Why can't I lose weight?
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Maybe your muscles are toning up? So losing fat, but replacing with muscle mass
No! Just no. You don't gain muscle on a calorie deficit.
Actually you can have noob gains if you never lifted seriously before.0 -
No it doesn't unless you have changed the laws of physics.Muscle weighs more then fat.
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Weight loss fluctuates week to week due to water weight fluctuations. So you either retained some water and lost some fat or your eating too much. One of the two
Before you speak on how much someone is eating, could you please have a look at their food diary? Please, for future reference. There are way too many people on here with food disorders already only eating 500 calories and if you tell them that, they are going to take it to heart (not this guy, but others). This guy is obviously not eating too much either, however. He is not eating enough.0 -
Walking is a great exercise, but your body is quite adept at walking and expends very little from it. In my opinion, and I would imagine most professionals, walking cannot really be considered cardio exercise. For exercise to be cardio, it needs to significantly raise your heartbeat, which is hard to get from just walking - even speed walking. If you could sing to yourself during your walk, it's not cardio. It's exercise, don't get me wrong, but the benefit to the heart is negligible. Also the body adapts quickly to exercise. What might have worked before might not work now. My advice: ramp up the intensity. Get your heart rate up. Mix in some runs/jogs. Have some high intensity sections in your workout (I personally love the app ZombieRun). This is what I had to do to blast myself off of a plateau. Good luck!0
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(I personally love the app ZombieRun).
This app is so much fun.0 -
Wow. Just wow. Some of the answers were meant to be jokes, apparently... but they failed miserably. Looking at your diary, I am curious as to how many calories you are netting? It LOOKS like you may eat 1700 calories... but then you burn 1500.... If that's the case... you are only giving your body 200 calories to fuel your normal every-day activity. Would you tell a couch potato to stop eating and only eat 200 calories per day, just because they were not exercising? No. Because it's way too little for proper nutrition! Same goes for you. You should be netting at least your BMR. If you don't know what that is, please have it calculated. And please, do not take to heart some of the idiotic "advice" given earlier!
I'm going to quote myself because people are still giving random advice without even looking at your diary. :noway:0 -
1) Agreed - some weeks you will loose nothing for whatever reason, and then another week the scale will suddenly jump down two pounds.
2) Agreed - when first starting new routines, the body resists and actually tries to hold onto fat - but once the routine is established as regular, the body will stop fighting it so much.
*3) When you say you eat back some of the exercise calories, how do you know how many calories you burned? Machines typically overrate the calories burned. When I got a heart monitor, I discovered that at my 3.8 pace, I was burning only about 70 calories per mile, but the machine told me closer to 90 calories! Yikes - that's a 20 calorie difference. Over the course of 5 miles, that's a 100 calorie difference. Not to mention that my normal maintenance calories burned in an hour is 100 calories (I only burn about 40 calories per hour in my sleep according to my heart monitor, and about 90 to 100 during my waking hours) - so I subtract 100 calories from the calorie read-out because I would have burnt those calories anyway if I had not been intentionally exercising. In other words, if I walk for 5 miles for 90 mins and the calorie read-out is, say, around 450 on the machine - I disregard that and check my monitor. My monitor may say 350 calories. Now, because I walked for 90 minutes, I subtract the 150 calories that I would have burnt anyways had I been doing my regular activities (which is NOT just sitting, I do have an active job - it is likely that may only burn 60 to 90 calories per hour depending on your job) - so in reality, I have only burned 200 calories over-and-beyond what I normally would have. Make sense? Try getting a monitor and see how many calories you burn while sleeping for 3 hours, working for 3 hours, and being at home for 3 hours in addition to exercising so that you can figure out your true maintenance calories per hour. If you do this, you will burn through the battery pretty quickly - so have a second battery handy - but realize that you only need to do this once, then only wear the monitor for workouts.0 -
nygr8guy I'm glad you posted this because I've been wondering the same thing the past couple of days! It sounds like water retention is the popular diagnosis - which is very frustrating but nice to know it's a temporary hang up. Thank you for posting this and to everyone for their helpful ideas and posts!0
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You could possibly have added a little muscle and retained some water, but if that's not the case, you might need to go and get bloodwork done to make sure everything is ok. But I think if you just give it another week or so, you might be happily surprised.
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Maybe your muscles are toning up? So losing fat, but replacing with muscle mass
No! Just no. You don't gain muscle on a calorie deficit.
yes you can. you might be eating a calorie deficit, but your body is still operating at calorie parity. it takes what it needs to make up the deficit from your fat.
thats how fat loss works.
if you had very low body fat, and you ate a deficit, yes, you won't put on muscle mass. but when you have a casino buffet worth of body fat, like those of us trying desperately to lose weight often do, as long as you are getting the protein needed for building blocks, your body will take from it's fat reserves for energy.
thats how fat loss works.
Fat loss and building muscles are 2 different things, dude.0 -
Thanks to all who contributed to this thread. I have a lot to digest! :-) I am going to eat more, make sure I track everything that goes on the lips so it doesn't wind up on the hips and keep on exercising. Lifting weights is out right now due to a shoulder injury.
I will also watch my sodium, fat. (lower sodium, more fat)0 -
I'm baffled. I walked approximately 5 miles on my treadmill every day this week, ate within my calorie allotment plus I ate some of my exercise calories. The scale didn't budge. It's not like I'm eating crap either, pretty much all healthy foods.
I'm not on medication, I drink lots of water.
This just kills my motivation because I work so hard to eat right and exercise, and I get no results, so I think why bother?
Anyone have any suggestions? It would be much appreciated!
OP - When you track your walking, you are setting the time and duration, right? Just trying to make sure that your're not 'double counting' with your fitbit. If it doesn't know that you tracked that you burned 700 calories taking a walk (for example) it will count them as well, meaning you would have 1400 burned calories you could eat -- when in reality it should only be 700.
You would still appear to be under-eating, but not by as significant of a margin. It just seems like your exercise + fit bit calories in a day are pretty high for a 5 mile walk - unless, of course, you have a job where you are also very active, which is entirely possible. Or maybe your 'walk' pace is my run pace.
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Weight loss fluctuates week to week due to water weight fluctuations. So you either retained some water and lost some fat or your eating too much. One of the two
Before you speak on how much someone is eating, could you please have a look at their food diary? Please, for future reference. There are way too many people on here with food disorders already only eating 500 calories and if you tell them that, they are going to take it to heart (not this guy, but others). This guy is obviously not eating too much either, however. He is not eating enough.
this person seems to disagree with the laws of thermodynamics. Intradasting.
Ops food diary may say 1700 calories but its likely he is consuming more.. much more. If you are not losing weight nor gaining you have found your maintenance and you need to eat less given your current activity level. It really is that simple. As far as me advancing eating disorders... lol.
OP also said this:
"make sure I track everything that goes on the lips"
do that while eating 1700 calories and come back to us if you don't lose weight. (hint you will)
Also: don't eat back calories.. my experience has been MFP drastically overestimates calories burned. Find a reasonable calorie threshold and eat it every day. Ignore the MFP activity logging its basically useless. No one knows how many calories said calorie burns and its different for everyone. figure out your average TDEE and eat under it consistently. Log everything that touches your lips and you will lose I guarantee it.0 -
good catch.I'm baffled. I walked approximately 5 miles on my treadmill every day this week, ate within my calorie allotment plus I ate some of my exercise calories. The scale didn't budge. It's not like I'm eating crap either, pretty much all healthy foods.
I'm not on medication, I drink lots of water.
This just kills my motivation because I work so hard to eat right and exercise, and I get no results, so I think why bother?
Anyone have any suggestions? It would be much appreciated!
OP - When you track your walking, you are setting the time and duration, right? Just trying to make sure that your're not 'double counting' with your fitbit. If it doesn't know that you tracked that you burned 700 calories taking a walk (for example) it will count them as well, meaning you would have 1400 burned calories you could eat -- when in reality it should only be 700.
