28, 250lbs, not losing weight, please help

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  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
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    There's a 'rice cooked' entry somewhere, without star in the front... It's from MFP database, and it comes in grams too.

    Your honey should have the number of grams in a serving on it? Otherwise it's usually 21g for a tablespoon, if that helps.

    Other than that, only lift every other day, and wait it out... you will start losing again.
  • Iron_Feline
    Iron_Feline Posts: 10,750 Member
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    I will start adding in a rest day, may start today.

    I just can't fathom how my recording isn't accurate. The only thing that might be inaccurate is the rice? The only measuring I have found is in cups and it doesn't give a gram weight conversion.

    I don't use measuring cups except for rice. Because I don't know how to convert this from cups to grams.

    The honey I weighed and calculated based on something I found on the internet. The 1/2tsp i put on there was because it was the only way I could get the calories recorded.

    I just realized the only thing I don't record is a pre-workout. I take 1 scoop of pre-workout everytime I lift, which has been 20 some straight days.

    If you can't find it - add it to the database yourself, you really can't accurately convert grams to cups - it just doesn't work.

    There are listings for almost everything in grams - rice long grain white cooked is there in both 100g and cup measurements. look for entries on the database without a star - they are not entered by users and tend to be more accurate. (this only works on a computer not the app)

    Honey is listed under grams - took me 30 seconds to find it, look for the entry without a star. You do realise when it says "how much" there is a drop down box for you to change the units?
  • Iron_Feline
    Iron_Feline Posts: 10,750 Member
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    Hello everyone.

    This is my first post and I'm desperately seeking help. I'm a 28 year old male. I'm built like an overweight linebacker. Always been very strong, never in great cardiovascular shape, and always overweight. I've been tracking my calories for 3 weeks now, about 2,100 calories per day. I lift weights very heavy for 30-45 minutes 7 days a week and I do 30-45 minutes of treadmill exercise for 30-45 minutes afterwards.

    I have lost .5 lbs and no body fat in 3 weeks. I'm extremely frustrated and don't understand. My diet is clean. 5 small meals a day, tons of water (150 or more ounces). But this makes zero sense. I'm very fat, so the weight is there to lose. I don't understand what I'm doing wrong.

    Hi, friend; have you talked to your doctor? Get a complete bloodwork done to ensure that everything is okay. If your choestoral is high, concentrate on lowering it. If your lipids are high, concentrate on lowering them. My point is this. Fix what's on the inside, and the outside will follow. I am hypothyroid. It sucks because i have to work 3x's harder than a person with a working thyroid to lose up to a pound---and it may take a month's time to do so. It's discouraging, but….If you clean up your diet to clean up your blood--oatmeal for breakfast, leans and greens through the day, lose the white bread, sugar and other white, starchy, floury/ processed stuff and you will see a difference. Use the elliptical for cardio, balance with weight training-making sure you are not doing the same thing day after day. Make sure you take one recovery day----not meant to lay around and be lazy, but use that day to take in a nice walk. I will send you a friend request. Take it one day at a time; your body needs time to respond and adjust to what changes you are making to it.

    Nope nope nope

    Ignore the clean up your diet nonsence. :noway: Nothing wrong with white food :angry:

    Why the elliptical for cardio - nothing wrong with the treadmill.

    You don't neeed to see a Dr yet - you need to log in grams not convert to cups, log everything and have some rest days, plus give it a bit more time.
  • liveinthemix
    liveinthemix Posts: 360 Member
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    I'm around your weight (was up over 300 at one point, started MFP at 276) - I found that going hard all the time (7 days) was counter productive for me.. I cut back to 4 or 5 days a week, and would only lift 2 of those days, and lbs started dropping again. Some of my biggest losses came on the days AFTER I hadn't worked out and ate what i thought would make me gain (pizza, getting close to or going over cals, drinking bunches of beer) .. Just my 2 cent.
  • cjfrankum
    cjfrankum Posts: 13
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    Thanks again everyone. The help is hugely appreciated.

