Eating at BMR and not losing

If the exercise level is new you could be retaining water which is hiding your fat loss.

And of course you could be underestimating your intake and/or overestimating your burn, like others have mentioned.

In any case, the solution is be patient or eat less and move more. It's hard. Good luck!

Hard to say - it looks like your exercise cals are only your Fitbit cal adjustments? Also curious why you're sticking with BMR calories - for me, that's my absolute LOWEST intake, and generally only on a low or no-exercise day, or if I'm not feeling well. Even with 60 lbs to lose I feel like you should be eating more.

How about water intake? I didn't see any water tracked in your diary - are you hydrating well?

Four weeks may seem like a long time, but if your way of eating and the exercise are new things and you're only a month in, it really can take the body a bit of time to adjust to all the new things and really start showing progress.

How about measurements? Clothes fitting any differently? If you're not taking measurements, start. Often you will see progress there while the scale is busy bouncing around, showing every little fluctuation.

Setting aside logging issues for a minute (quick add entries and "some days I'm over, some days I'm under"), you may want to take a look at your sodium intake. Personally, if mine were that high the scale would never move. Now to be clear, I'm not suggesting that it is necessarily bad for you (lots of debate about that), or that you aren't in fact losing fat, but when my sodium intake gets high it consistently masks actual weight loss on the scale. Just a suggestion...

First, if you were doing a 500 calorie/day deficit you would only expect to lose 1 pound a week - 4 pounds in a month.

Second, most people's weight goes up and down +- 2-5 pounds a day. So if my true weight were 150, depending on what I ate, drank, peed, and pooped that day my weight might go from 145-155. (Your weight may be more or less variable - I'm pretty stable in maintenance, so I fluctuate within a 3 pound range.)

But anyway, you are certainly going to move around so your true weight loss might be 4 pounds or more, but you just happen to be weighing on a heavy day, so some of that isn't showing up on the scale today.

Third, you may not be logging accurately. To really got your logging accurate you need to weigh or measure and you have to log every stupid thing you put in your mouth. For me, that's a slice of butter on my sandwich, a dab of mayo the restaurant slips on my burger, and that fingerful of onion dip I snitched and two french fries from my son's plate. All of that for me, typically adds 300+ calories to my day.

All else aside, most people don't lose as much as they think they 'should' because they aren't logging as accurately as they think they are. When you can't use a scale or measuring cups at home, look up serving size estimates on line for good visuals to help you out. It's something you get better at with time.

Finally, you should be eating a lot more than your basal metabolism. You should be eating your calorie needs plus exercise, minus a deficit. Long term, it will work better and you'll lose more fat and less muscle.

ceoverturf wrote: »

How did you come to the conclusion that your BMR is 1500? If you used one of the online calculators, remember those are just estimates based on population averages. Your actual BMR could be quite a bit more or less than that if that's the case.

Also - you've lost 2 lbs in 4 weeks. 1/2 lb a week is a perfectly healthy, normal rate of weight loss, even if it's somewhat less than you'd expect or like.

I would tighten up your intake logging (weigh everything possible, etc) and just keep at it.

And this.

Online calculators are not very accurate.

The only way to know what your BMR/RMR is is by having it tested in a lab via oxygen consumption.

Losing 2 pounds in 4 weeks is not the same thing as "not losing". In fact, it's pretty much the opposite. You're losing weight at an average pace of 0.5lbs/week.

Maybe you'd prefer to lose weight faster than that. But remember that the scale has a range of 4-5 pounds just with normal hormonal, water weight and daily fluctuations.

Stick with it. Track the trend, not the individual points.

BMR is basically an irrelevant number. If yours happens to be ~500 under your TDEE, then you might well be eating that many calories to target 1lb/week loss, but that's just a coincidence.

2 pounds in 4 weeks = .5 pounds a week or about 250 daily deficit. Its not hard to be off by 250-500 per day if you're estimating portions, not logging all condiments/oils/drinks/etc. Depends on the types of foods you estimate. Estimating on peanut butter can be a big range, while estimating on lettuce is negligible. Just an example.

