19 year old trying to lose weight, please help!

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madelinegenevieve
madelinegenevieve Posts: 1
in Health and Weight Loss
I have been doing 30-60 min of cardio 4-5 times a week for a month with strength training every other day and every week I gain about two pounds. I have been watching what I eat with the occasional slip-up but for how hard I am working in the gym, WHY AREN'T I LOSING WEIGHT?!

I weigh 144 and hope to lose 15 pounds if not more.
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Replies

  • mrsmillsee
    mrsmillsee Posts: 6
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    It's simple. You're not logging everything you eat correctly. If you burn more calories than you eat, you WILL lose weight. FACT.

    Try logging everything in Myfitnesspal. Not just Weight Watchers points but all the 'free food' or Slimmers World 'sins'. There is no such thing as no calorie or free foods. Everything you eat has a calorific value. Even the small amount of milk in your tea or coffee.

    It all adds up and it seems to me you're just not logging right. Be anal about it. Log absolutely everything for a week and see what happens.

    Hope this helps.
  • SaraAxm
    SaraAxm Posts: 30
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    Gaining two pounds a week is a very rapid weight gain so you must be overeating by quite a lot. Make sure you log everything you're eating and buy a digital food scale.
  • belgd
    belgd Posts: 26 Member
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    You're probably overeating and don't realize it. You have to track absolutely everything.. I used to overestimate burned cals. and then overeat because of it. Which is why I stopped losing weight for a little while.
  • soyum
    soyum Posts: 49 Member
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    144lbs? How tall are you? You might be ok as is...

    If you're weight training, muscle weighs more than fat, so that could be happening as well. But 2lbs / week gain is alot so more than likely you're not logging correctly. Also...how's your water intake? If you slowed down your water intake, you could be holding water.
  • johnhendo
    johnhendo Posts: 6
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    Are you putting your exercise into this app meaning you have more calories to eat a day? Cause to be honest i am so against that its not funny. Regardless of what exercise you do in a day, you should be consistent with the amount of calories eaten a day. Whether or not you workout and burn 1000 calories, doesn't mean you can eat another 500 calories and have that 500 calorie deficit.

    If you are aiming for 2000 cals a day, example, and burn 1000 calories worth of exercise in a day, don't eat 3000, still eat your 2000. You vary off that and thats where you are doing your damage
  • soyum
    soyum Posts: 49 Member
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    "If you are aiming for 2000 cals a day, example, and burn 1000 calories worth of exercise in a day, don't eat 3000, still eat your 2000. You vary off that and thats where you are doing your damage"

    And live off only 1000 cals a day? That won't last long.
  • glitterstreet
    glitterstreet Posts: 144
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    The only possibilities I can think of is:
    a) You not logging accurately, do you have a digital food scale?
    b) You are over compensating (calorie wise) for exercising
    c) You have an undiagnosed medical condition
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,404 MFP Moderator
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    Can you open your diary so we can see how many calories you are eating? Also, what glitterstreet said
  • gigglesinthesun
    gigglesinthesun Posts: 860 Member
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    http://www.acaloriecounter.com/blog/why-am-i-not-losing-weight/
  • lauren3101
    lauren3101 Posts: 1,853 Member
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    Are you putting your exercise into this app meaning you have more calories to eat a day? Cause to be honest i am so against that its not funny. Regardless of what exercise you do in a day, you should be consistent with the amount of calories eaten a day. Whether or not you workout and burn 1000 calories, doesn't mean you can eat another 500 calories and have that 500 calorie deficit.

    If you are aiming for 2000 cals a day, example, and burn 1000 calories worth of exercise in a day, don't eat 3000, still eat your 2000. You vary off that and thats where you are doing your damage

    *sigh*

    Please ignore everything this person said. To eat 2000 calories a day and then burn off 1000 means you are actually only fueling your body with 1000 calories, which is unhealthy. I swear people should be made to take a questionnaire before being allowed to post on this forum.

