Burning calories and still not losing weight

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  • DebbieLyn63
    DebbieLyn63 Posts: 2,650 Member
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    Are you eating 1700 calories plus whatever the treadmill says you burned? I don't believe any of the "calories burned" numbers spit out by exercise equipment, or the ones reported by myfitnesspal database. I definitely don't believe 700 calories burned by walking on a treadmill for an hour. If you're aiming for around 1700 calories, and then eating an additional 500-700 because the treadmill told you burned that much, then you're probably eating way too much to lose weight.

    ^^ This. Also, because your BF% is so high, your BMR is probably a lot lower than the calculator figures for you. And you are probably burning about half the calories the database and machines tell you. Try eating 1600-1700 total, and don't eat back any of your calories. See if that works.

    ETA And weigh and measure everything! Be very diligent on your measuring and logging.
  • TeaBea
    TeaBea Posts: 14,517 Member
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    Are you eating 1687 & then burning 500 ? ..... If so, that leaves you with a NET total of 1187 calories for the day. 1187 calories is not very much.

    Another approach: are you eating 1687 + the 500 calories you burn? MFP asks you to eat exercise calories back because the deficit is built in BEFORE exercise. If this is the case ..... then you need to consider 2 things .... are you really burning 500 calories (machines & MFP can over state calorie burns by quite a bit) OR ...... if you are not weighing (or at least) measuring your food .... your calorie intake maybe higher than you think.
  • shana1925
    shana1925 Posts: 13 Member
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    I drink 8 bottles of water a day. I never eat back all of my workout cal and if I do I only eat half. Its like im doing everything right but its still wrong if that makes since? For breakfast I eat 2 eggs with mushrooms and spinach, a cup of blueberries and I take women one a day multivitamin. At lunch I have either a salad with baby spinach leaves fat free vinagrette only 1tsp a yogurt and a cup of carrots and some fruit...or I might have a turkey breast sandwhich. At dinner il have either salmon or i might eat tons of mix veggies and a turkey burger
  • lagray13
    lagray13 Posts: 7 Member
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    First of all, great job on the strides you've made in your journey thus far. Getting to the point where you're eating healthy and making the effort in the gym is great. However, I can tell you from experience...get off the treadmill, elliptical, etc. Unfortunately, you're not going to get to a point where you're pushing your body to an uncomfortable point. I started working out with a trainer a little over a month ago, and the ONLY time he has me on a machine is during warm up, or if running is part of my circuit that day. Start interval circuit training. Getting your heart rate jacked up, then allowing it to come down for just a bit, while still moving, and then jacking it back up. Good luck! You can do it!
  • charliemalbaurn
    charliemalbaurn Posts: 1 Member
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    the number seems weird. I'm 6'2 and 235 and my daily calories are 1560. I'm guessing you probably calculated more activity than i have.
    My only suggestions is watch what you are eating. Stay away from frozen food and things with a lot of sodium and eat often. My meals consist of 300 for breakfast, 400 for lunch and around 500-600 for dinner. The other calories I eat throughout the day. And I don't eat back the calories that I burn. But i could if i was hungry.
    I'm averaging a healthy 2 pounds a week.

    Hope that helps
  • TeaBea
    TeaBea Posts: 14,517 Member
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    Well I got 1687 by multiplying my weight times 7

    Sorry? Is this how you decided on your calorie target? I don't understand this! What did MFP give you?

    This!^ ..... I don't understand how 1 number (multiplier) can be right for every one.

    Try this calculator .......BMR - basal metabolic rate ..... calories needed if you were in a coma

    http://www.fitnessfrog.com/calculators/bmr-calculator.html
  • jacksonpt
    jacksonpt Posts: 10,413 Member
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    Are you eating 1700 calories plus whatever the treadmill says you burned? I don't believe any of the "calories burned" numbers spit out by exercise equipment, or the ones reported by myfitnesspal database. I definitely don't believe 700 calories burned by walking on a treadmill for an hour. If you're aiming for around 1700 calories, and then eating an additional 500-700 because the treadmill told you burned that much, then you're probably eating way too much to lose weight.

    Why not? They may well be the most accurate. Of course, they could be the least accurate too, but don't discount them just because they come from a piece of cardio equipment.
  • Kettle_Belle14
    Kettle_Belle14 Posts: 246 Member
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    Are you eating 1700 calories plus whatever the treadmill says you burned? I don't believe any of the "calories burned" numbers spit out by exercise equipment, or the ones reported by myfitnesspal database. I definitely don't believe 700 calories burned by walking on a treadmill for an hour. If you're aiming for around 1700 calories, and then eating an additional 500-700 because the treadmill told you burned that much, then you're probably eating way too much to lose weight.



    ^This. Don't believe the numbers on the treadmill, they're LIARS :)
    You should look into HR monitors...more accuracy.
  • shana1925
    shana1925 Posts: 13 Member
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    I got 1687 by the formula used in the biggest loser food journal. And I try to eat 1687 and burn 500 a day. Should I just go off of MFP calories per day for myself? And I set my treadmill on interval training every time I get on it. Two days out of the week I do jillian micheals 30 day shred
  • jacksonpt
    jacksonpt Posts: 10,413 Member
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    Are you eating 1700 calories plus whatever the treadmill says you burned? I don't believe any of the "calories burned" numbers spit out by exercise equipment, or the ones reported by myfitnesspal database. I definitely don't believe 700 calories burned by walking on a treadmill for an hour. If you're aiming for around 1700 calories, and then eating an additional 500-700 because the treadmill told you burned that much, then you're probably eating way too much to lose weight.



    ^This. Don't believe the numbers on the treadmill, they're LIARS :)
    You should look into HR monitors...more accuracy.

    Actually no. The formulas used by HRMs, fitness equipment, websites, etc run the gammut. You can't guarantee one is going to be more accurate than another.

    The best thing to do is to pick one method of estimating burns and use that consistently. Then you can tweak as needed based on comparing actual weight loss results with expected results.
  • DebbieLyn63
    DebbieLyn63 Posts: 2,650 Member
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    Did you just start restricting calories 2 weeks ago, or have you lost some weight already before now. If you have been restricting calories for a while, then you may have just hit a stall. If this is a new calorie restriction, then you should have lost at least a few pounds in 2 weeks. You have to be 100% honest in your logging. If you think you are doing everything right, but you have a couple of cheat days, it can wipe out your calorie deficit. If you open your diary, we can better help you.
  • Mokey41
    Mokey41 Posts: 5,769 Member
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    @sherrimiller12 I do sweat a lot on the treadmill sometimes its hard to keep up with 4.0 and my incline is always at 2. I havent measured my waist and other things and I am 5'7 and if I am building muscle when will I actually start to lose the weight or at least see that im losing on a scale?

    You aren't building muscle that quickly. If you eat back the exercise calories from the machine on top of the calories already allotted and you aren't actually measuring your calorie intake then you have your answer. You may be eating better food but you're still eating too much.
  • jacksonpt
    jacksonpt Posts: 10,413 Member
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    @sherrimiller12 I do sweat a lot on the treadmill sometimes its hard to keep up with 4.0 and my incline is always at 2. I havent measured my waist and other things and I am 5'7 and if I am building muscle when will I actually start to lose the weight or at least see that im losing on a scale?

    You aren't building muscle that quickly. If you eat back the exercise calories from the machine on top of the calories already allotted and you aren't actually measuring your calorie intake then you have your answer. You may be eating better food but you're still eating too much.

    agreed.
  • TeaBea
    TeaBea Posts: 14,517 Member
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    I got 1687 by the formula used in the biggest loser food journal. And I try to eat 1687 and burn 500 a day. Should I just go off of MFP calories per day for myself? And I set my treadmill on interval training every time I get on it. Two days out of the week I do jillian micheals 30 day shred

    Try a couple different multipliers..... MFP will give you numbers based upon the number of pounds you want to lose ..... this maybe too low because many people want to lose weight fast .... too fast.

