NOT LOSING ANY WEIGHT! PLEAE HELP

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enkennon
enkennon Posts: 161 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi everyone. I am not losing any weight. I had been eating right and exercising like crazy. I was told to increase my caloric intake to see how that goes, so i'm still in week one of that.

Please can anyone tell me some tips on how to get my weight moving at a steady downward pace?? because I've been yo-yoing between 5+/- lbs for 6 months... yes 6 MONTHS!


Thank you,
Erica
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  • arlenem1974
    arlenem1974 Posts: 437 Member
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    I checked your diary. 5 out of 6 days you go over your sodium. I would try and eat less sodium so you don't go over 2500. To much sodium leads to water retention.
  • haymancm
    haymancm Posts: 280 Member
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    What has worked for me:
    -decreasing sodium to 1500 mg/day. Jillian Michael's recommends this amount in one of her books on metabolism.
    -drinking water more than 1/2 your body weight in oz.
    -having a goal to eat potassium 40x your goal weight.
    -HIIT workouts.
  • enkennon
    enkennon Posts: 161 Member
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    oh yes sodium this week was pretty bad because I ate out alot lol! But in general I stay under my sodium goals. I am going to try the 1500mg! That could work!
  • jonnythan
    jonnythan Posts: 10,161 Member
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    Sodium has nothing whatsoever to do with weight loss. 1500 mg a day is a ridiculously low target that's more likely to cause serious problems than it is to fix anything regarding weight loss. 1500 is sort of a super-low compromise that strikes a balance between blood pressure and heart attack risk for people who already have very high blood pressure. If you don't have blood pressure problems you should be getting anywhere from 2000 to 6000 mg a day.

    DO NOT set your sodium target to 1500 mg. http://phys.org/news/2011-05-sodium-intake-riskier-thought.html

    Anyway, looking at your diary, I see an entry of 1000 calories for less than two hours of "strength training"? Where did you get that number? That seems absurdly high. I only add about 50 calories an hour for weightlifting. In fact a lot of your exercise entries seem totally crazy high.
  • enkennon
    enkennon Posts: 161 Member
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    Well I always workout pretty hard! I have a heart rate monitor with the chest strap.. one of the Polar models. All my stats are in there correctly. Is there something else I should be doing? lol
  • jonnythan
    jonnythan Posts: 10,161 Member
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    Well I always workout pretty hard! I have a heart rate monitor with the chest strap.. one of the Polar models. All my stats are in there correctly. Is there something else I should be doing? lol

    I figured an HRM was involved here.

    In my experience and opinion, HRMs vastly overestimate calorie burns in non-athletes. The fact of the matter is that cardiovascular efficiency, as measured by VO2max, varies wildly from person to person. HRMs have to simply guess what your VO2max is in order to turn heartbeats into calorie burns.... and the estimate that HRM manufacturers use is much closer to that of trained athletes than people like you and me. Since they assume your cardiovascular system is so much more efficient than it actually is, it thinks you're burning way more calories than you actually are.

    On top of that, HRMs also vastly overestimate strength training calories burned. Strength training causes a large increase in heart rate, but does not cause a similarly large increase in how many calories you're burning. HRMs should never be used when strength training.

    My first suggestion to you would be to not use the HRM while strength training. Use it only for cardio. Knock 30% off the HRM number before you enter it into MFP.

    Now, all that said, do you use a food scale and measure out everything you eat?
  • enkennon
    enkennon Posts: 161 Member
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    I will try that!
    Yes I do measure everything and I have a food scale. I use the measuring cups more than I use the food scale but I do use both.
  • jonnythan
    jonnythan Posts: 10,161 Member
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    What's your height/weight?

    A note about measuring cups: only use them for liquids like milk or juice. Never use them for anything else, such as ice cream or canned beans or whatever.
  • ckess617
    ckess617 Posts: 69
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    Check your sugar intake, as well. That may need to decrease. You may want to think about getting your thyroid checked, too.

    Above anything else, KEEP GOING!! It's so easy to give up when you're not seeing results quickly, but I guarantee you, it'll happen! Just keep going!
  • jonnythan
    jonnythan Posts: 10,161 Member
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    Check your sugar intake, as well. That may need to decrease. You may want to think about getting your thyroid checked, too.

    Above anything else, KEEP GOING!! It's so easy to give up when you're not seeing results quickly, but I guarantee you, it'll happen! Just keep going!

    Sugar intake is 100% absolutely irrelevant.
  • enkennon
    enkennon Posts: 161 Member
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    yeah I have a huge sweet tooth. A lot of my sugar comes from fruits but a lot of it comes from sweets!! I m going to get my thyroid checked because it shouldn't be this hard! This week is not a very good model of how I usually eat. I was just kind of fed up and quit a little but decided I am more scared of what i'd become if I quit!

    I feel like I;m addicted to sugary sweets candies chocolates etc. does anyone else have this problem?
  • jonnythan
    jonnythan Posts: 10,161 Member
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    I eat more sugar than you. Don't worry about sugar unless it impacts your ability to hit your calorie goal. There's no reason yet to think you may have a thyroid issue. That's highly unlikely.
  • Vorenus85
    Vorenus85 Posts: 112 Member
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    ignore this
  • aldale
    aldale Posts: 118 Member
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    Please be wary of anyone who tells you that you need 2000 to 6000 mg of sodium daily. Most people need to keep their sodium under 2500 mg. If you sweat more than average, you will need more. But please consult a doctor before increasing your sodium intake. Too much sodium can cause health problems. But cutting back on sodium can cause weight loss.
  • DigitalDiana
    DigitalDiana Posts: 157 Member
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    Try a day or two with no carbs..or very little carbs. ( it works in a stall). I would recommend not doing this all the time through as if this becomes a regular thing, when you go back to carbs you will begin to gain back. Just use this when you are stalled out.
  • dittmarml
    dittmarml Posts: 351 Member
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    What's your height and weight?
  • socajam
    socajam Posts: 2,530 Member
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    Please be wary of anyone who tells you that you need 2000 to 6000 mg of sodium daily. Most people need to keep their sodium under 2500 mg. If you sweat more than average, you will need more. But please consult a doctor before increasing your sodium intake. Too much sodium can cause health problems. But cutting back on sodium can cause weight loss.


    I totally agree with you on this. It amazes me the people on here who advises not to worry about sodium, when the implications for too much sodium is complications later in life.
  • JessicaZen
    JessicaZen Posts: 149 Member
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    Looked at your diary for the week and I am just suggesting maybe you are eating back too many of your exercise calories back before I got my HRM I was eating back a lot of my calories and gained 5 pounds in doing so now I try to only eat back a few calories my goal for the day is 1240 calculated by MFP and I try to not do over 1300 if I have worked out hard. I have increased my intensity on my workouts and I have only burned over 500 for an hour apiece on bike and treadmill your calorie burns seem very high. But again that is my opinion and my experience you need to do what you think works for you.:flowerforyou:
  • rene_sf
    rene_sf Posts: 10
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    I use a HRM too, and tend towards agreeing with it overestimating cals burned.
    I stopped losing weight for several months once, had to overhaul my diet AND had to add in new and DIFFERENT exercise routines, and increase my cals by about 200 a day.
  • naku
    naku Posts: 109 Member
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    Wow!

    I cook all my meals myself and been eating the same way for some years now.... most days I don't even get to 1000mg in sodium... on the BAD days I get somewhere around 1500mg and can feel it in my body BIG TIME the next day.

    Didn't realize I was in such a danger...



    LOL.

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