portion for dinner. I'd ideally like to lose a stone, so go down to 9 stones. most of the fat is around my stomach and thighs
  • sexymuffintop
    sexymuffintop Posts: 636
    You are not eating enough. MFP creates a deficit for you without presuming you exercise. Exercise calories are extra to your MFP allocation. If your body feels like it's not getting enough food it won't be inclined to release stored fat, it will hang onto it.
  • pit404
    pit404 Posts: 24
    how many cals should i be eating? i researched about not eating enough calories and its pretty much what you guys said. So i guess, my body has been in starvation mode! no wonder why ive not been losing any weight. I put into MFP that i want to lose 1.5 pounds a week, so it set my goal to 1,200 cals a day. as i have exams etc atm, Ive not been able to do much cardio so mainly started squats etc. so if i increase my cals will i still be able to lose weight?

    thanks for the advice guys :)
  • sexymuffintop
    sexymuffintop Posts: 636
    http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

    Try the scooby site.
  • loricshields47
    loricshields47 Posts: 134 Member
    could have written this myself today. 1200 is easy to manage (lots of exercise for me)but its not leading to results. Hope to learn from your post
  • sexymuffintop
    sexymuffintop Posts: 636
    1.5 lbs is too aggressive at your height/weight. You are not obese, try aiming for 0.5-1lb a week max.
  • jorasims
    jorasims Posts: 75 Member
    You need to eat more...
  • pit404
    pit404 Posts: 24
    i tried that website, so from the stats i entered it says i should eat 1,400 cals a day. would you say that sounds like a intake that could possibly lead to more weightloss? il start eating the additional 200 cals from tomorrow
  • sexymuffintop
    sexymuffintop Posts: 636
    What reduction did you go for? 20%?
  • pit404
    pit404 Posts: 24
    yep, 20% reduction
  • sexymuffintop
    sexymuffintop Posts: 636
    I'll be honest and for someone your weight and height I still think that sounds pretty low. But yes, it's probably right if you really are sitting for most of the day and doing no exercise on a regular basis. I would bear in mind though that if you do start exercising or have a more active day you will be able to eat more than 1400. On a day when I go to the gym (I only weight lift with very little cardio) I burn around 2500 calories. I'm 5ft 4 and weigh around 154lbs. So I can eat around 2000 calories and lose fat. Patience is key to losing the fat when you haven't much to lose. Slow and steady wins the race lol.
  • pit404
    pit404 Posts: 24
    i think your right, before i used to get pretty hungry fast but since this 1,200 watch I dont get hungry in between meals anymore! i changed my goal to 1pound a week and mfp has changed my cal intake to 1,350 lol. il still be eating 1,400 though and see any changes. Il be joining the gym again from thursday so hopefully in a weeks time il be able to tell some difference and whether its working. I also wanted to ask, i have brown carbs such as brown rice almost everyday, a small portion. is that ok for weightloss? as i usually used to have white, but changed all white carbs to brown.
  • fatburnd2012
    fatburnd2012 Posts: 35
    Could you get on one of those Tanita Body Composition Analysers? I joined the gym this week and they put me on this(like a scales with a printer). It works by putting a current through your body(don't feel it) and measures how much water you have. So its not 100% accurate but its a start. Muscle holds more water than fat so it will tell you how lean you are- plus BMR, BMI, Ideal weight and a lot of other info all prints out.

    I was told my BMR is 1332 and I am 5ft 2.5 and 33. They said to me to up my cals to about 1500 when exercising because if I keep eating 1200 I will end up having to eat that for the rest of my life. I really don't want to do that so I started trying to eat as clean as possible the past few days and upped my cals to at least my BMR on days of strength training and maybe more on cardio days.

    I lost no weight last week but this week I am down 1.5lbs. And I am trying to lose the last 10lbs. So maybe if you tried getting analysed you might feel better about eating more. If eating less isn't working, shake it up a bit- maybe low one day and higher the next day to shock the body. It is a machine that wants to hold on to weight to stop you starving. You need to keep it guessing.

    Good Luck!:smile:
  • durshley
    durshley Posts: 73 Member
    You're the same height and weight as me and I have 1424 cal per day and eat back my exercise calories (I calculated my TDEE using sedentary for various reasons...)
    MFP gave me a 1200 cal goal too but I hated eating that little. I'm losing about the same amount of weight eating more food atm.
  • buffty
    buffty Posts: 83
    You need to eat back your workout calories, and ensure that you're eating NET 1200 calories.

    If it's still not working, try upping it to 1400 and see how you get on.
  • paulperryman
    paulperryman Posts: 839 Member
    you'd be burning next to no calories anyway weighing what you do.
    Eat more, drink more water and eat back most of those exercise calories

    If you were fat you could get away with the same and lose weight.

    You are probably retaining water weight. That is around 50% of your body weight and weighs more then fat as does muscle and bone

    There are scales that can give you a rough guide to your body composition, i bought a Weight Watchers one which tells me
    Water Weight %, BMI, Bone Mass %, Fat %
  • MelissaSel
    MelissaSel Posts: 90 Member
    I've been doing the same, lost 20 lbs and then nothing. I am very overweight, so the weight should continue to melt off, but it's not. My boyfriend is a personal trainer, and he says I'm "trying to get to California on an 1/8th of a tank of gas". I haven't yet pinned him down to what I should be doing, but that's next! Hopefully he'll be creating a diet/exercise plan for me soon!
  • NikaVonD
    NikaVonD Posts: 5
    I think you should eat more (aprox 1600 kcal) and more healthy. 1200 kcal is too few.
  • pit404
    pit404 Posts: 24
    thanks! :-) so it seems the overall advice is for me to eat more! il defiantly start that today by eating 1,400 -1,500 calls. hopefully, that will work! im going away on holiday end of next month so would really love to lose at least 4-5 pounds.
  • Lyadeia
    Lyadeia Posts: 4,603 Member
    thanks! :-) so it seems the overall advice is for me to eat more! il defiantly start that today by eating 1,400 -1,500 calls. hopefully, that will work! im going away on holiday end of next month so would really love to lose at least 4-5 pounds.

    I'm your height and eat between 1800-2000 calories a day. I workout 6 days a week, though. But even if I didn't workout at all, I would still eat at least 1500 calories a day. My BMR is around 1450 or so. Eating 1200 is certainly not enough. I would definitely give eating more calories a try, but I would suggust increasing slowly. I would eat about 100 more each week until you get to the level that you want to eat at. If you simply jump up 300 calories all at once, the scale might also jump because of water fluctuations. Who needs those frustrations in addition to everything else? :flowerforyou:
  • pit404
    pit404 Posts: 24
    i didnt realise i was supposed to eat the calories i burn to. so, now im going to eat 1,400, say if i burn 400 at the gym..i should eat 1,800? i cant believe how much ive learnt from just starting a topic!
  • Lyadeia
    Lyadeia Posts: 4,603 Member
    i didnt realise i was supposed to eat the calories i burn to. so, now im going to eat 1,400, say if i burn 400 at the gym..i should eat 1,800? i cant believe how much ive learnt from just starting a topic!

    Yeah, if you don't eat those extra calories back, you probably won't be eating enough. MFP figures your calorie needs without exercise, so if you do exercise, you need to eat those calories back to have the same deficit that was calculated for you. You'll have more energy to push through your workouts doing this, and you'll still lose weight.
  • sexymuffintop
    sexymuffintop Posts: 636
    You are not eating enough. MFP creates a deficit for you without presuming you exercise. Exercise calories are extra to your MFP allocation. If your body feels like it's not getting enough food it won't be inclined to release stored fat, it will hang onto it.

    The OP obviously missed when I wrote this about 4 posts down on page 1, or I wrote it in code? :laugh: :tongue: It's amazing how many people do not realise exercise calories are there to be eaten on MFP!! Never fails to amaze me lol
  • Joehenny
    Joehenny Posts: 1,222 Member
    are you sure you're not underestimating your intake?
  • TigerPawsSC
    TigerPawsSC Posts: 20 Member
    You are not eating enough. MFP creates a deficit for you without presuming you exercise. Exercise calories are extra to your MFP allocation. If your body feels like it's not getting enough food it won't be inclined to release stored fat, it will hang onto it.

    Myth.
  • sexymuffintop
    sexymuffintop Posts: 636
    You are not eating enough. MFP creates a deficit for you without presuming you exercise. Exercise calories are extra to your MFP allocation. If your body feels like it's not getting enough food it won't be inclined to release stored fat, it will hang onto it.

    Myth.

    Expand on your myth theory....

    Edit: I just profile stalked your forum posts. Theres no need to expand actually. I see your viewpoint on the matter very clearly, and have no intention of wasting my bank holiday on arguing the semantics of fat reserves and VLCD being non-damaging. My viewpoint is mine, your's is yours. All I can advise is what has worked for me in the past 9 months of calorie controlling my diet and weight training. If this helps the OP thats fantastic. I'm not here to argue and derail threads. Done with all that thank you muchly. Enjoy your bank holiday! X
  • pit404
    pit404 Posts: 24
    so yesterday i tried to increase my calorie intake, but it was actually difficult! i think its because im soo used to 1,200 a day. i just need to eat 300 cals more, so i guess il have to fit in a yogurt which is usually 100 cals and maybe 2 bananas which is 200 cals. lets see how this goes! thanks alot for letting me know about eating back my workout cals, i had no idea. i thought the point of working out was so the daily calorie intake reduces. but i understand the logic now, its so we burn more fat?

    Also, ive replaced white carbs with brown carbs. i do have brown carbs around 5 times a week. the brown carbs i eat is a total of 200 cals according to MFP. is that ok for weightloss?

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