Struggling to stay within the limits...

Ok first... there's no way you can gain fat at your stats and 1500 calories plus exercise. It's NORMAL to gain weight occasionally when trying to lose weight, weight loss isn't linear, and what you're gaining is water weight... which you will lose.

So if you're really gaining fat at 1500 calories (meaning by that, you've gained a couple pounds and haven't lost them in 1 month or so), then it means you're underestimating your calories by a lot.

Also, I'm 36 and I never had to eat under 1600 (counting exercise calories) to lose, so at your age you can probably easily eat 2000 total and lose... and I have chocolate or something like that almost every day too. It's not a problem... just have to stay under your calories and not overdo it.

About breakfast, you don't HAVE to eat it. If you're not hungry in the morning, don't eat. It doesn't matter when you eat, all that matters is how much you eat.

About your sister, just prove her that you can do it and use it as extra motivation to lose the weight...

Finally, if you open your diary, we can probably help more.

Francl27 wrote: »

Ok first... there's no way you can gain fat at your stats and 1500 calories plus exercise. It's NORMAL to gain weight occasionally when trying to lose weight, weight loss isn't linear, and what you're gaining is water weight... which you will lose.

So if you're really gaining fat at 1500 calories (meaning by that, you've gained a couple pounds and haven't lost them in 1 month or so), then it means you're underestimating your calories by a lot.

Also, I'm 36 and I never had to eat under 1600 (counting exercise calories) to lose, so at your age you can probably easily eat 2000 total and lose... and I have chocolate or something like that almost every day too. It's not a problem... just have to stay under your calories and not overdo it.

About breakfast, you don't HAVE to eat it. If you're not hungry in the morning, don't eat. It doesn't matter when you eat, all that matters is how much you eat.

About your sister, just prove her that you can do it and use it as extra motivation to lose the weight...

Finally, if you open your diary, we can probably help more.

I'm with the above poster.

Sometimes we can get confused between water weight and fat gain.

1500 Plus Exercise seems VERY low for maintenance with your stats.

I wish you the very best.

Adam

I'm with the above posters that it seems unlikely you'd gain weight on 1500 calories with your stats. Retaining water because you had a lot of sodium or did resistance training is not the same as fat gain. A lot of people see normal fluctuations on the scale and freak out that they're gaining, but they haven't stuck with the program long enough to see the overall trend.

Your issue might be accurate calorie logging. I'm 5'5" and lose weight slowly on 1500 calories a day, but I have to be precise with my tracking. If I don't weigh/measure my food or get lazy about logging my weekend meals out, I usually stall out. Odds are pretty good that if you're eyeballing 2 tbsp of peanut butter, you're really eating 3 tbsp, which is a lot of added calories.

It will be easier to stick to your calorie goal if you eat a high protein, high fiber diet and include a decent amount of fats for satiety. Get a lot of veggies and water in too. It will help you feel full and help keep you within your calories. It's good you acknowledge you're an emotional eater - recognize when you're eating because you're bored or sad, and ask yourself if that's REALLY a reason you want to eat. Find activities you can do instead of eating that will make you feel better. And once again, make sure your calorie goal is accurate and you really are eating what you think you're eating.

It does not appear to be a calorie thing.

If you are exercising the most likely reason your scale crept up is inflammation. When you work out, it causes little tears in your muscle fibers. This is called microtrauma and it’s why you feel sore after a workout. On the upside, your body heals these little tears, making the fibers tougher than they originally were. That’s how you become stronger and fitter. It’s part of a process called adaptation.

To make these repairs, your body uses its standard healing process, including the inflammation phase—something that’s become a dirty word in our modern world. When you incur injury, including microtrauma, your body releases various substances generally known as inflammatory mediators that swarm the area and perform triage, bringing in healing white blood cells and opening up blood vessels to flush out debris and toxins. There’s so much going on that the area swells up, or inflames.

