Will this cause me to stall?

Kasper2010 wrote: »

I am using a heart rate monitor and I am 315lbs. Due to how morbidly obese I am I burn 2180 calories as a vegetable daily. Doing absolutely nothing. That comes from my dietician and after a lot of testing. Now, I walk over 15,000 steps daily and also bike for 30min to an hour a day. Again, due to my morbid obesity I burn more calories than a person at a healthy weight during exercise.

I am not sure if you thought you were being helpful or not, but you were not. If anything you just discourages me from seeking help and trying to understand what is going on with my body and if I need to make another appointment with my PCP and dietician to figure out what is wrong. I was seeking help not criticism.

To those who offered help and real knowledge, thank you.

If you are referring to me, I am very sorry. I was in no way trying to discourage or not help you. I was simply just stating that a fitbit is not always accurate because it does not have a heart rate monitor. As I now know you have a HRM, I'm glad that you can figure out your daily calories burned. I hope you have an awesome journey though your weight loss and that you turn heads when people see how terrific you did on losing it. That's what always motivated me when I lost 60 pounds. Goodluck and again, I'm sorry if I offended you, I did not mean to. I was just arguing over how accurate a fitbit is.

Have you been cycling for a while now? Recently I started lifting and gained 2 lbs and flipped out, but I figured out it was due to inflammation in my muscles from them being sore. That might be a source of your weight not going down lately.

OMP33 wrote: »

Kasper2010 wrote: »

I am using a heart rate monitor and I am 315lbs. Due to how morbidly obese I am I burn 2180 calories as a vegetable daily. Doing absolutely nothing. That comes from my dietician and after a lot of testing. Now, I walk over 15,000 steps daily and also bike for 30min to an hour a day. Again, due to my morbid obesity I burn more calories than a person at a healthy weight during exercise.

I am not sure if you thought you were being helpful or not, but you were not. If anything you just discourages me from seeking help and trying to understand what is going on with my body and if I need to make another appointment with my PCP and dietician to figure out what is wrong. I was seeking help not criticism.

To those who offered help and real knowledge, thank you.

If you are referring to me, I am very sorry. I was in no way trying to discourage or not help you. I was simply just stating that a fitbit is not always accurate because it does not have a heart rate monitor. As I now know you have a HRM, I'm glad that you can figure out your daily calories burned. I hope you have an awesome journey though your weight loss and that you turn heads when people see how terrific you did on losing it. That's what always motivated me when I lost 60 pounds. Goodluck and again, I'm sorry if I offended you, I did not mean to. I was just arguing over how accurate a fitbit is.

Again, some fitbits do have heart rate monitors. Mine does.

OP don't be discouraged, you are starting a new journey, and with changes in your exercise habits, ToM and even stress can lead to you retaining waterweight. Give yourself some time to adjust to your new routine, try to be patient. The results will come.

Kasper2010 wrote: »

wilsonkalyn5 wrote: »

Have you been cycling for a while now? Recently I started lifting and gained 2 lbs and flipped out, but I figured out it was due to inflammation in my muscles from them being sore. That might be a source of your weight not going down lately.

My muscles haven't been sore the last week. Last week, that is what I was thinking too. And I know I am not holding onto any water since I am fully hydrated. I am just terrified with all the yoyo dieting over then last 5 years I have screwed up my metabolism.

My Dr recently told me she wants me to have gastric bypass, and it terrifies me. I don't want to have weight loss surgery, so we made a deal of me going 3 months and if I can lose 10% of my body weight in 3 months surgery will be off the table. That is more of the reason I am stressing.

I feel great, my energy levels are great, I am completely off sugar and no longer crave it. I sleep 8 hours a night now without waking and can jump out of bed with no problems, where as before it took me an hour to wake up and move.

Your doctor can't force you into WLS. Honestly, you can do it, but you need to let go of all the crappy dieting myths that are out there.

Also, go check out some of the stories on the success forum. Users have done some amazing things! The formula is easy, doing the work is not always.

