Calorie Deficit Not Working

Are you weighing all foods and measuring liquids? Using a food scale?

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http://www.fitnessfactreview.com/the-art-science-of-calorie-counting/

You can starve yourself, and this will slow things down. I had a plateau, upped calories and kept dropping. 1200 for 5-9 at 175 isn't enough in my opinion.

Eating less makes you lose weight, but if you eat too little your body senses starvation/famine and will keep you "alive". You won't lose any fat, you'll keep everything you do eat, burn muscle to live (less muscle=less required energy).

And 2200 is without working out, when you workout mfp increases your calories. So sounds like you are starving, which your body will hang onto fat and use muscle for fuel. Up calories to at lleast
2000 and try that.

Although you very well may not be eating enough for health and fitness but not at all for the reason given here. Your body will definitely not "hold onto fat" if you don't eat enough.

Hi,

I currently weigh 175 and height is 5,9 it says my daily calorie intake should be 2200 but I want to go on a calorie dificit cause I am not working out.

1 Week passed, I been eating and noting 1200 - 1250 calories per day but I don't add it on myfitnesspal I use a different app on my phone so yeah I'm paying attention to my intake.

I haven't loss or gained any pounds... what am I doing wrong?

how did you get the figure 1200 - 1250 if you are 5ft 9 in tall?

I think you should plug your stats into MFP and get a more realistic calorie goal - and then in turn stick to it more accurately - ie weigh and measure everything.

If you have not made any progress after 1 month, post again and see if people can make suggestions for you.

In order to make constructive suggestions, they will need to be able to see your diary though - which means you probably need to use the MFP app for recording.

Eating less makes you lose weight, but if you eat too little your body senses starvation/famine and will keep you "alive". You won't lose any fat, you'll keep everything you do eat, burn muscle to live (less muscle=less required energy).

Please tell starving kids in Africa about how not eating enough will make their bodies hold onto fat.

I did it for you - try eating 1700 calories a day. You're welcome.

I looked at your diary and it's all over the place. Your nutrients aren't consistent day to day like they should be. Sugar was a little high for a few days. Carbs were in a good range though. I suggest someone who's not doing low carb eat about 130-175 a day, so you're good in that department most days.

Check your macros, drink a lot of fluids, and have more consistent food choices. If you want to eat more then just burn it off. You'll be all set to go after that.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/872212-you-re-probably-eating-more-than-you-think


ETA: A link with great info/tips/advice:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants

Eating less makes you lose weight, but if you eat too little your body senses starvation/famine and will keep you "alive". You won't lose any fat, you'll keep everything you do eat, burn muscle to live (less muscle=less required energy).

Completely false and an utter myth. Find one study that substantiaties this obviously flawed logic.

For one thing muscle weighs more per calorie than fat so if you kept your fat and burned your muscle instead the result would be you would lose weight twice as fast not lose no weight.

Here is one, but I'm not going to do your research for you, believe what you like. http://info-centre.jenage.de/assets/pdfs/library/fontana-JAMA-03_2007.pdf If you read this, it actually references several "study"(s).

Best case is you do lose fat and muscle at same time, but you still lose muscle. The more restrictive, the more muscle lost and less fat (if you lose 50 pounds and 20% is muscle and rest is fat, then you lost 40 pounds of fat, however, if you lose 50 pounds and 50% was muscle, you only lost 25 pounds of fat! your body fat % actually would go UP in this case, therefore causing you to have "gained" fat) . And, muscle DOES not weigh more than fat, 1 pound of muscle is 1 pound of fat, now fat takes up MORE space, but fat is NOT an active tissue, it doesn't "burn" any calories, muscle, or more general muscle mass DOES burn calories.

It does take 3500 calories to "Burn" one pound of fat, it takes NOTHING to burn a pound of muscle, it does however, COST you energy to maintain.

Also to another poster, asking for me to tell those starving kids in Africa about all that fat, I ask you, where is all that muscle? If I'm so wrong, then why wouldn't they have muscles? Perhaps not huge, but defined muscles (men, women, kids, NO one starving has much muscle)? They don't because they ARE starving. And by the way, we aren't talking about "Starving kids in Africa" we are talking about a diet of someone wanting to lose a few pounds over a short period of time, not someone who has NEVER known too much food. Who never had a BUNCH of fat on their bodies to begin with let alone someone who can go off of diet anytime they like.

And, muscle DOES not weigh more than fat, 1 pound of muscle is 1 pound of fat, now fat takes up MORE space,

I never said 1 pound of muscle weighs more than 1 pound of fat do not attempt to strawman what I actually said.

What I said, if you read my post, is that muscle weighs more per calorie than fat which is absolutely true.

Muscle tissue is primarily protein which nets 4 calories per gram. If you had a deficit of 3500 calories and burned muscle tissue to recoup that you would need to burn 875g worth.

If however you recouped that same deficit from adipose tissue the fat would yield 9 cal per gram so you would need to burn 389g.

In one case you catabolize 875g of tissue while in the other case you catabolize 389g. What this means is that if you end up burning muscle in addition to fat or instead of fat you would lose more weight than if it had been from fat alone.

Therefore the claim that going into a starvation mode, where your body burns muscle instead of fat, explains a lack of weight loss is clearly false.

If you burned muscle instead of fat your weight loss would accelerate not slow and certainly not stop.