Someone please explain this!!!

NikkiJ17
NikkiJ17 Posts: 295
edited September 24 in Health and Weight Loss
I started consuming 50-75% of my exercise calories about 6 weeks ago and not only have I not lost any weight I have gained 2.5 pounds!! Also, I decided to play around with my MFP settings and I went back and changed the "how many days" & "how many minutes" of exercise. I plugged in different numbers ranging from 0 workouts to 6 days a week 80 minutes a day and it didn't change my daily calories at all. Should it have? If it doesn't change anything then why ask for the info. And in case you're wondering I just had a complete physical complete with all the regular labs plus labs checking for metabolic disorders and everything is in normal range (not high or low normal either, right smack dab in the middle of normal). I'm soooo frustrated!!!

Replies

  • elainegsd
    elainegsd Posts: 459 Member
    Changing the days/length of exercise won't make a difference in your daily calories, your exercise calories are added in as you report them each day.

    If you are gaining weight eating back your exercise calories, then one of two things is most likely occurring. Either your exercise calories are being overestimated, or you're not measuring the food you are eating accurately enough.
  • ajbeans
    ajbeans Posts: 2,857 Member
    As far as the goals, no, exercise isn't factored in when you set up how fast you want to lose -- it's there for a visual goal for YOU. That's why it adds exercise calories in, because they're extra.

    As far as the gaining, I don't know. I'll look at your diary and see if I can find anything amiss.
  • dlaplume2
    dlaplume2 Posts: 1,658 Member
    I went and looked through your journal and something isn't quite right. I don't know what it is.

    You are eating healthy, drinking water and even logging your vitamins. You are logging a lot of calorie exercises though. I can't see what those exercises are. Are you using a HRM? Maybe you are logging daily activities that are already included in your total calorie allotment. If you are truly burning that many calories you are definately undereating. (I do believe in eating back your calories) I just can't see being in starvation mode that quickly if that is what it is.

    The website accounts for your daily activity ie what you entered like atcive, sedentary, and then give you credit once you do the exercises.
    I would check your goal data and make sure you have it set for your correct activity level.

    Best wishes to you.
  • newnarelle
    newnarelle Posts: 40 Member
    Heya, just in regards to eating exercise calories, is this based on what MFP calculates you have earned, or are you inputting this yourself? Because I find it always overestimates the number of calories I burn by quite a bit. Can't really help apart from that comment I am sorry, buy hope you get the answers you need! :) Good luck!
  • ajbeans
    ajbeans Posts: 2,857 Member
    Ok... just looking back through quickly...

    On the days that you have a big cal burn, you're not eating as many of them back as you think you are. If you burn 1300 and you eat 1800, you're only netting 500 calories for your body to live on. That's not enough. The average woman needs to net 1200 cals a day. On your low burn days, you're eating most of them back, but there are quite a few days that I see you're just not netting very many. My theory (take it with a grain of salt) is that perhaps you're doing that too often, slowing your metabolism down, so then on the occasion that you do net 1200 cals or more, your body is hoarding the calories. Might not be the case, but I think it's worth it to take a good hard look at your NET intakes, calories in minus calories burned, not just how much you're eating.

    Secondly, I see you're not tracking sodium. There's a chance it could be water retention if you're taking in too much sodium. Try adding it to your diary for a while and see what happens.

    Edit: Are you not tracking weekends? If you're going over on weekends, that could easily sabotage all the hard work you're doing during the week.
  • Ceria
    Ceria Posts: 46 Member
    First of all, it is never really a good idea to eat your exercise calories. However, there are a couple of things that could be happening that is stopping you from losing weight as well as gain weight. First, how is your sodium? If you are consuming more than 2000mg of sodium in a day you could be retaining water. How are your workouts? If you are doing lots of strenght trainin and not much cardio you may be gaining muscle and losing inches of fat. How is your water intake? If you are drinking less than 64oz of water per day then your body does not have what it needs to break down fat thus no weight loss (this will also make you retain water). Last, looks like you recently dropped nearly 30 lbs...great job You may be at a plateau and just have to change up your exercise routine.

    As far as changing the exercise goals, the calories do not change until you actually post that you have done the exercise. It ask you to put it in to hold yourself accountable to what you say that you are going to do. I hope this helps.:ohwell:
  • GremlinJenny
    GremlinJenny Posts: 151
    If it doesn't change anything then why ask for the info.
    Your exercise aspirations aren't factored in from there since it's just a goal. Like, you're saying "My goal is to exercise 5 times a week!" You can then look at the end of the week and see if you met your goal.

    To actually have the exercise calories factor in, you have to log your daily exercise. This is where it will affect your calories, exercise that you've ACTUALLY done.

    As someone pointed out, your regular daily activities should be entered into your original profile (sedentary, mildly active, etc.) and should not be doubled into your actual daily exercise logging. It's double counting.
  • NikkiJ17
    NikkiJ17 Posts: 295
    " Are you using a HRM? "

    I am using an HRM. One thing that does concern me is that no matter how hard I try (or try not to) my heart rate is always in the 85-90% range. I'm not positive but I think that's high. Could that be causing problems?
  • NikkiJ17
    NikkiJ17 Posts: 295
    Thanks for all the advice!! I think I figured out the problem. I was using a wrist HRM that I had to press a button on it for it to take my heart rate. I took it back and got one with a chest strap that keeps constant track of your heart rate. The difference? About 300 calories!!!!!! The wrist one gave me an average reading of 760 calories for my morning walking/jogging intervals, the chest strap-449 calories. We'll see what the next few weeks bring, hopefully lower numbers on the scale. Again thanks for all the great advice!!
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