You would still appear to be under-eating, but not by as significant of a margin. It just seems like your exercise + fit bit calories in a day are pretty high for a 5 mile walk - unless, of course, you have a job where you are also very active, which is entirely possible. Or maybe your 'walk' pace is my run pace.
i just looked back at his previous posts i didn't know he had a fitbit. one of the posts mentioned he was inputing his walks to MFP so if you are and syncing your fitbit it is most definatly doublediping calories burned.0 -
For a dude, I think you are not eating enough. I see lots of calories left on the table at the end of the day. Lots of opinions on your post. :bigsmile:
Also, I'm about to turn 50. Losing weight is not just about the scale for me. Celebrate the healthy changes you have made, as annoying advice as that may be, and see the scale for what it is.0 -
Thanks to all who contributed to this thread. I have a lot to digest! :-) I am going to eat more, make sure I track everything that goes on the lips so it doesn't wind up on the hips and keep on exercising. Lifting weights is out right now due to a shoulder injury.
I will also watch my sodium, fat. (lower sodium, more fat)
Hi
Just had a quick look at your diary, haven't read all the posts, looks like things might have got a bit heated - this is a topic that stirs people up. I LOVE your choices - you have such a great range of food, so that is not an issue. However, I would say in my opinion that you need to NET more calories, so maybe swap the "diet" type foods for "normal" foods (often you will find that things that are labelled "Low Fat" or "Low sugar" etc usually make up for it in some sneaky way that you don't expect!! :laugh: By eating good choices and getting in your great exercise, things will happen. For me personally it was a revelation that I needed to eat enough, and the weight dropped off. Have hit a plateau for the last few months but not being as careful as I was.
Hope things work out for you.0 -
I do have a Fitbit and use it everyday. I log my exercise on MFP as well, but input the time and the minutes , so hopefully they are not causing duplication. I don't think they were dupliating because the exercise takes away from the Fitbit adjustment numbers.
Today I didn't log my exercise, only synched my fitbit to MFP. I also ate back nearly all my calories.0 -
This morning I ramped up my exercise. Instead of walking the treadmill, I jogged outside. My goal was 5 miles. I guess I did more because towards the last leg of my jog, I discovered that I dropped my Fitbit somewhere. I went back at least a mile and found it. So that's another 2 miles RT. :-)
I must be retaining water because last night is was like I broke my water. I had to go to the bathroom 4 times during the night.
I feel lighter today. :happy: :laugh:0 -
Maybe your muscles are toning up? So losing fat, but replacing with muscle mass
No! Just no. You don't gain muscle on a calorie deficit.
yes you can. you might be eating a calorie deficit, but your body is still operating at calorie parity. it takes what it needs to make up the deficit from your fat.
thats how fat loss works.
if you had very low body fat, and you ate a deficit, yes, you won't put on muscle mass. but when you have a casino buffet worth of body fat, like those of us trying desperately to lose weight often do, as long as you are getting the protein needed for building blocks, your body will take from it's fat reserves for energy.
thats how fat loss works.
umm not quite:
Many people think of weight loss within the context of fat loss, but it is actually a combination of body fat, muscle tissue and whatever substances they contain: in other words, a reduction of total body mass. The body normally does this automatically and without your conscious control. However, it is possible to influence the type of tissue that your body loses over time.
Muscle Loss
When your body faces a calorie deficit, it tends to indiscriminately grab energy from multiple sources. This is due to the fact that both muscles and fat contain energy. However, fat is much more energy-dense -- it contains nine calories per gram, vs. only four calories per gram from other sources -- so your body tends to prefer to use energy from the fat stores just beneath the skin. For this reason weight loss is on average 75 percent fat and 25 percent lean tissue, which means muscles.0 -
I'm baffled. I walked approximately 5 miles on my treadmill every day this week, ate within my calorie allotment plus I ate some of my exercise calories. The scale didn't budge. It's not like I'm eating crap either, pretty much all healthy foods.
I'm not on medication, I drink lots of water.
This just kills my motivation because I work so hard to eat right and exercise, and I get no results, so I think why bother?
Anyone have any suggestions? It would be much appreciated!
How many calories are you thinking you burn for 5 miles walking?
I am wondering if you are overestimating the calories burned. As an example, I burn approximately 500 calories for running five miles, if I walked I would burn around about the same, but of course, it would take longer.0
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