Not losing

chuckyjean
chuckyjean Posts: 201 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I don't understand what I am doing wrong
I started at 172. I went down really fast the first week. Then slow the 2nd week but still down every day
Third week, nothing. I either gain one day or go back down to where I started the beginning of week 3. So yesterday at 163.6, day before 163.8, day before 163.6 two days in a row. Today 164.6. Can't get below 163.6. I don't know what I'm doing wrong
I exercise everyday. Never going beyond my calorie limit. Do you think maybe I'm gaining muscle in my legs and that is why my weight had been doing this. Used to take elevator at work, noe I climb 4 flights of stairs ,3 times a day. Or I do treadmill incline. I have been doing all kinds of exercised using my legs
But then if I am gaining muscle in my legs and muscle weighs more than fat how am I ever going to get down to ,145.
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Replies

  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,562 Member
    You aren't gaining muscle. You're just experiencing normal weight fluctuations. If watching the constant ups and downs is a bother, I would suggest only weighing once a week. Otherwise, you can use an app to track your weight and view the long-term trends rather than daily.
  • ultrahoon
    ultrahoon Posts: 467 Member
    Weight loss isn't linear, sometimes you just get the up and down fluctuations for weeks at a time before a 'whoosh' comes.

    That said, if you still aren't losing after 4-5 weeks, it might be the time to take a look at your exercise burn figures and calorie intake figures and see if there is room to improve the accuracy.
  • Duchy82
    Duchy82 Posts: 560 Member
    You are doing nothing wrong but have a look at the Most helpful posts section at the top of this forum there is a post in there explaining why you may have weeks were you don't lose. It's called it is unlikely you lose weight consistently (i.e. weight loss isn't linear).

    Don't panic if you have a week or even 4 where you don't lose it happens it's normal and if it makes you feel disheartened then maybe don't weigh every day. Rome wasn't built in a day, keep doing what you are doing.
  • chuckyjean
    chuckyjean Posts: 201 Member
    edited December 2015
    thanks guys, I'm new at this, never had to lose weight before. Thanks for the article, read it saw her weight chart, feel much better now. I now know I'm not alone. No wonder people give up, it can get discouraging, but I am no quitter. My goal right now is to climb those 4 flights of stairs at work without having to stop on the 3rd flight to catch my breath. When I'm not at work, I will do incline training on the treadmill.
  • Yi5hedr3
    Yi5hedr3 Posts: 2,696 Member
    Yes, could be muscle gain. The only way to know is to get a good scale that measures percent body fat.
  • Muscleflex79
    Muscleflex79 Posts: 1,917 Member
    you've said nothing about your calorie intake/deficit...you won't lose weight by just climbing stairs if your diet/deficit is off...
  • chuckyjean
    chuckyjean Posts: 201 Member
    Muscleflex79 wrote: »
    you've said nothing about your calorie intake/deficit...you won't lose weight by just climbing stairs if your diet/deficit is off...

    Not sure what you mean, but my calorie limit is 1200, and I have never gone beyond that. I usually burn an average of 300 to 350 calories a day.
  • MVY_
    MVY_ Posts: 253 Member
    I weigh in weekly due to weight fluctuation. My TOM is also very regular so when it comes closer to it I gain 5 lbs of weight and I stay like that with out fluctuation until after TOM is done visiting. Otherwise, I say just keep at it and don't be too focused on your weight. As long as you are being healthy you would lose.
  • strong_curves
    strong_curves Posts: 2,229 Member
    chuckyjean wrote: »
    Muscleflex79 wrote: »
    you've said nothing about your calorie intake/deficit...you won't lose weight by just climbing stairs if your diet/deficit is off...

    Not sure what you mean, but my calorie limit is 1200, and I have never gone beyond that. I usually burn an average of 300 to 350 calories a day.

    Several things:

    3 weeks isn't enough time to say if you're losing or not.

    You aren't gaining muscles in 3 weeks

    Weight loss isn't linear

    How are you measuring your 1200? Could be you're eating more than you realize especially if you aren't using a food scale to measure/weigh all your food and drinks.

    How are you measuring your calorie burn? Do you eat your exercise calories back?

    When it comes to weight loss you're going to need a lot of patience, you need to be consistent, you have to manage your expectations. There WILL be weeks will you will not lose, weeks where you might gain.
  • soapsandropes
    soapsandropes Posts: 269 Member
    You lost almost 9 lbs. in three weeks, that is a big change in a short amount of time. Weight loss isn't linear and it takes time and patience.
  • chuckyjean
    chuckyjean Posts: 201 Member
    I use a digital food scale. I measure and weigh everything I eat, unless it is on the package. I log everything I eat into mfp diary. I wear a fitbit, and it syncs back into mfp, so that is what I base my calorie burn from.
  • brianpperkins
    brianpperkins Posts: 6,124 Member
    chuckyjean wrote: »
    I use a digital food scale. I measure and weigh everything I eat, unless it is on the package. I log everything I eat into mfp diary. I wear a fitbit, and it syncs back into mfp, so that is what I base my calorie burn from.