The fluid required for inflammatory response obviously weighs something—and that might show up on the scale. When inflammation is allowed to occur in a healthy way, it’s temporary.

Of course, keeping your diet healthy and allowing for adequate rest and recovery will help speed the body to less inflammatory phases of healing, but the main key is to keep calm and carry on. If you’re new to fitness—or perhaps just new to a particular kind of fitness—there’s going to be a lot of adaptation going on and therefore a noticeable level of inflammation. It should subside in a couple weeks.

Another less-likely reason you’re gaining weight is that you’re building muscle faster than you’re shedding fat.

Also, women can put up to 5 pounds during their periods... Yeap... That's why weighting for us is very unreliable. Maybe measuring yourself is a better way to see your results!

But all that is good, it's means your building a faster metabolism, so keep doing what your doing and don't listen to your sister!

Good luck!

I know I may be reiterating what some people have already said, but I wanted to respond from my perspective as a registered dietitian. First of all, please do not listen to the negative things that your sister is saying. Disordered eating starts with hurtful words like those and in all honesty, she is probably unhappy with her own body and is trying to find flaws in you to make herself feel better. Using her words as motivation may be a good idea but it may also be a good idea to try to set some goals together, whether it is weight loss, making better food choices or just improving upon the relationship you have. She may need the encouragement and support as much as you do.

In terms of your nutrition, starting off with breakfast in the morning is a great idea. You may not feel hungry at first if your body is used to skipping your morning meal, however, your body will adjust. Breakfast is an important part of your day as it starts your metabolism in the morning. During the times you are sleeping, your body shuts down many of its processes in order to conserve energy (aka calories) until you wake up and replenish your calories through eating. Your body is all about balance, therefore it is important to know the basic idea of weight is calories in vs calories out. What you eat is important but how much is even more important. Every person's body is different and requires a different calorie level to perform basic functions such as breathing and your heartbeat. This is called your basal metabolic rate. In order to have healthy weight loss, you need to consume enough calories to at least provide for this. Otherwise any calories you eat your body will store because it thinks that you are starving. Beyond that, it is important to choose foods that are more nutritionally dense. Nutrition provided by carrots is vastly different than nutrition provided by a piece of cake, which I'm sure you are aware of.

The other thing to know is that the number on the scale is not the most important thing to be aware of and neither is your BMI. BMI is basically a ratio between your height and weight which does not take into account your gender, any water you are retaining or your muscle mass. Muscle does weigh more than fat as muscle can hold onto water. Therefore the number on the scale may mean that you are gaining muscle rather than fat, which is good. I always encourage people to stay away from the scale as it can cause anxiety and it is merely just a number that really doesn't tell you anything. Logging your daily food intake is something that I do and find helpful to keep me on track, however I do encourage you not to obsess over it. You also need to have a healthy relationship with food, which includes allowing yourself to have treats occasionally. I never refer to anything as a good food or a bad food, just that some foods provide a higher level of nutrition than others. I do agree that in order to be most accurate with your food intake, weighing and measuring things out will keep you honest. Overall, the message I try to get out to people is that food is not something to obsess over, just something your body needs to continue to function like the oxygen you breathe and the water you drink. I hope this helped you a little bit... please feel fee to add me as a friend or send me any questions you may have. Good luck on your journey and please remember to always stay positive. Nobody can bring you down unless you allow them to.

Erm.... Is it only me or do I see OP has only logged two full days of food? One of which she went over her goal by 400 cals.

Give it time before you cry foul, OP!

ETA: Although raising your goal would also be beneficial to stave off the hunger.

AmeliaHelen96 wrote: »

furioushummingbird wrote: »

Erm.... Is it only me or do I see OP has only logged two full days of food? One of which she went over her goal by 400 cals.

Give it time before you cry foul, OP!

ETA: Although raising your goal would also be beneficial to stave off the hunger.

