I don't want to freak out...

livlinde
livlinde Posts: 39
edited September 26 in Health and Weight Loss
I don't want to freak out, but I'm getting really discouraged with my weight loss attempt!

I have been eating under the recommended minimum calories for quite some time now, which I know is unhealthy. So I started using MFP to get me closer to the recommended amounts. I also started exercising more- longer cardio such as jogging and the elliptical. Also, I'm still eating a little bit less than recommended calorie amounts.

Despite all of this, I have GAINED nearly 10 pounds, and my waist measurement is bigger by half an inch. What is wrong with me?!?

Replies

  • crystal10584
    crystal10584 Posts: 334
    It's hard for us to give you suggestions if we can't view your diary... it could be a number of things.

    please make your diary public.
  • It would help to see ur diary dear
  • Alisha_countrymama
    Alisha_countrymama Posts: 821 Member
    Eat Fat to Burn Fat
    by Jesse Cannone

    For about 50 years now, Americans have been eating low fat (some no fat) diets and the funny thing is we have gotten progressively fatter and less healthy. Who ever said low fat diets were healthy, and more importantly, why does eating less fat mean you’ll be less fat?

    In attempt to keep this easy to understand, as most of what you read and hear is complicated, confusing, and contradictory, I’m going to be direct, to the point, and explain things in a way that most people can understand.

    Where to start??? Well, I’ve done some research on this and have found very little science to back up the claims that eating less fat will keep you trim. I have also found many examples that totally dismiss this idea. For example, the French eat significantly more fat than we do here in the US while there obesity AND disease and illness rates are quite a bit lower.

    Another example is the Alaskan Eskimos. They consume as much as 70% of their calories from fat (whale blubber and fish) and they have one of the lowest rates of heart disease in the world – until they come to the US and eat like us!

    Before I cover other examples I’d like to talk about some the reasons why the “low fat diet” is not only making us fatter, but also killing people faster than you can imagine!

    Does that shock you? If so, do I have news for you!

    Ok… here are just a few reasons:

    eating less fat means you have to eat more protein or carbs and most people end up eating more carbs (and the wrong type!) Dietary fat is very slow burning in the body so when you replace the fat with faster burning carbs you tend to feel less energetic, risk burning muscle tissue, and wreak havoc on your metabolism and hormones because your energy levels (blood sugar) are like a roller coaster.

    Dietary fats supply some of the best, and most stable sources of energy. So if you want to feel good all day long, you need to make sure you are getting enough fats, and the right types. I’ll touch on which types to avoid and which to include in your diet later in this article.

    the human body needs fat just to function properly, let alone optimal health Certain amounts of fat are necessary for proper hormone production. If hormone production is off so will your metabolism be. Hormones regulate many things in the body including your ability to build and maintain muscle tissue, which is responsible for a large portion of your energy expenditure. In simple terms, muscle burns calories 24 hours a day and if you eat a low fat or no fat diet you will have a hard time building and maintaining muscle.

    Here are some facts:

    obesity increased from 14% of the American population in 1960 to over 22% by 1980 the Harvard Nurse’s Health Study which ran well over 10 years found that not only did low fat diets not decrease the risk of heart disease but also that saturated fat wasn’t so bad after all, and that too little was just as harmful

    To read more of the facts about dietary fat and health, check out these great resources:

    http://www.gunnarlindgren.com/nutritionx.pdf http://health.discovery.com/diseasesandcond/encyclopedia/1898.html http://www.drlam.com/A3R_brief_in_doc_format/2002-No3-FatandCholesterol.cfm

    So to sum things up…

    if you want to lose weight and be healthy – DON’T eat a low-fat diet! You would have to be absolutely insane to after learning the truth about dietary fats. If you have doubts or questions please do some research and you will be amazed at what you will find out. In the meantime, go eat some healthy fats!
  • talysshade
    talysshade Posts: 273 Member
    it's a little tough because we can't see your diary, so i'm not entirely sure how and what you are eating. Despite that, it appears to me that at 120 pounds there isn't that much for you to lose! According to your ticker you want to get to 115, but are you sure you want to lose weight, or just inches? You might be better of not trying to lose weight as your BMI is probably fine, but simply work on muscle exercises to tone up..

