Making sure I'm doing things right

sapplebana
sapplebana Posts: 14 Member
edited November 19 in Health and Weight Loss
Hi,

I am currently 183cm and 86.5kg, 19 years old. 12 months ago I was around 80kg but started eating unhealthy foods regularly for the first time in 3 years, as a result and quite obviously I don't have the best metabolism, have gained 6.5kg.

It all started 12 months ago, where for sporting reasons I wanted to lose a kg to go back to 79kg. The failure in achieving that forced me to start eating bad foods where I gained 2kg. Over the next 12 months I've repeatedly tried to just go back to my previous weight of 80kg but I've failed almost 15 or 20 times.

My question is, why is it that once I lose 1kg in 2 or 3 weeks I say to myself "OK I will take a week break to just eat and maintain my weight". In the end not only do I gain the 1kg back in 7 days but most recently as this week I went from 84.2kg on Sunday to 86.5kg on Wednesday. Is my body storing fat when I go back to eating normally? It is certainly not water weight. My weight has been 86.5kg every day since Wednesday.

Somebody told me I can't eat lower than 1800 calories per day or else my body will go into starvation mode. But then to lose weight with exercise I can't eat more than 2000 calories per day. Do I seriously have to start wasting my time and counting calories to ensure I stay within the 1800 to 2000 range? Seriously I mean everything I cook doesn't have nutritional information...

Does that mean everybody who is the same as me and successfully lost weight just been lucky that their diet fell within the 1800 to 2000 range? I think this might be causing my weight gain after I lose weight as I might be eating 1750 each day or a little lower. I don't want to lose 6.5kg and gain it all back due to starvation mode...

Sorry for the long post, I'm just really confused and want to make sure that everything I'm doing is right. I know for the rest of my life I can't eat bad foods because I gain weight too easily so that's something that I can fix (It's unfortunate because almost all of my teammates are eating junk and terrible foods each day but are super super skinny and slim). But I find it so easy to maintain my weight, if I have one bad day where I consume 1000 calories more than I should I notice I can never lose that weight ever again. If I can just get down to 82kg I know there will be no trouble maintaining the weight.

I really need to trim down as I'm starting to feel less versatile and mobile during my sport. I think 82kg is a good number to be with my muscle and body fat taken into consideration. It's definitely not muscle gain, I look visibly fatter and I weight train twice a week so I couldn't possibly gain 6.5kg of muscle let alone 1kg!

Just seeking for advice and tried to give as much details as possible lol, thanks for your help everyone :smile:

Replies

  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 25,633 Member
    edited June 2015
    sapplebana wrote: »
    My question is, why is it that once I lose 1kg in 2 or 3 weeks I say to myself "OK I will take a week break to just eat and maintain my weight". In the end not only do I gain the 1kg back in 7 days but most recently as this week I went from 84.2kg on Sunday to 86.5kg on Wednesday. Is my body storing fat when I go back to eating normally? It is certainly not water weight. My weight has been 86.5kg every day since Wednesday.

    Somebody told me I can't eat lower than 1800 calories per day or else my body will go into starvation mode. But then to lose weight with exercise I can't eat more than 2000 calories per day. Do I seriously have to start wasting my time and counting calories to ensure I stay within the 1800 to 2000 range? Seriously I mean everything I cook doesn't have nutritional information...

    Enter all your information into the goals/profile, along with how much weight you want to lose each week (e.g. 0.5 kg).

    MFP will give you a number. Eat that amount of calories, or just very slightly lower.

    When you exercise, enter that, but remember that MFP overestimates the exercise, so aim to only eat half that back. But the more you exercise, the more you can eat.

    Yes, weigh and log all your food. Count your calories. Everything has nutritional information.

    Keep it up until you lose the 7.5 kg you want to lose. At 0.5 kg/week, that's about 15 weeks. Do not take a day or week off for maintenance in that time. It's really not long.

    During that time, really pay attention to everything you eat ... the nutritional content in various foods. This site might help ... http://nutritiondata.self.com/

    And there is no such thing as starvation mode.

  • Krystle1984
    Krystle1984 Posts: 146 Member
    Machka9 wrote: »
    sapplebana wrote: »
    My question is, why is it that once I lose 1kg in 2 or 3 weeks I say to myself "OK I will take a week break to just eat and maintain my weight". In the end not only do I gain the 1kg back in 7 days but most recently as this week I went from 84.2kg on Sunday to 86.5kg on Wednesday. Is my body storing fat when I go back to eating normally? It is certainly not water weight. My weight has been 86.5kg every day since Wednesday.

    Somebody told me I can't eat lower than 1800 calories per day or else my body will go into starvation mode. But then to lose weight with exercise I can't eat more than 2000 calories per day. Do I seriously have to start wasting my time and counting calories to ensure I stay within the 1800 to 2000 range? Seriously I mean everything I cook doesn't have nutritional information...

    Enter all your information into the goals/profile, along with how much weight you want to lose each week (e.g. 0.5 kg).

    MFP will give you a number. Eat that amount of calories, or just very slightly lower.

    When you exercise, enter that, but remember that MFP overestimates the exercise, so aim to only eat half that back. But the more you exercise, the more you can eat.

    Yes, weigh and log all your food. Count your calories. Everything has nutritional information.

    Keep it up until you lose the 7.5 kg you want to lose. At 0.5 kg/week, that's about 15 weeks. Do not take a day or week off for maintenance in that time. It's really not long.

    During that time, really pay attention to everything you eat ... the nutritional content in various foods. This site might help ... http://nutritiondata.self.com/

    And there is no such thing as starvation mode.

    This! ^^^^

    Counting calories is not a waste of time if it allows you to reach your goals. Buy a digital food scale, weigh and log all your food and stick to the calorie goal MFP gives you.

    It really is as simple as that.

    Good luck! :)
  • sapplebana
    sapplebana Posts: 14 Member
    Thanks very much to both of you really appreciate the help :smile:

    I think I'm just ranting and trying to find excuses for my failure. To really achieve something you have to put your mind to it, so I think I might have been pushing the limits but in reality the limit was a country mile away.

    When you say starvation mode doesn't exist, doesn't that mean I could eat 1000 calories a day to lose weight faster? (Although I would never do that for several reasons as it's unhealthy and most of all I would be too hungry lol).

    I think 0.5kg per week is a good goal. I wouldn't go as low as 79kg, I think in a fitness sense I've become a lot stronger/fitter over the past 12 months so 81kg now would be what 79kg would have been 12 months ago (Just an estimate). I just need to clean up my diet. I used to be 99kg a few years back with the same height and dropped to 80kg in two years but with no calorie counting, etc etc. Just simply stopped eating bad foods and replaced it with a healthy option. I just think I've reached the limit now of losing weight easily and have to realise it's tougher once you're lighter.
  • Krystle1984
    Krystle1984 Posts: 146 Member
    The bigger your calorie deficit, the more you should lose. 1000 calories a day isn't sustainable though for most people. The minimum for women should typically be 1200 and men 1500.

    That being said, I do personally find if my weight loss slows down that upping my calories by about 200 a day helps. I think this is mostly because those few extra calories give me an energy boost so I tend to do more and burn more.

    Hope that helps! :)
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 25,633 Member
    Krystle1984 wrote: »
    The bigger your calorie deficit, the more you should lose. 1000 calories a day isn't sustainable though for most people. The minimum for women should typically be 1200 and men 1500.

    This! ^^^^ :)





  • sapplebana
    sapplebana Posts: 14 Member
    So what's the rapid reason for gaining weight so fast. I know I have splurged too much on a cheat day and probably gained too much weight back. For example in two days I probably ate half a jar of nutella and a lot of other sugary treats. I know a full jar of 750g Nutella is 3900 calories. I mean I couldn't possibly have gained 2.5kg in a few days I don't remember eating 18750 calories extra to go with my daily diet. As I said it can't be water weight or anything because this has stayed the same. Are you sure it's not my boding storing everything as fat?

    I was expecting a weight gain of maybe 1kg but as I said, don't ever remember consuming 18750 calories (2.5kg of fat/weight). There must be something wrong with my body right? Should I see a doctor?
  • Tubbs216
    Tubbs216 Posts: 6,597 Member
    It sounds like you're losing and then gaining back the same water weight every time.
  • Krystle1984
    Krystle1984 Posts: 146 Member
    It definitely sounds like water weight. How much are you drinking every day? I can retain water for days at a time then lose it all overnight.
  • sapplebana
    sapplebana Posts: 14 Member
    No problem, must be water weight that I've confused as fat weight then. I don't count how much water I drink daily but it certainly well exceeds the 8 glasses that is recommended definitely.
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