    Fitbit burns are not necessarily accurate .... weighing everything you eat "unless" means you don't weigh everything ... there are variances in what is in a package and what the label says, weighing identifies and accounts for those variances.

  • chuckyjean
    chuckyjean Posts: 201 Member
    brianpperkins wrote: »
    chuckyjean wrote: »
    I use a digital food scale. I measure and weigh everything I eat, unless it is on the package. I log everything I eat into mfp diary. I wear a fitbit, and it syncs back into mfp, so that is what I base my calorie burn from.

    Fitbit burns are not necessarily accurate .... weighing everything you eat "unless" means you don't weigh everything ... there are variances in what is in a package and what the label says, weighing identifies and accounts for those variances.

    oh I did not know that. So how would you weight some things, like a skinny cow ice cream sandwich. I mean the package doesn't say how much it weighs, it just says that one sandwich = 150 calories. Sorry for being dense.
  • Queenmunchy
    Queenmunchy Posts: 3,380 Member
    edited December 2015
    It should say something like serving size: 1 sandwich (100g)

    You can divide the calorie amount by the serving in grams and get the calorie amount per gram. When you weigh and maybe come up with 105g, you multiply it by the calorie amount per gram (in this case of my made up numbers it would be 1.5cals per gram or 157 calories total).
  • chuckyjean
    chuckyjean Posts: 201 Member
    thanks for all the helpful info, still new at this
  • chuckyjean
    chuckyjean Posts: 201 Member
    edited January 2016
    Queenmunchy wrote: »
    It should say something like serving size: 1 sandwich (100g)

    You can divide the calorie amount by the serving in grams and get the calorie amount per gram. When you weigh and maybe come up with 105g, you multiply it by the calorie amount per gram (in this case of my made up numbers it would be 1.5cals per gram or 157 calories total).

    Wow, I started doing this, and now I see why I'm not losing much, I have been underestimating my calorie intake. So today I weighed my oatmeal. Before I was putting in 150 calories, cause that is what the package says, but when I weighed it and saw it was 46 grams instead of 40 grams. I now know it is actually 172.5 calories. Sure am glad you guys told me about this. Cause now I dropped .8 when I weighed in this morning. Now that being said, how do I manipulate the calories in oatmeal from 150 to 172.5?
  • SingingSingleTracker
    SingingSingleTracker Posts: 1,866 Member
    chuckyjean wrote: »
    Queenmunchy wrote: »
    It should say something like serving size: 1 sandwich (100g)

    You can divide the calorie amount by the serving in grams and get the calorie amount per gram. When you weigh and maybe come up with 105g, you multiply it by the calorie amount per gram (in this case of my made up numbers it would be 1.5cals per gram or 157 calories total).

    Wow, I started doing this, and now I see why I'm not losing much, I have been underestimating my calorie intake. So today I weighed my oatmeal. Before I was putting in 150 calories, cause that is what the package says, but when I weighed it and saw it was 46 grams instead of 40 grams. I now know it is actually 172.5 calories. Sure am glad you guys told me about this. Cause now I dropped .8 when I weighed in this morning.

    Now you're back on track.

    Great reality blog post here with 11 reasons why one has stopped losing:


    Why Am I Not Losing Weight: 11 Reasons You’re Failing To Lose Fat

    It always helps me snap back to much more accurate tracking of CICO.

    All the best with your continued weight loss!
  • chuckyjean
    chuckyjean Posts: 201 Member
    edited January 2016
    So now that I know that the oatmeal is 172.5 calories instead of 150 calories, how do I enter that in my food diary. Because when I scanned the bar code on the oatmeal it comes up at 150 calories, and can't figure out how to change that to 172 calories.
  • SingingSingleTracker
    SingingSingleTracker Posts: 1,866 Member
    chuckyjean wrote: »
    So now that I know that the oatmeal is 172.5 calories instead of 150 calories, how do I enter that in my food diary. Because when I scanned the bar code on the oatmeal it comes up at 150 calories, and can't figure out how to change that to 172 calories.

    You can manually enter your own nutritional information.
  • Alassonde
    Alassonde Posts: 228 Member
    chuckyjean wrote: »
    So now that I know that the oatmeal is 172.5 calories instead of 150 calories, how do I enter that in my food diary. Because when I scanned the bar code on the oatmeal it comes up at 150 calories, and can't figure out how to change that to 172 calories.

    When this happens I will play with the number of servings until the number is right....like saying you're having "1.25" servings of oatmeal instead of 1.
  • chuckyjean
    chuckyjean Posts: 201 Member
    So since I have been measuring all my food and staying not going below my sodium intake I have managed to lose 1.6 lbs in 2 days.
  • SingingSingleTracker
    SingingSingleTracker Posts: 1,866 Member
    chuckyjean wrote: »
    So since I have been measuring all my food and staying not going below my sodium intake I have managed to lose 1.6 lbs in 2 days.