    It would really help if you could open your food diary. 2lb a week is an aggressive weight gain, only achieved by eating 7000 calories a week over your TDEE, or 1000 calories a day. I doubt you are doing that. I should imagine it's water retention of some description, but we need to see your food diary to help.
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,404 MFP Moderator
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    Are you putting your exercise into this app meaning you have more calories to eat a day? Cause to be honest i am so against that its not funny. Regardless of what exercise you do in a day, you should be consistent with the amount of calories eaten a day. Whether or not you workout and burn 1000 calories, doesn't mean you can eat another 500 calories and have that 500 calorie deficit.

    If you are aiming for 2000 cals a day, example, and burn 1000 calories worth of exercise in a day, don't eat 3000, still eat your 2000. You vary off that and thats where you are doing your damage

    You can do this, but only if your account is set to maintain. Large deficits can lead to greater muscle losss, which will require you to lose more weight to get a lean and tight body. I will concede and partially agree on the fact that MFP can over estimate your calories, so if you workout, eat 50% of the exercise calories. For the most part, barely anyone is burn 1000 calories during a workout. It's actually pretty tough, especially for a petite woman. With 30 minutes of cardio and 30 minutes of weight training, 300-400 calories is more realistic.
  • JesterMFP
    JesterMFP Posts: 3,596 Member
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    Are you putting your exercise into this app meaning you have more calories to eat a day? Cause to be honest i am so against that its not funny. Regardless of what exercise you do in a day, you should be consistent with the amount of calories eaten a day. Whether or not you workout and burn 1000 calories, doesn't mean you can eat another 500 calories and have that 500 calorie deficit.

    If you are aiming for 2000 cals a day, example, and burn 1000 calories worth of exercise in a day, don't eat 3000, still eat your 2000. You vary off that and thats where you are doing your damage
    So against using an app the way it was designed to be used? :huh:
  • lauren3101
    lauren3101 Posts: 1,853 Member
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    Are you putting your exercise into this app meaning you have more calories to eat a day? Cause to be honest i am so against that its not funny. Regardless of what exercise you do in a day, you should be consistent with the amount of calories eaten a day. Whether or not you workout and burn 1000 calories, doesn't mean you can eat another 500 calories and have that 500 calorie deficit.

    If you are aiming for 2000 cals a day, example, and burn 1000 calories worth of exercise in a day, don't eat 3000, still eat your 2000. You vary off that and thats where you are doing your damage
    So against using an app the way it was designed to be used? :huh:

    MFP is actually a secret 'weight loss sabotage' website designed by fast food restaurants because they don't want us to get slim. It tells you to eat back your exercise calories in the hope you will spend them on a Big Mac or a KFC bargain bucket, then not lose weight, then give up and continue eating fast food. Didn't you know?
  • healthygreek
    healthygreek Posts: 2,137 Member
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    Are you putting your exercise into this app meaning you have more calories to eat a day? Cause to be honest i am so against that its not funny. Regardless of what exercise you do in a day, you should be consistent with the amount of calories eaten a day. Whether or not you workout and burn 1000 calories, doesn't mean you can eat another 500 calories and have that 500 calorie deficit.

    If you are aiming for 2000 cals a day, example, and burn 1000 calories worth of exercise in a day, don't eat 3000, still eat your 2000. You vary off that and thats where you are doing your damage
    WRONG!
  • soyum
    soyum Posts: 49 Member
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    Are you putting your exercise into this app meaning you have more calories to eat a day? Cause to be honest i am so against that its not funny. Regardless of what exercise you do in a day, you should be consistent with the amount of calories eaten a day. Whether or not you workout and burn 1000 calories, doesn't mean you can eat another 500 calories and have that 500 calorie deficit.

    If you are aiming for 2000 cals a day, example, and burn 1000 calories worth of exercise in a day, don't eat 3000, still eat your 2000. You vary off that and thats where you are doing your damage

    *sigh*

    Please ignore everything this person said. To eat 2000 calories a day and then burn off 1000 means you are actually only fueling your body with 1000 calories, which is unhealthy. I swear people should be made to take a questionnaire before being allowed to post on this forum.

