Lose, Don't Lose, Lose, Don't Lose!?!
TLB86
Posts: 275 Member
Just a quickie -
I lose 1lb a week then for 2 weeks nothing then lost 1lb again then nothing. I am eating 1800 calories daily and may... sorry 'DO' go over on a Saturday or Sunday but never extreme to the point where it's over maintenance. I keep getting confused as to whether I need to up my calories for a bit as I usually work out x4 a week or lower them from 1800? Don't know what I should be setting my activity level at either as I have a desk job BUT as I said I Spin, Boxfit or just gym-it 4 times a week.
I weight foods and log them. Even a slice of cheeky ham or cheese.
Arghhh.....
I lose 1lb a week then for 2 weeks nothing then lost 1lb again then nothing. I am eating 1800 calories daily and may... sorry 'DO' go over on a Saturday or Sunday but never extreme to the point where it's over maintenance. I keep getting confused as to whether I need to up my calories for a bit as I usually work out x4 a week or lower them from 1800? Don't know what I should be setting my activity level at either as I have a desk job BUT as I said I Spin, Boxfit or just gym-it 4 times a week.
I weight foods and log them. Even a slice of cheeky ham or cheese.
Arghhh.....
0
Replies
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You should probably stop weighing your self to often. Your body has normal weight fluctuations. Some you will lose, some maintain and some gain. The bigger question is, what does your weight loss look like over the last 8 weeks?
BTW, stick with one calorie goal for 4-8 weeks before you adjust. But even if you go over, track all your calories so you can make an informed decision.0 -
Like this -
W1/90.7
W2/90.6
W3/90.6
W4/89.9
W5/89.9
W6/89.9
W7/89.8
W8/89.8
Not sure if to lower them from 1800 to 1500 and see how it goes as I want to lose around 6lb before Christmas?0 -
What's your BMR?
What's your TDEE?
How tall are you?
How much do you weigh currently?
Do you eat back your exercise calories?0 -
is that in kg I assume?-1
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This is what my weightloss journey looks like :
I weigh everyday. Lots of ups and downs!! But there is a downward trend and that's what matters.
Don't get impatient. If you are at a calorie deficit and eat healthy and exercise, there is no reason why you shouldn't get result long term.0 -
Yeah Kg sorry.
What's your BMR? 1642 (IIFYM website)
What's your TDEE? 2258 (IIFYM website)
How tall are you? 5ft 6.5
How much do you weigh currently? 89.8kg / 197.9lb
Do you eat back your exercise calories? I usually work a calorie deficit that includes exercise for 3 x a week (IIFYM website)
Any help is welcome and I do appreciate it a lot0 -
for the last couple of months my weight has been up one week then down the next;
week 1 - 156
week 2 - 152
week 3 - 154
week 4 - 151
week 5 - 152
week 6 - 148
etc. It was annoying to start but it's still going down on average so it's not really an issue.0 -
Well, what does your sodium intake look like? Understand that different foods are processed and affect your body differently. If your caloric in-take is high in sodium you will retain more fluids giving you the illusion you aren't losing. Then you hit the gym, push out the excess water and sodium and low and behold you lose.
I wouldn't call this a problem. And if you want to weigh yourself everyday do it. I weigh myself everyday because I want to know exactly how my body is working and what foods are problem foods for me. Etc..
1lb a week or 2lbs every 3 weeks isn't bad especially at 1800 cals for a female. I'm in maintenance now and I go between 183-189 lbs. When I hit my upper limit I cut back on cals and try to stay away from ice cream (haha I know) and when I am at my lower limit I do what I want. That's my maintenance routine. But everyone is different.
Good luck!
Mark
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Like this -
W1/90.7
W2/90.6
W3/90.6
W4/89.9
W5/89.9
W6/89.9
W7/89.8
W8/89.8
Not sure if to lower them from 1800 to 1500 and see how it goes as I want to lose around 6lb before Christmas?
I know you said you splurge on the weekends, so how much do you splurge. Can you pull the last 8 weeks worth of intakes (maybe put them in an excel) and see what your overall average intake. Even though you are 1800 calories during the week, I have a feeling your weekends could be upping the average to get closer to maintenance levels.
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So based on that, you are currently losing about 0.25 lbs/wk. At 1800 calories, in a perfect world you SHOULD be losing a little less than 1 lb/wk.
There can be several reasons for the difference, but probably the most likely are inaccurate food logging and overestimation of activity level. You are weighing your food so that is good, but depending on the database entries you choose there can also be some inaccuracies there. As for exercise, I'd suggest using a sedentary activity level and log the exercises you do - that would give you a TDEE of 1970 cal/day.