Before I registered on here, I was using another website to log my food/exercise (turned 18 over a month ago). But I've been logging my food for about a year.
I get quite obsessive when it comes to logging my calories. Even if I'm 2 calories over, I can't stand it and get very anxious...

Panicking gets you nowhere. Overages happen! You're human. We're human.

I would focus on the "weekly" total. Say you go over by 400 (much like this week). If you cut only 66 calories a day, you'll be on par for your weekly deficit.

But I would not recommend doing that on 1200 calories.

What is your body fat percentage? What do you do for activity each day? Conversely, what are your workouts like, how long and how often?

AmeliaHelen96 wrote: »

furioushummingbird wrote: »

AmeliaHelen96 wrote: »

furioushummingbird wrote: »

Panicking gets you nowhere. Overages happen! You're human. We're human.

I would focus on the "weekly" total. Say you go over by 400 (much like this week). If you cut only 66 calories a day, you'll be on par for your weekly deficit.

But I would not recommend doing that on 1200 calories.

What is your body fat percentage? What do you do for activity each day? Conversely, what are your workouts like, how long and how often?

Thank you for your advice.
I dont know what my bfp is because I don't have a measuring tape. I walk every weekday to college and back which takes me 70 minutes all together. I do aerobics for 30 minutes.

So plugging those stats in to a calculator, if I place you at Moderately Active (given school, walking and exercise), it places your TDEE at 2390 calories. If you subtract 20% from that, you get roughly 1900 calories to eat total each day and lose weight each week with a moderate deficit.

Okay...so how much do you think I'd lose a week if I were to eat 1800-1900 calories?

.5-1 pound a week.

That being said, weight loss is not always linear. The scale will go up and down, and it lies sometimes. Just log consistently and accurately. Do not eat exercise calories back, as the calories are already added into that total amount of calories to eat.

Invest in that measuring tape and a food scale if you haven't already!

furioushummingbird wrote: »

Adam2k10 wrote: »

furioushummingbird wrote: »

AmeliaHelen96 wrote: »

furioushummingbird wrote: »

Panicking gets you nowhere. Overages happen! You're human. We're human.

I would focus on the "weekly" total. Say you go over by 400 (much like this week). If you cut only 66 calories a day, you'll be on par for your weekly deficit.

But I would not recommend doing that on 1200 calories.

What is your body fat percentage? What do you do for activity each day? Conversely, what are your workouts like, how long and how often?

Thank you for your advice.
I dont know what my bfp is because I don't have a measuring tape. I walk every weekday to college and back which takes me 70 minutes all together. I do aerobics for 30 minutes.

So plugging those stats in to a calculator, if I place you at Moderately Active (given school, walking and exercise), it places your TDEE at 2390 calories. If you subtract 20% from that, you get roughly 1900 calories to eat total each day and lose weight each week with a moderate deficit.

Here is an accurate calculator based at scoobysworkshop.

This should help you calculate your TDEE(Total calories needed to maintain weight based on your entered stats) and you can work around that more easier.

Scooby's is good too. I just prefer fat2fit.

Never tried that one, I'll have to check it out!

AmeliaHelen96 wrote: »

But I've grown up with people telling me I'm fat etc, so it's drilled into my head.

It is truly awful that you were insulted because it is a portrayal of how ignorant our modern society has become. There are many reasons as to why people put on excess weight, e.g, medication, thyroid problems. It is not down to greed, but with the media focus being on thin people, the public never gets to hear, or understand the plights of larger people who are, it seems, "on the wrong side of normal". However, we all need to be aware of the benefits of healthy eating and exercise and people who are addicted to food should be treated in the same way as people addicted to any other substance and they should be given support and helped to recover from their addiction. Please, be strong and keep posting you will find lot of support here.

Id double check the cals your food listing, don't just trust what it says in the data base as for starters the bachelors thing you had is actually 155cals per portion when made not the 97 which had been allocated. Not everything is correct so always refer back to packaging. you might find double checking you can see where you could be going wrong.