:-( Less calories, more exercise ≠loose weight!! :-(
onedayTHISYEAR
Posts: 34 Member
≠ means not equal to....
Just need to AHHHHAHAHH!!
Ok so I reduced calories.... upped my movement... loss very very slow.
Gained access to an exercise bike :-) found it easer to use up calories... lost a few more lbs...
then it stopped... thought ok been though this before where its a sticking point...
Carried on, used the exercise bike more than I thought I could :-)
Loose more weight - no
Friend looked into it and may need to up calories (roll eyes) the starvation mode thing
- so I am now gaining weight! and gaining more than is logical for what I am eating!
Why why why is this so complicated all I want to do is loose the excess fat, tone up and get in my old clothes.
This should be simple, eat less (cut out treats) and move more BUT its NOT that simple!!
Why do programs show that when they have a group of people and do this for them it works but when I try it, its a mess!
Any ideas.... could this be a
- not loosing for a while but keep strict
- starvation mode need to have more calories and it will drop off
- something else
REALLY fed up! Experienced help appreciated... esp if there is a 6 week plan as that is one of my key dates!
Just need to AHHHHAHAHH!!
Ok so I reduced calories.... upped my movement... loss very very slow.
Gained access to an exercise bike :-) found it easer to use up calories... lost a few more lbs...
then it stopped... thought ok been though this before where its a sticking point...
Carried on, used the exercise bike more than I thought I could :-)
Loose more weight - no
Friend looked into it and may need to up calories (roll eyes) the starvation mode thing
- so I am now gaining weight! and gaining more than is logical for what I am eating!
Why why why is this so complicated all I want to do is loose the excess fat, tone up and get in my old clothes.
This should be simple, eat less (cut out treats) and move more BUT its NOT that simple!!
Why do programs show that when they have a group of people and do this for them it works but when I try it, its a mess!
Any ideas.... could this be a
- not loosing for a while but keep strict
- starvation mode need to have more calories and it will drop off
- something else
REALLY fed up! Experienced help appreciated... esp if there is a 6 week plan as that is one of my key dates!
0
Replies
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Starving people do not have trouble losing weight.
How long were you at the same weight before upping your calories?0 -
Are you using a food scale? Logging accurately? Choosing the correct data base entries and verifying them?
What are your current stats? How long have you been trying to lose weight? How many calories are you eating?
Your post is lacking a LOT of important information.
Also, please open your diary.0 -
It's not complicated , Bro.
Calorie Deficit Over Extended Time.
It couldn't be simpler.
HINT: "Starvation Mode", as you know it, does not exist. Eating more when you're not losing is never the right answer.0 -
CICO is the formula for weight loss, but sometimes other factors can play into the formula.
Are you using a food scale to weigh out all your food?
How many calories are you consuming a day?
How long have you been stuck at the same weight?
If you had a meal high in sodium, it could cause you to retain some water weight.
Depending on where you are in your monthly cycle you could be also holding onto some water weight.
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How many calories are you eating, how sure are you of your logging and how do you estimate calories burned?0
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I suspect you may not be logging accurately and/or are eating back 100% of the calorie burn estimate that bike is giving you (it's likely quite over generous).
I'm particularly wondering if "cut out treats" is the only way you are really "reducing calories." Because, seriously, that won't do it. You need to weigh and log EVERYTHING accurately and reduce your calorie total. Whether you do that by eliminating "treats" or reducing portion sizes across the board is up to you, but most MFP users find that simply getting rid of "treats" isn't enough...and many also find that removing the foods they enjoy altogether only leads to binges and guilt.0 -
Short-term (2 to 3 weeks), weight gain can occur due to water retention. If you're still gaining weight after three weeks, there is little doubt that it is due to overeating.0
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TimothyFish wrote: »Short-term (2 to 3 weeks), weight gain can occur due to water retention. If you're still gaining weight after three weeks, there is little doubt that it is due to overeating.
This is probably a fair statement.0 -
HeySwoleSister wrote: »I suspect you may not be logging accurately and/or are eating back 100% of the calorie burn estimate that bike is giving you (it's likely quite over generous).
I'm particularly wondering if "cut out treats" is the only way you are really "reducing calories." Because, seriously, that won't do it. You need to weigh and log EVERYTHING accurately and reduce your calorie total. Whether you do that by eliminating "treats" or reducing portion sizes across the board is up to you, but most MFP users find that simply getting rid of "treats" isn't enough...and many also find that removing the foods they enjoy altogether only leads to binges and guilt.
this^
until I started weighing and measuring my portions I was overeating and was not losing weight. Especially those calorie dense foods, pasta, rice, potatoes. I don't exercise every day, but when I do, only eat back a small portion of calories burned.