    What I've decided to do is this:

    1. Cut back working out to 6 days a week. Lift 3 days with cardio afterwords and have 3 days dedicated to only cardio.
    2. Cut calories down to 1,700
    3. Stop taking protein shakes, giving me more calories to physical eat (instead of drink) so I don't feel hungry all the time
    4. Weigh out rice/honey/etc

    Thanks for all the advice and help everyone. Any other advice is seriously appreciated.
  • TomfromNY
    TomfromNY Posts: 100 Member
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    One thing to note is that it is very difficult to accurately count all of the calories/macro levels of the food you eat (and even harder to measure the calories you are burning). I'm not going to disagree with those that say you are not losing because you are not in calorie deficit - however, that is not particularly helpful advice.

    Looking at your diary I would suggest
    - get rid of the protein powder crap - who knows what's really in it and as a big guy you need real food
    - cut down on protein - you do not need 266 gms of protein (do the above and you should be set)
    - cut down on refined carbs/sugar - you don't need white rice and honey bread (it's 'honey' because they add high fructose corn syrup to it)
    - eat non-starchy vegetables - salads, broccoli, asparagus, etc... Put a salad dressing (check sugar content), butter or olive oil on them
    - eat some meat/fish/eggs/poultry

    Try something like this
    Breakfast - Omelet with veggies and bacon, sausage, or cheese
    Lunch - Giant salad with chicken, non-starchy veggies and dressing (low-sugar)
    Dinner - Fish/Meat/Chicken, vegetables with butter or olive oil, if you like a starch try brown rice, sweet potatoes, a bit of whole wheat bread or something with a low glycemic index
    Snacks - nuts, yogurt, veggies&dip, fruit, and the occasionally real treat
  • Iron_Feline
    Iron_Feline Posts: 10,750 Member
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    There is nothing wrong with white bread or protein power. :noway:

    I don't think you should drop down to 1700 cals op - I'm a 5'2 woman and I lose on 1600 cals a day and do less exercise than you.

    Please please just try to log accurately for a few more weeks before cutting your calories down to drastic amounts.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
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    There is nothing wrong with white bread or protein power. :noway:

    I don't think you should drop down to 1700 cals op - I'm a 5'2 woman and I lose on 1600 cals a day and do less exercise than you.

    Please please just try to log accurately for a few more weeks before cutting your calories down to drastic amounts.

    Yep. I'm a 35 female, 5'5", 139 lbs, and I've been losing at 1600 calories a day... and I'm really only lightly active.
  • navyrigger46
    navyrigger46 Posts: 1,301 Member
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    Are you eating back any exercise calories? I am 30, built like you, and started at 264. I only lift 3-4 days a week, and do about half as much cardio and I was losing on 2500 per day, now at 199 and eating 2300 per day with the same routine. You may not be eating enough.

    Rigger
  • Iron_Feline
    Iron_Feline Posts: 10,750 Member
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    Are you eating back any exercise calories? I am 30, built like you, and started at 264. I only lift 3-4 days a week, and do about half as much cardio and I was losing on 2500 per day, now at 199 and eating 2300 per day with the same routine. You may not be eating enough.

    Rigger

    The issue is that he doesn't really know how much he is eating as he measure rice in cups and converts grams/oz to cups to log.

    He needs to log accurately in grams/oz for a few weeks before making changes. :noway:

    Edit: I'm out.
  • navyrigger46
    navyrigger46 Posts: 1,301 Member
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    Are you eating back any exercise calories? I am 30, built like you, and started at 264. I only lift 3-4 days a week, and do about half as much cardio and I was losing on 2500 per day, now at 199 and eating 2300 per day with the same routine. You may not be eating enough.

    Rigger

    The issue is that he doesn't really know how much he is eating as he measure rice in cups and converts grams/oz to cups to log.

    He needs to log accurately in grams/oz for a few weeks before making changes. :noway:

    Edit: I'm out.

    Good call, need to log accurately OP, otherwise you have no idea what you're eating. Still, just arbitrarily reducing your calories without good cause is a no go, and 1700 is nowhere near enough to fuel that level of activity.

    Rigger
  • Will_Thrust_For_Candy
    Will_Thrust_For_Candy Posts: 6,109 Member
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    Wow there is a lot of crap in this thread.

    OP you are really over thinking this....so first things first, take a deep breath, step back and relax :smile:

    You didn't mention (or if you did I missed it because of all the misinformation after your original post) how overweight you are/how much you are trying to lose. Can you give us your stats please?

    You DO NOT need to stop eating anything. You DO NOT need to further reduce your calories.