    Technically you should at least eat the amount of calories as your BMR says.. you can calculate your BMR at the tools of this website. This is the amount of calories you'd burn doing nothing all day. If the goal MFP gives you is lower than this BMR, it is good to assume you can earn more calories by exercise to still get your BMR and still lose weight. Whatever you do, don't go below the minimum of MFP and try to eat as much as your BMR, otherwise your body will be trying to save energy, especially because of how in shape you already are.
  • DanOhh
    DanOhh Posts: 1,806 Member
    What is your daily activity set at? Sedentary, Lightly Active, Active, or Very Active?
  • kdiamond
    kdiamond Posts: 3,329 Member
    I don't think there is any way to gain 10 pounds (and increase your waistine) unless you are overeating or overestimating your exercise calories burn therefore overeating. Open your diary if you would like some advice.
  • livlinde
    livlinde Posts: 39
    Thank you for all the responses- I made the diary public! My daily activity is lightly active, since I work out 4-6 days per week.
  • julsdolphin
    julsdolphin Posts: 32 Member
    Sounds like you are starving your body. If you are exercising more but not eating at least your minimum calories, your body doesn't have enough fuel to function properly so it is holding onto whatever fat it can because it thinks it will starve otherwise. Eat your minimum calories and drink lots of water.
  • hmschultz
    hmschultz Posts: 32
    I would suggest upping your calorie intake (with healthy choices of course) and doing some weight or resistance training. Muscle slims you down and burns fat....
  • cpumeu
    cpumeu Posts: 89
    This is alot of information but i promise that it will explain what is going on in your weight loss journey. Please read!
    This is mostly for my MFP friends But has some awesome info: Check it out! I still see many people that are confused or "question" the idea of eating your exercise calories. I wanted to try (as futile as this may turn out to be) to explain the concept in... no uncertain terms. I'll save the question of "eating your exercise calories" for the end because I want people to understand WHY we say to do this. NOTE: I'm not going to use a lot of citation in this, but I don't want people thinking this is my opinion, I have put much careful research into it, most of which is very complicated and took a long time for me to sift through and summarize, and thanks to my chemical engineering background I have the tools to read clinical studies and translate them (somewhat) into more human terms. Some of this information comes from sources I can't forward because they are from pay sites (like New England Journal of Medicine), so you can ask for anything, but I may or may not be able to readily provide it for you (I can always tell you where to go if you want to though). I'll break it down into 3 sections. Section 1 will be our metabolic lifecycle or what happens when we eat and how our body burns fuel. Section 2 will be what happens when we receive too much, too little, or the wrong kind of fuel. Section 3 will be the steps needed to bring the body to a healthy state and how the body "thinks" on a sympathetic level (the automatic things our body does like digestion, and energy distribution). Section 1: Metabolism, in "layman's" terms, is the process of taking in food, breaking it down into it's components, using the food as fuel and building blocks, and the disposal of the poisons and waste that we ingest as part of it. Metabolism has three overall factors, genetics, nutrition, and environment. So who we are, what we eat, and how we live all contribute to how our metabolism works. You can control 2 of these 3 factors (nutrition, environment). When you eat food, it is broken down into it's component parts. Protein, vitamins and minerals are transported to the cells that need them to build new cells or repair existing cells. Fats(fatty acid molecules) and carbohydrates are processed (by 2 different means) and either immediately burned or stored for energy. Because the body doesn't store food in a pre-digested state, if you eat more carbs and fat then you need immediately, the body will save them for later in human fat cells (adipose tissue). This is important to realize because even if you eat the correct number of calories in a 24 hour period, if you eat in large quantities infrequently (more then you can burn during the digestion process), your body will still store the extra as fat and eliminate some of the nutrients. (Side note: this is why simple or processed carbs are worse for you compared with complex carbs) Section 2: The human body has a set metabolic rate (based on the criteria stated above), this rate can be changed by overall nutritional intake over a period of time, or by increasing activity levels also over a period of time (the exact amount of time for sustained increase in metabolic rates is the subject of some debate, but all studies agree that any increase in activity level will increase the metabolism). It is important to note that obesity does not drastically change the level of metabolic process, that means that if you become obese, you don't burn a higher fat percentage just because you have more to burn. The balance of incoming fuel vs the amount of fuel the body uses is called maintenance calories, or the amount of