Eating 1500 calories a day, exercising and still not losing

piggler65 · July 2013

I have been eating less than 1500 calories a day and exercising but I still dont appear to be losing.

Feel free to check my diary. I pretty much eat oatmeal and fruit maybe some toast with it for breakfast and then in the late afternoon or evening eat a cooked meal usually consisting of rice, vegetables and pulse.

I usually do 10 to 20 minutes of intensive interval type training in the park or go for 3 mile walk at a good pace. I do daily press ups too.

I started to lose in the first week but now after 3 weeks I seem to have gone up in weight by 5 pounds.

I tried tracking carbs by grams by find that hard to do and so now I track total calories.

Surely I should be losing eating less than 1500 calories as a man and I am just over 6 foot tall.

What am I doing wrong? Why am I gaining weight?

mockchoc · July 2013

Eat closer to 2000 than the 1200 approximately that I see you are eating quite a lot of the time in the past couple of weeks. I didn't go back further than that but it's just not enough even for a short, older woman like me let alone a six foot man! Your body is holding onto the fat because it think you are trying to starve it.

You really should work out what you should be eating properly. See this:

http://www.fitnessfrog.com/calculators/tdee-calculator.html

or this:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/975025-in-place-of-a-road-map-short-n-sweet

kju52 · July 2013

First of all, for a 6ft+ guy you're eating too little.

I would up the calories to at least 1800

eat more often, not only twice a day

WATCH YOUR MACROS

every meal that you take in is super high in carbs and extremely low in protein,
how is your body going to recover from working out and improve?

You said you didn't like watching the grams of carbs you take in but that's a stupid idea.

Also with all the white rice and sugar your blood sugar levels must be way up there not having enough greens, fiber, protein and HEALTHY fats to balance it out.

I say.. take a new approach. eat regularly, more (1800 on days where you do nothing and on workout days a lot more!) and more often, fix the macros, set your goal percentages and stick to them, eat fresh, maybe trade in the white rice and the sugary marmelade and things like that?!

The energy you burn in your workouts are the carbloads you take in and not fat.

Hope this helped.
Good Luck

james123567 · July 2013

weight loss is a simple equation.
(BMR + exercise) - calries consumed, if the result is positive you'll be gainimg weight, negative and you lose weight. Healthy weight loss is 1-2 lbs/week.
~3500 calories is 1 lb of fat. Running a calorie deficit of 500 calories/day is approx 1 lb/week. It is this simple, MFP provides you with a BMR. Best wishes with your weight loss.
james white
CNA/BS MBON/UMD

mimieon · July 2013

Yep, try increasing your calories to whatever you calculated based on the road map linked in a post before me. If eating more is hard for you, you could increase gradually, for instance a 100 calories every few days.

I don't think that you have to worry too much about changing what you now regularly eat for breakfast and dinner, just add in lunch and make it mostly healthy fat, fiber, and protein. Maybe a nice avocado-chicken salad?

Oh, and the weight gain may be mostly water weight, from the exercise. Water and carbs (actually glycogen) like to hang out together too. I know not a lot of people advise this, because some people find this difficult mentally, but you may want to start weighing yourself every day. Then you will learn what normal (water) weight fluctuations look like for you. For instance, I tend to fluctuate approximately 0.5 kg (about 1 pound), and I gain waterweight especially when I was high on sodium or if I exercised hard the previous days. You are much taller than me and a guy, so your waterweight gains may be larger as well.

yarwell · July 2013

I tried tracking carbs by grams by find that hard to do and so now I track total calories.

Surely I should be losing eating less than 1500 calories as a man and I am just over 6 foot tall.

What am I doing wrong? Why am I gaining weight?

Are you a vegetarian ? and how heavy are you.

You should try to eat at least 100g of protein a day, as evidence says this is better for weight loss and preservation of lean mass.

Also get your fat intake up - there are essential fats you have to eat. Eat some walnuts, for example, to get Omega-3 fats.

Currently you have a diet very high in carbohydrates. It's like you're on a glucose drip. It's likely you have high blood sugar levels - has this been tested ? High carb intake = high insulin levels = inhibited fat release from storage.

1500 should be fine for weight loss, but it's the composition of the 1500 that needs attention.

Szena · July 2013

First of all, for a 6ft+ guy you're eating too little.

