Why didn't I lose?

Stick with it, give it more time

Amianne wrote: »

I have been eating fewer than 2000 calories for this last week (which MFP says I should eat to lose 1.5lbs per week), averaging about 1800. Although I have not posted meals everyday I have kept it under this. I have really tried hard. I have also been doing FocusT25. At weigh in today I gained .4 lbs. I have not eaten back my exercise calories. With everything that MFP says when I am done posting for my day, I should have lost weight. Any suggestions?

You are most likely holding water because you started a new exercise program and your muscles are adapting. This is completely normal and should subside in a few weeks. Hang in there. You got this.

If you're new to your exercise, you are going to retain fluids that can easily mask any fat loss you may have had. Not to mention, you have natural weight fluctuations that can mask scale losses...most people will fluctuate 3-5 Lbs from day to day. This is why a mere week or whatever is pretty much worthless in figuring out what's going on...this stuff takes time...you need time to accumulate data points for any kind of meaningful analysis.

Give it time and track the trends.

It's most likely water retention, which could be caused by a number of reasons, e.g. from starting a new exercise regime, hormonal fluctuation, maybe you ate more salt than usual yesterday, etc. etc.

Give it a couple more weeks. If you still haven't lost any weight after that, then it may be time to check the accuracy of your logging.

Amianne wrote: »

You ate too much. You ate at maintenance levels or above.

Try harder, and eat less.
Track everything you eat, otherwise you really have no clue what your intake was.

OR: Mild water retention.

I would correct your logging inaccuracies and hope it is water retention.

If I am eating at maintenance levels then why does MFP tell me to eat 2200 to lose 1 pound a week?

MFP tells you if you eat 2200 calories per day you'll lose one pound per week. If you aren't really eating 2200 calories or less you won't lose weight, you'll maintain or gain instead. If you aren't accurately weighing and measuring your food, and logging everything you eat, you might be actually eating more than that.

MFP tells you that you can have 2200 calories a day and you'll still lose a pound a week? How tall are you and what do you currently weigh? What did you select for your activity level? How much do you ultimately want to lose?

If you didn't lose, chances are that you are still taking in too many calories than you are expending... If you didn't track, how do you *know* that you were under? You need to be honest with yourself, because it's YOUR weight loss--you are not going to fool your own body.

I would suggest cutting your calorie intake (to what? Can't say without some idea of your current weight/age/height) and being more diligent about tracking every single day.

cwolfman13 wrote: »

If you're new to your exercise, you are going to retain fluids that can easily mask any fat loss you may have had. Not to mention, you have natural weight fluctuations that can mask scale losses...most people will fluctuate 3-5 Lbs from day to day. This is why a mere week or whatever is pretty much worthless in figuring out what's going on...this stuff takes time...you need time to accumulate data points for any kind of meaningful analysis.

Give it time and track the trends.

This. I used to weigh daily when I first started, and it was really brutal -- though I eventually began to recognize that while I fluctuated up and down a lot, it did trend downward. Now I only weigh-in every two weeks. It's long enough that I'm watching the trend rather than the day-to-day fluctuation, but not so long that things get away from me if I get a bit lax in my eating habits.