How active are you in your lifestyle, how much do you exercise?

The good news: you ARE losing. And its only 4 weeks in. You can improve your results by being more accurate on your intake log.

fausonk wrote: »

Yes, I weigh my food. Maybe not everything, but most things. And, like I said, even if I'm off by some factor, I'm not off by 1000 calories in a day (which is about what I'd need to be off by to explain this non-weight loss).

You are losing, and that's what matters. I'd agree with taking measurements as well. I lose weight slowly, but my measurements go down a lot faster.

I'm losing weight after my third baby now, who's 9 months, and it's a slow process. I exercise pretty much every day, and get at least 10,000 steps on my Fitbit, and eat at a big deficit, and don't eat back exercise calories. I weigh pretty much everything these days and am losing no faster than after my 2nd baby when I didn't weigh everything. In fact I'm losing at the same rate.

I'm still 31lbs over pre-pregnancy weight, but my waist is only 3 inches bigger and my hips 4 inches. If I get back to pre-pregnancy size but not weight, I don't mind so much what the scale says.

fausonk wrote: »

ok, thanks everyone. I'm not feeling like there's any one answer, but just to keep plugging along. I do drink water (probably not enough, but I'm working on it), I just can't bear to log it. Logging food is bad enough. And the "I weigh most things" is true, but how do you weigh that finger-full of dip or those 2 french fries from your son's plate? Those are the things where I just have to guess, but I do log them. Sodium I think really only gets up there when I eat something processed or a meal out. But that's life, and you just drink your water and roll with it.

Either you commit to this or you don't. You weight it all. You log it all. If you do anything less, you are cheating yourself from the results you desire. A couple french fries here and there and 'finger-full' of dip DO count and either you log them or wean yourself away from those behaviors.

I'm 53, lost 34 pounds in 10 months last year and have another 13 to go. It felt painfully slow some months but being locked into a very sedentary job and battling hypothyroidism, my reality is what it is...like each of us here.

The deeper question is, how bad do you want it? If you want results, you have to earn them and do the hard work. You're halfway there by partial logging/weighing and working out 4 times a week. Congratulations on the good start! I lost only 2 pounds my first month and wondered the same as you...it doesn't always come off quickly at first.

If you are ready to shed those 58 other pounds, step up your game with a fresh attitude. Logging is your roadmap, not a PITA. Water is your friend--find ways to up your ounces little by little. Weighing your foods is not a ball and chain--accuracy is the secret to success.

Good luck!

I went out an purchase a Weight Watchers scale from Bed Bath & Beyond. There are about $18-$20. It was a great investment for me. I love this scale because it's easy to read and it will tell you in grams or ounces. And if you place a dish or a plate on it before you turn it on it will calibrate at zero so you can weigh liquids like egg whites, etc. You would be surprised at the difference it made....I was amazed at how much I was eating compared to what the scale showed me. I then saw the truth and have adjusted my eating habits accordingly.

fausonk wrote: »

I suppose if my difference between sort of maintaining and losing could be in 250 calorie errors, that is entirely possible. I can enter the recipes I make in the recipe builder, but sometimes it's hard to know how many meals actually come out of a recipe, so that is likely one of the errors that could be made. (And for what it's worth, someone else made the "finger full of dip, 2 of my son's french fries" comment. I was responding to that, not saying that I did that).

If you know what goes in, weigh the total contents at the end that would be 100% of the finished product, then weigh your portion compared to that total.

Overestimate what you eat and underestimate what you do and stick to your numbers and you will see results. Studies have shown that people who are overweight severely underestimate the amounts they are eating and severely overestimate the amount they are burning. If you do not weigh everything then you need to double the calories of the things you estimate. The science is really very simple: if you eat less than you burn you lose weight. 3500 calories = 1lb of weight loss. Exercise calories do not equal weight loss though so if you add them back in and don't have a deficit you will gain weight because you will gain muscle.

BMR =2000 You Exercise 500 You eat 2000 You will not lose a pound a week. You will remain flat on the scale and trade fat for muscle. Your size may go down but your weight will not.