I'm not sure if I'm doing this correctly, can anyone help me please?

vanessasumner · July 2016

Hi,

My weight is stuck at 146lbs and I've only lost 4lbs in the last 60ish days - I've been aiming to loose 1lb a week, so I think I'm doing something wrong here but I can't work out what it is. I've been reading various posts this morning and it's just making me more and more confused and I'm starting to get really disheartened by the whole thing. I've been tracking and weighing my food using MyFitnessPal constantly and going from no exercise to exercising 4 times a week.

I used these links (http://www.fat2fittools.com/tools/bmr/ and http://www.fat2fittools.com/tools/mbf/) to work out my calorie intake. According to those links my stats are as follows;

Sex: Female
Weight: 146 pounds
Neck: 9 inches
Waist: 27.5 inches
Hip: 38 inches
Body Fat: 31.1%

and (with a target weight of 122lbs as I'm only 5ft 4in - all excess weight it on my thighs!)

Sedentary (little or no exercise, desk job) 1627
Lightly Active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk) 1865
Moderately Active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk) 2102
Very Active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk) 2339
Extremely Active (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2X day training, i.e marathon, contest etc.) 2576

I have a desk job but I walk to work every day (15mins brisk pace both ways) and I exercise 4 times a week - I've been doing the Jillian Michaels workout DVD's started with Beginners Shred and on Saturday I started 30 Day Shred. Now I don't have a heart rate monitor or a Fitbit so I've been relying on MyFitnessPal and my iPhone steps to give me my calorie burn. I sometimes go out on my bike or I walk a longer route home to get my steps up if I'm not going to do my exercise DVD. When I'm at home I'm either cooking, or baking, washing, tidying up etc. in total for 1-2hours an evening - then I sit down and watch TV. So i decided that I fitted into the 'Lightly Active' category and worked out the following;

I deducted 20% (373 calories) from 1865 to give me 1492 calories a day to lose 1lb a week.

As I don't have a heart rate monitor to get a more accurate calorie burn for the exercises that I do and the fact that I don't have my iPhone on me 24/7 to accurately calculate my steps, I thought I should set my calories taking into account all the above at 1400/1450 instead to be on the safe side.

I've not been eating back the exercise I've been logging either - which I thought was the right way to do this as I didn't use MyFitnessPal to give me my daily calorie intake (I used the above instead).

Can anyone offer any advice here? I'd really appreciate it!

Thanks,

rachfking · July 2016

Hang in there and try 1200 calories/day. My weight loss was frustratingly slow to start with then it all dropped off.

goldthistime · July 2016

Or don't change anything other than your viewpoint! I'm a firm believer in the benefits of losing weight slowly.

amyr271 · July 2016

You're losing weight at around half a pound a week, nothing wrong with that! Just keep it up, might be due a whoosh sometime soon.

st476 · July 2016

I'm not sure if this was said but do you weigh all your food?

lisalang10410 · July 2016

Maybe because you are actualy working out u are turning fat to muscle which will always weigh more have u tried to do your measurements again and see if there is a difference ☺

malibu927 · July 2016

lisalang10410 wrote: »

Maybe because you are actualy working out u are turning fat to muscle which will always weigh more have u tried to do your measurements again and see if there is a difference ☺

No no no no. This does not happen.

OP, how are you measuring your intake? And you are right about not eating the exercise calories as you're following the TDEE method.

Maxematics · July 2016

lisalang10410 wrote: »

Maybe because you are actualy working out u are turning fat to muscle which will always weigh more have u tried to do your measurements again and see if there is a difference ☺

This is not true. Not only does fat not turn into muscle, but gaining enough muscle to offset weight loss on 1492 calories per day from some brisk walking and Jillian Michaels DVDs four days per week is highly unlikely to occur.

I second the question on weighing your food. If you're not, you may think you're eating 1492 calories, but it's easily most likely 1600+. I say this not as an attack on your judgment, but the reality that most people underestimate their portion sizes. I would say it could be water retention from exercising, but four pounds in 60 days seems like your numbers are slightly off. It could also be that if you weigh in weekly, you could be seeing a high fluctuation day on the scale, especially around your time of the month. Optimally, you should have lost around 8ish pounds in the past 60 days, but our bodies don't really input/output that way. You've still lost weight, so that's awesome but I'm going to guess that your calories in are off by ~250 which is why you're seeing a 4 pound loss in 60 days.

vanessasumner · July 2016

Hi,

Thanks for the advice so far everyone. I use digital kitchen scales and I weigh everything, literally everything. I weigh out cooked rice/pasta/carbs, weigh meat and fish raw, weigh all veg and fruit, I weigh every individual thing that goes into sandwiches/recipes etc. I include oils/butters used for cooking, sauces, curry pastes etc. etc.

I set my daily calorie intake to max 1425 a day and over the last 63 days my average daily food intake has been 1344 calories.

On the odd occasion I've not counted a couple of cooking oil sprays or I under-weighed something by 1/2 grams so I could log it easier on MyFitnessPal i.e I weighed 127g of Strawberries yesterday but it's easier to log 125g when you've only got the option of adding 1/4 to 100g of Strawberries. I've eaten out twice and picked the healthiest thing - Saturday I went to Nando's for lunch and had Chicken in Pitta Bread and Chargrilled veg for 452 calories.

On the 4th April I weighed: 10 stone 10lb (150lbs)

I stared MyFitnessPal/Exercising on 9th May (took me a while to get motivated and save up to buy exercise DVD's and some dumbells etc.)

On the 12th June I weighted 10 8lb (148lbs)
On the 1st July I weighed 10 6lb (146lbs)

Since the 1st July I've weighed myself about 4 more times (same time of day) and the scales have either been 147lbs or 146 and 3/4 - so I am losing around 0.5lb a week and not 1lb like I'd hoped. Which is why I posted today as I thought I must be doing something wrong here.