    Thumbs up!!
  • Blueseraphchaos
    Blueseraphchaos Posts: 843 Member
    Easiest way to determine calories is actual weight ÷ serving size, so 46 g ÷ 40 g = 1.15 servings.

    This works for anything you find in the database that has grams as a serving size. I use a medium banana (118 grams) in the database, weigh the banana i eat, then divide actual weight by 118 and usually get around .95 of a serving. Very easy if you use a calculator on your phone
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    chuckyjean wrote: »
    So since I have been measuring all my food and staying not going below my sodium intake I have managed to lose 1.6 lbs in 2 days.

    I'm not sure you're getting the concept of daily fluctuations

    Does this help illustrate it? This is natural weight fluctuation in maintenance eg you might expect a static weight based on calorie intake
    cqophr3yhows.jpg

  • chuckyjean
    chuckyjean Posts: 201 Member
    I am not sure Rabbit, what you are getting at, after reading that post about weight loss isn't linear I do understand about the fluctuations. I just had a big fluctuation of a loss the last two days. I am also measuring my food more concise. So I believe that helps. I learned not to get upset if my weight goes up again tomorrow, it is all about the long picture not the day to day. So, I do understand about the fluctuations now. I understand how to measure food now.

    All that being said, how do you measure when you make a meal. Do you just transfer a recipe from the internet to myrecipes and go by the estimation that gives you, or do you literally measure every single ingredient that goes into your meal. and how to you measure liquids. Do you just use the oz setting on your digital scale. Mine doesn't have fluid ozs.
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    I'm getting at the fact that a 1.6lb weight loss in 2 days is a fluctuation which I'm delighted you get

    As you said yes it's a great emotional boost but it could as easily be a gain and it is hard to work at that kind of reaction to standard daily fluctuations so you may want to either check with a trending app (Happy Scale / Libra) or site (trendweight.com) and steel yourself to only look at your weight over 6-8 weeks and take the overall trend

    You literally build the recipe in the recipe builder, weigh the total dish when cooked, and set the serving as either 1g or 100g so that you can weigh the portion you took

    Liquids you can use spoons or cups, but personally I weigh things like oil in grammes and choose a per gram entry in the database
  • chuckyjean
    chuckyjean Posts: 201 Member
    edited January 2016
    ok thanks. Yup, I'm using trend weight.
  • CyberTone
    CyberTone Posts: 7,337 Member
    chuckyjean wrote: »
    <<snip>>
    All that being said, how do you measure when you make a meal. Do you just transfer a recipe from the internet to myrecipes and go by the estimation that gives you, or do you literally measure every single ingredient that goes into your meal. and how to you measure liquids. Do you just use the oz setting on your digital scale. Mine doesn't have fluid ozs.

    Regarding ounces vs. fluid ounces, 1 oz. water = 1 fluid oz. water at 40 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius) , everything else has a different density and can weigh more or less, but the difference is really negligible for most foods, especially when weighing things under 8 oz. I personally don't get that far into the weeds.

    Here is what I do when I make a pot or batch of food.
    - Weigh and record the weight of your cooking pot or storage container(s).​
    - Weigh and record the individual weights of all ingredients (raw or pre-cooked) that contribute Calories, including oil, butter, and any spices more than 1 tsp. (more than 3 g) - if you want to be exact, and all salt if you need to monitor your sodium intake.
    - Cook recipe, adding water if needed - water contributes zero Calories.
    - After cooking, weigh cooked food in cooking pot or in storage container.
    - Subtract weight of cooking pot or storage container.
    - Record total weight of cooked food.
    - Either set serving size as total weight of cooked food or divide into X number of servings by a convenient serving weight, such as 1g, 100g, or for US users 1oz. or 1 cup (8 oz. or about 230g).
    - Use the Recipe Importer or Old Recipe Calculator to enter the weights of each individual raw ingredient to calculate macro- and micronutrients, then record the Recipe as X number of servings.

  • SingingSingleTracker
    SingingSingleTracker Posts: 1,866 Member
    chuckyjean wrote: »
    ok thanks. Yup, I'm using trend weight.

    Chuckyjean - yes, daily fluctuations as pointed out above happens. When you are in the weight loss mode such as you mention in your first post of this thread, busting through that 163.6 lbs barrier is going to be fun!
  • chuckyjean
    chuckyjean Posts: 201 Member
    edited January 2016
    SingingSingleTracker wrote: »
    chuckyjean wrote: »
    ok thanks. Yup, I'm using trend weight.

    Chuckyjean - yes, daily fluctuations as pointed out above happens. When you are in the weight loss mode such as you mention in your first post of this thread, busting through that 163.6 lbs barrier is going to be fun!

    Sure was fun, when I saw I was at 163.4 yesterday and 162.6 today. I love seeing it go down. Only 18 pounds to go.

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