Its important to realize that all of these numbers are estimates, so the actual number isn't all that important. The key is that you have 2 months of calories in vs weight loss rate data that you can use to make an adjustment. Your body is telling you that you are at a 125 calorie/day REAL deficit. If you look at your sedentary TDEE, that is pretty on point (1970-1800 = 170). It could be that your day is SO sedentary that the gym activity doesn't really make up for it.
If you want to lose 6 lbs by Christmas, you need to get that calorie deficit up to 500 calories. I'd set you up as sedentary, start logging cardio only, and net 1470 calories a day. Give it 3 weeks and re-evaluate.
As for the fluctuations, that is totally normal. As long as the trend over time is down, you are good to go.
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I know you said you splurge on the weekends, so how much do you splurge. Can you pull the last 8 weeks worth of intakes (maybe put them in an excel) and see what your overall average intake. Even though you are 1800 calories during the week, I have a feeling your weekends could be upping the average to get closer to maintenance levels.
I do go over on a Sunday as I have quite large roast dinners and wine so that is one culprit! I just thought If I am doing well through the week then the odd one or two days are fine to go over. BUT it makes absolute sense that this could be averaging out to maintenance.
Thanks0 -
GauchoMark wrote: »So based on that, you are currently losing about 0.25 lbs/wk. At 1800 calories, in a perfect world you SHOULD be losing a little less than 1 lb/wk.
There can be several reasons for the difference, but probably the most likely are inaccurate food logging and overestimation of activity level. You are weighing your food so that is good, but depending on the database entries you choose there can also be some inaccuracies there. As for exercise, I'd suggest using a sedentary activity level and log the exercises you do - that would give you a TDEE of 1970 cal/day.
Its important to realize that all of these numbers are estimates, so the actual number isn't all that important. The key is that you have 2 months of calories in vs weight loss rate data that you can use to make an adjustment. Your body is telling you that you are at a 125 calorie/day REAL deficit. If you look at your sedentary TDEE, that is pretty on point (1970-1800 = 170). It could be that your day is SO sedentary that the gym activity doesn't really make up for it.
If you want to lose 6 lbs by Christmas, you need to get that calorie deficit up to 500 calories. I'd set you up as sedentary, start logging cardio only, and net 1470 calories a day. Give it 3 weeks and re-evaluate.
As for the fluctuations, that is totally normal. As long as the trend over time is down, you are good to go.
So if I go with 1470 calories a day like you suggest and log exercise, how do I go about averaging them out over the week. I like to have the same amount of calories a day rather than faff all on non workout days and lots the others. Also would you say eat back workout calories?0 -
I know you said you splurge on the weekends, so how much do you splurge. Can you pull the last 8 weeks worth of intakes (maybe put them in an excel) and see what your overall average intake. Even though you are 1800 calories during the week, I have a feeling your weekends could be upping the average to get closer to maintenance levels.
I do go over on a Sunday as I have quite large roast dinners and wine so that is one culprit! I just thought If I am doing well through the week then the odd one or two days are fine to go over. BUT it makes absolute sense that this could be averaging out to maintenance.
Thanks
Yes, you can ruin an entire week's progress with one bad day or even meal sometimes. It all counts, so you can't just decide that 1 day out of 7 is a freebie. You must look at averages and totals.
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Shitester!! I've been a bad girl *penny drops* I think it may be my salt intake also!
See, you have people on here having 'cheat days' and not care about salt etc but I suppose everyone is different. Close eye is being kept for a couple of weeks now. Espesh as I have my Mr's Bday in a couple of weeks, which will be a big night out.
Still unsure if I need to eat and workouts back? I might set my calories to 1570 and not eat workouts back0 -
Did you log your cheat days by chance? If so, do what psulemon said and go back and look at how many calories you REALLY ate. You need to re-baseline using the cheat day intake too to see how you really did.0
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You can have a planned cheat day, but what you need to do is lower your intake during the week. So possible, you could eat 1600 or even 1500 during the week, so you can exceed your saturday or sunday by 1000 calories and not worry about it affecting weight loss. Having said that, you still should look at the averages over the 4-8 week time frame so we can get a better understanding of calories in. If we know in, we know TDEE/maintenance.0
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Like this -
W1/90.7
W2/90.6
W3/90.6
W4/89.9
W5/89.9
W6/89.9
W7/89.8
W8/89.8
Not sure if to lower them from 1800 to 1500 and see how it goes as I want to lose around 6lb before Christmas?
