I just want a success story already :(

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  • Belinda658
    Belinda658 Posts: 181 Member
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    You don't know if you were eating 1680 calories because you don't weigh and measure your food. Don't change your target, measure to see what you're *actually* consuming, and after 4 weeks the scale hasn't budged, then lower your target.

    This...also taking measurements was a real eye opener for me
  • Saaaam42
    Saaaam42 Posts: 154 Member
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    You don't know if you were eating 1680 calories because you don't weigh and measure your food. Don't change your target, measure to see what you're *actually* consuming, and after 4 weeks the scale hasn't budged, then lower your target.
    Gotcha...I feel like after logging for 230+ days you get a good idea of how to estimate though. I'll be picking up a food scale.
  • MyChocolateDiet
    MyChocolateDiet Posts: 22,281 Member
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    Sadly I love my food as well but thats why I make on healthy meal and drink protein shakes with fat free milk instead. they are so thick and nasty you wont want to eat.

    good luck!
    Did you mean to say "tasty"? :D

    in for thick and nasty.
  • elleryjones
    elleryjones Posts: 88 Member
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    I do believe that you have your plan figured out by now. I just wanted to pop in and give a virtual hug for the job situation. How unbelievably stressful that must be. :flowerforyou:

    Hopefully you get swooped up by someone bigger and better, offering better pay. ;)
  • ILiftHeavyAcrylics
    ILiftHeavyAcrylics Posts: 27,732 Member
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    You don't know if you were eating 1680 calories because you don't weigh and measure your food. Don't change your target, measure to see what you're *actually* consuming, and after 4 weeks the scale hasn't budged, then lower your target.
    Gotcha...I feel like after logging for 230+ days you get a good idea of how to estimate though. I'll be picking up a food scale.

    No offense intended, but that doesn't mean you're good at estimating. I'm terrible at estimating and I've been logging with a food scale for 7 months.

    This study actually shows that even dieticians underestimate their calories, and non-dieticians underestimate by 400 calories per day.

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12396160
  • Saaaam42
    Saaaam42 Posts: 154 Member
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    I do believe that you have your plan figured out by now. I just wanted to pop in and give a virtual hug for the job situation. How unbelievably stressful that must be. :flowerforyou:

    Hopefully you get swooped up by someone bigger and better, offering better pay. ;)
    Thank you! I'm adjusting to being unemployed and sleeping until noon every day, haha. My boyfriend is so insanely supportive it's ridiculous... It's nice to give my yellow lab the 3 walks a day he deserves.
  • NovemberJune
    NovemberJune Posts: 2,525 Member
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    You don't know if you were eating 1680 calories because you don't weigh and measure your food. Don't change your target, measure to see what you're *actually* consuming, and after 4 weeks the scale hasn't budged, then lower your target.
    Gotcha...I feel like after logging for 230+ days you get a good idea of how to estimate though. I'll be picking up a food scale.

    Well I think if you'd been measuring for 230 days then you might have a good idea of weights lol. ;) But, like for potatoes, if I log a medium baked potato vs actually weighing the potato, it's a big difference. What I consider to be a medium baked potato is actually more like an extra large baked potato -so way more calories. And before I started weighing my peanut butter, I was using way more than I thought and for high cal things like that, it adds up fast. Now that I've been weighing for a long time, I think I'm good at guessing but I definitely couldn't have guessed that my potato was actually 300 g not 150 g before I started measuring...Oh, another good example is bananas. I used to always just log medium bananas. Turns out almost every banana I eat is a large or extra large banana. :wink:
  • MyChocolateDiet
    MyChocolateDiet Posts: 22,281 Member
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    You don't know if you were eating 1680 calories because you don't weigh and measure your food. Don't change your target, measure to see what you're *actually* consuming, and after 4 weeks the scale hasn't budged, then lower your target.
    Gotcha...I feel like after logging for 230+ days you get a good idea of how to estimate though. I'll be picking up a food scale.