TL; dr:
Connect trendweight to your fitbit account. weigh your food; pick database entries you verify yourself and are confident in.

Eat a good 2500 calories as opposed to 1500... you have a LONG way to go and a deficit of 25% off you TDEE will get you there quite handily.

Drop your deficit to 10% to 20% once you're no longer obese

Longer version:

Please connect www.trendweight.com to your fitbit.com account. Please observe your weight trend and stop reacting to daily weight in water weight changes.

@ 315lbs with 15000K steps a day you can absolutely lose weight eating 2500 Cal a day (not 1500).

I started on MFP @ ~ 235 after having already shed a good 45lbs.
15 months later I am another ~70lbs down

My lowest average calories eaten was 2075 during my first two months on MFP.
Once I started getting a handle on things I ramped up to 2425 over the next two months.
Overall I've averaged more than 2500 Cal a day over the past 15 months.

When I compare my TDEE as per Fitbit, to my MFP logging, and adjust for fat and lean mass loss based on DXA scan results, Fitbit was off by:
0.89% of TDEE
4.85% of TDEE
5.5% of TDEE
Currently there is every indication that the % has shrunk, not expanded, but I have not done a recent scan to confirm that the error percentage has shrunk to under 2.5%

The above assumes that ALL the error is on Fitbit, when in reality some of it is with food values and my MFP logging.

As such, I consider my Fitbit calculated TDEE to be accurate, in spite of the fact that uses an HRM, and that HRMs are not suitable for the purpose of estimating calories during non steady state activity (and even during steady state activity HRM results do not correlate 100% to calories burned).

The so called "exercise adjustment" made by Fitbit and MFP should be renamed to: "TDEE adjustment based on Fitbit derived information". it is not an "exercise" adjustment and, as discussed, for most people it is remarkably accurate.

Good advice. You can see more progress with measurements or taking pictures when the scales aren't moving.

42firm03 wrote: »

Not eating enough does not cause a stall.

Now water retention will. A new or more aggressive excercise routine can cause you to hold water that masks fat loss. Drinking water does not cause water retention.

Success should be measured over 6-8 weeks worth of data. Not 2 or 3.

Trust the process. Eat to your goal. Log accurately. Note 6-8 week averaged results and adjust your intake accordingly.

It's your body's job to produce the results and it will do it in its own sweet time (unfortunately if you are impatient like me)

this

gia07 wrote: »

I would never tell someone to eat more if they are in a stall. The flow chart posted earlier is 100% full proof if you follow what it says.

I will always question someone about their logging food (are they honestly logging everything by weighing it etc.), next I will question the calorie burns how they accurate are they and if eating them back, could be way too many.

Two weeks is not near enough time to considered a stall as well. It could very well take the body 4 weeks or so to make adjustments in a working with your changes in energy balance (i.e eating less and exercising) as well water retention, sodium intake, etc.. are all factors.

To loose weight the KEY is getting the deficit right, the exercise is secondary to the deficit. You cannot exercise the weight off, you have to eat less not more..

But she's not in a stall, as you said, 2 weeks is not enough time to be considered a stall. Her TDEE sounds right, and her target deficit is VERY aggressive right now (1500-1900 kcals when burning 3500 kcals) - that is a huge deficit. She absolutely should be eating more. Now the truth is it is tough to be accurate in logging, so she may actually be eating more than the 1500-1900, but I still would not suggest keeping that as a goal. I would suggest both making sure logging is 100% accurate and going for 2500 kcals/day (1000 kcal deficit).

Kasper2010 wrote: »

My Dr recently told me she wants me to have gastric bypass, and it terrifies me. I don't want to have weight loss surgery, so we made a deal of me going 3 months and if I can lose 10% of my body weight in 3 months surgery will be off the table. That is more of the reason I am stressing.

I feel great, my energy levels are great, I am completely off sugar and no longer crave it. I sleep 8 hours a night now without waking and can jump out of bed with no problems, where as before it took me an hour to wake up and move.

