Why am I not losing weight? 1600 calories

Many suggestions seem to imply that we'd have to do daily cooking - which, for my husband and I , is not always realistic. During the summer this might work, but during the school year I get so swamped (and I'm usually the cook, because I'm better at it) that sometimes ordering out is just easier.

Weekly cooking can help a lot. I get large packages of chicken when it is on sale. On a weekend I cook it all, cut it up and portion it into freezer bags. Getting one of those out to add to something is as easy as cooking chicken nuggets, is healthier, and should be cheaper long term. Cook up a roast and slice it for a couple of days worth of meals.

Also, a crock-pot can be your friend if you are short on cooking time.

Ordering out will still be easier (although usually more expensive), you just have to decide.

Where are the veggies? Why are you eating so much processed food?

Those are your two problems.

I agree with all above. Well said :happy:

have you thought of adding sodium to your log? If your going over that will cause water retention.

There is a whole lot of nonsense on this thread, I'm sorry.

You do not have to give up any specific food if you don't want to because there is no specific food that makes you gain or lose weight. It's the amounts you eat that affect weight. (Notice I didn't say well-being - the quality of your food affects that much more - but the quantity is what affects weight, period.) There are no "bad" foods that make you pile on the pounds inherently. Too much of ANYTHING makes you gain weight.

A calorie deficit is ultimately the only thing that will make you lose weight. Yes, you should probably eat more fruits and vegetables *for your well-being*, but that has nothing to do with weight loss. There are weeks where I eat fast food every day and still lose a pound or two because track it and adjust my other food and exercise so that I keep within a calorie deficit. There are Olympic athletes who subsist off a ton of junk food and they're still skinny.

You are not losing weight because you're not creating a calorie deficit. That's really all there is to it.

My guess after looking at your diary is that you're likely eating at maintenance accidentally because you're not measuring the amounts you're eating correctly. Most people tend to WAY underestimate how much they eat. I see things in your diary like peanut butter with "2 TBSP." You would amazed (probably in a bad way) how small a serving of peanut butter actually looks like on a food scale - and I see vague measurements of things like this on your food diary every day, on almost every meal.

If you're not using exact measurements, exact brands and a food scale and using that many condiments, you can easily overeat by 100-200 calories or more PER MEAL, which means you're likely eating at maintenance calories. That's all there really is to it.

Track your food more carefully using a food scale - I bought my digital one for $8 on Amazon - and you'll probably start to lose weight again.

There is a whole lot of nonsense on this thread, I'm sorry.
A calorie deficit is ultimately the only thing that will make you lose weight. Yes, you should probably eat more fruits and vegetables *for your well-being*, but that has nothing to do with weight loss. There are weeks where I eat fast food every day and still lose a pound or two because track it and adjust my other food and exercise so that I keep within a calorie deficit. There are Olympic athletes who subsist off a ton of junk food and they're still skinny.

You are not losing weight because you're not creating a calorie deficit. That's really all there is to it.

My guess after looking at your diary is that you're likely eating at maintenance accidentally because you're not measuring the amounts you're eating correctly. Most people tend to WAY underestimate how much they eat. I see things in your diary like peanut butter with "2 TBSP." You would amazed (probably in a bad way) how small a serving of peanut butter actually looks like on a food scale - and I see vague measurements of things like this on your food diary every day, on almost every meal.

If you're not using exact measurements, exact brands and a food scale and using that many condiments, you can easily overeat by 100-200 calories or more PER MEAL, which means you're likely eating at maintenance calories. That's all there really is to it.

Track your food more carefully using a food scale - I bought my digital one for $8 on Amazon - and you'll probably start to lose weight again.

Another factor? She's trusting the online measurements for all the restaurant food, when independent testers have found you're often served 25 to 50% more than the amount they use for testing. The real reason to eat self prepared food at home isn't just cost or food value for money, its that probably she's erasng her entire deficit with a morning bagel that has way more calories than she is recording.

It's definitely not cheaper to buy fresh vegetables than pre-processed junk, especially if you eat organic, and in some parts of the US that's never been the case. In most of New England, fresh food has to largely be imported and farmer's markets are hipster cesspools where you can easily pay $5 per 2-inch "vegan brownie" and are actually MORE expensive than supermarkets. There is a reason poverty and obesity are linked in this country and it's because it's much cheaper to buy $1 frozen pizzas, $.89 bottle of soda and $3 package of breadsticks than it is to spend $20 or more on salad, vegetables, fresh ingredients, etc.

You can lose weight eating junk, though. People need to stop conflating weight loss with fitness/well-being.

But, yes, exercise would help someone achieve a calorie deficit.

Wow, great suggestions and pointers. I do confess I have a sweet tooth, I just figured if I stay within my 1,600 calories it wouldn't much matter, that a calorie is a calorie. I know there are many schools of thought on that, though.

I don't track sugar (like many of you have suggested) mainly because I'm not sure what kind of level I should be shooting for. I refuse to compromise with the sugar in my coffee, though. I can take coffee without cream, but without sugar, bleck. Maybe I could learn to live with less, though.

What kind of sugar "limit" should I be looking for?

Sugar limits matter. Many people referring to ignoring the sugar in the MFP ap are saying so because the ap gives no way to separate *refined table sugar* from the sugars that naturally occur in fruits and vegetables (treating sucrose, fructose, and glucose -- all sugars -- as one thing). So when people are saying to 'ignore that sugar number', that's not giving the free and clear to eat an unlimited amount of refined sugar. If you're eating more than the sugar alottment MyFitnessPal gives you by eating loads of refined sugar, you are sabotaging your diet. That simple.

Non-glucose sugar is metabolized by your liver. Most of the cells in your body can deal with and use glucose. They CANNOT use fructose. So when you eat sucrose (table sugar) your body metabolizes it by turning it into glucose+fructose... but, again, nothing except your liver can deal with fructose and to do that, your liver turns that fructose into FAT+glucose. So part of table sugar, no matter *what* your caloric load is GOING to be fat at some point because this is the way that your body processes table sugar (and its why those 'low fat' processed foods that replace the fat in the product with sugar are still going be fatty once its metabolized by your liver.) More, if you've exceeded of the amount glucose your body actively needs to function *right now* (meaning if you're Michael Phelps, and burning a ton of glucose while working out at Olympic level, your body can use a lot of glucose before it's more than his body can immediately use but if you're not working out at that level, your body cannot use as much. Period. ) Anyway, if you exceed how much your body can actively when you're eating it, then your body has no choice but to turn even the glucose portion of the sugar into fat because your body cannot take a your blood sugar level exceeding a certain number at any time. That would actually become toxic, so your body releases insulin that triggers your body to store the excess glucose as *fat*.

Put simply, if you're eating more sugar in one meal than your body can actively use your body can only handle it by turning it into fat.

Avoid sugar binges and spread your sugar consumption somewhat evenly through the day, realizing that, yes, the sugar number does generally matter, *especially* if it's in the form of refined sugar (which metabolizes into the body very quickly because it isn't bound with fiber. Sugar bound with fiber (such as in fruit) metabolizes far more slowly, allowing it to be somewhat 'time release' thus helping to avoid a sugar spike that in turn triggers a higher insulin response which in turn leads to storing excess sugar as fat).



Re: sugar in your coffee, I sympathize. I would have made the same comment six months ago.

However, 6 packets of sugar in coffee is rather a lot.

Try cutting back by 1/3. Chances are you won't notice it nearly as much as you think you will. After a couple/few of weeks, cut it by another 1/3. I did that and am now able to drink coffee without sugar. But even if you never go that far, drinking with 2 packs of sugar would be substantially better than drinking it with 6.