Help! Frustrated and making no progress

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  • tycho_mx
    tycho_mx Posts: 426 Member
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    yeah, 200 per day. But taking it over a week (3 non-workout days per week, but maybe your calculations assume you workout every day for your TDEE of 200 0cal).

    Your consumption is adjusted from 1500 to 2000 (aprox.) brom BMR to TDEE, over a week. You eat 1650 to make it 20% deficient, that is 11,550 cal. Your base is 1489 x 7 = 10,423. The superavit is 1127 calories. (and the BMR seems high, depending on how much muscle you actually have - fat is pretty much metabolically inert.

    So you're eating 1,130 calories per week over your "base". You work out a bit (800 calories? 200 x 4 times a week). So you have a superavit of 330 calories, pending your non-logged activities. Is your non-exercise activity (commuting, doing house work, etc.) burning this much? More? Less?
  • zoeysasha37
    zoeysasha37 Posts: 7,089 Member
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    Personally I think you should give it more time. It took a while for the scale to move for me as well. Just don't give up and keep measuring and weighing. I use the depo provera injection, and have no issues losing on it. I know it's frustrating, but just keep it up and you'll start to lose
  • ArmyWife4106
    ArmyWife4106 Posts: 29
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    When I first started working out I was eating 1400 calories and working out 5 days a week with no results. I dropped 200 calories and went to 6 days a week and the lbs started dropping. I was just doing treadmill an running then also. Now I do more intense cardio when my kids are in school anyway, because they are awful needing when they are home..lol jk I also stopped using the scale so much because not seeing results was aggravating, I weigh in once every 2 weeks and use the tape measure once a week.
  • kari31p
    kari31p Posts: 10 Member
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    I too am on the pill and did some research. I found that taking a B12 supplement can offset the negative side effects that the pill can have. I've noticed big time changes in my energy and a budge in the scale since I started taking it! Just an idea!
  • ParkerH47
    ParkerH47 Posts: 463 Member
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    If you're truly logging everything your eating (which I don't doubt) Than you should consider lowering your calories, maybe try 1400 for a bit?

    TDEE calculations are just that - they are calculations and they can't account for every variable in each individuals body. If you have been consuming 1650 calories each day and your not losing - its simple math you likely need to reduce the calories.

    I know its sucks :( but 5 weeks is long enough that water retention etc can't explain it all away.
  • AleciaG724
    AleciaG724 Posts: 705 Member
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    The math seems to be a bit suspect. I'm no expert on TDEE ( I workout differently every day, so I "budget" differently every day).

    But there's no way a 40 minute workout adds up to 500 calories (in case your daily life has little physical activity, like many of us keyboard surfers). With 2 hours of exercise a week, I'd be tempted to just remove those from the calculation and see how they weight (and mood, appetite, etc.) behave.

    Weight gain is a numbers game (allowing for fluctuations, it's not linear): if you're consistently gaining, you're consuming more than you're burning. If you're losing, you're burning more than you're consuming. Tracking down the causes for the discrepancies is the tricky part (is my BMR lower than I thought? [it depends on the amount of muscle you have, not so much on total mass!], are my workouts overestimated? Is some medical condition lowering my metabolism? And so on).

    For reference, an elite cyclist of your height, giving her all, can probably burn 1200 on a hard one hour workout. Averaging it out to 4 days/week, it seems like your exercise calorie burn is overstated. MFP and may other places unfortunately inflate their workout calorie expenditures, sometimes bad math, sometimes they add the basal calorie burn, etc.

    This is a great explanation! It took me almost a year of being frustrated with the numbers MFP gives me to figure out that even HRM's are inflated because the basal calorie burn is included. I'm switching to TDEE soon for the summer to change things up a bit. Thanks Tycho_mx - you seem very knowledgeable!
  • slk_5555
    slk_5555 Posts: 177 Member
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    I was in a similar position a few weeks back, but am now loosing again. I always hate when people ask if I weigh all my food - I always said I weigh everything, but out of interest I started weighing things which I had got into the habit of guessing - salads, veg, salad dressing, milk in my tea, pine nuts in my salad - it was a massive eye opener. It basically meant that I didn't have the 500 cal a day deficit I thought I had....hence no weight loss. For the last 2 weeks everything goes on the scales or a measuring spoon - no guessing at all & for the last 2 weeks I lost weight.

    I notice you have quite a few take-aways in your diary - thats great if its within points, but take aways and restaurant meals are very hard to calculate - its a guessing game. I was doing the same at lunch - now I make it at home to eliminate guess work. If I were you, I would try to go 1 week with no take-aways (ie no guess work) and weigh absolutely everything you eat.
  • Bounce4
    Bounce4 Posts: 288 Member
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    Maybe try decreasing your cals a bit 100-200 and see if that helps

    That is what I would do.
  • rachelguy
    rachelguy Posts: 24
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    I've taken on board what everyone is saying, I'm reducing my daily intake to 1500, will try to avoid any indulgences such as take-aways for the first couple of weeks and will up my vitamins to try to counteract any issues with the pill! thank you all for your help :smile: it's really appreciated!

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