Don't give up. Slow and steady will get you there.
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When you increase you activity in the attempt to drop pounds your body will automatically go into hungry mode and this sometimes leads you to consume a little more food than you should. I'm not saying if your hungry don't eat but, you should be mind full of the amount/type of food your eating after exercising. Always ask yourself before eating something am I really hungry or could it be possible that Im just thirsty ? Sometimes it's thirst that drives us to eat. If your constantly eating "Peanut Butter" for instance after every workout this could be a culprit and overtime causing you to consuming more than you need which will result in a weight gain....... Don't give up look at your food diary and see if you can drop some unnecessary foods.
Peanut Butter ...was killing my weight loss, I dropped it and lost 2 lbs..
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When going into starvation mode, your body signals that food is scarce and stores every piece of fat you eat, this is slow metabolism. When you eat healthy every three hours or so, the mind signals that food is in abundance and no need to store fat so you lose weight. This is a fast metabilism.0
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Totally agree about the peanut butter thing. I will have a spoonful when I'm feeling peckish, and because it looks so small I think I've fooled myself into believing it wasn't too bad for calories. Once I got a scale and actually weighed it, I realized what I was telling myself was about a tablespoon of peanut butter was actually 2 and a half tablespoons. Well, that's a difference of 145 calories, do that once or twice a day and I can see where I'll have a problem when I get closer to goal. I try to weigh everything now because clearly my estimating is off!0
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You're definitely not starving so for starters get that ridiculous "starvation mode" thing out of your head. You are more then likely eating more then you think you are. I suggest you try to track your calories more accurately. As tedious as that can get, it's the only way to really see how much you're actually eating. You'll be surprised at how much more you're over eating.0
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Didn't see one useful answer to her question. You automatically assume she hasn't logged her calories right. I lost 45 lbs in 9 months, hit a plateau and have now gained back 14 lbs. Yes I weight my food, I haven't changed the the type of foods I eat, don't snack & swim 3 days a week. My calorie is 1200 per day but often eat less. I've dieted for two years but have been at my current weight for the last six months. I have no intentions to change my calorie intake but have no expectations that my weight will change. So I would appreciate it if you have no useful suggestions for this lady don't say anything.0
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CarlFenech wrote: »When going into starvation mode, your body signals that food is scarce and stores every piece of fat you eat, this is slow metabolism. When you eat healthy every three hours or so, the mind signals that food is in abundance and no need to store fat so you lose weight. This is a fast metabilism.
LOL
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CarlFenech wrote: »When going into starvation mode, your body signals that food is scarce and stores every piece of fat you eat, this is slow metabolism. When you eat healthy every three hours or so, the mind signals that food is in abundance and no need to store fat so you lose weight. This is a fast metabilism.
That's not how starvation mode works, and you can easily eat every three hours and gain weight by eating more than you burn.
OP, look into your logging. Make sure you're logging everything you intake, including condiments/drinks/cooking oils that can add up if you miss them, and use a food scale if need be.0 -
CarlFenech wrote: »When going into starvation mode, your body signals that food is scarce and stores every piece of fat you eat, this is slow metabolism. When you eat healthy every three hours or so, the mind signals that food is in abundance and no need to store fat so you lose weight. This is a fast metabilism.
So much nope here.0 -
LLnotURmommaLL wrote: »Didn't see one useful answer to her question. You automatically assume she hasn't logged her calories right. I lost 45 lbs in 9 months, hit a plateau and have now gained back 14 lbs. Yes I weight my food, I haven't changed the the type of foods I eat, don't snack & swim 3 days a week. My calorie is 1200 per day but often eat less. I've dieted for two years but have been at my current weight for the last six months. I have no intentions to change my calorie intake but have no expectations that my weight will change. So I would appreciate it if you have no useful suggestions for this lady don't say anything.
If someone isn't losing, that is very often the culprit. If he or she is logging everything 100% accurately, then it's time to look into medical reasons as to why they aren't losing and adjust the calories as needed. It still comes down to CICO.0 -
LLnotURmommaLL wrote: »Didn't see one useful answer to her question. You automatically assume she hasn't logged her calories right. I lost 45 lbs in 9 months, hit a plateau and have now gained back 14 lbs. Yes I weight my food, I haven't changed the the type of foods I eat, don't snack & swim 3 days a week. My calorie is 1200 per day but often eat less. I've dieted for two years but have been at my current weight for the last six months. I have no intentions to change my calorie intake but have no expectations that my weight will change. So I would appreciate it if you have no useful suggestions for this lady don't say anything.