I have a friend who's doing Slimming World so she doesn't calorie count and she's losing far more than me, I'm so pleased for her but a little jealous too if I'm honest, as I've been so dedicated to this method. I know I'm not massively overweight but due to my body shape (pear) and height all my excess weight goes straight around my thighs (has a massive impact on my body confidence). My goal weight of 8 stone 10 lbs is far more healthier for my height. Today is one of those days where it just feels as though I'm never going to get there.

Maybe I'll just have to put it down to water retention/fluctuations, weigh myself once and month and increase my exercise dvds (can't afford the gym) ...

MoveitlikeManda · July 2016

im pretty sure you should be weighing things like pasta and rice raw too

TR0berts · July 2016

mbaby86 wrote: »

im pretty sure you should be weighing things like pasta and rice raw too

Yes. If you look at the packaging, the nutrition data should have a note that the counts are based on the food being uncooked.

oolou · July 2016

Let's keep it simple. You know how many calories you are eating on average a day. You know you have lost 4 pounds in the last 60 days.

Putting all the calculators and so on aside, at your current calorie consumption and activity level you are losing half a pound a week.

If you want to make that a pound a week, you have to either:

1) Up your daily activity/exercise by another burn of 250 calories; or
2) Deduct a further 250 calories from your daily calorie consumption. This is not really recommended as you should try to keep your average above 1200.

So perhaps a combination of the above.

Or you could just continue to do what you are doing. You could use a trendgraph of some sort to follow your weight loss. This will help you see that you are still losing weight now, albeit slowly.

vanessasumner · July 2016

I thought rice and pasta increase in calories once cooked?

TR0berts · July 2016

vanessasumner wrote: »

I thought rice and pasta increase in calories once cooked?

Not if you cook them in water. Water has no Calories. If you cook them in something that has Calories, such as oil, then they'll absorb that substance - and thus gain Calories. In either case, the nutritional data on the package still pertains to just the rice/pasta/whatever.

oolou · July 2016

Their weight changes because of the water, that's all. You get a more accurate calorie count if you go by the raw weight before cooking rice and pasta.

JLPersall · July 2016

Do you have any off days? Days you dont finish logging? Easy to eat deficit for a week in one day. I like to look back on my diary when im not losing the amount I think I should.

Francl27 · July 2016

You're eating more than you think.

Weigh rice and pasta raw... make sure you're using accurate entries. Weigh packaged food too.

Or just keep doing what you're doing but cut calories by 100.

And yes, if you use TDEE-20%, don't eat back exercise calories, it's included already.

vanessasumner wrote: »

I thought rice and pasta increase in calories once cooked?

No, but they absorb more or less water, so one serving cooked will never weigh the same. Most database entries for cooked pasta or rice underestimate by 20% too.

vmsolko · July 2016

I think you are doing a great job.
Yes, it is coming off slower than you had hoped, but keep in mind that you are learning a lot about what makes up your food, what exercises you like, gaining strength, and learning healthy habits. I know it's hard when you are putting in so much work and being so diligent. But I think you need to give yourself some credit. While you might not be dropping weight as fast as your friend, you are learning valuable life-long habits to help you KEEP the weight off. What most people don't realize when losing is that maintanence is quite often even harder. With logging calories and learning about food, you are much more statistically likely to keep the weight off than someone who drops weight quickly without learning portion control, etc.

So that was my version of a pep talk. lol
But if you really don't care about all that and just care about the scale, take heart that personally, I've never found the "pounds to lose per week" estimate to be accurate. So you're not alone. Also, a person who has 100+ lbs to lose likely will hit that estimate per week. From many people I've talked to, myself included, the pounds drop much more slowly the closer you are to your goal, so keep that in mind.

I say to keep doing what you're doing. Keep weighing foods. Measure yourself. Maybe mix up your exercise videos to keep yourself from burning out and to add variety. If you stick with it, you're going to keep seeing results. Best of luck!

johnnyb620 · July 2016

Have you had blood work done? I recommend getting your thyroid, cmp, lipid, and cbc checked just to rule out any genetic and health disorders. Hormones also play an important role in body composition.

ladyraiah · July 2016

FYI, on the iphone app, you can change the measurements of food from fractions to decimals. It's a little tab at the top of the selection popup. Took me forever to realize that.

vanessasumner · July 2016

Thank you everyone for your advice, it's been really helpful.

I am confused on the whole rice/pasta weighing though. I've been eating Tilda Brown Basmati Rice and I've been logging this in MyFitnessPal using this: Brown Basmati Rice (Cooked) Tilda 100g 117 calories. I always weigh 125g of this rice cooked onto my plate when having it for dinner etc. Which it calculates as 146 calories for 125g cooked rice.

Their website (http://www.tilda.com/our-rice-range/products/wholegrain-basmati) has the following info;

NUTRITIONAL FACTS (TYPICAL VALUES)

Per 100g Uncooked
Energy (kJ/kcal) 1487/351
Fat 2.8g
(of which saturates) 0.6g
Carbohydrate 71.2g
(of which sugars) 1.1g
Fibre 3.4g
Protein 8.6g
Salt <0.01g

Per 180g Cooked
Energy (kJ/kcal) 892/211
Fat 1.7g
(of which saturates) 0.4g
Carbohydrate 42.7g
(of which sugars) 0.7g
Fibre 2.0g
Protein 5.2g
Salt <0.01g

Do I take it from the info on their website that 100g of it uncooked equates to 180g cooked rice. If so, what do I log, the dry weight or the cooked weight?

I'm not sure if I'm doing this correctly, can anyone help me please?

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