Sloooooooooow weight loss
Options
kimault1984
Posts: 71 Member
I have been logging meticulously for almost 2 months now and according to my MFP I should be losing 1 lb. per week. While I AM losing, I seem to only be losing about .5 lb per week. I know there is always room for error so I try to 'estimate up' when logging something that cannot be weighed/measured (eating out somewhere where nutritional information is unavailable). I am 5'4 and 154 lbs and my daily calorie goal is 1260. My first goal weight is 140 but that may change to 135 depending on how I feel.
Has anyone else experienced a really slow weight loss on a 1200 calorie diet? What rate did you lose at and were you able to do anything to help speed it up? I'm not looking for rapid weight loss, just a healthy pound per week to help keep me motivated. Any suggestions are welcomed
Has anyone else experienced a really slow weight loss on a 1200 calorie diet? What rate did you lose at and were you able to do anything to help speed it up? I'm not looking for rapid weight loss, just a healthy pound per week to help keep me motivated. Any suggestions are welcomed
0
Replies
-
Are you exercising? You don't mention it. Exercise, if you don't eat back the calories you burn, will help to create a larger calorie deficit.0
-
I pay more attention to my Carb Intake than I do my calories. I try to keep my carbs between 80 and 100 a day. If I do that, the calories and sugars take care of themselves.0
-
As you get closer to your "goal" (or "healthy") weight 1 pound a week will be too much to lose without a low calorie count, since you have to have a 3,500 deficit to lose one pound. Most doctors, RD's and personal trainers do not recommend women to eat under 1200 calories a day.
So....re-evaluate your numbers. And then just keep going. Make sure you weigh at the same time of day and the same day of the week if only weighing once a week. Our bodies can fluctuate a few pounds easily depending on food and water intake, time of the month, etc. Just keep being consistent and the pounds will fall off.
Good luck!!!0 -
A half pound per week would be fast loss in my book! Since you're relatively close to your goal weight, you will likely lose more slowly--that's completely normal. Of course, you can always add in exercise and then eat back some of those calories--that may increase the rate for you a bit.0
-
Do you weigh solid foods and measure liquids? If not you could be eating 10-50+% more than you think you are.0
-
-
All good points, maybe if I had more to lose it would come off a little quicker. Slow and steady wins the race, right?!
0 -
-
I am a "shortie" at 5 feet 2 inches. I finally had an "ah hah" (or "duh") moment when I really looked at my TDEE. My TDEE, for example, is about 1600 calories. With no exercise at all, if I follow a 1200-calorie a day diet, I'm only creating a weekly caloric deficit of 2800 calories (aka, less than a pound a week for loss if I don't exercise). Doing the numbers, then, it makes sense that I would lose about .6 or .8 of a pound a week, and that's if my weekly deficit could be *exactly* reflected in my weight loss every week on the scale (which can always be affected by many factors, sodium intake, etc.)
Look at your TDEE and check to see how much of a deficit you're actually creating with that 1260 cal intake. You may find that it's pretty close to what you're losing. Exercise will help you create more of a deficit.0 -
I've had my own mental issues with 'working out' in the past. What I've done to overcome it: I think in terms of activity. I don't want to be a sedentary person. So I make an effort to move more throughout the day. It doesn't have to be the latest greatest workout that everyone else is posting about in their feed. It can be walking in the neighborhood, jogging in place while watching tv, doing active errands (like going inside rather than drive thrus, doing things around the house that I previously asked the kids to do like 'get me a drink').
Activity - in my mind - means moving more than I otherwise would have. It means you burn more calories in a day.0 -
I'm going to go ahead and guess that you are eating more than you think. Based on your diary, I stand by this assumption. Some things that jumped out at me:
1) You say you weigh your food, but most of what you input is either the standard serving size or is a measured entry. Eg. "Polaners All Fruit - Strawberry All Fruit Spread, 1 tablespoon." Are you weighing out the grams for this? When I take peanut butter I often just use the default single serving weight of 18 or 15g (depends on variety). I never use the actual measuring spoons for this.
2) Arnold - Multi-grain Sandwich Thin, 1 Roll, did you weigh this to see if it matches the label?
3) Snacks - Popcorn, oil-popped, 1 cup, this is neither weighed nor is it your own recipe. For all you know you used way less or way more of each ingredient in this.
4) English Muffin - Thomas Original, 57 grams and it is always 57g. So I'm assuming you don't weigh this.
5) Dinner on monday was Peas - Green, frozen, unprepared, 0.5 cup and Hamburger Helper - Classic Salisbury (Ground Turkey), 1 Cup Prepared. Both of these are measured with cups, and the hamburger helper is clearly not your own recipe. How do you know you used the same amount of ingredients? or same ingredients with the same macros?
