Gaining on clean eating!!

what @auddii said
Also, I can't view your diary, but how are you logging your exercise calories? And are you "eating back" your exercise cals?

eta: nevermind, I see auddii's handy-dandy chart covered that too

Do you want to open your diary? It could help if we can see it.

If you are gaining, and it's been more than a few weeks, you're eating more than you think. Be sure to weigh out everything, not just use measuring cups for solids.

Perhaps you could allow access to your diary so we could take look for anything obvious?

This is my really general advice for these sorts of things. I know we've already covered some of the steps, but maybe some of the others will help:


1. If it's been less than 3 weeks or so, don't sweat it! Normal fluctuations happen and unfortunately sometimes we stall for a week or two even when we're doing everything right. Give your body some time to catch up with the changes you're making.

2. If you aren't already, be sure that you're logging everything. Sometimes people forget about things like veggies, drinks, cooking oils, and condiments. For some people these can add up to enough to halt your weight loss progress.

3. Consider buying a food scale if you don't already have one. They're about $10-$20 dollars in the US and easily found at places like Amazon, Target, and Walmart. Measuring cups and spoons are great, but they do come with some degree of inaccuracy. A food scale will be more accurate, and for some people it makes a big difference.

4. Logging accurately also means choosing accurate entries in the database. There are a lot of user-entered entries that are off. Double-check that you're using good entries and/or using the recipe builder instead of someone else's homemade entries.

5. Recalculate your goals if you haven't lately. As you lose weight your body requires fewer calories to run. Be sure you update your goals every ten pounds or so.

6. If you're eating back your exercise calories and you're relying on gym machine readouts or MFP's estimates, it might be best to eat back just 50-75% of those. Certain activities tend to be overestimated. If you're using an HRM or activity tracker, it might be a good idea to look into their accuracy and be sure that yours is calibrated properly.

7. If you're taking any cheat days that go over your calorie limits, it might be best to cut them out for a few weeks and see what happens. Some people go way over their calorie needs without realizing it when they don't track.

8. If you weigh yourself frequently, consider using a program like trendweight to even out the fluctuations. You could be losing weight but just don't see it because of the daily ups and downs.

9. Some people just burn fewer calories than the calculators predict. If you continue to have problems after 4-6 weeks, then it might be worth a trip to the doctor or a registered dietitian who can give you more specific advice.

Gingychild wrote: »

how do I open my diary...then close it? I've never done that.

You can change your diary settings by going to Settings > Diary Settings and then you can toggle it from private to public. When you're ready to hide it again just go in and toggle it back to private.

I see a lot of 1/4 cup, 1tbls, 1 slice etc entries. Are your weighing these as well, or actually using a measuring cup? If using the measuring cup you are likely underestimating how much you are actually eating.

Fruit spread and honey should be weighed, if not already.

How are you measuring out your portions for the recipes? Are you weighing all ingredients while cooking and the re-weighing the finished product? Items like cheese, fruit, nutbutters should be weighed and not measured by spoon/cups etc as it is highly inaccurate and can make a huge difference.