Help! Not losing weight (while weighing food , counting calories and exercising).
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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.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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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.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.
Wow, this makes sense now! Okay, I will go ahead an adjust it immediately. Thank you!1 -
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.
This is pretty wrong. Someone who is naturally moving about a lot during the day will also naturally have a higher TDEE because moving the body requires energy, the more you move it, the more energy it requires. Elevated heart rate, sure, is an indicator of purposeful exercise and will give an even higher energy requirement. But to say that someone who gets in 10'000 steps a day by "loitering" (I challenge you to manage to get 10'000 steps off that) is essentially the same as me, who outside of exercise does very little, is just wrong. They've even done studies where it's shown fidgety people, not even those who walk lots, just naturally restless people, maintain weight better because guess what? They burn more calories than everyone else!4 -
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.
In my opinion, a chest strap heart rate monitor is a bit more accurate than the FItbit frackers (although I believe the lawsuit is against their heart rate monitor reporting inaccurate information and not their devices reporting inaccurate steps).
Regardless, I think you are correct, but weighing myself every day will make me overly obsessive
. I think I will try to limit myself to 1,500-1,600 calories a day and see what happens. 0 -
Myjourney2345 wrote: »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.
Boom! We have lift off!
You got this now! Best of luck and hopefully this thread is full of information should you need to refer to it in the future.
** the bold should be a week.. LOL
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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.
The PolarM400 is designed to serve as both an activity monitor and heart rate monitor. I compared the steps reported by my Fitbit and the steps reported by my PolarM400 and both seem to report a similar step count.
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Myjourney2345 wrote: »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.
The PolarM400 is designed to serve as both an activity monitor and heart rate monitor. I compared the steps reported by my Fitbit and the steps reported by my PolarM400 and both seem to report a similar step count.
How many gadgets you got. You going out like robo cop ? Sorry couldn't resist. I know all the data is addictive :-)2 -
Myjourney2345 wrote: »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.
The PolarM400 is designed to serve as both an activity monitor and heart rate monitor. I compared the steps reported by my Fitbit and the steps reported by my PolarM400 and both seem to report a similar step count.
How many gadgets you got. You going out like robo cop ? Sorry couldn't resist. I know all the data is addictive :-)
I am a gadget geek.1 -
It's .2 of a pound. Calm down.3
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I appreciate everyone's help! 1
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Just for anyone reading this, I would personally never poo poo the amount of calories you can burn window shopping and parking further away than you need to, etc.
For me (and I suppose I have more muscle for my height than most people) the days I sit on my butt, but go to the personal trainer for an hour equals MAYBE 2000 calories burned (and then I'm so tired out by the end of the day I sit in the bath tub instead of being active around my home). But if it's Saturday, and I'm busy all day cleaning and shopping and wandering the mall, I can easily burn 2200 without stepping foot in a gym. I find "staying active" results in more burned calories for me overall than going to the gym 3-4 times per week. Of course, a smart course of action is to do both increase your average daily incidental movement AND go to the gym.
Just my experience, your mileage may vary.4
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