Can't get into first gear. Should I cut the carbs?

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  • jeffpettis
    jeffpettis Posts: 865 Member
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    The only thing absolutely required for fat loss to occur is a calorie deficit. If you are not losing weight you are either eating more than you think or burning less than you think or a combination of both. Either way something is off in the math.

    Contrary to what some have said it does not take 7 or 8 weeks for the body to adjust to a lower calories intake to start losing weight, if it took that long for someone to start losing weight that simply means it took that long for that person to finally eat at a energy deficit. Weight loss is absolutely not linear but it will not take 7 or 8 weeks for the body to start using fat for energy if you are not supplying it by food.

    Also the first thing people do after reading something like this is get mad because they feel their intelligence is being questioned. I am not questioning yours or anyone elses intelligence when it comes to logging your food, but I will refer back to my first statement.

    All that is absolutely required for weight loss to occur is a calorie deficit. If you're not losing you just have to figure out why you are not in a deficit...

    Good luck...

    Thanks for the time & thought you put into this post. I'm guessing that your opinion is that in a world where I actually am logging everything accurately--purely as a hypothetical--the only possible reason I wouldn't be losing fat would be some sort of medical issue?

    Losing weight does not necessarily equate to fat loss and vise versa especially when you are talking over a short period of time.

    My claim is NOT that you will not lose fat over a 7-8 week period initially, my point was that this fat loss can easily be obscured by water retention due to extra water for the purpose of glycogen storage and repair when you first start up a new exercise routine especially one that is based on progressive overload with heavy weight.

    My guess is you ARE losing fat, it just isn't showing up on the scale yet.

    So what you are saying is that someone can lose 10 pounds of fat but at the same time retain that exact 10 pounds in water which would totally obscure any fat loss at all? I'm sorry but I disagree. Yes you will retain water when lifting heavy and dieting, at most a couple of pounds, but not enough to obscure all fat loss for up to two months.
  • healthyscratch1978
    healthyscratch1978 Posts: 76
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    There is no one out there that logs everything 100% accurately. Take a look at the food in your cabinet or fridge. Isn't it odd that "almost" every food in there has a calorie amount that is an even number like 100 calories per serving or 230 calories per serving not 126 calories per serving or 211 calories per serving? Think about that for a second.

    My point is even if you are going by what the manufacturer has printed on the label it's still possible to log inaccurately. You just have to make the adjustments based on what your body is doing, and I know for me whether I am bulking or cutting I am not going to wait 7 or 8 weeks for something to happen. I know my body and I know that it responds quicker than that to changes in my diet.

    So to answer your question, no, I wouldn't say that at all. I would still say something is off in the numbers. The number of people that actually have a medical condition that would prevent them from losing weight is very low. The number of people that will fall back on a supposed medical condition because they aren't doing what needs to be done on the other hand is pretty high... :drinker:

    Understood that no one is 100% accurate. So your POV is that it's got to be my logging. I'm really not trying to argue with good advice here, I'm just being honest in that it's tough for me to understand how that could be.

    Let me state my case. Ok, my logging for the past 30 days has been ~1820 calories/daily. Say I was off EVERY SINGLE DAY by 200 calories; just some total systemic failure where I was eating 5-10% more calories than I was logging...I'd still be at the # this calculator (http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/) says I should be at to lose a pound a week. And I haven't lost a pound in four. And I'm not estimating any exercise in this, even though I'm working out 3 times a week.

    I mean, the way I see it, if it was all about logging, I'd have to be mis-logging almost 700 calories every day (yet still going to bed most nights kinda hungry) to stay at my current weight. Like I said, just pretend for a second that I'm not doing that. Is there literally nothing else that could be a problem/issue with the #'s on the scale, IYO?

    Over the course of this thread, it sounds more like there could be water retention stuff happening, like what Aaron described. I'm probably going to stay the course for the next couple weeks, and see if things start to change. I'll start weighing my fish/chicken raw, but considering those items are nutrient dense lean protein, it's hard for me to see that as the source of all my problems. After that, I guess I'll experiment with carb reduction, but I'm not reducing cals any further. They are about as low as I want to go now.
  • laratacita
    laratacita Posts: 53 Member
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    You might be able to get your wife to measure the portion sizes if you're unsure that you're estimates are correct.
  • jmangini
    jmangini Posts: 166 Member
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    The only thing absolutely required for fat loss to occur is a calorie deficit. If you are not losing weight you are either eating more than you think or burning less than you think or a combination of both. Either way something is off in the math.

    Contrary to what some have said it does not take 7 or 8 weeks for the body to adjust to a lower calories intake to start losing weight, if it took that long for someone to start losing weight that simply means it took that long for that person to finally eat at a energy deficit. Weight loss is absolutely not linear but it will not take 7 or 8 weeks for the body to start using fat for energy if you are not supplying it by food.

    Also the first thing people do after reading something like this is get mad because they feel their intelligence is being questioned. I am not questioning yours or anyone elses intelligence when it comes to logging your food, but I will refer back to my first statement.

    All that is absolutely required for weight loss to occur is a calorie deficit. If you're not losing you just have to figure out why you are not in a deficit...

    Good luck...

    Thanks for the time & thought you put into this post. I'm guessing that your opinion is that in a world where I actually am logging everything accurately--purely as a hypothetical--the only possible reason I wouldn't be losing fat would be some sort of medical issue?

    There is no one out there that logs everything 100% accurately. Take a look at the food in your cabinet or fridge. Isn't it odd that "almost" every food in there has a calorie amount that is an even number like 100 calories per serving or 230 calories per serving not 126 calories per serving or 211 calories per serving? Think about that for a second.

    My point is even if you are going by what the manufacturer has printed on the label it's still possible to log inaccurately. You just have to make the adjustments based on what your body is doing, and I know for me whether I am bulking or cutting I am not going to wait 7 or 8 weeks for something to happen. I know my body and I know that it responds quicker than that to changes in my diet.

    So to answer your question, no, I wouldn't say that at all. I would still say something is off in the numbers. The number of people that actually have a medical condition that would prevent them from losing weight is very low. The number of people that will fall back on a supposed medical condition because they aren't doing what needs to be done on the other hand is pretty high... :drinker:

    I totally agree with this too. I saw where an indecent testing company tested a number of foods for product labeling accuracy and none of them were 100% accurate. Also, there is no way to truly know calorie output, so when you log your exercise it is unlikely MFP is accurate with calories burned, and since you are adding those calories back to your food intake, there is a lot of room for error.
  • healthyscratch1978
    healthyscratch1978 Posts: 76
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    I totally agree with this too. I saw where an indecent testing company tested a number of foods for product labeling accuracy and none of them were 100% accurate. Also, there is no way to truly know calorie output, so when you log your exercise it is unlikely MFP is accurate with calories burned, and since you are adding those calories back to your food intake, there is a lot of room for error.

    I'm not adding any calories back in for exercise. Just doing the exercise and going by my calorie total, as if nothing had happened. I have my setting on "lightly active", whatever the one is above sedentary. Like I said, standup desk, on my feet 8-10 hours a day, mon-fri, and walk around campus quite a bit.

    If all the nutritional labels are wrong, wouldn't there be some distribution of labels where the calories were actually under the number on the label? I mean, if the source of that error is random, and not some conspiracy by all the food companies of the world to keep me tubby, then you'd think that random error would show up in a distribution with some foods under the label number, and some over that number. In the end, I think it would pretty much all come out in the wash. I don't really know of a good solution if all the labels on food are underestimating, that seems like it defeats the purpose of calorie counting.
  • jmangini
    jmangini Posts: 166 Member
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    There is no one out there that logs everything 100% accurately. Take a look at the food in your cabinet or fridge. Isn't it odd that "almost" every food in there has a calorie amount that is an even number like 100 calories per serving or 230 calories per serving not 126 calories per serving or 211 calories per serving? Think about that for a second.

    My point is even if you are going by what the manufacturer has printed on the label it's still possible to log inaccurately. You just have to make the adjustments based on what your body is doing, and I know for me whether I am bulking or cutting I am not going to wait 7 or 8 weeks for something to happen. I know my body and I know that it responds quicker than that to changes in my diet.

    So to answer your question, no, I wouldn't say that at all. I would still say something is off in the numbers. The number of people that actually have a medical condition that would prevent them from losing weight is very low. The number of people that will fall back on a supposed medical condition because they aren't doing what needs to be done on the other hand is pretty high... :drinker:

    Understood that no one is 100% accurate. So your POV is that it's got to be my logging. I'm really not trying to argue with good advice here, I'm just being honest in that it's tough for me to understand how that could be.

    Let me state my case. Ok, my logging for the past 30 days has been ~1820 calories/daily. Say I was off EVERY SINGLE DAY by 200 calories; just some total systemic failure where I was eating 5-10% more calories than I was logging...I'd still be at the # this calculator (http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/) says I should be at to lose a pound a week. And I haven't lost a pound in four. And I'm not estimating any exercise in this, even though I'm working out 3 times a week.

    I mean, the way I see it, if it was all about logging, I'd have to be mis-logging almost 700 calories every day (yet still going to bed most nights kinda hungry) to stay at my current weight. Like I said, just pretend for a second that I'm not doing that. Is there literally nothing else that could be a problem/issue with the #'s on the scale, IYO?

    Over the course of this thread, it sounds more like there could be water retention stuff happening, like what Aaron described. I'm probably going to stay the course for the next couple weeks, and see if things start to change. I'll start weighing my fish/chicken raw, but considering those items are nutrient dense lean protein, it's hard for me to see that as the source of all my problems. After that, I guess I'll experiment with carb reduction, but I'm not reducing cals any further. They are about as low as I want to go now.

    First relax and take a deep breath. You can figure this out. I have always gained weight easily and had to really work things out for myself. Here is my advice from my personal experience. Of course you don't have to take it :). Losing any substantial weight is a lot harder than maintaining your weight. Kicking the weight loss into gear, for many of us, takes a little shock to the system, this is why I've had success with one day extremely restricting calories followed by the next day eating normally. I've also had success just eating very little. We all have a different calorie level we need to lose weight. For some people it's 2500. For others it's 1500. For me personally, it's under 1500. Consider that some 200 pound body builders have to cut way down to 1500 calories to get in competition shape. That's pretty extreme. In my opinion, we are told we need way more food than we actually do. Just consider that, other than the domesticated pet, we are the only animal on the planet that eats all day long. Ok we'll maybe the cow, but cows are fat lol. Then there's the you're gaining weight because you're eating too much crowd. Ever see a fat anorexic? If that theory was true, Ethiopians would be the fattest country in the world rather than Australia. My point is, maybe you need to cut more calories a bit to find your individual loss point. I just read a recent study that demonstrated losing weight quickly can have long lasting results, which brings me back to my earlier point that maintaining weight is far easier than losing weight. I know I've had my success all my life by losing my weight rather quickly by eating far less than normal and less often. That's my 2 cents and I wish you much luck my friend.
  • jmangini
    jmangini Posts: 166 Member
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    If all the nutritional labels are wrong, wouldn't there be some distribution of labels where the calories were actually under the number on the label?

    Yes there were actually.
  • healthyscratch1978
    healthyscratch1978 Posts: 76
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    thanks man. How long did you do the severe restriction to "jump start" the weight loss? I'm not sure I want to do that, will probably just stick with my current plan for a bit to see if it's water-retention related, but I'd be curious to know what your plan of attack is. Having experimented in the past with creatine and lifting, I know water can cause some serious fluctuation (and makes you look bigger than you are. In good ways, in some cases, lol).
  • hearthwood
    hearthwood Posts: 794 Member
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    Walking a quarter mile a day is nothing, nor does standing all day burn many calories. You might want to get into a cardio routine, maybe spinning classes, or running, sports like tennis, racquetball, etc. and then you'll see the weight come off.
  • LazSommer
    LazSommer Posts: 1,851 Member
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    Did you even read the Stronglifts 5x5 website? It speaks to this.
  • ironanimal
    ironanimal Posts: 5,922 Member
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    Start in 2nd. Works better when traction is at a minimum.
  • jmangini
    jmangini Posts: 166 Member
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    thanks man. How long did you do the severe restriction to "jump start" the weight loss? I'm not sure I want to do that, will probably just stick with my current plan for a bit to see if it's water-retention related, but I'd be curious to know what your plan of attack is. Having experimented in the past with creatine and lifting, I know water can cause some serious fluctuation (and makes you look bigger than you are. In good ways, in some cases, lol).

    I go off creatine when I want to lose weight or get more cut because creatine holds water. That's why guys like it, it loads the muscles with water so they look bigger than they actually are, but it also loads my belly with water lol. A few days ago I was 14% body fat and I want to get down to 9%. Foe the past two days, I've only eaten one full meal. For instance yesterday I had coffee and supplements then worked out, had a protein oatmeal shake post workout then had a salad and pasta for dinner. Today was off rest day, so I had coffee and supplements in the morning, went for a massage then had a can of tuna and a bowl peas so far today and I had those at 5:30. I was 187 two weeks ago. As of yesterday I was almost 181. The thing for me is I need to extreme diet for a few days and shrink my stomach, the less I eat the more I don't need to eat. The more I eat, the more I need to eat. Once I diet for a few days, I get full faster and therefore, when I go back to increases my calories a bit I actually eat less because I get full quickly and don't crave food for long periods of time.
  • cidalia1973
    cidalia1973 Posts: 51 Member
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    Don't quit. Look over your numbers again. Use this to calculate your numbers:

    http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/


    A while back, when I started my weight loss journey, I went 6 frustrating weeks of the scale not budging, and suddenly 6 pounds disappeared in the following 2 weeks. It's fits and starts sometimes. Unfortunately, I didn't stick it out, and here I am again. Live and learn.

    Personally, I feel better if I watch my carbs, but I don't go too low carb, and I don't count carbs in veggies. I'm working on cutting out sugar, refined carbs, and limiting grain products and fruit. I don't limit veggies. I feel better, less bloated, and I don't crash from lack of carbs.
  • healthyscratch1978
    healthyscratch1978 Posts: 76
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    Did you even read the Stronglifts 5x5 website? It speaks to this.

    Yes, I did. I don't think he specified that section of the FAQ to folks that were eating at an estimated 700 calorie deficit, though. I have built muscle before, and putting on 2 pounds of muscle in four weeks seems a bit unrealistic when you're on a pretty sizable deficit.
  • healthyscratch1978
    healthyscratch1978 Posts: 76
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    deleted, double post.
  • jmangini
    jmangini Posts: 166 Member
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    Don't quit. Look over your numbers again. Use this to calculate your numbers:

    http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/


    A while back, when I started my weight loss journey, I went 6 frustrating weeks of the scale not budging, and suddenly 6 pounds disappeared in the following 2 weeks. It's fits and starts sometimes. Unfortunately, I didn't stick it out, and here I am again. Live and learn.

    Personally, I feel better if I watch my carbs, but I don't go too low carb, and I don't count carbs in veggies. I'm working on cutting out sugar, refined carbs, and limiting grain products and fruit. I don't limit veggies. I feel better, less bloated, and I don't crash from lack of carbs.

    The one macronutrient I extremely limit is saturated fat. I lose weight ever time I do. I don't know why but I do notice the difference.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
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    The only thing absolutely required for fat loss to occur is a calorie deficit. If you are not losing weight you are either eating more than you think or burning less than you think or a combination of both. Either way something is off in the math.

    Contrary to what some have said it does not take 7 or 8 weeks for the body to adjust to a lower calories intake to start losing weight, if it took that long for someone to start losing weight that simply means it took that long for that person to finally eat at a energy deficit. Weight loss is absolutely not linear but it will not take 7 or 8 weeks for the body to start using fat for energy if you are not supplying it by food.

    Also the first thing people do after reading something like this is get mad because they feel their intelligence is being questioned. I am not questioning yours or anyone elses intelligence when it comes to logging your food, but I will refer back to my first statement.

    All that is absolutely required for weight loss to occur is a calorie deficit. If you're not losing you just have to figure out why you are not in a deficit...

    Good luck...

    Thanks for the time & thought you put into this post. I'm guessing that your opinion is that in a world where I actually am logging everything accurately--purely as a hypothetical--the only possible reason I wouldn't be losing fat would be some sort of medical issue?

    Losing weight does not necessarily equate to fat loss and vise versa especially when you are talking over a short period of time.

    My claim is NOT that you will not lose fat over a 7-8 week period initially, my point was that this fat loss can easily be obscured by water retention due to extra water for the purpose of glycogen storage and repair when you first start up a new exercise routine especially one that is based on progressive overload with heavy weight.

    My guess is you ARE losing fat, it just isn't showing up on the scale yet.

    So what you are saying is that someone can lose 10 pounds of fat but at the same time retain that exact 10 pounds in water which would totally obscure any fat loss at all? I'm sorry but I disagree. Yes you will retain water when lifting heavy and dieting, at most a couple of pounds, but not enough to obscure all fat loss for up to two months.