I would up the calories to at least 1800

eat more often, not only twice a day

WATCH YOUR MACROS

every meal that you take in is super high in carbs and extremely low in protein,
how is your body going to recover from working out and improve?

You said you didn't like watching the grams of carbs you take in but that's a stupid idea.

Also with all the white rice and sugar your blood sugar levels must be way up there not having enough greens, fiber, protein and HEALTHY fats to balance it out.

I say.. take a new approach. eat regularly, more (1800 on days where you do nothing and on workout days a lot more!) and more often, fix the macros, set your goal percentages and stick to them, eat fresh, maybe trade in the white rice and the sugary marmelade and things like that?!

The energy you burn in your workouts are the carbloads you take in and not fat.

Hope this helped.
Good Luck

Some very good advise in her post.

I would also say to spread the calorie intake over the day, 1700 - 1800 is perfect for 6" tall.
make small meal 6 of 300 calories each for instance and make sure you eat loads of vegetables.
try to stick to 250g of carb, 50 fat and 100g of proteins.
~ Avoid all sugars except from fruits

Joehenny · July 2013

I have been eating less than 1500 calories a day and exercising but I still dont appear to be losing.

Feel free to check my diary. I pretty much eat oatmeal and fruit maybe some toast with it for breakfast and then in the late afternoon or evening eat a cooked meal usually consisting of rice, vegetables and pulse.

I usually do 10 to 20 minutes of intensive interval type training in the park or go for 3 mile walk at a good pace. I do daily press ups too.

I started to lose in the first week but now after 3 weeks I seem to have gone up in weight by 5 pounds.

I tried tracking carbs by grams by find that hard to do and so now I track total calories.

Surely I should be losing eating less than 1500 calories as a man and I am just over 6 foot tall.

What am I doing wrong? Why am I gaining weight?

You should be hemorrhaging weight.

Sionii · July 2013

about 2 weeks ago i was wondering the same. I was eating 1,200 and excersising and just not loosing - since then i eat all my calories back (sometimes eating 2000 cals a day) and i've lost 4 pounds in 2 weeks. so for me it was eat more and loose the weight - it might work for you too!

piggler65 · July 2013

I will check the link thanks - but eat more? I think I eat a lot and I am trying to hold it down? I will have a think and reconsider this! thanks for checking my diary out.

piggler65 · July 2013

thanks for checking out my diary - I am still trying to wrap my head around having to eat more - its an unbelievable thought to me.

piggler65 · July 2013

agreed its a simple equation - I am eating less than 1500 calories are you suggesting I cut it back until I start losing?

piggler65 · July 2013

thanks that's good to hear because I have not mentioned this but I look better and feel like I am losing its just the scales are the not in line with what I believe is happening.

piggler65 · July 2013

Ok I am a vegan. I weigh now 197 pounds - I thought I my diet was healthy and balanced but I will consider your suggestions thanks

TavistockToad · July 2013

LOADS more protein, more fat and just more food in general!

piggler65 · July 2013

thanks for this

yarwell · July 2013

Ok I am a vegan. I weigh now 197 pounds - I thought I my diet was healthy and balanced but I will consider your suggestions thanks

First overweight vegan I've encountered :-)

Go to http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/change_goals_custom set your protein to 35%, fats to 30% and carbs to 35%. That's a lot more balanced then the 15 / 30 / 55 you are on now.

There's no need to eat more, that's not evidence based.

grimendale · July 2013

thanks that's good to hear because I have not mentioned this but I look better and feel like I am losing its just the scales are the not in line with what I believe is happening.

If you feel like you're losing, you might be. When you start to work out, you retain water and glycogen in your muscles, which are very dense. This retention can offset any fat losses on the scale and keep the scale from moving, or push it in the wrong direction. Losses in inches will still show up, however, so a tape measure is the preferred tracking method. The scale can lie.

I know it seems counter-intuitive, but you want to eat more to maximize fat loss. Your body burns calories in the form of fat and muscles, but the ratio of the two can shift depending on whether you do resistance training and how close to your maintenance calories you eat. When you run a small deficit, your body tends to take mostly from fat cells since the muscle cells are being utilized and no long term shortage is anticipated. When you eat at a large deficit for extended periods, your body shifts the ratio to mostly muscle cells. Muscle requires more calories to maintain than fat, so if a long term shortage is expected by your body, you will hold on to fat cells as an inexpensive energy reserve. A small deficit combined with resistance training will maximize fat loss and minimize muscle loss.