    You DO need to stop exercising so much. Lifting 3-4 days/week plus cardio 1-2 days per week is totally sufficient. The magic happens during recovery, not during the workout.

    Now as far as not losing....something is definitely off. Now I know that you are saying that your logging is 100% but as others have mentioned I think something could be off. Like for example if you are logging your meat as cooked vs raw, cups instead of weight. If possible, it can also help to scan the labels of the things that you are cooking, like rice. Also, are you like packing the cup of rice ( I am not judging....I have done it :laugh: ) rather than just simply filling the cup. You do need to log your pre-workout but I don't know that would account for not losing on its own.

    Also, when is the last time you had a complete physical. It's certainly something you should consider just to ensure everything is on the up and up.

    And lastly, you mentioned that you don't log calories earned for lifting but you do for cardio. Do you eat those calories back? It could be that you are horribly overestimating your burn during cardio and eating back too many exercise cals.

    I hope that this gives you some insight but please realize that you don't need to eliminate things like rice, honey and bloody protein powder from your diet. You got this :smile: :flowerforyou:
  • CiaLater86
    CiaLater86 Posts: 9
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    Im not sure if this has been said but:

    Muscle weighs more then fat !, you need fat too turn it into muscle, and with weight lifting your probably building muscle and losing fat but its just not showing up on the scale yet !.
    also, A person doesn't need anymore then 30-40 minutes of intense excersize a day after that your just straining your self (newer studies suggest)
    my advise is to stick to mostly cardio, get those calories burning, until your closer to 200-210. then hit the weights.
    You'll slim down in no time.
  • Hartman1986
    Hartman1986 Posts: 45 Member
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    First off, good decision to cut back the amount of exercise. Every body needs a bit of rest. Second, where did you get the 2100 and then the 1700 calorie goals? I'm 5'10 & 250 lbs and my calorie goal is the same as yours was originally. It might be possible that if you have a active job that your body thinks it is starving with all the exercise added in. I would recommend changing only one thing at a time. That way you can see what is working and what is not. I would bump your calories back to 2100 level and keep the reduced training schedule and see what happens in a few weeks. If your still not dropping weight, then reduce the calorie level.
  • Supertact
    Supertact Posts: 466 Member
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    I agree with a lot said here and I would stress do not cut to 1700 cals a day.
  • navyrigger46
    navyrigger46 Posts: 1,301 Member
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    Im not sure if this has been said but:

    Muscle weighs more then fat !, you need fat too turn it into muscle, and with weight lifting your probably building muscle and losing fat but its just not showing up on the scale yet !.
    also, A person doesn't need anymore then 30-40 minutes of intense excersize a day after that your just straining your self (newer studies suggest)
    my advise is to stick to mostly cardio, get those calories burning, until your closer to 200-210. then hit the weights.
    You'll slim down in no time.

    Umm, No.

    Muscle doesn't weigh more than fat, it merely takes up less space. Fat doesn't magically convert into muscle, and if he's lifting in a deficit he is not building muscle. Additionally, cardio and less weights? Really? Cardio is great for the heart and lungs, but when you're losing weight, you need to lift, otherwise the weight you lose will be muscle as much as fat.

    Rigger
  • Ladyluna39
    Ladyluna39 Posts: 17
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    Muscle weighs more than fat, so you may be losing fat as you gain muscle making it hard to tell you have lost fat.
  • charles91108
    charles91108 Posts: 7 Member
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    I believe that the amount of calories you burn during your workout, through no fault of your own, is exaggerated. A general rule of thumb is 1 mile of running (at 6+ mph) burns 100 calories. For those times that your fitbit thingy records 500 calories burned, think to yourself, do you really feel at that time like you would after a 5 mile run?
  • nicxenophontos
    nicxenophontos Posts: 2 Member
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    And you checked your BMI and BMR and have not seen that the fat has turned in to muscle, which is heavier than fat?
  • MKStrausser1980
    MKStrausser1980 Posts: 2
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    I have not had the chance to read your food diary yet but one thing I always make sure I do and that is include every condiment that I use such as mayo, mustard, bar-b-q sauce, dressings etc. as well as anything used in the cooking preparation such as oils/nonstick sprays, butter, seasonings or if it was deep fried in something. All of those things can add calories and sodium, some are very small amounts but they have calories or added sodium.

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