Low Calorie intake and working out 5x week but no weight loss just muscle loss

lynnette1774
lynnette1774 Posts: 6 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I gained about 30 lbs last year after the death of my daughter. I had been a very fit person before that. I have spent the last year pretty much sedentary and secluded. Recently, I began working out with a trainer and have made some drastic changes.
I work out with him 5x a week and burn approx. 500-700 calories a session (I have the Polar H7/A360 so it tracks it for me)
I am 41, weigh 172, and have a desk job.
I am big boned and solid so I will not fall on the lower end of a ideal weight.
I have 1 protein shake a day
I am restricting my calorie intake to 1200 calories a day (tracking in MyFitnessPal)



The problem is that I am not losing weight after 1 month of the above and we use the BodPod to track my fat vs lean muscle. My fat % has increased and my muscle % has decreased. It takes a lot to motivate myself and this is making it that much harder. Does anyone have any insight into what I might be doing wrong?

Replies

  • RoxieDawn
    RoxieDawn Posts: 15,488 Member
    edited June 2016
    OP, I cannot even convey properly how sorry I am to hear about the death of your child.

    Can answer some questions:

    1) How long on MFP and logging food?
    2) Do you eat the exercise calories back?
    3) How many pounds a week are you setup in MFP to loose each week?
    4) Do yo use a food scale?

    Let's start with these question.. also can you open your diary for us?
  • SezxyStef
    SezxyStef Posts: 15,267 Member
    since your diary is closed it is hard to tell...but if you aren't losing doing all that you are eating more than you think or have a medical condition.

    But lets get a few things off the table.

    Big boned...yah I used to say that too...I still wear a size 8.5 shoe but I also wear a size 4 or 6...
    doesn't matter about the protein shake...why are you drinking it anyway?
    HOw are you measuring the 1200 calories?
    HRM are only good for steady state cardio with a chest strap...burning 500-700 calories is hard...I burn 500 all day moving around a lot and that includes a 3mile walk in the morning.

    do you use a food scale? are you eating back some of the exercise calories?
  • seekingdaintiness
    seekingdaintiness Posts: 137 Member
    I have trouble believing, given what you have described, that your "bodpod" is working correctly. Have your measurements changed?
  • 42firm03
    42firm03 Posts: 115 Member
    Has the scale or tape measure shown change?

    BodPod is not a great tool for showing progress per a quick google search.

    A month is a short amount of time.

    Are you weighing all solids and semi solids on a scale or using cups and spoons to measure your intake?
  • RoxieDawn
    RoxieDawn Posts: 15,488 Member
    edited June 2016
    **
  • MissusMoon
    MissusMoon Posts: 1,900 Member
    I am so sorry for your loss. Definitely answer the questions above and open up your dairy. It will get figured out.
  • lynnette1774
    lynnette1774 Posts: 6 Member
    Thanks for the responses, it is a hard journey to begin to give yourself permission to live again.

    I just got the Polar H7 (it is a chest strap) so the exercise diary hasn't been updated routinely yet.. only for this week. I do insane workouts with a trainer. We have begun with a mixture of cardio and light weights.. not doing weight lifting yet until I am conditioned.

    I opened my food diary.I have been tracking everything I eat for the last month, so it is accurate. I eat a lot of pre-packaged meals, as I am just getting set up to start making weekly meals. I should also mention that I am a vegetarian, so I am trying to research how to meal plan for that - this is why I drink protein shakes. I am not weighing foods yet and have been scouring the internet trying to get a concrete answer on what my calorie intake should be and recommended diets for vegetarians.

    I am big boned, at my ideal weight, with a toned figure (I was this way last year), I am a size 7/8, any smaller than that I will look anorexic. When I was thin, toned, and looked great I weighed 145 lbs.. that was with little body fat. I weigh myself daily at home (weight guru scale) and we are using the BodPod only as a guide to fat %. I didn't even think of taking measurements. I will take those tonight and update.

    My trainer thinks that I may need to increase my calorie intake from around 1200/day to 1500/day but I am nervous to do that so I thought I'd reach out here to others that have had experience with weight loss.



  • MissusMoon
    MissusMoon Posts: 1,900 Member
    SezxyStef wrote: »
    lynnette1774 wrote: »
    Thanks for the responses, it is a hard journey to begin to give yourself permission to live again.

