Is my calorie intake too low?

angelwowings23 wrote: »

J72FIT wrote: »

angelwowings23 wrote: »

J72FIT wrote: »

angelwowings23 wrote: »

synacious wrote: »

angelwowings23 wrote: »

synacious wrote: »

angelwowings23 wrote: »

kwtilbury wrote: »

angelwowings23 wrote: »

Try calorie-cycling. This can help break through a plateau without freaking out your system with a sudden influx of calories. If you do 1200 calories one day, do 1400 the next...and start a rotation like this. Also...depending on how lean you are, you may benefit from a "cheat/treat" day where you eat at maintenance. This can kickstart the metabolism which becomes a bit "content" after too long on a deficit.

There's something more going on than a simple metabolic issue. As stated, the OP is on a daily 400-500 calorie deficit, which should be close to a pound lost a week. Either there are hidden calories or something bigger is going on.

Not necessarily. Our bodies fight fat loss throughout the whole process. If OP has been eating at the same deficit for an extended period of time, weight loss will eventually halt. Your body is an amazing machine and will adapt. Don't complicate a pretty simple solution.

Actually, you're the one who is complicating a simple solution. The OP is most likely not lean enough to encounter leptin related issues. The simple solution is that she needs to weigh all of her food, as she has a tiny margin of error and her food diary is inaccurate. My weight loss never once halted from 139 to 115 pounds and the reason why is because I used a food scale to weigh everything I ate unless I was eating out, which was rare. In cases like that I overestimated. It was only from 115 to 108 that the process was much slower because I didn't have much to lose, if at all. The OP still hasn't addressed how long it has been since she last lost weight, but I honestly do believe she's eating far more than she thinks. 99% of the time, that is the answer to the "I'm not losing weight" posts on these forums when a medical issue isn't present and said medical issues are rare.

You don't have to be lean to hit a plateau. You can be obese and hit a weight loss plateau because a body will adapt. I'm so happy that you didn't incur such a situation but you and OP aren't doppleganger's. Their journey is going to be different than yous. *facepalm*

Most plateaus are not plateaus; they are caused by the person eating far more than they think. Of course the OP and I will not have identical results, but I can tell you now she hasn't been at the same weight for a year because she isn't calorie cycling. So you can take the *facepalm* and apply it to yourself because the fact that calorie cycling is your first suggestion instead of looking at her diary and seeing how off it is really isn't helpful for the OP and will make things more complicated for her. I can easily flip what you've said back at you and say that just because calorie cycling apparently worked for some people doesn't mean it would work for the OP.

I absolutely agree. Pretty sure we were all trying to give suggestions to try and help OP, most likely based off of our own experiences. Why you're so aggressive, I have no idea. You aren't there with her when she is measuring out her foods so, for all you know, her measurements are exact. This would make your theory on why she isn't losing weight completely moot, as well. This is a forum for support and you clearly aren't here for that. Your negativity is completely unnecessary so please direct that elsewhere.

I don't find her advice to be negative at all...

The "tone" of her comments to me are combative. I'm here to give a suggestion on what someone can do to play around with their calories and see if that helps move the scale. Let the OP figure out what advice she wants to utilize and what advice she doesn't. I doubt she needs another poster to make that decision for her.

True. That said, I think she was responding to your *facepalm*...

Her initial comment to me was aggressive, too. Regardless, if someone is going to get snarky with me because in internet-land, I'm taking MY OWN palm to MY OWN face...there's an issue there. And not in anything I typed.

Fair enough...

synacious wrote: »

Okay well.

1. RE: Snarkiness. You told someone right off the bat not to overcomplicate a simple solution. I told you straight out you were doing so by suggesting calorie counting. I don't see that as snarky. If it is, then you telling someone else they are overcomplicating things would be just as snarky, if not moreso. After the initial exchanged, you did facepalm, so I said the same thing could be turned onto you. I wouldn't have typed that had you not. You can say there is an issue but not in anything that you typed, but that's not really being self-aware in my opinion.
   
   
2. "You aren't there with her when she is measuring out her foods so, for all you know, her measurements are exact. This would make your theory on why she isn't losing weight completely moot, as well. This is a forum for support and you clearly aren't here for that."
   
   How is telling OP her diary is off not being supportive? I gave her advice on how to track accurately. She stated she only used her food scale three to four times per day. Every single one of her apples is logged as "1 medium" which can't even accurately reflect a gram measurement and the only time it is listed in grams, it's 154 grams. The probability of her apples, when weighed, being 154 grams every time is highly unlikely. Many of the entries are not even in gram measurements at all and are far too generic to be ratios derived from packages. She always uses some chicken entry with a smiley face that lists 4 ounces of chicken as 110 calories; 4 ounces of chicken is not 110 calories. That entry doesn't even specify what part of the chicken it is, whether it's been cooked in oil, seasoned, etc. These are logging errors that someone with a lot of weight to lose can get away with, not someone who is 5'3" and 140 pounds. Going further back in her log, she has untracked weekends, partially tracked days; the proof is in the logging, or lack thereof.
   
   I want OP to succeed like everyone else, but I'm not going to lead her on a wild goose chase to get it done. My approach is to be as straightforward and honest as possible. For the duration of time I have been a part of the MFP forum, which is well over a year, I have seen this occur time and time again. The answer 99% of the time was that the person was eating far more than they thought. People, on a whole, are terrible at estimating their food intake. The only thing that calorie cycling may do for the OP is to give her a more substantial deficit if she goes low enough on certain days. It's akin to people who practice IF whether it's 5:2 or a daily split. However, in the end, it would come down to achieving a calorie deficit. If the OP has been fluctuating the same 2 to 3 pounds for an entire year, she is eating at maintenance, not a deficit. It's thermodynamics. If she were to be eating at a deficit for the entire year, there would have been at least some weight loss before the supposed plateau, would there not? There has been zero loss and it's because the OP is canceling out her deficit. Tightening up her logging would most definitely achieve results on the scale within a matter of weeks. If her logging were to be spot on for the next few weeks and she didn't even lose half a pound, then that's when I would tell her to see a doctor about a possible medical condition.