10% in 3 months is good but that's a lot of pressure. I'd say if you lose anything between 5-10% you're making progress. Don't let anyone force you into surgery if you feel you have other options. Your stomach will shrink over time, it may never be as small as other people's but you'd be surprised. I used to be able to eat a big burger meal at a fast food joint, and get extra cheeseburgers to go.. now if I eat a whole meal I am bloated and half sick for hours lol because it's too much. Sometimes it's even hard to get enough protein since my stomach has shrank.

Oh and Kudos for getting off sugar. That was the single best thing I've done so far.

You're also right about burning more calories from weighing more, I burn much less now that I've lost weight, and it's discouraging some days because there are things I want to eat but have to keep myself from eating because i wasn't able to burn enough that day. Transitioning into maintenance mode this summer is going to be rough for me.

I also know that some of my current weight is from excess skin. There are also fat deposits attached to that skin too (midsection) so I work on those daily with little result, but I'd say ride out the plateaus and don't worry about it. Take a good serious look at your calorie burn, the apps and devices you use, and start weighing food if you don't already. Weighing food was my biggest eye opener.

Kasper2010 wrote: »

I will be forced into surgery due to medical issue related to my weight, sorry I did not make that clear.

And to just clear a couple things up:
1. I weigh all my food. Again, I weight all my food.
2. I do not use MFP entered calories, but enter them myself off the package based on the weight.
3. I drink over 100oz of water a day, eat a high fat diet and 20-50 g of complex carb from fruits and vegetable only a day. I am not retaining a large amount of water.
4. I use a heart rate monitor. I have used a polar and the fitbit. I have used them at the same time to check accuracy. They track 99.9% of the time identical.
5. I track EVERYTHING I eat. If I choose to eat 1 flipping M&M (just and example) I do track it.
6. I do not eat wheat, gluten, sugar, or processed foods. I am only eating whole foods that are organic/grass fed.
7. I work out 5 days a week for 30-45 minutes a day (it depends on my schedule for the day) I alternate between cycling and the elliptical right now.
8. I take my measurements weekly, I took them today and have gained 2 inches.

2 years ago I successfully lost over 75lbs. While running one day, I injured my hip and caused stress fractures in my left foot. I used this as a crutch and gained all my weight back and more. So, this is not my first rodeo. I guess where I am flustered it last time I went on this journey I lost 20lbs my first month. (yes, a lot of that was water weight)

Everything you say in 1 to 7 indicates that you should be losing weight and rapidly. 100oz of water, to me, sounds excessive. Water is included in the food you eat too. Having said that, I don't know that it could be implicated in not losing weight.

8 is interesting in that I don't know if you weight and measure yourself daily or weekly or the margin of error in your measurements. Yes, I recommend a trending weight app to everyone; but, again, your 1-7 indicate a high deficit which should correspond to a high rate of loss.

If you have gone through the troubleshooting chart, and we have taken our best stab at it and you have given this enough time to see if your weight will change... and some point we start running out of options.

Medical conditions that cause edema do exist. Abnormally low metabolic rates do exist (even though most of the people who end up getting tested finding out that their BMR is normal). There are TV shows that show people sleepwalking and eating while asleep!

You are fast approaching these special snowflake categories and those are best resolved one on one with a doctor who actually cares to investigate and who would best be able to rule out any edema concerns.

Unless you're dealing with measurement error (tape that is not positioned identically, or tightened the same way) two incremental inches represents substantially more weight going from 46" to 48" than going from 32" to 34" <insert more correct and appropriate numbers if desired>

ANOTHER VERY IMPORTANT CONSIDERATION IS: What are you doing the rest of the time? Yes, you eat and you exercise... what happens the rest of the day? How much do you move?

I have a person on my friend list who was netting so little that, other than the brief period of time she went to the gym, she used to spend the rest of her day sleeping.

Once she reverted to a more sane deficit (and started netting approximately 100 Cal above her BMR each and every day), she stopped sleeping all day, and soon thereafter started losing weight on a more regular basis.

Note that her net intake was well under 1000 Cal before that.