Eating and exercising but not losing weight....

Careamer
Careamer Posts: 8
in Health and Weight Loss
So I hit my heaviest weight 3.5 weeks ago of 135lbs. I am 5'2. I look in the mirror and I look so fat to myself. I was always tiny (under 105 lbs) then my thyroid went out. Got put on synthroid and bam got pregnant (I wish someone told me that when you are hypothyroid you don't ovulate!) Anyways stayed on my meds through pregnancy and breastfeeding did not lose an ounce. Then I quit nursing and my thyroid started working again. But I have these huge love handles. I was eating terrible. I loved cookies, bread, pasta, cpcakes, candybars, etc.

SO i join myfitnesspal and start drastically cutting my calories and exercising 30-40 minutes a day for 5-6 days a week. I see absolutely no results. I then go on a weekend trip and eat when I'm hungry but still only raw foods and no sweets. I lose 3 lbs! Then I get back home and start letting myself eat more but its been another week and now I've gained those 2 pounds back. I am riding a minimum of about 30-45 minutes a day on my bike at a slow rate (my kids are with me we average 5 miles an hour). So what gives?? What am I doing wrong?

Replies

  • wheird
    wheird Posts: 7,963 Member
    How many calories are you eating?

    A couple of weeks is not long enough to determine a legitimate loss. Your weight fluctuates day to day.
  • dawnemjh
    dawnemjh Posts: 1,465 Member
    It may help to open up your food diary so others can see what you are eating.

    Do you weigh your food. Keep track of your intake?
  • nicjustine
    nicjustine Posts: 37
    How many calories are you eating?

    A couple of weeks is not long enough to determine a legitimate loss. Your weight fluctuates day to day.

    ^^ yep. It can be frustrating, but give it time. Persistence is key.
  • Alluminati
    Alluminati Posts: 6,208 Member
    How many calories are you eating?

    A couple of weeks is not long enough to determine a legitimate loss. Your weight fluctuates day to day.

    Sorry for being OT but dat pic. LMAO
  • Liftng4Lis
    Liftng4Lis Posts: 15,151 Member
    With everyone else here, this is not something that's going to happen overnight. Remember you are small so more than likely you're only going to lose about a half pound a week. In two weeks, you're talking a pound, add water retention and you're at zilch. Give it time.
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  • Careamer
    Careamer Posts: 8
    myfitnesspal tells me to eat 1260 but I usually end up closer to 1550-1600 but then I do enough exercise to bring it back to around 1260 (sometimes a little over sometimes a little under). So you think that i should be eating more? I don't know how to open up my food diary. I'm new at this :\ I do use a measuring cup to determine how much I'm eating. If I'm out I do my best judgement though.
  • Careamer
    Careamer Posts: 8
    Its gonna take me forever to lose weight.....but i guess I'm ready to lose the love handles so I'll keep at it. Its just frustrating to so dramatically change my diet and exercise and not get results. Its a little discouraging
  • Careamer
    Careamer Posts: 8
    I figured out my food diary so I made it public if you want to look. Thank you :)
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  • maidentl
    maidentl Posts: 3,203 Member
    You can look at it this way. I am also 5'2" and 136 happens to be my goal weight as it is the top of the healthy weight range for that height. I lose about 1.5 pounds/week with about 1500 calories but I have a lot more fat to lose than you do. Since you're already at a healthy weight, 1500 calories is going to be a smaller deficit for you since you're smaller. I'd stay there if I were you and just know that you're going to lose it lose it slowly.
  • ana3067
    ana3067 Posts: 5,623 Member
    Stop drastically cutting calories and eat enough to actually fuel your body and benefit your metabolism. If eating 2000 calories helps you maintain your current weight, then 1600 calories at most would be enough of a drop.Take into consideration your activity levels with this as well.

    http://www.health-calc.com/diet/energy-expenditure-advanced
    http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/CalRequire.html

    You can average them out or start with the lower result, subtract 15% from it and set that as your custom calorie goal and eat that amount for a month or at least a few weeks to see how your body responds. If you maintain, drop it by 100. Lose too much, add 100.