    Healthy weight loss will have you losing mostly fat .... too fast weight loss will have you losing muscle (which is hard to replace).

    BMR - basal metabolic rate ..... calories needed if you were in a coma .... so you would eat these calories PLUS exercise calories
    http://www.fitnessfrog.com/calculators/bmr-calculator.html
    http://www.fitwatch.com/qkcalc/bmr.html ......

    Be conservative on your exercise calories.... say use 70% of the given number. Then adjust the % used for exercise up or down ... depending upon how your weight loss goes and how you feel.
  • lcfairbairn74
    lcfairbairn74 Posts: 412 Member
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    I got 1687 by the formula used in the biggest loser food journal. And I try to eat 1687 and burn 500 a day. Should I just go off of MFP calories per day for myself? And I set my treadmill on interval training every time I get on it. Two days out of the week I do jillian micheals 30 day shred

    Try a couple different multipliers..... MFP will give you numbers based upon the number of pounds you want to lose ..... this maybe too low because many people want to lose weight fast .... too fast.

    Healthy weight loss will have you losing mostly fat .... too fast weight loss will have you losing muscle (which is hard to replace).

    BMR - basal metabolic rate ..... calories needed if you were in a coma .... so you would eat these calories PLUS exercise
    http://www.fitnessfrog.com/calculators/bmr-calculator.html
    http://www.fitwatch.com/qkcalc/bmr.html ......

    Be conservative on your exercise .... say use 70% of the given number. Then adjust the % used for exercise up or down ... depending upon how your weight loss goes and how you feel.

    I had honestly never heard of that method of calculating your daily calorie allowance! If I had used that system at my starting weight I would have been eating at maintenance and not lost anything! :wink:

    Pick one of the other systems. Either your mfp number or using the TDEE calculators as given by the OP above :smile:
  • shana1925
    shana1925 Posts: 13 Member
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    I was losing weight before I started restricting my calories. I was 252 about 1 and 1/2 month ago. And then I when I hit 241 I started trying something different with the whole calorie intake thing
  • jacksonpt
    jacksonpt Posts: 10,413 Member
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    I was losing weight before I started restricting my calories. I was 252 about 1 and 1/2 month ago. And then I when I hit 241 I started trying something different with the whole calorie intake thing

    Why? If what you were doing before was working, why did you change it?
  • kw85296
    kw85296 Posts: 265 Member
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    You said you haven't lost anything in two weeks, but your ticker says you lost 8 pounds. Did you lose that prior to the two weeks and are at a stall or do you not consider that a weight loss because your boyfriend lost 11 pounds during that time. Men will lose faster than women because of their muscle mass. If you lost prior to the past two weeks are you doing things any differently? Even on the Biggest Loser you will see that week two or three tend to be a little bit of a stall because your body is trying to get used to things. I think your daily calories are probably fine from what I can figure without knowing your height. Give it another couple of weeks, if you still don't see any loss, you may want to get checked out by a doctor to make sure there is nothing medically preventing you from losing. Feel free to friend me if you would like.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,867 Member
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    The 1687 doesnt include the calories I eat back from exercise. And I usually dont measure. I eat meat baked boneless skinless chicken breast 2 times a week and they are individually wrapped. And I eat baked fish salmon mostly 2 times a week which are also individually wrapped.

    How many exercise calories are you eating back...something is off somewhere. You shoudl be losing. I lose grossing 2300 calories per day and I'm only 5'10"
  • SandyAnnP
    SandyAnnP Posts: 251 Member
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    I would head over to scoobysworkshop.com and try that calorie calculator. Lots of people have great results using it if you use accurate info.

    Thanks for that info. Looks like a great site. :)

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