Very impatient! Want results NOW!!

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OK so I've been very consistent with my daily hilly walk. This week I started counting calories (allowing 1500/day). I drink AT LEAST 10 cups of water (I LOVE H2O). The scale hasn't budged and my fingers feel 'fat'. However, my fiancé, who is NOT consistent with his exercising, has lost 5lbs already. What am I doing wrong?

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  • WinnerVictorious
    WinnerVictorious Posts: 4,735 Member
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    1) understand the difference between true weight loss/gain (fat + muscle) and water weight loss/gain.
    2) understand the math behind losing weight. 3500 calories = 1lb (roughly). eat 500 less than TDEE every day for a week and you'll lose 1lb no matter what the scale says.
    3) understand why impatience will make you crazy.
    4) understand why the scale is not your friend and weighing too frequently will make you crazy.
  • plzlbsbegone
    plzlbsbegone Posts: 233
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    Sounds like you might have some water retention going on, that's why your fingers feel "fat". Watch your sodium intake, and try to cut it down to the recommended amount!
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 10,017 Member
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    Nothing. Be patient. 4 to6 weeks minimum before making any drastic changes.
  • theCarlton
    theCarlton Posts: 1,344 Member
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    First I commend you for making it through your 1st week and logging honestly every single day, even the day you went over. It made it easy for me to tell you that this week, because of the one measly day that you went over, it killed the deficit you had all week. You were in deficit of 1,028 but went over by 1,161 on your over day. That's why there was no loss.

    Now that you know what happened, try to exercise a lot more when you go over so that you still have deficit for the week. Good luck and great work! Keep it up!

    Edited to add: your sodium has been through the roof for a few days. That would be why your fingers swell up. I get that a lot too because I love convenience foods (and booze). Watch out for pre-made/pre-packaged foods. They're loaded with sodium.
  • sevsmom
    sevsmom Posts: 1,172 Member
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    Took 6 weeks for the scale to budge when I got started. Just remember you didn't land at the weight you are in 1 week, and it ain't gonna dramatically drop in just one week. Slow & steady wins the race. Oh. . .and my hubby pulled the same stunt. It took me 1 full year to lose 30 pounds. He joined in about 9 months in and he dropped 30 in 3.5 months. I just wanted to **HUG** him he was so motivational. . . .NOT!!! It's not fair, but it's reality. Men can lose the weight faster with seemingly less effort. :-/
  • Goin4goal
    Goin4goal Posts: 129 Member
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    Whatever you do, don't compare yourself to your fiance. Men lose faster than women. Plus men like to make a competition out of weight loss. My husband likes to announce every day how much he has lost. Over the years, I have found that not paying attention to his weight loss has helped me to just focus on what I'm doing. Don't get me wrong, I am really pleased that he is getting healthy too, but I just don't want to hear how much he's lost and how quickly. So this time around, we are pretty much keeping it all to ourselves. Numbers on the scale infuriates me!!! For me my loss is slow and steady and I will reach my goal if I keep reminding myself of this. You can do this!!!
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 10,017 Member
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    First I commend you for making it through your 1st week and logging honestly every single day, even the day you went over. It made it easy for me to tell you that this week, because of the one measly day that you went over, it killed the deficit you had all week. You were in deficit of 1,028 but went over by 1,161 on your over day. That's why there was no loss.

    Now that you know what happened, try to exercise a lot more when you go over so that you still have deficit for the week. Good luck and great work! Keep it up!

    Edited to add: your sodium has been through the roof for a few days. That would be why your fingers swell up. I get that a lot too because I love convenience foods (and booze). Watch out for pre-made/pre-packaged foods. They're loaded with sodium.
    Hard to say if the OP is set up to lose 1 lb a week or not but most days she was under her goal by a few hundred calories, and considering a deficit of 500 a day is 1 lb a week, going over 1 day by 1,161 is barely over TDEE, so it's not really going to negate the other 6 days and with consuming under her calorie goal generally, it's probably inconsequential.
  • zichab
    zichab Posts: 1,452 Member
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    You have only been on MFP for a couple of weeks which is not long enough to really understand what your body is responding to. For the last few days, your sodium and fat are off the charts. For me, fat is a problem and I have to keep it in check, so you might also have this issue. Secondly, you could be losing fat, but retaining water from all the sodium. For the next week, reduce one or the other and see what happens. Finally, do not compare your weight loss with a man. Men can often lose weight more easily than women do. Read some of the threads on here and you will learn that some women have lost 60 pounds 6 ounces at a time. It can be a long process but we can do it! Do not give up!
  • jkal1979
    jkal1979 Posts: 1,896 Member
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    After looking at your food diary it might be a good idea for you to find some type of food plan to follow. It doesn't have to be anything drastic or restrictive, it can be something as basic as building your meals around the food pyramid. Also if you can cut back on eating out so much.
  • GCAlexa610
    GCAlexa610 Posts: 6
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    First, try not to compare your weight loss w/ his. Men's metabolisms are higher than ours, burning more and quicker. Wish I could borrow one of the guy's who's in my ofc metabolism.