    I just got the Polar H7 (it is a chest strap) so the exercise diary hasn't been updated routinely yet.. only for this week. I do insane workouts with a trainer. We have begun with a mixture of cardio and light weights.. not doing weight lifting yet until I am conditioned.

    I opened my food diary.I have been tracking everything I eat for the last month, so it is accurate. I eat a lot of pre-packaged meals, as I am just getting set up to start making weekly meals. I should also mention that I am a vegetarian, so I am trying to research how to meal plan for that - this is why I drink protein shakes. I am not weighing foods yet and have been scouring the internet trying to get a concrete answer on what my calorie intake should be and recommended diets for vegetarians.

    I am big boned, at my ideal weight, with a toned figure (I was this way last year), I am a size 7/8, any smaller than that I will look anorexic. When I was thin, toned, and looked great I weighed 145 lbs.. that was with little body fat. I weigh myself daily at home (weight guru scale) and we are using the BodPod only as a guide to fat %. I didn't even think of taking measurements. I will take those tonight and update.

    My trainer thinks that I may need to increase my calorie intake from around 1200/day to 1500/day but I am nervous to do that so I thought I'd reach out here to others that have had experience with weight loss.


    can't use HRM for weights....any type

    No food scale so you can't say for sure how much you are eating....even prepackaged foods can be off by at much as 10-20%.

    Big boned is a fallacy...just so you know...I am not saying you don't have a large frame because I do but that doesn't matter for weight loss....and like you I didn't think I should be smaller than a 7/8...I am a size 4 at 150lbs.

    What I would do is this.

    Input your stats into MFP and eat those calories but buy a food scale. Log your exercise and eat back 50-75% of those calories....

    The only way to lose weight is to be in a calorie deficit and if you aren't losing that is why.

    This is great advice. Pre-packaged foods would account for more than 700 unwanted calories per week if I weren't weighing them. No joke. Some of them are spot on, many are way off.
  • ammo7
    ammo7 Posts: 188 Member
    lynnette1774 wrote: »

    I opened my food diary.I have been tracking everything I eat for the last month, so it is accurate. I eat a lot of pre-packaged meals, as I am just getting set up to start making weekly meals. I should also mention that I am a vegetarian, so I am trying to research how to meal plan for that - this is why I drink protein shakes. I am not weighing foods yet and have been scouring the internet trying to get a concrete answer on what my calorie intake should be and recommended diets for vegetarians.


    Hi there. I'm very sorry for the loss of your daughter.

    Some things to address from your post:
    1) It has only been 1 month of food tracking. Weight loss takes time and can easily be masked by water weight - your muscles retain more water when you start a new exercise routine, and hormonal cycles can also cause fluctuations. My first piece of advice is: consistency and patience.

    2) Tracking everything you eat is not accurate, unless you are using a food scale. For example, you have logged
    "1 orange", but oranges are not all the same size, and the number of calories it has depends on how much it weighs.
    This becomes even more problematic with calorie-dense foods such as your rice, and your "1 cup of sweet potato hash"

    Since you are not very far from your goal weight, a goal of losing no more than 1 lb per week would be fairly reasonable for you. This means a deficit of 500 calories per day, every day. However, if you are not weighing your foods, it is incredibly easy to wipe out most of that deficit from simply consuming a little bit more than you intended to.
    This also applies to pre-packaged foods - they may say that they contain "1 serving" but they also list the weight that the serving is meant to be. If you weigh these foods, you will likely find (as so many of us unfortunately have found!) that they are often over the listed weight by about 10-20%. This difference in calories can add up to a significant enough amount that you could end up cancelling out your deficit. When people are not losing weight, this is usually the culprit. So my second piece of advice to you is: weigh your food. You absolutely do not know how many calories you are consuming if you are eyeballing servings or measuring solid foods using cups.

    Good luck with meeting your goals! :)
  • lynnette1774
    lynnette1774 Posts: 6 Member
    I don't know what "flagged" is (I am new to this), but all the above has been great advice. I will purchase a food scale. I went to the prepackaged food because I thought it would help me control portions and calories until I figured out how to do the meals.

