Help! Not losing weight (while weighing food , counting calories and exercising).
Myjourney2345
Posts: 116 Member
Hi all, I'd love to get some input on my situation. I'm 5'4.5,142.6 pounds and 27 years old. I've been consuming on an average 1,800-1,900 calories a day with 3-4 days where I consumed 2,100-2,300 calories. I weigh all of my food and wear a heart rate monitor during exercise so my caloric output should be fairly accurate. I exercise 5-6 times a week between 45-75 minutes during each session, and take anywhere between 5,000-15,000 steps. I haven't weighed myself in two weeks and while I am still on my period (third day), I stepped on the scale today and not only did I not lose, I gained .2 pounds. I decided to weigh myself before my period was over because I have a doctor's appointment today and I wanted to know my weight before the weigh in at the doctor's office (otherwise, I would have waited until my period was over to weigh myself).
I've been eating all of my exercise calories back on MFP and my profile settings is on sedentary in order to get my steps and and exercise calories from my heart rate monitor. I also make sure to drink 2.5-3 litters of water a day and got to the bathroom daily.
What gives? Did I screw up my metabolism by gaining 13 pounds from January-May through bingeing? I notice that when I eat more I have no desire to binge, but I am also not losing weight
. Should I lower my calories to 1,500 a day and reduce my exercise? In the past I've lost weight on 1,450-1,500 calories a a day, but I also felt deprived and after 4-5 months started to binge.
Would love some input (my diary is open, the food is all logged, but it is not always in the correct order, sometimes I just put it all in for snacks).
I've been eating all of my exercise calories back on MFP and my profile settings is on sedentary in order to get my steps and and exercise calories from my heart rate monitor. I also make sure to drink 2.5-3 litters of water a day and got to the bathroom daily.
What gives? Did I screw up my metabolism by gaining 13 pounds from January-May through bingeing? I notice that when I eat more I have no desire to binge, but I am also not losing weight
. Should I lower my calories to 1,500 a day and reduce my exercise? In the past I've lost weight on 1,450-1,500 calories a a day, but I also felt deprived and after 4-5 months started to binge.Would love some input (my diary is open, the food is all logged, but it is not always in the correct order, sometimes I just put it all in for snacks).
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Replies
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Most likely it's water weight gain due to your period. If you weigh yourself after its done, you'll notice a drop.4
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With 4 inches, 15 lbs, and -2 years on you 1800 calories is what I need to eat to lose .5 lbs a week, sans exercise. Your 3-4 days at 2100-2300 are probably erasing any deficit you have from exercise.21
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I would give it a few days before you change anything: during your period you naturally retain water. I have fluctuated nearly 8 lbs myself through this time. But I do wonder: is it possible that you are simply eating at your maintenance level? I am the same height as you..and my maintenance calories are somewhere around 1800 (not including exercise).5
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I'm feeling too lazy right now to do maths and find your maintenance cals.
Firstly, don't stop exercising.
Half the amount of cals you're eating back from your exercise.
If that doesn't help, lower your deficit by by 100 cals.
Weigh yourself every week.
Measure yourself every week.
Tweak based on results.
My uneducated guess is that you're eating at a surplus and not a deficit, hence why you're gaining weight.
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Also, checked your diary and it seems you are double dipping on exercise calories. You are already getting your additional calories from your polar/iOS sync, and then it seems you are adding in the exercise too.12
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jessicarobinson00 wrote: »I would give it a few days before you change anything: during your period you naturally retain water. I have fluctuated nearly 8 lbs myself through this time. But I do wonder: is it possible that you are simply eating at your maintenance level? I am the same height as you..and my maintenance calories are somewhere around 1800 (not including exercise).
This is where it gets confusing for me. I can burn anywhere between 400-600 calories from working out and if I walk 10,000 steps that's an additional 500 calories just from exercise alone. If my base calories to lose weight is 1,210 (my profile setting is set on sedentary) than I would think that eating 1,800 calories a day would put me at a deifict ;(. I upped my calories during my period to maintaince (2,200-2,300 calories) to avoid bienging so perhaps that is contributing to that.