    I'd recommend you increase your protein, maybe about 110g, which would work for both getting you close to 30% protein from your calories (of 1500) and at 0.8g of protein per lb. This is mostly to help with satiety and to help your body retain a bit more of its lean mass (not fat). Also, stop eating a few hundred below your goal, as it won't help you figure out if your current goals are working or not. You're also doing more harm to your metabolism - a lot of people have discussed how increasing their calories helped them lose more weight, so it's worth considering. I'm all about eating as much as you can to see good results.
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  • Careamer
    Careamer Posts: 8
    no those are right LOL and that was puffcorn(its a lot bigger and 11pieces is literally what I ate) and 1/4 ear of corn is right too. And if you look at the garlic bread that was 1/15 of a loaf not a piece. I can't measure in grams so I go with what I can measure and I knew out of the whole loaf split into half (thats the way you cook it) and then cut that was how much of the loaf I ate. I'm very careful about my measurements. But you have to look at what my percentage was of. My portion sizes are small and I just eat a variety. I typically measure my portions out just to make sure
  • violetpereira
    violetpereira Posts: 49 Member
    Measure yourself.

    I have been under my Calorie count and working out 5 times a week. And when i stepped on the scale I had PUT ON A KILO,
    but the good news is that I LOST AN INCH on my waist.
  • Careamer
    Careamer Posts: 8
    and I use "map my fitness" to figure out calories burned on my bike routes
  • Careamer
    Careamer Posts: 8
    I did do my measurements tonight and I have lost 1/2 inch on my waist, and 1/4 inch on my upper thigh so that was a little helpful to see. now if I could get rid of my love handles :p
  • Careamer
    Careamer Posts: 8
    Stop drastically cutting calories and eat enough to actually fuel your body and benefit your metabolism. If eating 2000 calories helps you maintain your current weight, then 1600 calories at most would be enough of a drop.Take into consideration your activity levels with this as well.

    http://www.health-calc.com/diet/energy-expenditure-advanced
    http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/CalRequire.html

    You can average them out or start with the lower result, subtract 15% from it and set that as your custom calorie goal and eat that amount for a month or at least a few weeks to see how your body responds. If you maintain, drop it by 100. Lose too much, add 100.

    I'd recommend you increase your protein, maybe about 110g, which would work for both getting you close to 30% protein from your calories (of 1500) and at 0.8g of protein per lb. This is mostly to help with satiety and to help your body retain a bit more of its lean mass (not fat). Also, stop eating a few hundred below your goal, as it won't help you figure out if your current goals are working or not. You're also doing more harm to your metabolism - a lot of people have discussed how increasing their calories helped them lose more weight, so it's worth considering. I'm all about eating as much as you can to see good results.

    Thank you. I will try this. The weekend that I went on vacation I didn't worry about how much I ate I just watched my portions and ate when I was hungry and actually lost weight that weekend. A friend of mine told me to increase my calories as well. She said my body was slowing down its metabolism to much because I wasn't eating enough. So I guess I'll stop worrying about how often I eat and when I'm hungry I'll grab something that is healthy and keep working out all the time and see where that gets me. I thank you for your advice :)
  • codycsweet
    codycsweet Posts: 1,019 Member
    I figured out my food diary so I made it public if you want to look. Thank you :)
    Logging errors plus overestimating calories burned can leave you not being in deficit.

    And chances are you have logging errors because you log stuff like this:
    1/4 ear of corn
    .15 garlic bread
    .6 cup mac and cheese
    .75 slice of cheese
    11.5 piece of pop corn

    Sorry but those are all guesses.

    Get your logging accurate.

    ^^this for instance

    Ur peach is probably 50-80 calories depending on weight. My medium peach I just weighed would be 80 calories
    Large eggs are 70 calories edit you actually over estimated on this one. At 155
    NY steak is probably closer to 245 calories if you know for sure it is 4.5 oz

    Do you weigh everything, if not buy a digital scale and start there
    Stop using generic calorie amount most of these are inaccurate. If your not sure go to http://nutritiondata.self.com/ and get the info

    Were you don't have a huge amount to lose, these small differences in calories make a big difference on the scale.

    Also it takes time, effort, and patience. It will happen. Good luck to you
  • skittlesnhoney
    skittlesnhoney Posts: 651 Member
    I use map my fitness to log some stuff too and it grossly overestimates calories burned. If you are planning on using that to accurately track your energy expenditures, it's going to be way off. This only matters if you are eating back all your exercise calories though. If so, then you could be eating more than your TDEE. My fitness pal even overestimates calories burn and it's way less than map my fitness for most if not all of the activities I log. If you are eating back exercise calories, then cut it down to eating only half back and see if it helps.
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  • ushie2611
    ushie2611 Posts: 8
    lift weights..and heavy as you can go for 6-8 reps..dont make huge defecits..cut cardio...but do HIIT or resistance 3-5 days a week at 135..you need lean muscle mass and an increased metabolism...cut 20% from your BMRR (your daily amount you need just to survive) the bigger you are the more of a defecit you can handle....but its the lean muscle that burns cals and stokes metabolism

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