If this were me, I'd lower calories a bit. You haven't lost more than 1 lb total in 8 weeks. Clearly you don't have much of a deficit.0 -
That's kg. I have lost 3lb in 8 weeks, which is still *kitten* lol! Sorting calories out now0
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Just a quickie -
I lose 1lb a week then for 2 weeks nothing then lost 1lb again then nothing. I am eating 1800 calories daily and may... sorry 'DO' go over on a Saturday or Sunday but never extreme to the point where it's over maintenance. I keep getting confused as to whether I need to up my calories for a bit as I usually work out x4 a week or lower them from 1800? Don't know what I should be setting my activity level at either as I have a desk job BUT as I said I Spin, Boxfit or just gym-it 4 times a week.
I weight foods and log them. Even a slice of cheeky ham or cheese.
Arghhh.....
Weight loss is not linear. What you describe sounds like natural weight fluctuations, and also perhaps that you are maintaining weight.
If you are maintaining, I suggest that you eat a bit less, not more.
Do you weigh all your food? Log even when you go over your calories? Do you research to make sure you are choosing correct entries (MFP can be off sometimes).
Do you log your exercise? If so, where do you get your calorie burns from?
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If you are using the TDEE method from the IIFYM website, as you described above, you do not eat your exercise calories back.Shitester!! I've been a bad girl *penny drops* I think it may be my salt intake also!
See, you have people on here having 'cheat days' and not care about salt etc but I suppose everyone is different. Close eye is being kept for a couple of weeks now. Espesh as I have my Mr's Bday in a couple of weeks, which will be a big night out.
Still unsure if I need to eat and workouts back? I might set my calories to 1570 and not eat workouts back
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Not sure if this is what you were requiring but I know one thing, looking back over the past 8 weeks is scary as hell! Some *kitten* I ate!0 -
If you are using the TDEE method from the IIFYM website, as you described above, you do not eat your exercise calories back.Shitester!! I've been a bad girl *penny drops* I think it may be my salt intake also!
See, you have people on here having 'cheat days' and not care about salt etc but I suppose everyone is different. Close eye is being kept for a couple of weeks now. Espesh as I have my Mr's Bday in a couple of weeks, which will be a big night out.
Still unsure if I need to eat and workouts back? I might set my calories to 1570 and not eat workouts back
I like to do the TDEE as I don't need to log any exercise, it just takes it into account. I do 4 x 55mins minutes of cardio a week averaging out at 2200 calories burned a week (this is taken from machines/online tools or running apps). I used to weight train 2 a week but knackered my shoulder back in July so need to rest it.
Calories are now lowered to 1500 and I won't bother thinking about logging/eating exercise back.
Made me feel a little better about this now and understand a little more
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just to clarify, you may not need to lower your calories if you pinpointed that the cheat days were the culprit. Just food for thought.0
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Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Like this -
W1/90.7
W2/90.6
W3/90.6
W4/89.9
W5/89.9
W6/89.9
W7/89.8
W8/89.8
Not sure if to lower them from 1800 to 1500 and see how it goes as I want to lose around 6lb before Christmas?
If this were me, I'd lower calories a bit. You haven't lost more than 1 lb total in 8 weeks. Clearly you don't have much of a deficit.
Yeah, she hasn't lost more than a pound in 8 weeks.
Oh, and she weighs 90 pounds, which makes her a prime candidate for weight loss.
Even if you've never heard of the metric system, at least use common sense.0 -
Just so people understand I weight 89.8kg NOT pounds. If I were at 89lb weight loss would be the last thing on my mind! I want to lose another 20lb overall but 6lb but Xmas.
I will try and sort my cheat days to planned cheat days if anything and see how I go.0 -
Just so people understand I weight 89.8kg NOT pounds. If I were at 89lb weight loss would be the last thing on my mind! I want to lose another 20lb overall but 6lb but Xmas.
I will try and sort my cheat days to planned cheat days if anything and see how I go.
Sounds like a good plan. If anything, drop your normal calories to 1600 per day, and then have a moderate cheat day. If it's been awhile since you recalculated your TDEE, then you may want to do that first. Remember, the smaller your get, the less calories your body will burn naturally.
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Cool! I have lowered them for the time being to 1570 then I can have those 'moderate days' like next Friday and my Mr's Bday. Hopefully it will kick my metabolism up a notch too. I also realised that I don't log the flora light that goes in my jacket spud or sip or occasional 200ml orange juice.
LOG LOG LOG!!!!! LOSE LOSE LOSE!!!! SMILE SMILE SMILE lol.
P.s I have lost a couple of inches so it's not all a poppy mess.0
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