Here is a sample day where I would think that 1,800 calories a day would lead to a deifict large enough to lose weight. I use a polar heart rate monitor to track my steps and exercise calories.
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Also, checked your diary and it seems you are double dipping on exercise calories. You are already getting your additional calories from your polar/iOS sync, and then it seems you are adding in the exercise too.
I am only adding the exercise calories from my polar/iOS syncs.
1,210 (base)+ 400 (calories from workout)+ 300 ( calories from walking). Should I simply erase any activity related or calories derived from steps from my input and only input the actual workout calories which will then bring the total calories needed to lose weight to 1,610?0 -
500 calories for 10'000 steps? That seems awfully high. I did a lot of walking on holiday the past two weeks, I'm 172lbs or there abouts currently and got 400 calories for 20'000 step days. An instense cardio workout for about an hour would give me tops 500 calories (I also wear an HRM, Vivoactive and GymTimer app). I think you are quite possibly eating too much to lose.
That said, it's only two weeks and you could well just be retaining water.6 -
We're at similar stats (5'4", 126#, 28 yo) I maintain at 2100-2300 calories a day with no exercise logged (just fitbit calories of which I eat most if not all) I think you might be consuming a bit more than you want to right now. I know its not pleasant advice but it really helped me on my journey: swap out some of the calorie dense options. Basically I like to eat bulk. I can't be satisfied on a cup of yogurt for lunch (everyone is different) so I chose to bulk up my meals with nutrient and fiber dense (calorie poor) food items. That simple change has helped me to stay very well fed on fewer calories (I managed 1200 net for at least 6 months without ever feeling deprived.) Good luck OP!3
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You say you are weighing your food, but I see packets and muffins and squares. Unless you have scale I am unaware of these are not weights. Weigh everything in grams if you can and use the correct entry in the datavase. You are eating more than you think.4
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VintageFeline wrote: »500 calories for 10'000 steps? That seems awfully high. I did a lot of walking on holiday the past two weeks, I'm 172lbs or there abouts currently and got 400 calories for 20'000 step days. An instense cardio workout for about an hour would give me tops 500 calories (I also wear an HRM, Vivoactive and GymTimer app). I think you are quite possibly eating too much to lose.
That said, it's only two weeks and you could well just be retaining water.
You might be onto to something, but over here my phone added an additional 500 calories for 10,000 steps, perhaps it is not adding the correct number of calories and I should remove the activity related calories from the calculation.
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I think I see double dipping the exercise. Let fit bit do all the exercise and sync to MFP. That is what the fitbit is supposed to do and it takes any guess work out of this. It will give you an adjustment if you will allow MFP to do negative adjustments (this is the difference between the calories/food plan you setup in Fitbit and MFP calories).
Secondly, you ate 500 calories more and you are just going to naturally gain more water weight due to increase in the calories and naturally more digested food in your body, etc.
You are on your period. Wait until this over and please always give yourself a weight range of 3 - 4- 5 pounds during the month for fluctuations due to hormones around ovulation and the actual menes.
You need to weight weekly and do measurements and keep up with trending weight. It is especially important for us women. It will tell you over a period of time when you are your heaviest at times during the month, even if you consumed to much salt, may not be hydrating as you should.. Keep track of all of it.
It looks to me that you need some additional help with setting up fitbit and mfp so that the fitbit device actually does what it is designed to do. I would be curious to see the food plan you setup in fitbit (or if it is set up) cause I am assuming your food dashboard does have the MFP calories synced back to it.
I hope some of this makes some sense. My experience with fitbit is these calories can be way over inflated and trusting any calories burns 100% should be taken with a grain of salt. You should consider eating back a portion needed to attain energy balance. So if you eat 100 of them and still need more then eat back more, but eating back too many of them will always derail any deficit.
