How do you get over a depressing weigh in?

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terrifrost
terrifrost Posts: 397 Member
in Motivation and Support
I started this journey about a month ago. I've cut out most processed food, eating about 90% clean and cut down my alcohol a lot! My goal for the month was to walk 10,000 steps a day as well as training for my half marathon on top of that.

While I wasn't really counting calories initially, I have now started and seen I am well within my calorie limit.

BUT: this week I decided to check my stats to see how well I've done over the past 4 weeks. And the results: nothing has changed :( No weight loss at all. Not even an inch on any part of my body. The only thing which has changed a bit is my body fat percentage has gone done by 0.3% which really isn't that much!

I'm so upset that I want to toss it all in and forget all the hard work I've put in. So please before that happens tell me any tricks you use to fee better about a depressing weigh in.

Replies

  • Virkati
    Virkati Posts: 679 Member
    edited September 2015
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    The "trick" is to recognize, understand, accept, and make friends with the fact that this is a process. Weight loss isn't linear. You weigh your food. All of it. You exercise. You don't let the number on a machine define your self worth. You give it the importance it needs, which is nothing more than ONE form of progress measurement. That's all it is, that's all it does. It is simply a number. It's one of the tools you're using to determine the progress you've made over a period of time. Don't quit. Trust the process. It works.

    ETA--what the hell is your avatar?! Looks like a caterpillar...right?
  • RoseTheWarrior
    RoseTheWarrior Posts: 2,035 Member
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    Virkati wrote: »
    The "trick" is to recognize, understand, accept, and make friends with the fact that this is a process. Weight loss isn't linear. You weigh your food. All of it. You exercise. You don't let the number on a machine define your self worth. You give it the importance it needs, which is nothing more than ONE form of progress measurement. That's all it is, that's all it does. It is simply a number. It's one of the tools you're using to determine the progress you've made over a period of time. Don't quit. Trust the process. It works.

    ETA--what the hell is your avatar?! Looks like a caterpillar...right?

    Exactly. I know it's hard. Sometimes really hard. But believe me that if you look at "trend" over "spot" you'll see a major difference. This is a thing I'm trying to reconcile with as well. But I'm getting better with remaining positive despite the numbers on the machine. I know I'm healthier, and so do you. Think of all you can do, and acknowledge how hard you've worked.
  • mwyvr
    mwyvr Posts: 1,883 Member
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    terrifrost wrote: »
    I started this journey about a month ago. ...
    I'm so upset that I want to toss it all in and forget all the hard work I've put in. So please before that happens tell me any tricks you use to fee better about a depressing weigh in.

    First, a couple of questions if you don't mind?

    Are you weighing your food? If not, that may explain the apparent lack of progress right there.

    Second, beyond walking what does your half marathon training look like at the moment? Are you following a program? I'm just wondering what your weekly running activity looks like; what your calorie burn is and whether you are eating them all back (nothing wrong with that if accurate on calories in and out).

    Finally, are you just starting your weight loss program or have you already lost a significant amount of weight? I ask because the final bit is generally harder than at the start.
  • blankiefinder
    blankiefinder Posts: 3,599 Member
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    My motto here is 'If you're tired of starting over, stop giving up!' So give yourself some credit for trying, and then take a good hard look at what you're doing to figure out why you're not losing. If you're not using a food scale, that will be the biggest impact on your weight loss. Are your MFP settings right? Are you using the correct database entries? I posted this yesterday, it's my MFP How-To
  • terrifrost
    terrifrost Posts: 397 Member
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    Thanks all:

    So to answer a few questions:

    I did lose a significant amount of weight about 2 years ago but then stopped when I reached my goal. I didn't do maintenance very well and have now put on an additional 10kgs over the course of about 18months (so it's been a slow creep up).

    I have only started weighing my food this week (when I started back with MFP) so this is very likely a culprit but to be honest my portions don't look much smaller than what I used to eat but I will keep weighing food to see if this does help!

    My half marathon training is 3 main runs a week (easy, tempo/intervals and long run all at certain paces) and I do another easy run in between. I try not to eat back my calories from my runs but again, as I've only been formally tracking for a week, this is also a probable culprit.

    I know that it is a process which I need to work on and hopefully things will start to improve now that I'm tracking food properly. I guess I was hoping by eating healthier and upping exercise, the weight would shift without the calorie tracking. Thanks for all the replies. I'm will try take it in its stride and keep at it!
  • terrifrost
    terrifrost Posts: 397 Member
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    Virkati wrote: »
    The "trick" is to recognize, understand, accept, and make friends with the fact that this is a process. Weight loss isn't linear. You weigh your food. All of it. You exercise. You don't let the number on a machine define your self worth. You give it the importance it needs, which is nothing more than ONE form of progress measurement. That's all it is, that's all it does. It is simply a number. It's one of the tools you're using to determine the progress you've made over a period of time. Don't quit. Trust the process. It works.

    ETA--what the hell is your avatar?! Looks like a caterpillar...right?

    Yip it's a caterpillar! :smiley:
  • OsricTheKnight
    OsricTheKnight Posts: 340 Member
    edited September 2015
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    terrifrost wrote: »
    I'm so upset that I want to toss it all in and forget all the hard work I've put in. So please before that happens tell me any tricks you use to fee better about a depressing weigh in.

    I like to weigh every day and use a trend so that I can see the progress. My post discusses this in some detail, but for your purposes these pictures should be interesting:

    MFP graph:

    30hzd1k9ytec.png

    Trend graph of the same data:

    homut07qgfmq.png

    I think it's quite hard to believe those are the same data points.

    Osric

  • beautifulsparkles
    beautifulsparkles Posts: 314 Member
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    You probably shouldn't eat back all of your exercise calories (not sure if you are), because apparently MFP overestimates actual burn.
  • TehLaughingDog
    TehLaughingDog Posts: 200 Member
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    As someone who can easily fluctuate like 10lbs depending on the day I can say a few things about this confidently haha.

    I think it's important to fully consider not only your week but there day you weigh in. Ideally we all want a weigh in day to be one day a week but I think what's more important is how you feel. For example today I was hoping to have this as my weigh in but I had a sore stomach last night, have been stressed from exams, just got back on my hormone meds, and I feel an off gut this morning... Probably not an accurate weigh today if I tried. When I did I wasn't suprized to find I'm the same but maybe over the weekend when I can chill I'll kick out better results.

    On a regular day I consider stomach upset, diet from the day before, amount of water taken in, amount of fiber and salt from the day before, and psychological status on whether its aging to be an accurate weigh. Maybe today just wasn't a good one for ya because of a different factor rather than you're my trying hard enough - it's about the full perspective of it all.
  • mwyvr
    mwyvr Posts: 1,883 Member
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    @terrifrost Sounds like you are making some good moves, particularly with now weighing and getting a more accurate handle on intake calories. Give it some more time. :smile:
  • dubird
    dubird Posts: 1,849 Member
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    Sometimes, the scale doesn't budge or even goes up. Body weight fluctuates daily, as well as over the course of the day. Your TOM cycle can skew the scale number as well. I've gone up a couple of pounds from that many times, but there are months I don't. Hormones are weird. ><

    As @OsricTheKnight said, look for a trend. Look at the graph of weigh-ins from the last month (or, if you've just started back, a month from now). If you can draw a line from the start to the finish and it's going down, you're fine.

    And I know weighing food is a big pain, but at least for starting out, it's good to do so you can be as accurate as possible. It's super easy to have several hundred calories sneak in without realizing it, and weighing ALL your food is the best way to spot the leaks, so to speak.

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