    Does anyone here know where I can go to figure out what is the minimum caloric intake I should have? From what I have read there is a minimum that you should never go under, I think they called it BMR. I have gone to numerous websites and have had a wild variety of results. Also, if you know of any meal planning sites, that would be great!!
  • krista66201
    krista66201 Posts: 1 Member
    Try this: http://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html
  • MissusMoon
    MissusMoon Posts: 1,900 Member
    I've seen a lot of inappropriate flagging today. Sigh.
  • trixiex
    trixiex Posts: 22 Member
    You sound a similar build and weight to me. What is your height?
  • lynnette1774
    lynnette1774 Posts: 6 Member
    I am 5'6
  • JoshuaMcAllister
    JoshuaMcAllister Posts: 500 Member
    MissusMoon wrote: »
    I've seen a lot of inappropriate flagging today. Sigh.

    Its funny because there is actually a thread dedicated to this active today.
  • besee_2000
    besee_2000 Posts: 365 Member
    I would recommend adding more protein to your diet. High intensity workings will tear down muscle fibers and repair when at rest with diet. If you have enough protein building blocks it may help prevent muscle loss.
  • cerise_noir
    cerise_noir Posts: 5,468 Member
    edited June 2016
    OP, so sorry for your loss. *hug*
    SezxyStef wrote: »
    lynnette1774 wrote: »
    Thanks for the responses, it is a hard journey to begin to give yourself permission to live again.

    I just got the Polar H7 (it is a chest strap) so the exercise diary hasn't been updated routinely yet.. only for this week. I do insane workouts with a trainer. We have begun with a mixture of cardio and light weights.. not doing weight lifting yet until I am conditioned.

    I opened my food diary.I have been tracking everything I eat for the last month, so it is accurate. I eat a lot of pre-packaged meals, as I am just getting set up to start making weekly meals. I should also mention that I am a vegetarian, so I am trying to research how to meal plan for that - this is why I drink protein shakes. I am not weighing foods yet and have been scouring the internet trying to get a concrete answer on what my calorie intake should be and recommended diets for vegetarians.

    I am big boned, at my ideal weight, with a toned figure (I was this way last year), I am a size 7/8, any smaller than that I will look anorexic. When I was thin, toned, and looked great I weighed 145 lbs.. that was with little body fat. I weigh myself daily at home (weight guru scale) and we are using the BodPod only as a guide to fat %. I didn't even think of taking measurements. I will take those tonight and update.

    My trainer thinks that I may need to increase my calorie intake from around 1200/day to 1500/day but I am nervous to do that so I thought I'd reach out here to others that have had experience with weight loss.


    can't use HRM for weights....any type

    No food scale so you can't say for sure how much you are eating....even prepackaged foods can be off by at much as 10-20%.

    Big boned is a fallacy...just so you know...I am not saying you don't have a large frame because I do but that doesn't matter for weight loss....and like you I didn't think I should be smaller than a 7/8...I am a size 4 at 150lbs.

    What I would do is this.

    Input your stats into MFP and eat those calories but buy a food scale. Log your exercise and eat back 50-75% of those calories....

    The only way to lose weight is to be in a calorie deficit and if you aren't losing that is why.

    This. Perfect advice.
    Who flagged this? Seriously? Ugh. Flagging isn't a feature to be abused. Sorry, OP, some people have their panties twisted. :neutral:
  • trixiex
    trixiex Posts: 22 Member
    A wee bit shorter than me, 2", and I've finally settled on 1590 calories plus eating back 50% of cardio exercise calories burned. It's been a nightmare trying to figure out the numbers but this calculator worked http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/
    And I went from eating all exercise calories to only 50% and it finally seems to be working.
    Its a nightmare when you see no change and you're putting in so much work and there is just so much information out there (all different!).
    1200 seems low and not much fun... Especially if you are exercising loads. It may take longer on more calories but it may be more sustainable.
    Sorry for the essay!
  • akf2000
    akf2000 Posts: 278 Member
    My goal on MFP is to one day post The Chart, but today is not that day because I can not find The Chart.
  • trixiex
    trixiex Posts: 22 Member
    Oh. I also started weighing food and was amazed at how much I was "under-logging" before.
    Also, so sorry for your loss, I truly hope you are starting to see light at the end of the tunnel x
  • lynnette1774
    lynnette1774 Posts: 6 Member
    So, I wanted to update my status. I have lost 5 lbs since this post, while increasing my muscle weight. I thought it important to update because some of the information given did not fit my circumstances and others may find themselves in a similar situation. I actually continued my workouts without any change. My workouts are with a trainer and they are like boot camp on Crack. It is important to say this before my next comment. I INCREASED my calorie intake by 300 a day and the weight started falling off. I also increased my protein intake. I think a lot of us get fixated on the calories and forget all of us are a little different. The results of the change have been drastic. A 1200 calorie diet was way too restrictive and my metabolism slowed in response. It is important to note that the calories I added were not empty calories and I have spread them over 6 meals a day.
  • CattOfTheGarage
    CattOfTheGarage Posts: 2,745 Member
    Well done, good to hear you are having good results. 1200 does seem low considering the heavy exercise and I could not sustain that, personally. I hope it keeps working out.

    One question I didn't see asked or answered above is how many pounds a week you were aiming to lose in the first place? A lot of people run into trouble through trying to lose too fast, it becomes unsustainable and has bad side effects (like your concern that you were losing muscle). mfp default is 1lb a week, max 2lb a week, and I think those are good goals to stick to unless you are very obese (very obese people can often lose faster without bad side effects).
  • baciodolce18
    baciodolce18 Posts: 113 Member
    lynnette1774 wrote: »
    So, I wanted to update my status. I have lost 5 lbs since this post, while increasing my muscle weight. I thought it important to update because some of the information given did not fit my circumstances and others may find themselves in a similar situation. I actually continued my workouts without any change. My workouts are with a trainer and they are like boot camp on Crack. It is important to say this before my next comment. I INCREASED my calorie intake by 300 a day and the weight started falling off. I also increased my protein intake. I think a lot of us get fixated on the calories and forget all of us are a little different. The results of the change have been drastic. A 1200 calorie diet was way too restrictive and my metabolism slowed in response. It is important to note that the calories I added were not empty calories and I have spread them over 6 meals a day.

    Glad it worked but your metabolism didn't slow. Starvation mode isn't a thing. Definitely not after a month of moderate restriction.

    You likely just had a woosh. But given your height and exercise routine, 1500 sounds more maintainable for the long term. Not sure what your goal weight is, but maybe reevaluate your calorie goal about every 10 pounds.

    Just keep in mind the closer you get to goal, the smaller your deficit becomes so weighing and accurately logging becomes super important.
  • lynnette1774
    lynnette1774 Posts: 6 Member
    I am aiming for a 2 lb / week loss.
    baciodolce18 wrote: »
    lynnette1774 wrote: »
    So, I wanted to update my status. I have lost 5 lbs since this post, while increasing my muscle weight. I thought it important to update because some of the information given did not fit my circumstances and others may find themselves in a similar situation. I actually continued my workouts without any change. My workouts are with a trainer and they are like boot camp on Crack. It is important to say this before my next comment. I INCREASED my calorie intake by 300 a day and the weight started falling off. I also increased my protein intake. I think a lot of us get fixated on the calories and forget all of us are a little different. The results of the change have been drastic. A 1200 calorie diet was way too restrictive and my metabolism slowed in response. It is important to note that the calories I added were not empty calories and I have spread them over 6 meals a day.

    Glad it worked but your metabolism didn't slow. Starvation mode isn't a thing. Definitely not after a month of moderate restriction.

    You likely just had a woosh. But given your height and exercise routine, 1500 sounds more maintainable for the long term. Not sure what your goal weight is, but maybe reevaluate your calorie goal about every 10 pounds.

    Just keep in mind the closer you get to goal, the smaller your deficit becomes so weighing and accurately logging becomes super important.

    I have to, respectfully, disagree. Your body is made work efficiently. If you try to cut back too quickly your metabolism will adjust in response, naturally. I was not referring to "Starvation Mode". I don't believe I was in any kind of "Starvation Mode", rather my metabolism was not being fueled effectively to help it speed up. When you have had a sedentary lifestyle and your metabolism is slow to begin with you have work at getting it to speed up. I was eating less than my BMR and not enough to spread effectively over 6 meals in addition to strenuous exercise. Hence, I was losing weight but as not as quickly as I could have. There are lots of conflicting research and results in regards to this. I just want to share with others to try different things until your body responds.

    As a side note, about 5 years ago I lost 75 pounds in 6 months (after a high risk pregnancy led to bed rest) and had kept it off until my daughter passed. I lost weight quickly through diet and exercise. I have never weighed food and used this site as a guide and to hold me responsible. I also use a thermogenic to help give my metabolism a boost (for 6 weeks). When I reviewed my journals from that time, I realized I ate more calories and changed up my daily calorie intake. Loosing weight is not as simple as calories in - calories burned.. if you want to gain muscle and keep it off.

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