And you use the Polar heart rate to calcuate steps? this does not make sense to me.. This should be worn for exercise steady state cardio type only. If you are (if I understand this correctly) wearing that all day for normal walking around, well this could be an issue as well.1 -
You say you are weighing your food, but I see packets and muffins and squares. Unless you have scale I am unaware of these are not weights. Weigh everything in grams if you can and use the correct entry in the datavase. You are eating more than you think.
For those oatmeal packets, muffins I and squares simply use the calories provided to me in the back, but I probably should weigh them as well as the numbers displayed on the package can be off.
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VintageFeline wrote: »500 calories for 10'000 steps? That seems awfully high. I did a lot of walking on holiday the past two weeks, I'm 172lbs or there abouts currently and got 400 calories for 20'000 step days. An instense cardio workout for about an hour would give me tops 500 calories (I also wear an HRM, Vivoactive and GymTimer app). I think you are quite possibly eating too much to lose.
That said, it's only two weeks and you could well just be retaining water.
Not arguing here, but 400 for 20,000 steps seems a bit lower than even I would expect and I'm quite the pessimist - Is your activity level already set quite high ? It does of course matter how intense the steps are right, but I would have expected quite a bit more than 400.. unless it was very very slow walks.
Looked up NHS website in UK -
How many calories will I burn if I walk 10,000 steps a day?
A person aged 45 and weighing 70kg (about 11 stone) can burn around 400 calories by walking 10,000 steps briskly (3-5mph). If you're trying to lose weight, you should aim to reduce your daily calorie intake by 600kcal. This is best achieved by a combination of diet and exercise.1 -
We're at similar stats (5'4", 126#, 28 yo) I maintain at 2100-2300 calories a day with no exercise logged (just fitbit calories of which I eat most if not all) I think you might be consuming a bit more than you want to right now. I know its not pleasant advice but it really helped me on my journey: swap out some of the calorie dense options. Basically I like to eat bulk. I can't be satisfied on a cup of yogurt for lunch (everyone is different) so I chose to bulk up my meals with nutrient and fiber dense (calorie poor) food items. That simple change has helped me to stay very well fed on fewer calories (I managed 1200 net for at least 6 months without ever feeling deprived.) Good luck OP!
Yes, I am not satisfied with yogurt and chicken and I also try to avoid consuming dairy and only drink almond milk and at times consume yogurt ( it makes me breakout). In the past, eating empty calories helped me stay satiated, but when I try to eat clean and healthy I feel deprived and not satiated.0 -
I wouldn't think anything of this. 1-still that time of the month, 2-you don't weight a lot, 3-it sounds like it has been only 2 weeks? 4-you ate at maintenance a few days of those two weeks.
I get that you are anxious, but I think there is a lot going on here. Wait it out. Commit to do what you have been doing for a bit longer and see if the scale goes down, if not readjust. Judging by your stats you do not have a lot to lose, so it is going to come off kind of slowly. The scale should TREND down, but water retention fluctuation can easily mask a small loss. Yes, your maintenance level and deficit could be off because monitors can overestimate, but if binging is a problem at lower calories, then don't go there unless you actually need to.
Best of luck. I really think for you that patience is key (Sorry not what you want to hear )1 -
Myjourney2345 wrote: »Hi all, I'd love to get some input on my situation. I'm 5'4.5,142.6 pounds and 27 years old. I've been consuming on an average 1,800-1,900 calories a day with 3-4 days where I consumed 2,100-2,300 calories. I weigh all of my food and wear a heart rate monitor during exercise so my caloric output should be fairly accurate. I exercise 5-6 times a week between 45-75 minutes during each session, and take anywhere between 5,000-15,000 steps. I haven't weighed myself in two weeks and while I am still on my period (third day), I stepped on the scale today and not only did I not lose, I gained .2 pounds. I decided to weigh myself before my period was over because I have a doctor's appointment today and I wanted to know my weight before the weigh in at the doctor's office (otherwise, I would have waited until my period was over to weigh myself).
I've been eating all of my exercise calories back on MFP and my profile settings is on sedentary in order to get my steps and and exercise calories from my heart rate monitor. I also make sure to drink 2.5-3 litters of water a day and got to the bathroom daily.
What gives? Did I screw up my metabolism by gaining 13 pounds from January-May through bingeing? I notice that when I eat more I have no desire to binge, but I am also not losing weight. Should I lower my calories to 1,500 a day and reduce my exercise? In the past I've lost weight on 1,450-1,500 calories a a day, but I also felt deprived and after 4-5 months started to binge.
Would love some input (my diary is open, the food is all logged, but it is not always in the correct order, sometimes I just put it all in for snacks).
The bottom line?
Weight naturally fluctuates. .2 is nothing at all. You didn't gain fat, you gained water. It will go away.
Also, you are already at a normal weight for your height and any weight you are trying to lose would not be much. It will come off slow. Just be patient.
ETA: I could be wrong, but 1900 seems like a lot to try to be losing weight on. Isn't that closer to maintenance? I may be older but I'm about the same height and weight, run and weight lift, and my maintenance is 1960 without carido.
Do you just count the calories for cardio? That's all that should be included.0 -
Your calories seem high for someone trying to lose. Since you don't need to lose much I would change your goal on MFP to .5 pound loss per week. Don't eat back the exercise calories and don't sync your device with MFP since this will probably make you go over.2
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You are the same height and age as me. I'm a lot heavier than you, but I play with the calculators a lot to see what I'd need to do at different weights to lose at different rates, and I can instantly see you're consuming too many calories for weight loss. Are you sure you didn't set it for 0.5 lb weight GAIN per week? Because the calorie intake you're quoting more closely matches MFP's recommendations for me at that weight if I wanted to GAIN. MFP tells me that at your weight I'd have to take in about 1,490 calories per day to LOSE 0.5 lb per week when set to sedentary as you said you did.
Also, if you're eating back your exercise calories, you may be overestimating how much you burn during exercise, even with a heart monitor- I know a lot of people on the boards here only eat back about 1/2 of their exercise calories. Also the days you're going over 2,000 I'm sure add to everything...
It just seems like you're consuming a LOT of calories for someone your size (within a normal BMI) to lose weight.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong anyone!5 -
One thing that we need to remember is our "normal" walking (what we would normally do in a day of work) does not necessarily count as exercise. To get the benefits from exercise, we need to log extra steps on top of what we would normally log in a day. Also weight lifting burns many more calories than cardio work does, lift light weight for more reps to develop thin muscle tissue that burns more calories. You are burning calories the entire time you are sore (because your muscles are rebuilding and need calories to do that), so spend less time on the treadmill and get into the iron and drop those pounds.
Also the weight of your food is less important than the calories and sugar that is in them. Prepackaged foods are loaded with sugar and should be avoided. Count your calories and watch the ingredients of your food.2 -
Definitely enable negative calorie adjustments and enter the start time of your activity so it overrides Fitbit steps. Yesterday I had over 10000 steps and did a purposeful walk synced from MapMyWalk. You can see that didn't give me near the calories for the 10000 steps and I weigh 190 so would burn more than you.
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One thing that we need to remember is our "normal" walking (what we would normally do in a day of work) does not necessarily count as exercise. To get the benefits from exercise, we need to log extra steps on top of what we would normally log in a day. Also weight lifting burns many more calories than cardio work does, lift light weight for more reps to develop thin muscle tissue that burns more calories. You are burning calories the entire time you are sore (because your muscles are rebuilding and need calories to do that), so spend less time on the treadmill and get into the iron and drop those pounds.
Also the weight of your food is less important than the calories and sugar that is in them. Prepackaged foods are loaded with sugar and should be avoided. Count your calories and watch the ingredients of your food.
Sorry but no cardio burns more than weight lifting, and I love lifting weights, but I can burn a lot more calories running.. And I'm not sure I have a special type of walking whether I am doing excercise specific walks or walking between office building - I sorta just put one foot in front of the other. Excercise that is built into your day is, for many, much more maintainable.2 -
One thing that we need to remember is our "normal" walking (what we would normally do in a day of work) does not necessarily count as exercise. To get the benefits from exercise, we need to log extra steps on top of what we would normally log in a day. Also weight lifting burns many more calories than cardio work does, lift light weight for more reps to develop thin muscle tissue that burns more calories. You are burning calories the entire time you are sore (because your muscles are rebuilding and need calories to do that), so spend less time on the treadmill and get into the iron and drop those pounds.
Also the weight of your food is less important than the calories and sugar that is in them. Prepackaged foods are loaded with sugar and should be avoided. Count your calories and watch the ingredients of your food.[/quote]
Only part of this is right.
Ordinary steps OP is recording is not exercise.. this is right.
Weightlifting does NOT burn more calories than cardio. this is totally false.
OP can certainly use spinning or other cardio for calorie burning affects and telling OP not to do this is incorrect.
Weighing of the food is crucial. I completely 100% will tell everyone having trouble with loosing weight or stalling to buy the food scale.
The bolded remark is totally false. Do not just count, weigh and log it. You can consume any type of food you want to the total caclories in what counts.3 -
VintageFeline wrote: »500 calories for 10'000 steps? That seems awfully high. I did a lot of walking on holiday the past two weeks, I'm 172lbs or there abouts currently and got 400 calories for 20'000 step days. An instense cardio workout for about an hour would give me tops 500 calories (I also wear an HRM, Vivoactive and GymTimer app). I think you are quite possibly eating too much to lose.
That said, it's only two weeks and you could well just be retaining water.
Not arguing here, but 400 for 20,000 steps seems a bit lower than even I would expect and I'm quite the pessimist - Is your activity level already set quite high ? It does of course matter how intense the steps are right, but I would have expected quite a bit more than 400.. unless it was very very slow walks.
Looked up NHS website in UK -
How many calories will I burn if I walk 10,000 steps a day?
A person aged 45 and weighing 70kg (about 11 stone) can burn around 400 calories by walking 10,000 steps briskly (3-5mph). If you're trying to lose weight, you should aim to reduce your daily calorie intake by 600kcal. This is best achieved by a combination of diet and exercise.
Activity set to sedentary because usually I am VERY sedentary. Steps port over from my Vivoactive and I just double checked, about 400 calories for 18'000 steps. Now I didn't track intake while away but I ate probably somewhere around or a little over maintenance and today I'm back to within my pre-holiday weight range (been back a week). If I was being underawarded I'd likely get a loss.
I've always used Garmin as my activity tracker and always lose as expected by eating every single calorie given to me through steps and exercise so i reckon it's accurate.0 -
VintageFeline wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »500 calories for 10'000 steps? That seems awfully high. I did a lot of walking on holiday the past two weeks, I'm 172lbs or there abouts currently and got 400 calories for 20'000 step days. An instense cardio workout for about an hour would give me tops 500 calories (I also wear an HRM, Vivoactive and GymTimer app). I think you are quite possibly eating too much to lose.
That said, it's only two weeks and you could well just be retaining water.
Not arguing here, but 400 for 20,000 steps seems a bit lower than even I would expect and I'm quite the pessimist - Is your activity level already set quite high ? It does of course matter how intense the steps are right, but I would have expected quite a bit more than 400.. unless it was very very slow walks.
Looked up NHS website in UK -
How many calories will I burn if I walk 10,000 steps a day?
A person aged 45 and weighing 70kg (about 11 stone) can burn around 400 calories by walking 10,000 steps briskly (3-5mph). If you're trying to lose weight, you should aim to reduce your daily calorie intake by 600kcal. This is best achieved by a combination of diet and exercise.
Activity set to sedentary because usually I am VERY sedentary. Steps port over from my Vivoactive and I just double checked, about 400 calories for 18'000 steps. Now I didn't track intake while away but I ate probably somewhere around or a little over maintenance and today I'm back to within my pre-holiday weight range (been back a week). If I was being underawarded I'd likely get a loss.
I've always used Garmin as my activity tracker and always lose as expected by eating every single calorie given to me through steps and exercise so i reckon it's accurate.
