Help help help...please!

if the inches are coming off yeah!!! Have you checked with your doctor, and made sure you're thyroid is ok? you could try eating back the calories or half of them. See how that goes. I hope you get it. I have been stuck for a month. ether way keep going!!!

Hello! I know this is a topic that is brought up quite a bit but I am just so torn and confused in what to do. I have been trying to lose weight since last november and havent really seen any results on the scale. I have in fact seen results with my inches which has been great but I know that I can weigh less than I do right now. Currently I weigh 199.6 and my goal is 160. I am a 26 y/o female and I am 5'8". For the last 3 weeks I have been upping my cardio to 45 min on the elliptical a day x6 days a week, during this the machine puts my heart rate between 150-160ish. I also do 30 min cardio sculpting (lifting) 3x week. So I would say that I am fairly active at the moment. MFP sets my calories to 1200 and I haven't been eating any exercise calories back. I am not really that hungry but I feel that my net calories are really low. I have read so much on here about tdee and increasing calories but I am scared to do so seeing that every time I eat something like a cheat meal I tend to gain like 3 lbs overnight and its soooo frustrating. I weigh EVERYTHING with a food scale and drink a ton of water.


Any advice would be great, especially on the amount of calories I should be consuming to optimize fat loss. TDEE just seems so high to eat that much.....

Inches off is a win! No one sees the scale number but you, and the scale is a dirty little liar anyway - inches down is much better way to see progress. So congrats on that.

1200 cals is the considered the bare minimum intake for women - and that NET, which you are not meeting if you are not eating back exercise cals. Food is fuel, and eating too little for too long is going to give you all sorts of problems in the long run.

I'm your height, and nearly twice your age, and I've had my best success at losing the fat and inches by eating a 15-20% cut from my TDEE. For me that means 1800-2000 calories a day. You can go the TDEE route if you want, eating to the same goal every day, or use MFP the way it's intended - by eating back exercise cals, it should work out to about the same amount of cals consumed either way.

Don't let a gain on the scale after a cheat meal scare you off from eating the right number of cals. The scale lies, and goes up (or down) with water weight due to new exercise/sore muscles, too much sodium the day before, not enough water the day before, hormones - whatever! Keep tracking with the tape measure and use the scale numbers over time, which will show a downward trend, despite daily up and down fluctuations.

If you want to look into TDEE, have a read through this topic: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1187899-in-place-of-a-roadmap-short-n-sweet-reposted?page=1#posts-18544326

Otherwise, keep doing what you're doing, weighing and measuring your food is awesome, exercise is awesome - but make sure you are fueling those workouts and your daily activities by eating the proper amount of cals. Under-eating is no bueno. :noway:

Good luck!

Thanks!! That was very helpful! I am going to try to slowly increase my caloric intake to reach my TDEE. :flowerforyou:

Sounds like the right idea you are training a lot and need to fuel your body! TDEE -20% will give you sustained loss over time while giving your body the fuel it needs to keep up the hard work you are putting in. If you are finding it hard to eat all the calories try some peanut butter, avocados, almonds, granola, greek yogurt. Calorie dense foods.

Good luck!