I saw many useful answers to her question!
Have you seen a doctor? If you are truly doing all the things you say and are gaining weight on 1200 cals/day, perhaps there is something occurring medically that needs to be addressed. Perhaps your thyroid is malfunctioning?
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There's a really good article just out today on T-nation.com might be something you want to read. It explains some things about your situation0
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LLnotURmommaLL wrote: »Didn't see one useful answer to her question. You automatically assume she hasn't logged her calories right. I lost 45 lbs in 9 months, hit a plateau and have now gained back 14 lbs. Yes I weight my food, I haven't changed the the type of foods I eat, don't snack & swim 3 days a week. My calorie is 1200 per day but often eat less. I've dieted for two years but have been at my current weight for the last six months. I have no intentions to change my calorie intake but have no expectations that my weight will change. So I would appreciate it if you have no useful suggestions for this lady don't say anything.
Did you even read the replies? There are FAR more suggestions and questions than just 'are you logging your calories correctly?' Let's go through them, shall we?
Questions:
How long haven't you lost weight for?
What are your current stats?
How long have you been trying to lose weight?
How many calories are you eating?
How do you estimate exercise calories burnt?
Suggestions:
It's not starvation mode, so eating more won't help.
Could be water weight from a sodium-rich meal or time of the month.
Just 'cutting out treats' isn't enough.
Don't remove all the food that you enjoy from your diet.
If you're exercising more you could be feeling hungrier than you really are.
It's not our fault OP isn't answering any of the questions being asked of her. Most of the time not logging correctly is the problem, and since OP didn't mention how she was logging in her post, of course people are going to mention it.0 -
LLnotURmommaLL wrote: »Didn't see one useful answer to her question. You automatically assume she hasn't logged her calories right. I lost 45 lbs in 9 months, hit a plateau and have now gained back 14 lbs. Yes I weight my food, I haven't changed the the type of foods I eat, don't snack & swim 3 days a week. My calorie is 1200 per day but often eat less. I've dieted for two years but have been at my current weight for the last six months. I have no intentions to change my calorie intake but have no expectations that my weight will change. So I would appreciate it if you have no useful suggestions for this lady don't say anything.
There are useful answers here. The majority of the time people who claim not to be losing are not tracking their calorie intake correctly. It's a safe assumption. I don't understand why you're getting all bent out of shape over it. The OP was asked if she weighs her food and logs accurately. That's the best way to tell how much you're actually eating.
Lastly, you're on a public forum on the internet, so what you appreciate or don't appreciate doesn't really matter.-1 -
My achilles heel is cheese, a slice here, a pinch there. Those calories add up FAST! Make sure that you log everything.
You have gotten some pretty good advice above. The one item I see missing are measurements. MFP supports measurements of several parts of your body to give you a well rounded picture of what is going on. Weight is only one aspect of the picture.0 -
CarlFenech wrote: »When going into starvation mode, your body signals that food is scarce and stores every piece of fat you eat, this is slow metabolism. When you eat healthy every three hours or so, the mind signals that food is in abundance and no need to store fat so you lose weight. This is a fast metabilism.
So those 8 hours of not eating when I sleep are what made me fat! It all makes sense now.
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Firstly
Thank you to all those that have taken the time to reply :-) I can appreciate how busy every one is.
I cut my calories to 1200ish... I don't cook with oil etc, cant stand peanut butter. Learnt on the first day not to eat baked potato and butter lol!!
Using the exercise bike I managed to use up at least 1000 calories a day (give or take 10% what the bike said and what other info sites said varied) Some days I managed over 2000 ((give or take 10% ) a few days I missed (as per other posts caused terrible piles - thank goodness for medication).
I was just so pleased I had found something I could do, make it fit into my time and felt I had accomplished something.
No weight loss for a few weeks.
Yes it could be time of the month... addressed water retention and over night gained 4 lbs!! (the day before did about 1500 on the bike)
Amazingly I did not feel that hungry after doing the morning cycle (varied minimum of 500 calories and often used up 1000 give or take 10% ) so often did not eat until later which helped me keep the calories low. Have tried (pain in bottom depending) on doing at least 500 calories 2 - 4 times a day...
Yes I have scales and learnt how much was 50g of cereal and 80g of milk. Tend to keep to a big salad in the evening and can then easily weigh the protein. Yes I know a tomato is X and 6 slices of cucumber is Y etc :-)
Yes it may be medical as my body is very messed up - which will not help, and not going into details.