Wow. Not arguing at all. Just seemed pretty low compared to what I had read as I said. Maybe your a really efficient walker.0 -
3 - 5 mph is fast walking and does burn calories. For some 5 mph is actually running.
But just normal moving around the office, the house, to the mail box, to and from parking lots are not calorie burners.
there is a difference between "loitering" type walking and walking where your heart rate is elevated for a period of time hense the word cardio vascular exercise. What OP is recording is not exercise.
I will give a benefit of any doubt and say mabe OP can eat back extra 100 calories for doing a lot of walking around the department store, to and from parking lots, around the house cleaning and what not but certainly not wearing a HR to record these activities for burns of 500+ calories.
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VintageFeline wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »500 calories for 10'000 steps? That seems awfully high. I did a lot of walking on holiday the past two weeks, I'm 172lbs or there abouts currently and got 400 calories for 20'000 step days. An instense cardio workout for about an hour would give me tops 500 calories (I also wear an HRM, Vivoactive and GymTimer app). I think you are quite possibly eating too much to lose.
That said, it's only two weeks and you could well just be retaining water.
Not arguing here, but 400 for 20,000 steps seems a bit lower than even I would expect and I'm quite the pessimist - Is your activity level already set quite high ? It does of course matter how intense the steps are right, but I would have expected quite a bit more than 400.. unless it was very very slow walks.
Looked up NHS website in UK -
How many calories will I burn if I walk 10,000 steps a day?
A person aged 45 and weighing 70kg (about 11 stone) can burn around 400 calories by walking 10,000 steps briskly (3-5mph). If you're trying to lose weight, you should aim to reduce your daily calorie intake by 600kcal. This is best achieved by a combination of diet and exercise.
Activity set to sedentary because usually I am VERY sedentary. Steps port over from my Vivoactive and I just double checked, about 400 calories for 18'000 steps. Now I didn't track intake while away but I ate probably somewhere around or a little over maintenance and today I'm back to within my pre-holiday weight range (been back a week). If I was being underawarded I'd likely get a loss.
I've always used Garmin as my activity tracker and always lose as expected by eating every single calorie given to me through steps and exercise so i reckon it's accurate.
Wow. Not arguing at all. Just seemed pretty low compared to what I had read as I said. Maybe your a really efficient walker.
I am an adopted Londoner, we're known for being very purposeful walkers, haha. But I don't think my watch knows that. I'm just really going from my own data and I have a year's worth of it.
But I don't think OP needs to panic too much yet, it's only been two weeks and for a female particularly that's totally normal. It's just something to consider if the no losses is ongoing.0 -
You can't put too much stock into calorie estimates generated my exercise machines and fitness monitors. They are often inaccurate. Just yesterday, I believe I read an article about a lawsuit brought against Fitbit because its step count is off.
In addition to other suggestions, I would not eat back any calories unless I was hungry and weigh myself every day so I could observe normal fluctuations and make adjustments. Machines are never going to be a substitute for judgment.0 -
You are the same height and age as me. I'm a lot heavier than you, but I play with the calculators a lot to see what I'd need to do at different weights to lose at different rates, and I can instantly see you're consuming too many calories for weight loss. Are you sure you didn't set it for 0.5 lb weight GAIN per week? Because the calorie intake you're quoting more closely matches MFP's recommendations for me at that weight if I wanted to GAIN. MFP tells me that at your weight I'd have to take in about 1,490 calories per day to LOSE 0.5 lb per week when set to sedentary as you said you did.
Also, if you're eating back your exercise calories, you may be overestimating how much you burn during exercise, even with a heart monitor- I know a lot of people on the boards here only eat back about 1/2 of their exercise calories. Also the days you're going over 2,000 I'm sure add to everything...
It just seems like you're consuming a LOT of calories for someone your size (within a normal BMI) to lose weight.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong anyone!
I think I may be eating too much & I should only eat back 50% of calories burned during exercise. 1,210 is my base calorie range for losing a pound a month while sedentary...the other exercise and activity calories were added from my heart rate. I think ultimately I should be eating 1,500-1,600 to lose a pound a day and exclude any calories derived from walking.
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