Do I need to stop eating back the calories?

If you're adding muscle, you will not see weight loss because muscle weighs more than fat. You will, however, see a decrease in inches.

Stay off the scale, take body measurements or even get an accurate body fat% reading. I have seen progress pics of woman doing weight training, dropping INCHES off thier trouble areas but gaining numbers on the scale.

If you are not losing and eating back the cals then most likely you are either burning less than you think you are or eating more than you think you are. The only other option would really be water retention due to the addition of strength training, maybe a few ounces of new muscle would be possible too, if you are new to lifting.

I would suggest eating 50-75% of the cals back, unless you are using a HRM then 75-100%, and to use a kitchen scale to weigh solid foods (precooked) and measuring cups for liquids.

I figured I would do what the myfitness stated and eat back the calories from the cardio but now I am not losing weight. I am set for 1270 calories a day, burn 500, eat 500 back finish day with about 1700 calories. Now here is the problem for the last two months I have been doing this and even though I see muscle forming a bit I am no longer losing pounds.

It is unlikely you are gaining appreciable muscle mass. Most likely your loss has slowed down due to over-estimating the number of calories burned. You can try eating back only half the calories, and see if that makes a difference for you.

A few things...and i apologize if you already do some of these things.

When you weight yourself, I would do so once a week at the same time of day, preferably the morning after peeing and before eating or working out. If you weight yourself directly after strength training it will be higher because of your temporary pump (i'm sure there's some scientific reason that an expert could explain lol)

Make sure you are accurately recording your calories consumed and burned. I guess scan barcodes when possible and try to stick with foods that have available nutrition facts over some homemade foods. Of course if you cook for yourself than that makes life easier too. When you do any exercise (even strength training), maybe use a heart rate monitor to keep track of how many calories you're burning.

The way MFP is set up is you're supposed to eat back your calories, but you're able to set it up to lose a certain amount of lbs per week. They say btwn 2 and 3 lbs is the healthiest and safest, but do whatever you want.

From what I know if takes a long time to build muscle, especially for women. On average, if you did strenght training consistently for a year, you would probably only gain 5-10 lbs of muscle at the most (please don't quote me on those numbers, do some research on it, thats just an estimate). So it's kind of understandable that you're not losing lbs. Someone posted earlier that you should measure inches. This is true because fat takes up more space than muscle, so if you're losing inches then you're losing fat, and at that point the scale isn't really that important.

My last and final thing...if you can, start keeping track of your body fat %. That's another good way to tell if you're losing fat even if you're not losing lbs. I have one of those digital scales that also shows bf % from wal-mart for like 30 bucks. I don't take the numbers serious, I'm more focused on the downward trend over time.

I'm no expert, so if anything I said is absolutely wrong and detrimental, someone please call me out on it

Hope this helps, you're doing a great job! Good luck on your journey!

If you're adding muscle, you will not see weight loss because muscle weighs more than fat. You will, however, see a decrease in inches.

Muscle does NOT weigh more then fat. A pound is a pound, regardless of what it is made up of. A pound of muscle occupies less space then a pound of fat, due to the fact that is it more dense.

Muscle weighs more than fat by volume because it's more dense. A weightlifter will take up less space than an obese person of the same weight.

The only other option would really be water retention due to the addition of strength training.

I agree with this! Make sure you are drinking enough water...8-12 cups per day, maybe more since you're pretty active. IMO, drinking water fights water retention, even though that sounds counter productive. The body retains water because it may not getting enough to begin with. Once the body is getting enough water, and some, then it will start to release the excess water out of your system. You'll pee a lot, but oh well haha. Also, try not to go over on your daily sodium intake, I hear that can cause water retention also.

Hi there! I was having this same issue when I first started using MFP (it's been a while ago, & I quit and came back somewhere along the way), but this time I consulted a dietician about my calorie intake. She said for my weight, height, activity level, I should be eating between 1700-1900 calories a day, with the lowest she was comfy with being 1400. She instructed me not to eat back my exercise calories. I've been seeing steady progress since then.

what do your pics, measurements, feel of pants progress results say?

On a scale, a pound of gold weighs the same as a pound of feathers

If you don't think a 20% difference in volume is significant, then you've clearly never had a soda explode in the freezer (and that's only about an 8% volume difference).

If your body was made from a rigid metal exterior, that might have been relevant.

If you don't think a 20% difference in volume is significant, then you've clearly never had a soda explode in the freezer (and that's only about an 8% volume difference).

Right, because a huge volume of expanding gas is a good analogy for muscle and fat in the human body.

20% is a huge difference, that is 1/5, not sure in what instance 20% isn't a large difference. In weight it would be the difference in being 200 lbs or 240, that is quite a large difference to me.

I think these pictures of fat and muscle speak to the difference.





and what she said ^^^^^^^^^^

If you're adding muscle, you will not see weight loss because muscle weighs more than fat. You will, however, see a decrease in inches.

HAHAHAHAH...I can't believe I just read this. Are we really still posting this?? One pound of feathers weighs the same as one pound of cement. It's the same with fat and muscle... "dense": People, that i the word you're looking for!!!

I haven't read any of the other responses, so I may very well be repeating what someone else has said, but from where are you getting your calorie burns? If you're also getting them from MFP then they very well could be off.

Congrats on your loss! Wonderful start of your journey! I myself am at the same loss amount as you and find sometime I need to eat part of the calories back, sometimes I stop losing because I'm not eating enough, and sometimess I need to eat them all back. If you're burning a lot of calories it won't hurt you to eat them, but play with it a little to find how many work for you. Many normal tatctics for some reason don't work on me. Also absolutely measure your inches. When the scale stops usually they start going. Good luck!

come on you know what they mean....

I don't. The only way that phrase makes any sense as commonly used is if people think they are gaining the same volume of muscle as they are losing of fat, which is ludicrous.

Apart from that, the densities of the two aren't even all that different, less than 20% apart.

If you don't think a 20% difference in volume is significant, then you've clearly never had a soda explode in the freezer (and that's only about an 8% volume difference).

:laugh: