Eating at BMR and not losing

hill8570 · February 2015

Congrats on the loss so far!

How many knobs did you turn as of four weeks ago? The calorie deficit? A difference in types of foods eaten? Exercise levels?

If you went from couch potato to gym rat, you're going to have a lot of up-front water retention (soreness) and some muscle addition going on. With a month down, that should be stabilizing.

gmax69 · February 2015

AmyRhubarb wrote: »

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.

I agree with amyrhubarb, I got tested to see what my bmr was and it's 1622 but it was recommended I eat around 2000 to 2100 to lose weight and drinking water helps to flush things out.

oneloopygirl · February 2015

I'm also curious on how the BMR came about. I'm a short female in pretty decent shape... not quite 5'3" and my BMR isn't that high and I've calculated it a variety of places and not come to 1500. Granted, you do have a lot of weight to lose compared to me and that could be the entire difference at this point.

I would say a few key things I took away from your post:

1. You're not weighing/measuring all food. This is Crucial. You could be sabatoging yourself and not realizing it.
2. A quick peak at your diary makes me think you eat a lot of sodium.
3. Do you keep hydrated?
4. Half a pound a week is not unrealistic, but you could safely lose more given the weight you have to go.
5. Patience is key. The journey can be slow. Look at it as a lifestyle change, not a diet.

lthames0810 · February 2015

Lissa_Kaye wrote: »

For big recipes one of the things I found is I will weigh up the entire thing, and then divide it into nice round serving size amounts. For instance if I make a big pot of quinoa, After its done cooking I weigh the whole thing which comes to 520 grams. Then I divide by 4 and get 130 gram servings. And put that into the recipe title so I know how big the serving size is. Always religiously weigh high calorically dense foods like oils, pb, butter and stuff.

I do a version of this.

I weigh up the whole finished dish. Say it comes out to 850 grams. I call it 850 servings when I enter the recipe into MFP. Later I weigh my portion in grams and put that number of servings into my diary. No remembering the weight of a serving.

hill8570 · February 2015

lthames0810 wrote: »

I weigh up the whole finished dish. Say it comes out to 850 grams. I call it 850 servings when I enter the recipe into MFP. Later I weigh my portion in grams and put that number of servings into my diary. No remembering the weight of a serving.

Now that is a cool approach. Thanks for posting it!

BWBTrish · February 2015

I think you eat ( a lot) more calories than you think
i see entrees like 1 tbsp of peanut butter. Peanutbutter is very dense food and when you dont weigh it you can be off like 50 calories at a time.
There are other entrees that i see you measure instead of weighing. And every day.
So you can easily be off by a couple of hundred calories a day when you dont watch it.

I dont say you do, but you can be off.

Look at this video and see the difference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVjWPclrWVY

If i where you i would weigh every solid food and measure every liquid that you consume.
Try that for some weeks and see if you still "only" lose 2 pounds in a month

which is btw still very good. Your losing weight

fausonk · February 2015

I dont say you do, but you can be off.

Look at this video and see the difference.

Wow. That was an interesting video. I don't usually fill things over the rim like that, but I don't go way under, either. Thanks for posting.

nicsflyingcircus · February 2015

lthames0810 wrote: »

Lissa_Kaye wrote: »

For big recipes one of the things I found is I will weigh up the entire thing, and then divide it into nice round serving size amounts. For instance if I make a big pot of quinoa, After its done cooking I weigh the whole thing which comes to 520 grams. Then I divide by 4 and get 130 gram servings. And put that into the recipe title so I know how big the serving size is. Always religiously weigh high calorically dense foods like oils, pb, butter and stuff.

Lissa_Kaye wrote: »

For big recipes one of the things I found is I will weigh up the entire thing, and then divide it into nice round serving size amounts. For instance if I make a big pot of quinoa, After its done cooking I weigh the whole thing which comes to 520 grams. Then I divide by 4 and get 130 gram servings. And put that into the recipe title so I know how big the serving size is. Always religiously weigh high calorically dense foods like oils, pb, butter and stuff.

I do a version of this.

I weigh up the whole finished dish. Say it comes out to 850 grams. I call it 850 servings when I enter the recipe into MFP. Later I weigh my portion in grams and put that number of servings into my diary. No remembering the weight of a serving.

This is what I do. That way it is easy to log without having to calculate percentages of portion sizes.

If my chili weighed in at 1172 grams, that is how many servings it is, then when I eat it, I can just put whatever it weighed, say 172g, as 172 servings.

BWBTrish · February 2015

fausonk wrote: »

I dont say you do, but you can be off.

Look at this video and see the difference.

Wow. That was an interesting video. I don't usually fill things over the rim like that, but I don't go way under, either. Thanks for posting.

your very welcome

btw for your recipes.

when i make a dish i just edit sometimes the recipe to a lower or higher amount of servings.
Sometimes i make a bit more than i thought So i started out with a dish for 4 persons and end up with more. I edit the serving size to 5 then.
Or vice verse.

Cazzy34 · February 2015

Give it time. If you, like me are on the shorter side (i'm 5'2") then 0.5lb weight loss per week is not bad. I found that i hardly lost anything in the first 4 weeks, then all of a sudden I dropped 3lbs in a week and had done nothing differently. Keep going it will come off eventually as long as you are logging correctly.

DawnieB1977 · February 2015

I weigh stuff and only lose 0.5lbs a week. I was losing 1lb a week when I was doing carb cycling. Like I said above, I lost 66lbs after my 2nd baby (currently losing after my third) and I didn't use to weigh my food, except things like porridge oats. I'm losing at exactly the same rate, so weighing food makes zero difference to my weight loss. Maybe I am that rare person who overestimates rather than underestimates! I also exercise loads and don't eat back exercise calories.

Weight loss is different for everyone, and we all have a different metabolism, which is why I've seen threads saying 'help, eating 4000 calories and can't gain weight'. It seems to be accepted that some people have a fast metabolism, this isn't questioned, yet someone loses weight slowly, and they must be lying!

If it's only been a month you can't tell what next month's weight loss will be like, and the month after etc. Weight loss can sometimes take a while to kick off.

BWBTrish · February 2015

oh and like the peanut butter i would do.
1. put the whole jaw on the scale
2. take your ....gram out of it.

So you know exactly how much you use.

I do this way with a lot of foods like butter etc.

coppertop_4 · February 2015

Eat a little bit less, move a little bit more, and keep at it. You'll find what works as long as you don't give up! You are losing a little bit- which says you are on the right track! Keep going!

segacs · February 2015

TheOwlhouseDesigns wrote: »

oh and like the peanut butter i would do.
1. put the whole jaw on the scale
2. take your ....gram out of it.

So you know exactly how much you use.

Or just weigh it the way I do: Weigh the bread, tare, spread the peanut butter on top, weigh the bread again with the peanut butter.

WalkingAlong · February 2015

Weighing EVERYthing is one method but hardly the only one. Estimating is fine, you just have to be patient and/or willing to just lower your calorie goal if your result isn't the pace you like.

Weighing fats is probably always a good idea, especially at first, though.

oneloopygirl · February 2015

hill8570 wrote: »

lthames0810 wrote: »

I weigh up the whole finished dish. Say it comes out to 850 grams. I call it 850 servings when I enter the recipe into MFP. Later I weigh my portion in grams and put that number of servings into my diary. No remembering the weight of a serving.

Now that is a cool approach. Thanks for posting it!

I agree. That's a really neat idea.

mkakids · February 2015

Imo, the best way to figure recipes/ servings is to

Weigh your pan
Weigh each ingredient as it goes into your pan...create recipe in mfp.
Weight the ENTIRE finished dish
Subtract the weight of the pan from the weight of the entire dish . Use this number for serving size. Each serving size will be 1 gram. When you eat, just log 100 servings (100grams).

Mr_Knight · February 2015

Your logging is sloppy. Red beans & rice by the "serving"...peanut butter by the spoon...

Bottom line, you are almost certainly eating more than you think. Log more accurately, or shrink your portion sizes.

Eating at BMR and not losing

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