Weight loss/calorie confusion/protein

UmmiVee
UmmiVee Posts: 12 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi!
I am running into an issue that each time I am aggressive with losing weight... Doing Insanity, working out twice a day (activities of the past) I gain at least 10 lbs. I am unsure of what my calorie goal should be. According to MFP it says 1200 calories If I want to lose 2 lbs a week. After reading and researching it seems that perhaps I have been starving myself and not eating enough.
I am 5'2 and a half. I weigh 163 and since eating around that amount I continue to gain weight. I was 145 and now I am at 163. I will initially lose weight the first month of exercise and the next month the weight just comes on.
I am opened up my diary for suggestions. I never meet my protein goal... Is that the issue?
Any suggestions would be awesome!
«1

Replies

  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    edited June 2016
    Do you use a food scale?
    Are you selecting accurate entries from the database (there is a lot of stuff in there that isn't accurate)?* I can't see your diary, so I can't see if anything stands out as incorrect
    Do you log all drinks and food you eat?
    Do you log everyday?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjKPIcI51lU
  • UmmiVee
    UmmiVee Posts: 12 Member
    Thank you so much for responding. It's going on 2 weeks and I have been logging everything because I want to find out what the issue is. I work out 5-6 times a week and usually burn about 500-600 calories. I wonder why you can't see my diary I opened it. Let me check my settings again.
  • WBB55
    WBB55 Posts: 4,131 Member
    edited June 2016
    What are you doing that burns 500 calories? Also, are you logging the exercise and then "eating back" the calories you earn through exercise?
  • UmmiVee
    UmmiVee Posts: 12 Member
    I do bootcamp and I hike a mountain. (I live in Arizona). I wear a cardio watch so that I can accurately see how many calories I am burning with my physical activity.
    In terms of my activity that I do throughout the day I am At work I am on my feet I say about 80% of the day.
  • UmmiVee
    UmmiVee Posts: 12 Member
    These last two weeks I have been eating back some of my calories. Prior to working out I was really bad at eating and ate once a day and that usually was at night time. So now I have been trying to eat every 2-3 hours. It's soooo frustrating to work so hard. It has to be my nutrition. Health wise all my labs look good.
  • UmmiVee
    UmmiVee Posts: 12 Member
    I also don't eat after the sun goes down.
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    edited June 2016
    Avoid using things like this from the database:
    "Homemade - Grilled Zucchini and Squash"
    You don't know how much or even what ingredients were used. Calories for entries like this can be way off compared to what your actually eating.

    100 calorie Nut packs - If you have a food scale, weigh these. When I've had these in the past it was very rare that I actually got one that was 100 calories. Most of the time there was more in the package then a single serving.

    I'm actually going to also say that your calorie burns are probably inflated.

    I ran your stats through a TDEE calculator and came up with:

    Sedentary -> 5 days/60 Mins/Difficult exercise intensity -> 2014 to maintain
    Sedentary -> 5 days/60 Mins/Moderate exercise intensity -> 1907 to maintain
    Lightly Active -> 5 days/60 Mins/Difficult exercise intensity -> 2152 to maintain
    Lightly Active -> 5 days/60 Mins/Moderate exercise intensity -> 2045 to maintain
    http://www.iifym.com/tdee-calculator/
    Since you have been logging you have been eating right around 2000 calories per day and if your not using a food scale that means there could be a couple hundred un logged calories per day. This could be why your seeing weight gain.
  • MissusMoon
    MissusMoon Posts: 1,900 Member
    When and what you eat doesn't matter with regard to weight loss. As recommended above, you need a food scale. You should be eating back a percentage of your exercise calories, but probably not all. Even your monitor is not 100% accurate.
  • UmmiVee
    UmmiVee Posts: 12 Member
    Thank you for your reply. I use a heart calculator watch and I know my calorie burn is pretty accurate.
    I will definitely weigh my food more. So what should my calorie goal be if I want to lose 2 lbs a week and is my low protein intake causing me to "starve" my muscles?
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
    @shadow2soul can you post the link to the TDEE calculator you used?
  • dlkfox
    dlkfox Posts: 463 Member
    You are eating too much. (Not in a deficit.) Change your daily calorie goal to 1200 instead of 2500 and then log all your exercise but only eat half of the exercise calories back until you see results, then you can reevaluate how many exercise calories you can actually eat back.
  • UmmiVee
    UmmiVee Posts: 12 Member
    I have tried the 1200 calorie diet and when I told my boot camp instructor he said I need to get at the very least 2,000. We do weights as well. The 1200 calorie diet definitely caused me to gain weight. Or perhaps it was because I wasn't weighing my food. Hmmmmm...
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    UmmiVee wrote: »
    Thank you for your reply. I use a heart calculator watch and I know my calorie burn is pretty accurate.
    I will definitely weigh my food more. So what should my calorie goal be if I want to lose 2 lbs a week and is my low protein intake causing me to "starve" my muscles?

    If your TDEE is anything like what I was getting from the calculator above, 2 lbs per week isn't a healthy goal. I would say maybe eat 1500-1800 everyday and you should see 0.5-1 lb per week loss.

    HRM are actually only accurate for steady state cardio. The further away from that your activity is the more inaccurate it will become.
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    Christine_72 wrote: »
    @shadow2soul can you post the link to the TDEE calculator you used?

    @Christine_72 - I edited my post to add it in. It's the one from the IIFYM website.
  • UmmiVee
    UmmiVee Posts: 12 Member
    So @shadow2soul should I eat back the calories that I burn?
  • UmmiVee
    UmmiVee Posts: 12 Member
    @shadow2soul what about not reaching my protein goal? Would that cause me to gain weight?
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    edited June 2016
    UmmiVee wrote: »
    So @shadow2soul should I eat back the calories that I burn?

    No. Try eating somewhere in the 1500-1800 range, use a food scale and see what happens. I think currently your eating around what you maintain and possibly a bit more.
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
    shadow2soul wrote: »
    Christine_72 wrote: »
    @shadow2soul can you post the link to the TDEE calculator you used?

    @Christine_72 - I edited my post to add it in. It's the one from the IIFYM website.

    Thanks. This is a more thorough TDEE calculator than any of the other ones I've tried, and it gave me pretty much the same tdee as my fitbit :+1:
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    UmmiVee wrote: »
    @shadow2soul what about not reaching my protein goal? Would that cause me to gain weight?

    Nope.
  • UmmiVee
    UmmiVee Posts: 12 Member
    Thank you so much everyone!

Categories