If you looked at the thread, you'd see someone trying to critique my suggestion and looking for a deeper issue to explain the lack of results for OP. Hence my statement regarding over-complicating what could be an easy fix, which you then threw back at me as though you were involved in the initial exchange.
In regards to everything else, you may very well be right about the logging issue but my initial suggestion was meant to try and help the OP resolve whatever issues are going on along their fitness journey. Couldn't you just have made your suggestions to her without piggybacking onto a conversation between me and another poster...which I didn't start? I make my suggestions and move on. You were aggressive and I'm not here for that.
And I love how you're throwing techniques and terms around like I don't understand this process... You aren't teaching ME anything. The OP is the one who needed suggestions. I gave one. You don't like it, oh well. But the fact remains that none of us for sure can tell her what the issue is from a food diary and a question posted on here. And you contradicted yourself in your second statement (if calorie cycling increased her deficit, it would ultimately solve her issue). But that's besides the point.
We done now?

kaet_nicole93 wrote: »

synacious wrote: »

kaet_nicole93 wrote: »

synacious wrote: »

angelwowings23 wrote: »

kwtilbury wrote: »

angelwowings23 wrote: »

Try calorie-cycling. This can help break through a plateau without freaking out your system with a sudden influx of calories. If you do 1200 calories one day, do 1400 the next...and start a rotation like this. Also...depending on how lean you are, you may benefit from a "cheat/treat" day where you eat at maintenance. This can kickstart the metabolism which becomes a bit "content" after too long on a deficit.

There's something more going on than a simple metabolic issue. As stated, the OP is on a daily 400-500 calorie deficit, which should be close to a pound lost a week. Either there are hidden calories or something bigger is going on.

Not necessarily. Our bodies fight fat loss throughout the whole process. If OP has been eating at the same deficit for an extended period of time, weight loss will eventually halt. Your body is an amazing machine and will adapt. Don't complicate a pretty simple solution.

Actually, you're the one who is complicating a simple solution. The OP is most likely not lean enough to encounter leptin related issues. The simple solution is that she needs to weigh all of her food, as she has a tiny margin of error and her food diary is inaccurate. My weight loss never once halted from 139 to 115 pounds and the reason why is because I used a food scale to weigh everything I ate unless I was eating out, which was rare. In cases like that I overestimated. It was only from 115 to 108 that the process was much slower because I didn't have much to lose, if at all. The OP still hasn't addressed how long it has been since she last lost weight, but I honestly do believe she's eating far more than she thinks. 99% of the time, that is the answer to the "I'm not losing weight" posts on these forums when a medical issue isn't present and said medical issues are rare.

I have been at this weight and fluctuating 2-3 pounds each week since August of 2015. Like I mentioned earlier, I have been able to drop more (Mid December of 2015) but had to stop taking my BC in order to do so.

Birth control can make you retain water, but it won't make you flat out gain weight. If you saw a temporary scale drop in mid December after stopping your birth control, it was due to water retention. If you have been fluctuating the same two to three pounds for almost a year, then you are definitely eating at maintenance and not a deficit. My suggestion to you is to use your food scale to weigh every single thing you eat and use measuring cups for all liquids. Everything should be logged, including cooking oils and drinks. Also, try to be as accurate as possible with the database entries you choose by putting "usda" in the search bar while searching up fruits, vegetables, meats, or anything where you do not have the packaging for what you've used. When you do have the packaging, use the nutritional info. Packaged foods should still be weighed, as the gram weight can vary greatly from the listed weight. Also, meats, rice, pasta, etc. should be weighed raw when possible.

Thank you for your help, I really appreciate it! After looking through my diary do you believe once I begin weighing everything and accurately tracking the information I should begin to see results again? My plan is to stick with 1200 calories (on days where I feel hungrier I will eat more just to make sure I'm listening to my body but still sticking to healthy, whole-foods) and just track better.

You're welcome! I'm glad you didn't see anything I've written as an attack on you. I am a very blunt person, but I truly do want you to succeed. I do feel if you weigh everything and choose the best database entries you can that you will continue to lose weight. I know for a fact that if I didn't use my food scale for everything, I would not have had the amount of success that I have had within the past year and change. It is so easy to underestimate your food intake which doesn't mean that you as a person are at fault, almost everyone does it. Couple that with user-entered entries in the database and your diary can easily be off by hundreds of calories.

Eating more when you are hungry and sticking to 1200 otherwise can be helpful. Things like 5:2, daily IF, or calorie cycling are only useful for most people in helping achieve a deficit where there otherwise is no deficit. I could suggest any of those methods to you or you could easily eat at the same rate every day if your logging is on point which would ultimately be much easier on your mind and body. Just like how you don't always have to stick to healthy and whole foods, it does help achieve a deficit, but with proper logging it is easier to fit foods you love into your day. What I can promise you is that if you have been at a plateau for one year, it comes down to calories and eating at maintenance. Your body would not be encountering adaptive thermogenesis without losing any weight for a year. If you put your all into logging as accurately as possible and there is still no loss within a month, then you can narrow it down to other issues, possibly having to do with your thyroid, but I would never suggest that as an initial option.

If you would like any assistance, have any questions, or just want a look into how other people log on a daily basis, I've sent you a friend request if you'd like to accept. I wish you the best of luck either way!