    No offense intended, but that doesn't mean you're good at estimating. I'm terrible at estimating and I've been logging with a food scale for 7 months.

    This study actually shows that even dieticians underestimate their calories, and non-dieticians underestimate by 400 calories per day.

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12396160



    Yeah, get that food scale. It may be THE answer for you. Good luck :flowerforyou:
  • PlayerHatinDogooder
    PlayerHatinDogooder Posts: 1,018 Member
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    You don't know if you were eating 1680 calories because you don't weigh and measure your food. Don't change your target, measure to see what you're *actually* consuming, and after 4 weeks the scale hasn't budged, then lower your target.
    Gotcha...I feel like after logging for 230+ days you get a good idea of how to estimate though. I'll be picking up a food scale.

    No offense intended, but that doesn't mean you're good at estimating. I'm terrible at estimating and I've been logging with a food scale for 7 months.

    This study actually shows that even dieticians underestimate their calories, and non-dieticians underestimate by 400 calories per day.

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12396160

    I have to agree.

    The fact that you're overweight is probably a pretty good indication that you're not good at estimating. I can easily convince myself that 150 grams of ice cream is only 75 grams.

    Invest in a food scale.
  • EmilyOfTheSun
    EmilyOfTheSun Posts: 1,548 Member
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    Are you sure you're logging accurately? Get a food scale to ensure accuracy.
  • SpazQ
    SpazQ Posts: 104
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    Calorie counting is so frustrating when people are pulling you in all different directions...Never eat less than 1200, never eat less than 1600, never eat more than 2000 calories a day....gggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

    It does not have to be that complicated. Weigh your food - eat to the 1,680 you have set yourself (seems a reasonable target). Give it a few weeks and tweak accordingly. You will probably find you have been eating more than you think from not weighing and measuring.

    This! If you aren't measuring then you really have no idea if the numbers you are working with are correct.
  • ItsCasey
    ItsCasey Posts: 4,022 Member
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    First of all - I am not a newbie. I have logged over 230 days on MyFitnessPal, consecutively and honestly.
    Second of all - I eat food. My goal is 1680 per day, NOT 1200.
    And lastly - I exercise frequently, both cardio (running or bike riding) and strength training.

    I'm 5'4 and started at 158, I am now around 152.

    SO...why have I only lost 6lbs? I'm getting really discouraged. I need some MFP advice right now, and maybe some lovin.

    Please...be gentle.

    Thanks in advance... :smooched:

    I really want to reply to you because I was in the same situation, for the most part. I lost a ton of weight over a period of about two years, and then it just stopped. I was working out hard, I was eating right, and I was still gaining and losing the same 4 pounds over and over again.

    One of my problems, I knew, was that I hated my training program. I despised going home and training every day, so I started there. In December of last year, I rented a garage space and moved all the strength training equipment I had in there, put down some foam flooring, put up a white board to plan my training program, and I got to work. I also bought more strength training equipment because I came to realize that heavy lifting was my thing. I also increased my calories and started intermittent fasting. It's been about six weeks on my current program, and I have lost 5 lbs, which is a lot for me because I am close to goal. And more importantly, I LOVE training now. Having my own space where I can go whenever I want, put in my earphones, and just smash weights has made all the difference for me.

    I might also suggest that you are not eating enough. I eat more than you (roughly 1800 calories per day), and I'm smaller than you. You probably also work out more than I do, as I only spend about 3.5 hour per week training. Something else I have been doing lately, though it wasn't planned, is increasing my fat macro %, and that really sped up the weight loss for me (a little more so than I want, to be honest ... trying really hard not to lose muscle).

    Just my thoughts.

    It should also be noted that I weigh and measure everything religiously, so I have no doubt about my intake.
  • CoderGal
    CoderGal Posts: 6,800 Member
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    First of all - I am not a newbie. I have logged over 230 days on MyFitnessPal, consecutively and honestly.
    Second of all - I eat food. My goal is 1680 per day, NOT 1200.
    And lastly - I exercise frequently, both cardio (running or bike riding) and strength training.