    Your workouts ... Make sure to do diff types workouts and not the same b/c our body gets used to one type and will began to plateau. Mix it up a bit ... Def adding toning and stretching in there, ie. Light weight workout routines, Pilates, etc. You've got the cardio down, just chng it from time to time for muscle confusion.

    Hows your carb intake? Be careful there as well w/ your sugar intake. Eat more protein. Rat more veggies and fruit ... Lord knows I need to work on this.

    Can you drink 100oz of water? Your water intakes great. But can you up it?

    One last thing, sometimes we don't lose lbs but inches, so try not to get too frustrated and caught up on the numbers. I was told once, the fat we loose has yo go somewhere. That's when you're toning. Hows your clothes fitting? Test your too tight jeans. We all got a few of those right, lol;

    You're doing great namesake! Keep at it! You WILL ser results!
  • BigGuy47
    BigGuy47 Posts: 1,768 Member
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    Be patient.
  • squiggyflop
    squiggyflop Posts: 148 Member
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    So you have only counted calories for a week. A week is not long enough to really see any results. It took me 2 weeks before I saw the scale suddenly drop 4lbs. I think it has to do with water weight.
  • MorgueBabe
    MorgueBabe Posts: 1,188 Member
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    Whatever you do, don't compare yourself to your fiance. Men lose faster than women.
  • Tinksahoy
    Tinksahoy Posts: 6
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    To start with, you've only logged consistently now for five days. If you're looking for quick results on the scale from the beginning of your program, you may need to reevaluate your expectations - Meaningful weight loss is not something that occurs quickly. You can gain weight a lot quicker than losing it. e.g. It takes 10 minutes to eat a 600-calorie piece of cake but an hour of intense exercise to burn that cake off.

    It's great that you've made your food diary public. That way others can get a better sense of where you might be going wrong. Right away, I can see that your log isn't as accurate as it needs to be. When some people add foods to the MFP nutrition pool, they only include calories and/or macronutrients (protein, fat, carbs) and leave out vitamins and minerals. This can be deceiving because you don't know exactly what you're eating in the way of say, sodium, which I'd say is your biggest culprit right now.

    Regarding your sodium intake:
    On your first day of logging, May 6th, it looks like you only consumed 730mg of sodium. If you notice, there's no sodium information for your butterball burger (640mg sodium - WITHOUT bun, condiments) or sub (1600mg sodium without toppings or sauces). That gives you a bare minimum of 2970mg sodium for the day. Health Canada recommends getting no more than 2300mg sodium per day. On day 2, you have no sodium content for your cheese sandwich or your deli sandwich which I'm estimating will be over 600mg sodium each. This again puts your over the daily recommended intake. It's the same thing on day 3 and 4.

    You've already mentioned the swelling in your fingers. This is a telltale sign of eating too much salt. Is your blood pressure up as well? You're definitely retaining water with the amount of sodium you ingest per day, and if you want to see a few scale pounds (not necessarily fat, but water weight) decrease this week, keep your sodium levels below 2000mg per day. I'd wager you'd see the scale drop by 5lbs in 7 days with this one change alone (provided you're eating the right number of calories).
    Keep in mind, one binge day can set you back three or four days before: a) you burn off the extra calories; and b) your metabolism returns to normal function.

    Quick tips for eating less sodium: stay away from fast foods, processed foods, packaged foods, extra cheese; eat more fresh, whole foods; log your intake accurately. Don't use other user's nutrition info for "homemade" foods because their recipe will vary from yours. If you're having a cheese sandwich, either create a recipe for it and log that, or individually log the specific bread and cheese you used plus the toppings and condiments.