calories it takes to run your body during a normal day (not including exercise or an extremely lethargic day). The metabolism is a sympathetic process, this means it will utilize lower brain function to control it's level, it also means it can actively "learn" how a body is fitness wise, and knows approximately how much energy it needs to function correctly. It also means automatic reactions will happen when too much or too little fuel is taken in. Too much fuel triggers fat storage, adipose tissue expands and fat is deposited, also free "fat" cells (triglycerides) will circulate in the blood stream (HDL and LDL cholesterol). Too little fuel (again, over an extended period) triggers a survival mode instinct, where the body recognizes the lack of fuel coming in and attempts to minimize body function (slowing down of non-essential organ function) and the maximization of fat storage. It's important to note that this isn't a "switch", the body does this as an ongoing analysis and will adjust the levels of this as needed (there is no "line" between normal and survival mode.). When you're activity level increases, the human body will perform multiple functions, first, readily available carbohydrates and fats are broken down into fuel, oxidized, and sent directly to the areas that need fuel, next adipose (body) fat is retrieved, oxidized, and transported to the areas it is needed for additional fuel, 3rd (and this is important), if fat stores are not easily reachable (as in people with a healthy BMI where adipose fat is much more scarce), muscle is broken down and used for energy. What people must realize is that the metabolism is an efficiency engine, it will take the best available source of energy, if fat stores are too far away from the systems that need them or too dense to break down quickly, then it won't wait for the slower transfer, it will start breaking down muscle (while still breaking down some of that dense fat as well). Section 3: The wonderful part of the human metabolic system is it's ability to adapt and change. Just because your body has entered a certain state, doesn't mean it will stay that way. The downfall to this is that if organs go unused over a long period, they can lose functionality and can take years to fully recover(and sometimes never). As long as there is no permanent damage to organ function, most people can "re-train" their metabolism to be more efficient by essentially showing it (with the intake of the proper levels and nutritional elements) that it will always have the right amount and types of fuel. This is also known as a healthy nutritional intake. Going to the extreme one way or the other with fuel consumption will cause the metabolism to react, the more drastic the swing, the more drastic the metabolism reacts to this (for example, a diet that limits fat or carbohydrate intake to very low levels). In general terms, the metabolism will react with predictable results if fuel levels remain in a range it associates with normal fuel levels. If you raise these fuel levels it will react by storing more fat, if you lower these fuel levels, it will react by shutting down processes and storing fat for the "upcoming" famine levels. The most prominent immediate issues (in no particular order) with caloric levels below normal are reduced muscle function, reduction of muscle size and density, liver and kidney failures, increase in LDL (bad) cholesterol levels, and gallstones . Now onto the question of "Eating your exercise calories" As I have hinted to throughout this summary of metabolic process, the body has a "range" in which it feels it is receiving the right amount of fuel. The range (as most doctors and research scientists agree) is somewhere between 500 calories above your maintenance calories and 1000 calories below your maintenance calories. This means that the metabolism won't drastically change it's functionality in this range, with that said, this is not exact, it is a range based on averages, you may have a larger or smaller range based on the 3 factors of metabolism stated at the top. On our website (MyFitnessPal), when you enter your goals, there is a pre-built deficit designed to keep you in the "normal" metabolic functionality while still burning more calories then you take in. This goal DOES NOT INCLUDE exercise until you enter it. If you enter exercise into your daily plan, the site automatically adjusts your total caloric needs to stay within that normal range (in other words, just put your exercise in, don't worry about doing any additional calculations). Not eating exercise calories can bring you outside that range and (if done over an extended period of days or weeks) will gradually send your body into survival mode, making it harder (but not impossible) to continue to lose weight. The important thing to understand is (and this is REALLY important) the closer you are to your overall healthy weight (again, your metabolism views this a a range, not a specific number) the more prominent the survival mode becomes (remember, we talked about efficiency). This is because as fat becomes scarce, muscle is easier to break down and transport. And thus, the reason why it's harder to lose that "Last 10 pounds". I really hope this puts a lot of questions to bed. I know people struggle with this issue and I want to make sure they have the straight facts of why we all harp on eating your exercise calories.