    Not for two months no, but for 4 weeks yes.
  • swimnurseteacher7
    swimnurseteacher7 Posts: 24 Member
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    You may not be eating enough. Your body may be in "starvation" mode and holding on to everything. I have a similar problem. The body is an amazing machine and it will preserve itself. I had to eat just a tad more calories and when I work out I have to make sure to get my heart rate up to the appropropriate range for my age and weight . If I eattoo few calories my body will just slow the metabolism down and I will not lose. Also check how much water you are drinking. The water is needed to flush the fat away. I need the 8 (8 oz) cups plus one extra cup for every 25 lbs you are overweight every day. That is a lot of water but when I drink it and bump up the calories and get the heart rate up I can see results. Good luck to you.
  • jeffpettis
    jeffpettis Posts: 865 Member
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    There is no one out there that logs everything 100% accurately. Take a look at the food in your cabinet or fridge. Isn't it odd that "almost" every food in there has a calorie amount that is an even number like 100 calories per serving or 230 calories per serving not 126 calories per serving or 211 calories per serving? Think about that for a second.

    My point is even if you are going by what the manufacturer has printed on the label it's still possible to log inaccurately. You just have to make the adjustments based on what your body is doing, and I know for me whether I am bulking or cutting I am not going to wait 7 or 8 weeks for something to happen. I know my body and I know that it responds quicker than that to changes in my diet.

    So to answer your question, no, I wouldn't say that at all. I would still say something is off in the numbers. The number of people that actually have a medical condition that would prevent them from losing weight is very low. The number of people that will fall back on a supposed medical condition because they aren't doing what needs to be done on the other hand is pretty high... :drinker:

    Understood that no one is 100% accurate. So your POV is that it's got to be my logging. I'm really not trying to argue with good advice here, I'm just being honest in that it's tough for me to understand how that could be.

    Let me state my case. Ok, my logging for the past 30 days has been ~1820 calories/daily. Say I was off EVERY SINGLE DAY by 200 calories; just some total systemic failure where I was eating 5-10% more calories than I was logging...I'd still be at the # this calculator (http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/) says I should be at to lose a pound a week. And I haven't lost a pound in four. And I'm not estimating any exercise in this, even though I'm working out 3 times a week.

    I mean, the way I see it, if it was all about logging, I'd have to be mis-logging almost 700 calories every day (yet still going to bed most nights kinda hungry) to stay at my current weight. Like I said, just pretend for a second that I'm not doing that. Is there literally nothing else that could be a problem/issue with the #'s on the scale, IYO?

    Over the course of this thread, it sounds more like there could be water retention stuff happening, like what Aaron described. I'm probably going to stay the course for the next couple weeks, and see if things start to change. I'll start weighing my fish/chicken raw, but considering those items are nutrient dense lean protein, it's hard for me to see that as the source of all my problems. After that, I guess I'll experiment with carb reduction, but I'm not reducing cals any further. They are about as low as I want to go now.

    Yes, in "most" cases it is as simple as a logging error. Let me give you an example. A few years ago I was starting a cutting cycle. It was right at the beginning of winter. I LOVE coffee, but during the summer I only drink maybe one cup in the morning, but during the winter I can drink a whole pot throughout the day. I add a little sugar and milk or creamer to my coffee. I "assumed" that each cup was around 50 to 70 calories. I am a pretty boring eater, meaning I eat almost exactly the same things all the time. Other than these few cups of coffee absolutely nothing in my diet had changed but I went for about a month and stayed exactly the same even though I thought I had about a 20% deficit in place. After going nuts trying to figure out what was going on I actually measured out my sugar and milk in my coffee and it turned out to be around 110 calories per cup. So 4 or 5 cups of coffee a day turned into about 2000 calories in a week that I wasn't even logging. My point in all this is it doesn't take much to wipe out a deficit at the end of the week.

    Also any calculator you use is just going to be an educated, or sometimes not so educated guess. None of them are 100% accurate. Use these calculators as a base line to start but base your numbers off of what your body actually does. In other words if a calculator says you should lose weight eating 2000 calories a day and you eat 2000 calories for a couple of weeks and maintain, it doesn't really matter what that calculator told you, you now know what you need to do in order to get your body to do what you want it to do.

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