What am i doing wrong please help

jackielou867 · November 2013

4 years ago I dieted on and off and went to a gym. I stayed the identical weight for 4 months. What I didn't really realise, until I stopped the exercise, was that I had toned up, and my pants were a little looser. Could this be the case. Also do you eat back exercise calories. Eating to little promotes weight gain not loss. Drastic diets mess with your metabolism.
At 1200 I eventually plateaud. I added 200 calories and was up and running.
Do you really log everything, and weigh everything. I weighed my cereal when I started MFP and was devastated to find my bowl of cereal was actually 3 portions, and I sometimes had a second bowl OMG! And that little piece of cheese I nibbled while making dinner was 100 calories.
A lot of portions seem incredibly small to a greedy person like me. But 9 months in I have got used to it, and I feel satisfied with regular portions, not the food mountains I used to eat.

sallysally · November 2013

I am now really confused how many calories i should eat and do i or don't i eat the calories from exercise? The more i read the more confused i get. One thing i do know is i mustn't be logging my calories right because i agree weight loss equals less cals in to cals used. So i am going to work harder on this. So many people say 1200 not enough and the calculators ive been playing with this morning all give different answers. I think i have to go back to the drawing board rethink my body's needs
Thanks again everyone for your advice

paintlisapurple · November 2013

so fitness is a table, and a table has four legs: rest, nutrition, cardio, and strength training. no one leg is more important than the other.

a lot of people tend to over look rest. i think it's probably the most important. you need to rest to be able to give your body a chance to recover. doing a full body work out every day and cardio every day is a great way to screw up your body.

muscles build and grow on rest days. if you don't give them a chance to rest, they'll be too fatigued to work properly. also, you body essentially goes "wow, this girl is working us out too hard. lets hold on to as much food as possible to use as fuel, just in case."

so if i were you, i'd try and do full body strength training three days a week. i like mon-wed-fri. this allows plenty of time between work outs to recover.

Two days a week you can do High Intensity Interval Training. However, a mistake people make with HIIT is doing it too long. i know people that'll do 30 minutes of it!! personally, what i'll do is a 30 second sprint, and a 1 minute jog, for about 8 rounds. you yeah, thats only about a twelve minute HIIT session, so i start it with an 8 minute warm up job, and then an 8-10 minute cool down jog. bam, thirty minute work out. you can do these work outs tuesday and thursday.

I also think that you should do some low intensity steady state cardio once a week. you can choose from a lot of things. you can go for a long run, or a long bike ride, or a swim, or for just a walk!! time and distance is up to you. i would do this on saturday.

then you can have sunday to relax. stretch. do some yoga. try and relax.

now as far as nutrition goes, that will require you to keep doing what your doing and logging your food and weight, and finding what works for you.

I agree with the captain. Rest is vitally important. My weight loss went on standby when I couldn't get proper rest and wasn't eating enough (not above my bmr). I stalled...in fact I actually gained 7 lbs. Granted, my father had just passed, and I had quit smoking so I wasn't myself at all. (Heck, I still find myself getting weepy or worse...*****y.) As soon as regular sleep returned and I restarted logging (to ensure adequate nutrition) the weight is now coming off again.
Good luck to you. Add me if you like.
:flowerforyou:

LOLOL They edited beeotchy!

fatfudgery · November 2013

There are only two alternatives: either there is something wrong with you metabolically, or you're eating more calories than you think you are. You say there's nothing wrong with you medically, so that leaves the amount of food you eat as the culprit. Accurate logging in your food diary will help you a lot here. Do you weigh your food, or do you just guess at how much food you're logging? Are you leaving anything out of your food diary - small bits of food, a piece of gum, "just one bite" here or there, etc.? Do you have cheat meals at all? Also, what's your age, height and weight?

I weigh Everything the only thing i leave out of my diary is fish oil tablets i know its 30 cal but I've never thought to put that in my diary. I don't do cheat meals i find them too hard i wont know when to stop. I don't chew gum. Im thinking maybe my macros are wrong ... Maybe I'm eating too much fat or maybe my calories are wrong and i should do TDEE who knows but i wont give up despite how discouraged I'm feeling at the moment i just need to tweak something only thing is i don't know what that something is... I weigh 168lb or 76 kilos and I'm 5.3in or 162cm
Maybe there is something wrong with me metabolically and i dont know it - hope not

Thanks for your reply i appreciate it

OK, I'm getting 1700 calories for your TDEE. Aim for 1200 calories/day for four weeks or so and you should drop about a pound (.5Kg) per week. After the four weeks are up, reevaluate your weight and use that information to get a better estimate of your real TDEE. Now, it is crucial that you log your food as accurately as possible. Looking at your diary, it seems like you're weighing some things but not others. A cup of vegetable stir fry can vary a lot in terms of actual amount of food/calories (also, did you really use no oil for that stir fry?) Same goes for things like "half a banana." You should weigh your food to the gram to eliminate that possible uncertainty as a source of extra calories.

As far as your macros, eating too much fat, etc... Weight loss is about calories in vs. calories out; eat less calories than your body uses and you will lose weight. You could eat 1200 calories of candy a day and you would lose weight (which is not to say this is advisable, of course!) At the end of the day, you can't break the laws of thermodynamics.

Hi thanks for this ... So if i go back to 1200 per day do i eat back calories from exercise?

I think it depends on what you're doing for exercise... Those exercise calculators are notorious for overestimating calorie burns, especially from low intensity exercise. The rule I've found works for me is this: if an activity (a) is purposeful exercise — i.e., not incidental to my work, shopping or other activities; (b) makes me sweat, breath faster and raises my heart rate; and (c) lasts longer than 15-20 minutes, then I log it into MFP and eat those calories back. Otherwise, I ignore it.

The really important part here is to be consistent with your tracking and logging over a long period (4-6 weeks) and then use whatever happens to your body in that period to reassess where your true TDEE is at and adjust from there.

ranchmimi · November 2013

At the risk of being shot down, I'll make another suggestion for you! I am much older than you (76) but I am 5'3: and right now weigh 201.8 I have been working this journey since Oct. 2011 and have now lost 35 pounds - slowly but lost! This summer I hit a total plateau even though I was still eating the same amount and no matter what I did nothing changed other than up or down 2 pounds. I tried the TDEE unsuccessfully and after 3 months asked the advice of a friend who owns a Curves business. I had been eating close to 1200 calories for almost 2 years eating about half my exercise calories back. Her suggestion was to increase my calories to 2000 until I gained 3 pounds - but the increase could only be from good for me food - not cake, ice cream, candy etc! I did it (took me about a week and a half) then back to the 1200 a day still eating half or more of my exercise calories back. In less than a week I had taken off my 3 pounds and I continue to lose slowly - as I was before- which may have something to do with my age! But I don't really care if it is slow as long as over the long haul I am losing! Since starting this plan I have lost almost 5 pounds from where I spent the summer. Apparently my metabolism just needed to be shaken up - and it was!

For what it is worth, you do need to be more dedicated to filling in your diary with everything you put into your mouth and all the exercise you do. Accuracy will get you results.

Good luck to you!

What am i doing wrong please help

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