6) You are consistently logging like <800 calories. One day you logged like 400 calories. I'm guessing you are either not logging everything you eat, or you are going abou dieting in a really stupid manner.
Log properly. Weigh EVERYTHING and use that weight in your log, log everything you eat every day, and eat right up to your daily goal. Only once you've accomplished all 3 of these things will you be able to tell whether your intake goal needs to be changed.
And OP does not need to exercise to lose weight. Unless she wants to increase her TDEE to be able to eat more food, she can lose weight being sedentary.0 -
i don't know if this helps, either, but I think I read that restaurants can have a margin of error of something like 20% on their calorie estimates?!?! I'm going to try to hunt that article down.0
-
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joanna-dolgoff-md/restaurant-foods-contain_b_423582.html
(how credible is Huffington Post?)0 -
If you only have 15-20 lbs to lose, 1/2 lb per week is a great rate to lose it at. Keep it up and be patient, difficult as it is :drinker:0
-
GuitarJerry wrote: »I'm going to go ahead and guess that you are eating more than you think. Based on your diary, I stand by this assumption. Some things that jumped out at me:
1) You say you weigh your food, but most of what you input is either the standard serving size or is a measured entry. Eg. "Polaners All Fruit - Strawberry All Fruit Spread, 1 tablespoon." Are you weighing out the grams for this? When I take peanut butter I often just use the default single serving weight of 18 or 15g (depends on variety). I never use the actual measuring spoons for this.
2) Arnold - Multi-grain Sandwich Thin, 1 Roll, did you weigh this to see if it matches the label?
3) Snacks - Popcorn, oil-popped, 1 cup, this is neither weighed nor is it your own recipe. For all you know you used way less or way more of each ingredient in this.
4) English Muffin - Thomas Original, 57 grams and it is always 57g. So I'm assuming you don't weigh this.
5) Dinner on monday was Peas - Green, frozen, unprepared, 0.5 cup and Hamburger Helper - Classic Salisbury (Ground Turkey), 1 Cup Prepared. Both of these are measured with cups, and the hamburger helper is clearly not your own recipe. How do you know you used the same amount of ingredients? or same ingredients with the same macros?
6) You are consistently logging like <800 calories. One day you logged like 400 calories. I'm guessing you are either not logging everything you eat, or you are going abou dieting in a really stupid manner.
Log properly. Weigh EVERYTHING and use that weight in your log, log everything you eat every day, and eat right up to your daily goal. Only once you've accomplished all 3 of these things will you be able to tell whether your intake goal needs to be changed.
And OP does not need to exercise to lose weight. Unless she wants to increase her TDEE to be able to eat more food, she can lose weight being sedentary.
Ok, so for a nazi, all this might work. I don't weigh bread slices or eggs. I don't even log condiments because 1) I don't really ever use them, and 2) whrn I do, its so small it doesn't matter.
I don't weigh eggs, although I know someone does. I use 70 calories per egg. I don't log Pam. Because, I don't know how to measure 1/8 of a second spray, or whatever the hell it is. I know there are calories, even though it says there are not. But, I can't be bothered with timing my sprays.
I weigh everything that is reasonable. And I measure everything that is reasonable.
I also don't log coffee, gum, and probably a few other things.
I still get the results I want.
My suggestion is to go to IIFYM.com, go to the TDEE calculator, put in your stats, and see what it says. Take about 15% off your TDEE and eat that much everyday. You will lose.
As you lose, you have to eat less, so about every 5 lbs, recalculate your TDEE and keep going until you hit your goal.
Haha, Thank you
0 -
GuitarJerry wrote: »I'm going to go ahead and guess that you are eating more than you think. Based on your diary, I stand by this assumption. Some things that jumped out at me:
1) You say you weigh your food, but most of what you input is either the standard serving size or is a measured entry. Eg. "Polaners All Fruit - Strawberry All Fruit Spread, 1 tablespoon." Are you weighing out the grams for this? When I take peanut butter I often just use the default single serving weight of 18 or 15g (depends on variety). I never use the actual measuring spoons for this.
2) Arnold - Multi-grain Sandwich Thin, 1 Roll, did you weigh this to see if it matches the label?
3) Snacks - Popcorn, oil-popped, 1 cup, this is neither weighed nor is it your own recipe. For all you know you used way less or way more of each ingredient in this.
4) English Muffin - Thomas Original, 57 grams and it is always 57g. So I'm assuming you don't weigh this.