    If you need encouragement: friend me!
  • momma3sweetgirls
    momma3sweetgirls Posts: 743 Member
    Wow. Definitely eat at least 1200 calories. Add your exercise and eat those calories too. Strawberries ALONE for breakfast is not the greatest idea. You need protein and some complex carbs. Snacking on marshmallows isn't the greatest choice either. Sure, I ate a few myself the other day, but I also snacked on yogurt, cheese, and crackers. Eating 3 meals and 2-3 small (healthy) snacks a day helps to keep your metabolism chugging along.

    Eat breakfast (including protein)
    limit sugary snacks
    eat your exercise calories
  • kcphilly
    kcphilly Posts: 71
    If you're really having a problem getting to 1,200 a day I would suggest not working out until you can change that. Just going back the last week there were a number of days you didn't even hit 1,000 calories...add that to large amounts of exercise and you're body's gonna start reacting negatively.
  • realme56
    realme56 Posts: 1,093 Member
    You HAVE to eat more!! Your body is in starvation mode so that when you eat those marshmallows the body quickly converts it to fat to store. If you exercise without providing fuel/protein for your body, you will damage your muscles and have ineffective calorie burns because your muscles cannot do the work without the protein.
  • riley22
    riley22 Posts: 27
    I don't have much to add that the others haven't except look at your sodium intake. The powerade drink alone has 200 cal. of sodium. That will add water weight for sure.
  • NanBar
    NanBar Posts: 283 Member
    you need to eat a balanced diet. One cannot live on strawberries, pretzels and 3 ounces of carrots. Read the advice given here and see if you can start upping your calories count...I know you said you are trying. Keep trying. Think BALANCED.
  • shreddingit
    shreddingit Posts: 1,133 Member
    eat enough and workout harder not longer
    you can lose weight eating 1600 calories and burning at least 500 through exercise and NOT eating those back
    you need to try everything till you find your way, we are all different...
  • lollie1285
    lollie1285 Posts: 239 Member
    Obviously by now you know that you simply have to eat more like everybody has been saying. Please, please eat more. My stomach would be hurting so badly if I ate what I saw listed in your food diary. Now, I don't work out, so I have to stay strict with my 1200 calories. The most under I'll be for the day is 50 or so. For the most part, it's less than that. Just by eating a healthier breakfast, you should be able to hit your calorie goal better. Strawberries should be a snack, not your meal. I'd also hold off on the exercise until you know you're getting those 1200 calories. If you are working out and not even hitting your goal of 1200, then you're definitely not eating back your exercise calories, which is leaving you with an even larger deficit at the end of the day.
  • 12by311
    12by311 Posts: 1,716 Member
    First of all, I'm not trying to be rude, please know that...but you are eating junk. Until you really make a change in WHAT you eat (not how much of it), you will not see the change you want. Like someone else said, you *need* a balanced diet.

    Eat more natural wholesome foods, more lean protein and I promise you'll see a difference! Good luck!
  • jrbb0309
    jrbb0309 Posts: 55
    The Beautiful Body Formula as laid out in Tosca Reno's Clean Eating books says (and you'll find this backed up in a lot of other places as well) that achieving a "beautiful body" is 80% nutrition, 10% training and 10% genes. If you fill your body with junk (foods built from chemicals) and ignore that your body needs ALL the food groups, it doesn't matter how much you work out, you will not get the body you want.

    Your diary shows skipped meals, a lack of whole grains, chemical-based foods, etc. Change this to feed your body properly and you *will* see results.
  • rachmaree
    rachmaree Posts: 782 Member
    sweetie, as others have said you are NOT eating enough,especially with all that exercise!
This discussion has been closed.