    I've only been here a short while, but I 100% agree with you!! It's amazing how some people just think....wrong. And no doubt these are the people that probably ride that roller coaster their entire life. ;)
  • georgesanchez7737
    georgesanchez7737 Posts: 61 Member
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    the issue is that it is very difficult to measure exercise calories burned with precision. I get one number from my HB tracker, another from MFP (based on minutes) and another from the cardio machine. I am in a a plateau and am going to try and eat back 1/2 of what the average calories burned from exercise are for 2 weeks. if that does not work, I will try 2 weeks and not eat any exercise calories. I am 229 now and want to go down to 190, at 5'8 it is high still, but that will make me 85 lbs lighter that a year ago. I exercise an average of 2.5 hours a day, 6 days a week. as long as I am not hungry or too tired/hurt I will keep this up. so far 13 lbs with MFP.
  • soyum
    soyum Posts: 49 Member
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    @GeorgeSanchez - If you're stuck at a plateau research "zig zagging" your calories. It's good to mix it up. Eat less some days, eat alot more on others, etc, etc. You want to wake up your metab. ;)
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,404 MFP Moderator
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    @GeorgeSanchez - If you're stuck at a plateau research "zig zagging" your calories. It's good to mix it up. Eat less some days, eat alot more on others, etc, etc. You want to wake up your metab. ;)

    I question the validity of zigzag.. Because first, your metabolism isn't sleeping nor dormant by any means. If it's not breaking down food, it's running your vital organs. Second, a deficit is the same over a weeks time whether you zigzag or eat a constant deficit. And since your body doesn't run on a 24 hour clock, I don't see how zigzag'in your calories will be beneficial. Any links to scientific studies on this topic?
  • johnhendo
    johnhendo Posts: 6
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    Soo many lol's at all your responses to my comment.

    Im riding a roller coaster? Let me just shuv the 35kgs back onto my "roller coaster" ride. Oh and thats just the fat i lost, not to mention the additional fat i lost, then muscle gained.

    If u think the reading this app gives u is correct, you are kidding yourself. Take into account personal metabolic rate and previous metabolic damage that may have been done.

    This app says for someone my size, ie height, i need to eat over 3k calories to maintain weight which is completely wrong, but oh wait, cause the app tells me too i think i might just do that. Cause the app couldn't be wrong....

    Enjoy continually over estimating your input. I'll enjoy my continued transformation.

    At the end of the day its personal preference, but when trying to lose weight why would you purposely consume more food and ruin your losses? no your not under fuelling your body. This site is great for tracking calories, however, that is as far as it goes. Please do some research on websites not affiliated with this, or Women's Guide or some **** like that. Reputable sources please.

    I pose this question, people have a base metabolic rate, in which calories they burn when doing nothing, at a complete rest. Key words, DOING NOTHING. Are you saying you input walking around into the exercise counter? or sitting at a computer typing? Cause these expel calories, and by your reasoning this may cause you to be under fuelled...

    Now to sit back, and wait for the hate!
  • elyelyse
    elyelyse Posts: 1,454 Member
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    Soo many lol's at all your responses to my comment.

    Im riding a roller coaster? Let me just shuv the 35kgs back onto my "roller coaster" ride. Oh and thats just the fat i lost, not to mention the additional fat i lost, then muscle gained.

    If u think the reading this app gives u is correct, you are kidding yourself. Take into account personal metabolic rate and previous metabolic damage that may have been done.

    This app says for someone my size, ie height, i need to eat over 3k calories to maintain weight which is completely wrong, but oh wait, cause the app tells me too i think i might just do that. Cause the app couldn't be wrong....

    Enjoy continually over estimating your input. I'll enjoy my continued transformation.

    At the end of the day its personal preference, but when trying to lose weight why would you purposely consume more food and ruin your losses? no your not under fuelling your body. This site is great for tracking calories, however, that is as far as it goes. Please do some research on websites not affiliated with this, or Women's Guide or some **** like that. Reputable sources please.

    I pose this question, people have a base metabolic rate, in which calories they burn when doing nothing, at a complete rest. Key words, DOING NOTHING. Are you saying you input walking around into the exercise counter? or sitting at a computer typing? Cause these expel calories, and by your reasoning this may cause you to be under fuelled...

    Now to sit back, and wait for the hate!

    Nope, no hate. Just reality...I lost 110 pounds so far eating back (some of) my exercise calories. Also, sometimes I get to eat ice cream. And pizza.

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