    To be honest, if you're wondering where you've gone wrong these past five days, and you're impatient that you haven't lost enough weight already (especially based on how you've been eating), you have some research to do about how to eat, exercise, and most importantly, create goals and expectations. Luckily, all that information can be found on the MFP forums, and you can always create your own topics when you can't find something.
  • A_Fit_Mom
    A_Fit_Mom Posts: 602 Member
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    Congrats on starting this journey. First I would say, never compare your self with the way men lose weight.

    Also, I would say not eat out so much. You have come under your goals most days...but you could probably exchange the calories with healthier food. Also, the calories that McDonald says is in there food..is not always correct. I watch something on youtube a while back, about how much the nutritional info is off at the fast food places.

    Also, make sure your calculating your exercise calories correctly. Maybe get a HRM, if you don't already have one.



    Good luck , you never know, you could drop 4 pounds next week. :)
  • Chereese1221
    Chereese1221 Posts: 4 Member
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    You guys are soooo friggin awesome! I figured the sodium intake was what was killing my efforts. When I think of sodium, I don't think of what's already in it; I think of that salt shaker and someone constantly putting salt on before they even taste the food. That's not me. Although I don't have BP issues, it runs in my family. My mother has CHF and her BP is off the charts and Im constantly telling her to watch her sodium intake and look at me. :mad: I will make it a point to watch my sodium. As far as label reading, I am just reading the calories, not paying attention to fat, sodium, etc. THIS CRAP IS HARD...but the effort will be worth it when I can fit into my wedding dress. I LOATHE exercise although I do enjoy my morning walk. I started doing 2-a-days. I will DEFINITELY drink more water and count all of it because I usually count my 64oz bottle and the 2 cups I drink with each meal; I don't include the water I just randomly drink.

    I tried to develop my own meal plan; the fast food (Subway, McDonald's, American Deli) were impulsive spur of the moment decisions bc I let myself get too hungry. (Except for American Deli; I was just being a gluttonous fool that day. I had a craving and it seems as if NOTHING would satisfy it.) Is there a topic or section with pre-made meal plans bc apparently Im too 'NEW' to do it on my own. Also, I think Im sabotaging myself by looking at the big picture/long term instead of taking it week by week or even day by day. Someone mentioned my diary being public; I did that to make myself accountable and apparently there are a few things I need to tweak.

    Definitely a lot of food for thought (low calorie, low sodium food :laugh: ) Thanks again for your help. I will add you all as friends bc as you can see, I definitely need your support.
  • majope
    majope Posts: 1,325 Member
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    First I commend you for making it through your 1st week and logging honestly every single day, even the day you went over. It made it easy for me to tell you that this week, because of the one measly day that you went over, it killed the deficit you had all week. You were in deficit of 1,028 but went over by 1,161 on your over day. That's why there was no loss.
    What? No. This is NOT how it works. Her deficit is built in already--it assumes she's eating every calorie every day, not leaving anything in the "Remaining" column. The amount that she underate (1129, not 1028) over the course of the week almost exactly cancels out the amount she went over that one day--she ended up 32 calories over for the week (well, Monday-Saturday, Sunday isn't logged yet) which is virtually spot-on.

    So she should have lost exactly what she set up her MFP account to lose. And if her numbers are correct, quite probably has, only the scale isn't showing it due to water retention.
  • kristijean
    kristijean Posts: 36 Member
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    Some great advice here. I agree 100% with dont compare yourself to your hubby, this is a huge mistake and can get frustrating. They have different DNA, burn different and ABSOLUTELY drop it more quickly. I now my husband lost 80 while I was losing so slowly. Also following an eating plan and workout regimen that go together can remove temptations and fueling your body with the wrong things and also getting it to burn the right way.

    I have been working with people doing this and preparing my June group. If you want more info message me kristijean@charter.net
  • aszwarc
    aszwarc Posts: 200 Member
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    The sodium is a sneaky b**tard. It seems counter-intuitive, but one of the ways to help counter water retention because of high sodium is to actually drink MORE water. It helps dilute the sodium in your body so it's flushed out faster.
  • Chereese1221
    Chereese1221 Posts: 4 Member
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    The sodium is a sneaky b**tard. It seems counter-intuitive, but one of the ways to help counter water retention because of high sodium is to actually drink MORE water. It helps dilute the sodium in your body so it's flushed out faster.

    :laugh: Apparently it is!!! Im gonna up my water!