5) Dinner on monday was Peas - Green, frozen, unprepared, 0.5 cup and Hamburger Helper - Classic Salisbury (Ground Turkey), 1 Cup Prepared. Both of these are measured with cups, and the hamburger helper is clearly not your own recipe. How do you know you used the same amount of ingredients? or same ingredients with the same macros?
6) You are consistently logging like <800 calories. One day you logged like 400 calories. I'm guessing you are either not logging everything you eat, or you are going abou dieting in a really stupid manner.
Log properly. Weigh EVERYTHING and use that weight in your log, log everything you eat every day, and eat right up to your daily goal. Only once you've accomplished all 3 of these things will you be able to tell whether your intake goal needs to be changed.
And OP does not need to exercise to lose weight. Unless she wants to increase her TDEE to be able to eat more food, she can lose weight being sedentary.
Ok, so for a nazi, all this might work. I don't weigh bread slices or eggs. I don't even log condiments because 1) I don't really ever use them, and 2) whrn I do, its so small it doesn't matter.
I don't weigh eggs, although I know someone does. I use 70 calories per egg. I don't log Pam. Because, I don't know how to measure 1/8 of a second spray, or whatever the hell it is. I know there are calories, even though it says there are not. But, I can't be bothered with timing my sprays.
I weigh everything that is reasonable. And I measure everything that is reasonable.
I also don't log coffee, gum, and probably a few other things.
I still get the results I want.
My suggestion is to go to IIFYM.com, go to the TDEE calculator, put in your stats, and see what it says. Take about 15% off your TDEE and eat that much everyday. You will lose.
As you lose, you have to eat less, so about every 5 lbs, recalculate your TDEE and keep going until you hit your goal.
And OP does not appear to be weighing everything that is reasonable, as shown by the few things I posted. No weight for peanut butter (high calorie), using recipes that she did not create, quick add calories (one day was just a quick add entry), "1 orange," "broccoli 1 cup" etc. If someone doesn't want to weigh out their prepackaged foods, that's fine. I much prefer to weigh them out because 1 slice of bread on Monday can be 30g and the next day it can be 42g. if I'm eating something such as canned tuna, or individual serving jello, or mustard, I don't weigh it (nor do I really even log mustard most days).
OP, however, fails to even weigh the basics. At least according to her diary.0 -
unlikelyathlete wrote: »http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joanna-dolgoff-md/restaurant-foods-contain_b_423582.html
(how credible is Huffington Post?)
I think this is great, and there is NO WAY they can have the same amount of calories in every single dish. Some cooks have a heavy hand when it comes to butter, oil, sauce etc. so I always try to take that into account. I like that sometimes it has less calories though...0 -
With all the advice about weighing and measuring food, I think most people are missing the point:
TDEE estimates done by MFP or any other online calculator are just that -- estimates. They are based on averages, using formulas that estimate based on just a few inputs (height, weight, age, activity level maybe body fat % depending on the formula, though MFP doesn't use that).
They are not going to be accurate for you in particular, because every person is different and burns calories at a slightly different rate. They are useful starting points for when you have no idea where to begin. But as with any online calculator, you have to calibrate it against your actual results.
If MFP estimates that you are burning 1760 calories/day (1260+500) and should lose 1lb/week but you're actually losing 0.5lbs/week, well, assuming you're measuring as accurately as is reasonably possible, the truth is, you're only burning 1510 calories/day. That's entirely possible if you're short and not all that active. If I don't exercise, my estimated TDEE is only 1450, so 1510 is not out of the realm of possibility.
Your choices are therefore to either:- Cut calories further -- not really recommended in this case 'cause that would put you at 1010/day which is really low.
- Accept the slower pace of weight loss -- probably more realistic since you're pretty close to your goal weight anyway, and it looks like you're eating at just over a 15% deficit, which is a safe and reasonable weight loss pace anyway.
- Add more exercise -- more cardio to burn more calories, and more weight training to preserve lean muscle as you do and keep your BMR as high as possible as you shed the fat.
I'd suggest some combination of #2 and #3, depending on how active you are already.
ETA: Yes, first make sure your tracking and logging is as accurate as it can be.0 -
I have to agree with ana. Your logging is not meticulous. Tighten that up. Don't use quick calories for an entire day. Stop logging only half a day... unless you're really only eating 300-700 calories per day. In that case, eat more.0
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 391.5K Introduce Yourself
- 43.5K Getting Started
- 259.7K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.6K Food and Nutrition
- 47.3K Recipes
- 232.3K Fitness and Exercise
- 391 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.4K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.7K Motivation and Support
- 7.8K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.3K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.2K MyFitnessPal Information
- 22 News and Announcements
- 925 Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.3K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions