help! Not losing any more weight?

smithac96 wrote: »

Im confused with logging in grams. Most my foods I log from measuring. 1 cup grapes or 2 large grade A eggs. 8oz of tea. When I make a sandwich I log everything separately. 2 slices whatever bread, so many slices of lunch meat, and whatever sauce. How would I start logging everything in grams?

The label on your bread will say something like one slice (50g) = x calories. Weigh your bread. If two slices is 150g, that's three servings.

Peanut butter will say something like 2T (32g) = x calories. Put your spoon or knife on the scale and tare it (zero it out). Then scoop out your peanut butter and weigh it again. If it weighs 100g, that's 3.125 servings. (100 divided by 32.)

Edited to add that you can weigh the entire jar of peanut butter before & after you scoop our your serving, if that's easier.

smithac96 wrote: »

Im confused with logging in grams. Most my foods I log from measuring. 1 cup grapes or 2 large grade A eggs. 8oz of tea. When I make a sandwich I log everything separately. 2 slices whatever bread, so many slices of lunch meat, and whatever sauce. How would I start logging everything in grams?

Depends on the food:
Basic foods and ingredients (meats, fruits, vegetables): Look for USDA entries and entries without the * in the database. These will often have a serving size option in grams (100 g or 118g or 1 g, etc). Weigh your portion, and divide by the serving size and use that for your entry. Example, a plum DB entry has 100 g. Your plum weighs 88 g (assuming you've already subtracted the pit). Your serving size entered in MFP is 0.88.

Packaged/labelled foods: In the US, the nutrition label often has a serving size like "3/4 cup (85g)". If you've matched the product in the DB, the serving size on the dropdown is often listing only the 3/4 cup size, but you can go by the labels gram weight. Ex. a cereal has 3/4 cup (85g) for a serving size. You weigh out 120g in your bowl. Enter 120/85 = 1.41 for your serving.

smithac96 wrote: »

thankyou very much! Hopefully between this and changing my calorie goals I can get down the last 9 (or maybe 10) pounds!

You've gotten some good advice. But since the advice could generate cognitive dissonance, forgive me for running through it again ;-)

1: Your deficit goal may have been too high, given your current weight. Eating at a smaller deficit (and eating protein at 0.7g to 1.2g per lb of lean body mass, as well as lifting weights) is likely to better protect your lean mass during weight loss.

2: based on your description of how you've been recording your food intake, you have been eating more than you think. In other words you don't know at what caloric level you've been eating but it sure doesn't seem likely that it was just 1,000 Cal.

This implies that even though your new caloric target may be higher than before, the actual amount of food you end up consuming when you hit that target may actually prove to be the same, or even less than before.

smithac96 wrote: »

Update: I have been weighing all of my food on my new scale for the past 6 days and I ate less than 1,000 calories a couple of days. The other days were right about 1,200. Even though I am not hungry, should I increase my intake? I burn an average of 2,000 calories a day (sometimes more depending what workout day it is) and have started weight lifting 2 days/week to ensure I dont lose any muscle mass. My bmr is 1,422.

While lifting is a big help in preventing muscle loss, it's not sufficient. You also have to ensure that your deficit is not too large (because there is a physiological limit on how much energy your body can recover from stored fat -- roughly 30 calories per pound of fat each day -- and at 129 pounds, even assuming 30% body fat percentage. you are hitting that limit, especially on your heavy workout days or days you eat less than 1000 calories).

You also have to be getting enough protein to maintain your muscle mass -- even when you don't lift, and even when you're not "building" muscle, your body is constantly tearing down and rebuilding muscle, and protein is the building block of muscle. I would suggest at least 80 grams a day (.8 grams per pound of lean body mass, and assuming 80% of your 129 lbs is LBM to be on the safe side, although if you've just started lifting and you just dropped 11 lbs in a month on what sounds like a VLCD, odds are you have less than 80% LBM). Some people are likely to suggest more protein.

Congratulations on getting a scale and weighing your food! It's so much more accurate than relying on volume measurements.

I'm curious whether you're seeing any loss now -- you never answered the initial questions about how long it took you to lose the first 11 lbs (although you seemed to imply about a month) or how long you had been stalled before your OP. I just saw this thread for the first time today, and my thought was Stalling after a month? What else happens to women once a month that can cause water retention and mask weight loss?