About to quit!

The issue is WHAT your eating, not how much. Cut out the processed boxed additive stuff and go for fresh, organic and lean. I eat Paleo, which is hard for most because its so restrictive, but most of the time people dont read lables!! that the BIGGEST issue...sometimes "healthy" stuff has more additive sugar and other ingredients that you cant even pronounce than just plain old ice cream and cake! Read your lables and go FRESH. Fruits, veggies and lean protein. you can use as many spices you can get your hands on to flavor!

I highly highly doubt you're burning THAT much per day. MFP grossly overestimates cardio burn.

^^That may not be true. I aim for at least 1000 cals burned per workout on most days...and it's usually 1.5 to 2.5 hrs worth of work. According to my HRM (and my level of hunger afterwards lol), I am definitely burning that much! MFP usually overestimates by default, but you are able to adjust the calorie count to the correct one once you select the type of exercise.

I'm beginning to see a commonality with people who are over-estimating their calorie burns. I don't want to say the name because I don't want to take the fun out of other people figuring it out too, but I'll say the initials:

H.R.M.

It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't type of thing. Most will agree MFP's estimates of your caloric expenditure are not accurate, at least not for most people. Likewise, there is a ton of variation in the caloric burn as given by machines at the gym. About the best you can do is buy a quality HRM, feed it your metadata, and trust it to be as accurate as possible. I rarely eat 100% of my calories back from cardio since a slightly greater deficit won't hurt me, but a HRM is about the best you can do.

All that said, the HRM may not be to blame here, given that the OP doesn't actually have a food scale yet. Buying a food scale is probably the best thing you can do to increase your accuracy in logging what you eat.

The key to success is to get everything as accurate as you can, and then adjust according to observed results.

The part that everyone forgets is adjust according to observed results.

It's pretty easy to be accurate with food logging. Get a scale and some measuring cups, use them religiously, and log everything.

If your observed results don't at least somewhat closely match 1 pound lost per 3500 calorie deficit over two month period, then it's pretty obvious that you can point to your calorie burn. It's only when you are not consistent with logging that it becomes a mystery.

Last year when summer rolled around, I had a stall. Because I logged my food accurately, I could look back on my exercise diary and see what changed. I had started swimming. Because I had my kids with me in the pool, I couldn't consistently swim laps. I had tried to adjust down for this, but when I was honest with myself it was apparent I didn't adjust down enough. I fixed it and BOOM - the weight started falling off again.

It's not rocket science - but it is science.

I agree, but that doesn't mean HRM's are necessarily inaccurate as you seem to suggest above. In my experience, it's the opposite and a HRM is the best way to get an estimate your burn.

If you are doing steady state cardio, sure.

But many people use HRMs for things like weight training, or even just wear them all day. That's what causes the problem.

Again, agree entirely. Unfortunately, outside of steady state cardio, it's pretty hard to get an accurate picture of your caloric burn.

Generally I just ballpark weight training these days at ~400 calories/90 minutes, which I'm sure is inaccurate, but I usually eat those calories back anyways. I figure that even if I burned 0 calories lifting weights (not likely), I'd still be at a caloric deficit and if I'm at slightly less of a deficit on lifting days, that's probably a good thing. You can definitely can learn a lot about your body though by tracking your own data/progress over time.

1. Get a kitchen scale and don't trust your dry measures. You'd be amazed how many grams of ice cream a human being can stuff into a 1/2 cup measuring cup. Try double the gram weight. That's just an example. Most foods are this way. Go with gram weight. Strictly gram weight.

2. You are NOT burning 1000 calories in the gym for 2 hours. Maybe at most 750, and that is if you're not taking breaks. If you're strength training, more like 150-200. Nobody burns 500 calories an hour strength training. Not without some chemical assistance. And unless you're running at a near sprint speed for 2 hours, you're not burning as much as you think.

Maybe you should check out Scooby's workshop or one of the many other TDEE calculating websites and calculate your TDEE and go with that instead of the MFP method.

I do 60 minutes jogging, then I bike, then I use a stair master on my cardio days.. my HRM measures that at 900.

I just started doing two classes a day. I do any mixture of Kick Boxing, Zumba, Boot Camp, Body Works, or Spinning... those days I don't do cardio and burn about 900.

My days that I supposedly burned 1200, are days that I keep doing more cardio BEYOND above mentioned. Is it really that impossible? I don;t record rests. I pause my HRM as soon as I am done.

I'm fully aware however it could be over estimating.. as much as that may make me feel like crap LOL.

I feel like I surely put forth that much work... but of course it's more than possible I am wrong.

I highly highly doubt you're burning THAT much per day. MFP grossly overestimates cardio burn.

^^THIS^^

Uhm no, that is VERY wrong. your body processes different foods in different ways. If your eating processed crap and what have you, your body isnt going to burn it efficiently when you work out. You can work out as much as you want, and if you think "oh ill just take the single patty instead of the big mac" your not going to lose anything because the minute you put a real meal in your mouth, youre body is going to store it because you havent been feeding it properly. Lets say you eat cheeseburgers all day and your calorie intake is 1200, but you burn 1600 in workouts. The next day when you go and eat your cheeseburgers again, your just going to gain the weight right back because your body is starving for HEALTHY food and better nutrition. It cant run on processed crap, and your certainly NOT going to see results. Itll just be a weight teeter-totter..

1. Get a kitchen scale and don't trust your dry measures. You'd be amazed how many grams of ice cream a human being can stuff into a 1/2 cup measuring cup. Try double the gram weight. That's just an example. Most foods are this way. Go with gram weight. Strictly gram weight.

2. You are NOT burning 1000 calories in the gym for 2 hours. Maybe at most 750, and that is if you're not taking breaks. If you're strength training, more like 150-200. Nobody burns 500 calories an hour strength training. Not without some chemical assistance. And unless you're running at a near sprint speed for 2 hours, you're not burning as much as you think.

Maybe you should check out Scooby's workshop or one of the many other TDEE calculating websites and calculate your TDEE and go with that instead of the MFP method.

I do 60 minutes jogging, then I bike, then I use a stair master on my cardio days.. my HRM measures that at 900.

I just started doing two classes a day. I do any mixture of Kick Boxing, Zumba, Boot Camp, Body Works, or Spinning... those days I don't do cardio and burn about 900.

My days that I supposedly burned 1200, are days that I keep doing more cardio BEYOND above mentioned. Is it really that impossible? I don;t record rests. I pause my HRM as soon as I am done.