Is science failing me here??

You may not be losing weight due to adaptive thermogenesis. Your body can adapt to function on a smaller amount of calories

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20935667

I'm no expert, but adding more resistance/interval training and increasing your protein to at least 1 gm per pound of lean body mass may help. Sometimes you need to change it up and keep your body guessing! Also, your carbs seem kinda high IMHO. MFP macros are not gospel, experiment to see what works for you.

Also YES like everyone is saying, your calories are too low! Eat more, but make it protein :-)

muscle weighs 4x more than fat

Where did you pull this from? Not even close...

This!
A pound is a pound. 1 pound of muscle weighs 1 pound ; 1 pound of fat weighs 1 pound. Muscle is more dense and therefore takes up less space than fat, but it DOES NOT weigh more. If you are losing fat and gaining muscle it is possible for the scale to stay the same, but your clothes could start fitting more loosely. The scale alone is not necessarily a good measure. Take your some measurements once/month and see if things are changing.

Also, if you're really being true to eating and fitness goals without sucess, consider seeing your doctor. Its a long shot, but underactive thyroid can be an issue with metabolism and weight loss.

I'm not a member of the eat more to lose more club to be honest. I weigh about 10 pounds more than you, but I eat less than you do. I am losing weight steadily.

It might be possible that your body is simply more efficient than many people's, and you might need to eat fewer calories. Or you might be retaining water for some reason and it will come off on it's own, but I can see how that would be pretty frustrating.

I think if I were you I would probably try to switch something up, because I would have thought you would see more of a loss in 3 weeks as well at your present weight. Maybe eat fewer calories for a week and see how it goes, or exercise more. I did look at your diary and I didn't see many fresh fruits and vegetables. A calorie is a calorie, but fruits and vegetables have a lot of water and fiber in them, which helps move things along.

Are you weighing your portions or are you estimating?

If you're honest with your caloric intake, your exercise calories burned, and have your MFP base calories correct, then you will lose weight, unless you have a medical condition. Those are the inputs. Check them again.

The other stuff, sodium, water, etc. have nothing to do with fat loss but they will affect the scale weight. At the end of the day you should be looking at the long term trend line and being very patient. Again, if those numbers above are correct, the weight will come off.

Keep it up!

The other folks here are right. If you eat too few calories, your body (a product of evolution that helped humanity to survive famines) will assume you're starving, and will try to store up every calorie it gets. Your metabolism will actually slow down. You are better off trusting what MFP (or another BMR calculator) advises after you've entered in your data and your goals, and eating that target amount across regular meals. NOT LESS.

Someone else here calculated your BMR at 1,946. I think 1,800 is low enough, and yes, if you eat that amount on your lazy days, you will lose weight. On workout days, you get to eat more.

Dividing your intake into many smaller meals a day is better -- it reminds your body "we're not starving, there's healthy food every 3 hours!" And be sure to eat something (fruit, complex carbs, or some protein) within an hour of waking to get your metabolism started.

Don't worry that the elliptical isn't quite perfect. If you get this approximately right and trust that benefits will catch up to you in the long term, you'll be svelte. It took me 3 months to see any results. Maybe take some measurements 1x month. That will tell you more than the scale and will account for the heavier muscle mass thing. Waist, hips, upper arms, thighs.

Speaking of muscle mass - lift weights and do other resistance training. Muscle mass burns more calories, even when you're resting. Cardio is very important for overall health and weight management, but it only burns the calories you expend while exercising. If you build up your muscles, they become a calorie-burning multiplier all the time - both when you're working out and when you're sitting on the couch.

Finally, if you're really intent on "accurate" calorie burn counts (like I am, I admit it), here is a geeky equation. You need a heart rate monitor for this. A basic strap system costs $100:

Calories burned = (0.4472 x [average heart rate in bpm] - 0.05741 x [your weight in pounds] + 0.074 x [your age in years] - 20.4022) x [length of the exercise session in minutes] / 4.184

For example, if you (at your current age and weight) got your heart rate up to an average of 136 beats per minute for 30 minutes, then you'd burn almost 200 calories (technically, it spits out 199 as the answer).

The great news about that heart rate/calorie relationship is that on days when you're really lazy or just can't get to the gym: take a brisk walk for an hour. Getting your heart rate to only 105 bpm for 60 minutes has the same caloric impact as the 30 minute slog at 136.

Press on. This is not a diet or a phase. This is a way of life that should be sustainable for the rest of your life. You're so young (which is awesome) - even if it takes you a year (or longer!) to sensibly arrive at your goal, focus on the next 60ish years during which you'll get to be slim and healthy. Don't let impatience this year deter you from attaining those 60 glorious years.