SO just back to the 1200 (ignore this starvation thing) and keep cycling and hope the plateau does not continue for much longer, surely something has to give! :-)0 -
The scale is the devil IMO. Judge by how you are feeling, and how your clothes are fitting. I have a hard time excepting this too, but I'm working on it. Best of luck!!0
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Clothes fitting .... legs are now very toned which I love!
Measurements have NOT gone down at all. I found it very scary that I lost 10lbs and no measurements changed and there are no clothes that I can go back to fitting into.... that way I saw how easy it is to gain over 10lbs and not notice!!
In places a bit flabbier rather than firm so psychologically that is nice too.... but no, no real changes in clothes etc :-(
Thank you :-)0 -
CarlFenech wrote: »When going into starvation mode, your body signals that food is scarce and stores every piece of fat you eat, this is slow metabolism. When you eat healthy every three hours or so, the mind signals that food is in abundance and no need to store fat so you lose weight. This is a fast metabilism.
Wouldn't it be great if that's how it worked? I would be eating constantly, so my body wouldn't store fat.
I think people who post stuff like this are probably focused too much on fat instead of the purpose of food. We eat food so our bodies have energy to do stuff. When we are active, the body pulls energy from where it is available, because keeping us going short term is more important than long term. When food is in abundance, the body stores as much as it can, because it has no idea how much we will need when we are active later and how long it will be before we get more food.0 -
onedayTHISYEAR wrote: »Firstly
Thank you to all those that have taken the time to reply :-) I can appreciate how busy every one is.
I cut my calories to 1200ish... I don't cook with oil etc, cant stand peanut butter. Learnt on the first day not to eat baked potato and butter lol!!
Using the exercise bike I managed to use up at least 1000 calories a day (give or take 10% what the bike said and what other info sites said varied) Some days I managed over 2000 ((give or take 10% ) a few days I missed (as per other posts caused terrible piles - thank goodness for medication).
I was just so pleased I had found something I could do, make it fit into my time and felt I had accomplished something.
No weight loss for a few weeks.
Yes it could be time of the month... addressed water retention and over night gained 4 lbs!! (the day before did about 1500 on the bike)
Amazingly I did not feel that hungry after doing the morning cycle (varied minimum of 500 calories and often used up 1000 give or take 10% ) so often did not eat until later which helped me keep the calories low. Have tried (pain in bottom depending) on doing at least 500 calories 2 - 4 times a day...
Yes I have scales and learnt how much was 50g of cereal and 80g of milk. Tend to keep to a big salad in the evening and can then easily weigh the protein. Yes I know a tomato is X and 6 slices of cucumber is Y etc :-)
Yes it may be medical as my body is very messed up - which will not help, and not going into details.
SO just back to the 1200 (ignore this starvation thing) and keep cycling and hope the plateau does not continue for much longer, surely something has to give! :-)
This is all great info - and I'm sure people who know more than me will be able to give you much more detailed responses and advice.
All I would say, is that it sounds like you measure some of your food but not all. As much as you say you've learnt how much 50g of X is etc, it's really not accurate. While you're struggling just now, I would recommend weighing EVERY SINGLE THING you eat & drink. It's so easy to mis-judge the calories and if you do that a few times a day, you can be anything from 100 - 500+ calories out of what you think.
I know it sounds tedious, but it's the only way to be sure you're right with the calories going in.
When it comes to the exercise calories, where are you getting these numbers from? The only sure fire way to get calorie burn amounts is using a heart rate monitor- the numbers the machines give without a heart rate monitor are usually out - as are MFP recommendations, so a lot of people on here advise only eating back 50% of these.
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LLnotURmommaLL wrote: »Didn't see one useful answer to her question. You automatically assume she hasn't logged her calories right. I lost 45 lbs in 9 months, hit a plateau and have now gained back 14 lbs. Yes I weight my food, I haven't changed the the type of foods I eat, don't snack & swim 3 days a week. My calorie is 1200 per day but often eat less. I've dieted for two years but have been at my current weight for the last six months. I have no intentions to change my calorie intake but have no expectations that my weight will change. So I would appreciate it if you have no useful suggestions for this lady don't say anything.
If you haven't lost weight for six months, that means that you are eating at or above your maintenance level. Unless you are very light weight, 1200 per day is below your maintenance level. So, either you are eating more than 1200, or you are losing weight and don't realize it. Since we know you are eating more than 1200, but you think you are eating at 1200, that means there is food that you aren't logging. That may be because you are miscalculating portion sizes. That may be because there is food you are ignoring. That may be because you are misreading the calorie information on the labels or the calorie information in the database is wrong. Whatever the case, all you need to do is look at what you've been eating and eat less. Since your log entries are incorrect anyway, it might be better to not log at all, just reduce what you're eating.0
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