    I'm 5'4 and started at 158, I am now around 152.

    SO...why have I only lost 6lbs? I'm getting really discouraged. I need some MFP advice right now, and maybe some lovin.

    Please...be gentle.

    Thanks in advance... :smooched:
    Because this is all based on averages, and you're not measuring your food (as you said in a later post), which is going to be fairly inaccurate. I recommend getting a digital weight scale, they're fairly cheap. I was OK and "around" the mark on some of my foods, but I found that after having the weight scale for a while...my portions were wayyy off...even if I stop using it for a while my vision starts to skew.
  • BeachIron
    BeachIron Posts: 6,490 Member
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    You don't know if you were eating 1680 calories because you don't weigh and measure your food. Don't change your target, measure to see what you're *actually* consuming, and after 4 weeks the scale hasn't budged, then lower your target.
    Gotcha...I feel like after logging for 230+ days you get a good idea of how to estimate though. I'll be picking up a food scale.

    No offense intended, but that doesn't mean you're good at estimating. I'm terrible at estimating and I've been logging with a food scale for 7 months.

    This study actually shows that even dieticians underestimate their calories, and non-dieticians underestimate by 400 calories per day.

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12396160

    I have to agree.

    The fact that you're overweight is probably a pretty good indication that you're not good at estimating. I can easily convince myself that 150 grams of ice cream is only 75 grams.

    Invest in a food scale.

    ^ This. Frankly, I've been doing this a while and I still find that standard servings of certain foods are disappointingly small. Weigh a serving of cereal or ice cream (not measuring by cups) and you'll see what I mean.
  • purpleprose78
    purpleprose78 Posts: 40
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    Maybe it is time to stop focusing on the scale for awhile. You're "only" 10 lbs overweight for your height which means that it can be tougher to lose. Your original post says that you want a success story. Success doesn't only come in the the form of movement on the scale. Could you work on changing your body composition instead? Try to do something more fitness-y? Let the weight take care of itself?
  • foleyshirley
    foleyshirley Posts: 1,043 Member
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    Eat healthy, log accurately. As a side note, not losing weight as a sedentary 5'4, 158 with 1700 cals seems about right.

    She isn't sedentary, according to her initial post.
  • foleyshirley
    foleyshirley Posts: 1,043 Member
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    You don't know if you were eating 1680 calories because you don't weigh and measure your food. Don't change your target, measure to see what you're *actually* consuming, and after 4 weeks the scale hasn't budged, then lower your target.

    This! Measuring should be the first thing you change! I doubt that 1680 is maintenance if you are active.
  • jwdieter
    jwdieter Posts: 2,582 Member
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    Eat healthy, log accurately. As a side note, not losing weight as a sedentary 5'4, 158 with 1700 cals seems about right.

    She isn't sedentary, according to her initial post.

    Depends how you look at it. For some people, working up a light sweat a few times a week, while sitting for 12 hours/day, is frequent exercise. If she's been severely miscalculating food intake, maybe that's the issue. Maybe she's actually eating her maintenance at 1680. That's a decent chunk of food for a non-muscular 5'4 lady.
  • smn76237
    smn76237 Posts: 318 Member
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    I'm a 5'0 lady and lose weight eating more than 1900 calories a day. I sit on my *kitten* 10 hours a day but exercise after work. Maintenance for a 21 year old 5'4 totally sedentary female would be much closer to 1800, not 1680. And she's not sedentary. Until she starts measuring her food, don't keep trying to convince her 1680 is maintenance.
    Eat healthy, log accurately. As a side note, not losing weight as a sedentary 5'4, 158 with 1700 cals seems about right.

    She isn't sedentary, according to her initial post.

    Depends how you look at it. For some people, working up a light sweat a few times a week, while sitting for 12 hours/day, is frequent exercise. If she's been severely miscalculating food intake, maybe that's the issue. Maybe she's actually eating her maintenance at 1680. That's a decent chunk of food for a non-muscular 5'4 lady.

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