The science is not failing you and don't listen to those espousing ditching cardio -- sheesh, whole lot of 'ex - spurts' here!!!

I've lost 52lbs since I started and I've done it based on MFP's system not TDEE (which many here are trying to tell you to do). Both systems work if you stick to them but don't expect a whole lot in just a few weeks.

1. Find your BMR (MFP does this for you when you set your goals) and be honest about your daily activity (Sedentary)
2. If losing 2lbs per week is your goal and allows you 1400 cals a day then stick with it
3. Overestimating what you eat and underestimating calories burned is ok and I advocate that somewhat -- but a word of caution: don't get crazy!
4, Eating back cardio cals is good but try not to eat more then about half of them when possible

Don't get discouraged and go changing everything because some joker tells you the science is wrong and the system MFP sets up doesn't work etc etc -- take it all with a grain of salt.

The science is accurate but humans aren't perfect. For example, the amount of calories you burn during exercise CAN NOT be accurately measured without some serious equipment and people are not 100% the same in everything so one 247lb woman running 3 miles may burn a different amount of calories then another woman the same weight and age running the same speed and distance -- same goes for how many cals you use in a day etc etc etc.

BUT you WILL lose weight if you stick to a caloric deficit daily with or without exercise. It just takes time -- I'm at 8 months and average about 7.5lbs per month but that means some months I drop like a rock and others my weight barely moves. Sometimes it's water, sometimes it's muscle (getting harder/denser etc) and sometimes it's just a mystery so hang in there and stick with your plan rather then changing it with the wind.

Hi guys,

I'm relatively new to the weight loss game. I've been logging for almost 3 weeks now on MFP and have been reading your forum posts religiously trying to get as much insight as I can into how to best go about losing the weight.

I'm 21 years old, 5'7 and 247 pounds. I've got quite a long way to go and so far I've been so optimistic that if I follow what MFP tells me, I should lose weight, because it's scientific, right? With that in mind, I've been logging every single thing that touched my lips, overestimate my calories, and underestimate my exercise - just to be certain I'm not going over. I eat 1400 calories a day and run between 1-3 miles on the elliptical about 4 times a week. I eat back most of my calories.

I've been trying to eat as healthily as I can. Me and my husband plan our meals at the beginning of the week and cook/pack the food for lunches and dinner so we have no excuses to go out to eat or be lazy when it comes to meals. We're both huge foodies (since we got married last year we've both put on a lot of weight - he's also a damn good cook!) but we've both decided to change our lifestyle to become more healthy together and lose the weight.

Sounds good right? Well since I've been logging I have weighed myself every morning and have only been fluctuating between a loss of 1-2 pounds total in three weeks. I have MFP set to lose 2 pounds a week. What's going on here? I know I shouldn't be discouraged since a two pound loss is still a loss, but it's really disheartening when I've got so far to go and am not making any further progress despite trying so hard.

I was under the impression that eating at a deficit guaranteed weight loss.. have I got my numbers wrong? I have seen some posts on here that say you need to eat more to lose more. I'm not really sure how that works. I don't feel deprived at 1400 calories a day, and I'm scared to go higher for fear of gaining. Is this just a case of wait it out and keep doing what I'm doing, or should I be doing something else? My husband thinks we're just gaining muscle from working out and that's why the scale won't budge. I'm not too sure.

Anyway, any insight or advice would be welcomed. Sorry for the long post. You guys are such inspirations.

gosh no wonder so many new people around here get confused...we make this way to confusing. This whole "eat back your calories" thing is for the birds.


If I were you I would use Katch McCardle to help find you baseline calories forget eating back your calories or eating more or less on workout days vs nonworkout days. Your weight is based on your caloric consumption over time.

http://www.fitoverfat.com/calorie-calculator/

I plugged in 247 pounds and 45% bodyfat. This is more accurate the better you know your bodyfat and even then it's just an estimate...but it's a pretty good one.

plugging those numbers in with an activity factor of 1.2 it has you around 1600 calories to lose weight. So as others have said I'd probably bump it up by 200 calories and just eat 1600 each day.

I use the 1.2 multiplier even though it may seem low I think it will be most accurate for you.

Dont worry nothing in nutrition is cut and dry science. It's all a best guess. Keep eating less and moving more and you'll be fine.

a good and compressed source for some scientific proves & consequences for your fat burning workout:

http://www.simplyshredded.com/50-rules-of-fat-burning-simplyshredded-com-collects-the-strongest-clinical-research-from-around-the-world.html

^^^ This is very good, by the way. I'm not a fan of popping supplements, personally, but a lot of the advice here is very smart, and backed with clinical research. I'm bookmarking it!