:-( Less calories, more exercise ≠loose weight!! :-(

Just read this whole thread... Oh dear!

OP you have been given all the answers you need by other people already. Buy a scale, weigh absolutely everything you eat and if you insist on believing the ridiculously over-inflated burn your stationary bike is giving you that's fine - as long as you continue to not eat back those calories (which you say you aren't).

Also, I couldn't see anywhere in this thread your stats (height, weight, age, gender) or what your deficit is set to. I am going to assume it's set to 2lbs a week. I would cut it to 1lb or even 0.5lb.

I am 5'3 with 38lbs to lose. I eat 2000 calories a day and lose a pound a week fairly consistently. I walk a lot (15-20k steps every day) and do some strength training. I also have a stationary bike - 40 minutes on the highest resistance level would burn me about 250-300 calories. I use an activity tracker with heart rate monitor to get that figure. I am confident it's accurate as my loss each week is on target (I eat these calories back) and I have 3 months of data to check against. The reading on my bike display is always in excess of 800 calories. I disregard that number and the weight is falling off.

Also, there are worse things you could do than listen to rabbitjb. She knows what she's talking about!

Good luck!

I'm in the exact same boat I've been doing body combat every other day this is new to me so I'm assuming my lack of weight loss is due to water retention however!! Rabbitjb gave me some advice to eat back only half my calories to which I'm taking on board. Can I just say I burn around 400-500 for body combat for 55 minutes via a HRM and that's if I really push myself you need to not trust that bike

Ok, I had a look at your profile and I'm a little worried/curious. You state in your profile that you

So I need to get rid of the weight - starving again if necessary if that is the only way my body can do it.
I tried all last year but even though no clothes I just could not find the motivation :-(
This programme is helping, a few things I had not realised the calorie content of...

Could you please humour us and post your stats? Age / current weight / height / goal weight? It would also help if you opened your diary - YES you said that you don't want to share because of personal issues but it really would help - you can always delete anything you don't want shared and to be quite honest - I doubt that anyone is going to go back more than 3 months in your diary!

You said you have a little one - are you a stay-at-home carer or do you work outside the home? What do you do for work (this might have an impact on your activity levels)?

I think that if you really are weighing everything that you put in your mouth, logging everything that you put in your mouth, staying at or below your calorie goal and nothing is changing weight-wise - you need to see a doctor and explain all of this to them.

Otherwise, if you're not weighing your food - get a digital scale and start doing so.
If you're not logging your food, start doing so - not at the end of the day when you might forget what you consumed, but as you are consuming it (or even pre-log!)
If you're not drinking the recommended amount of water - start doing so.
Also, I'd completely ignore whatever burn the machine (or whatever you used to workout the burn) and just try sticking to your calorie goal for a month. It might even help to completely stop with the bike altogether and just focus on your calorie intake.
Yes - a month. Then re-evaluate.

I'm really trying not to be the bad one here - but if you look at my profile pic you'll see my recorded weight over the last 12 months - I'm not trying to maintain, I'm aiming to lose but because I a) don't log consistently over extended periods of time b) don't eat to or under my caloric goal over extended periods of time; I haven't lost weight consistently. I am very good at maintaining at the moment and it simply due to me and my food intake/logging. You can see where I've logged/weighed and where I haven't. Simple.

onedayTHISYEAR wrote: »

Alatariel75 wrote: »

Trying everything but listening to people who have done it who have actual answers. Why is it so much harder to believe that your bike is inaccurate then believing your body is a magical special snowflake? And you can't dictate who answers your thread. Welcome to the internet.

I dont believe the bike is inaccurate as the other person in the house struggles as others have mentioned they do and they just are in the same room and see what I do.
As previously stated I even had them pop on as I found it easy as they could see, and they struggled to do what I was doing AND they have been very shocked at how quickly I have built up from yes like others struggling to stay on at a low level for 15, 20 mins.
I also use a special cushion as WOW those seats hurt and I was damaging my bottom by being on so long and so I had to find a way to solve that problem too.

Yes I know I cant STOP people from replying to this thread, that is why I asked politely... if they now choose to waste their time, you are correct I cant stop them, but I can ignore it, I cant be forced to read it ;-D

A cushion, plus something interesting to watch on the laptop, I am sorted, I have to push past about 15, 20 mins as that seem to be a hurdle (when yes I do want to give up! BUT DO NOT) I uses to come off and fall in a heap and stuggle to the shower but prior to being ill and going away my recovery time shocked me :-)
I may not be loose the weight but my legs look so much better and I am much fitter too :-)
or I was prior to ill and holiday... dreading getting back on :-S

Just because the bike is truly on 20, and very hard to peddle for most, doesn't mean the burn is accurate. There is a difference between the difficulty being accurate and the algorithm that calculates burns being accurate.

Does your machine display heart rate? If so, try this calculator. Calories Burned. Enter your gender, weight, age, average heart rate while on bike, and time. Click Calculate. Ignore the calories burned per hour box. Read the Total Calories box.

And pull your head out, and realize that rabbit wasn't arguing with you, but was actually trying to help you, which is very kind of her.

I think there's a brand of exercise bike commonly used in Britain that overestimates burn REALLY badly because I've seen 2 other people publish similar things! They both used British spellings. And they were both using exercise bikes. And they were both getting crazy burns.

JaneiR36 wrote: »

onedayTHISYEAR wrote: »

Right so.... forced myself back on the bike...

67 min distance 19k
Speed averaged 18 - 20 and rpm averaged about 50
.... calories burnt is about??
Thanks

No idea. Even if you provided the intensity, it would be hard to translate what that means for your particular bike. Other options for estimating would be if you had the total Power in Watts, or if you wore a heart rate monitor. Both would still be estimates. The only thing you can truly control is your consistent food input, and patience

Would also add that your height, weight, age etc will play a factor. What number does the MFP database give you if you log it? I would take half of that number.

Hi oneday

Reading your profile it sounds as though you've been through a terrible time, sorry to hear that. People here really aren't being mean, they're trying to help but it's very difficult to offer useful advice with limited information. Different people find different things work for them but in the general sense everything comes back to numbers. Without your weight, height, age and target weight loss per week it's very difficult for people to advise what might be going wrong so they offer all the solutions they can think of.

The only thing I can say is that, if I'm reading it correctly, you ONLY ever eat 1200 calories a day? Assuming you have set your weight loss to 1 pound per week then your BMR would be 1700 a day. Taking rabbit's calculation above (which is definitely more reasonable than 1000 calories a session) then if you did 2 bike sessions a day and burnt 1000 calories your total calorie expenditure (CO) would be 2700 while your intake (CI) would only be 1200 which is less than 45% of your daily requirement and this is too low.

Or to look at it another way, if you eat 1200 calories to give you a 1 pound weight loss and then you burn an extra 1000 calories, your net calorie intake is only 200. Would you try and survive on 200 calories a day?

So, if anything, I would say you're not eating enough. Try using 500 calories an hour for cycling as a guide and then eat at least half of your exercise calories on top of the 1200 a day. Give it a couple of weeks and see if things start moving. And best of luck.

P.S I'm new to MFP Community but sadly not to weight loss!!