Stuck...am I not eating enough?
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sheenabyrd
Posts: 14 Member
I've been on my weight loss journey for almost 2 years. I've managed to lose almost 60 lbs with diet and exercise. Over the past 10 months, my weight loss has stopped and no matter what I try I am still not losing. Based on calories in and calories out, I should be losing at least 1 lb a week. I do mostly strength training but I do cardio too. I also do Zumba, boot camp, and Beachbody programs. Recently I've been looking in to Macros and all of the calculations say I should be eating 2000-2100 calories a day. I've only been eating about 1500 and burning about 700 calories per workout. Anyone have any suggestions on what I can do to burn fat and tone up gaining muscle? I'm a 29 year old female. I have a desk job, so really only active in the evening or on the weekends. I am 5'5 and weight 181 but I do have a bit of muscle built up already as I've been strength training for several months. However I still have fat to lose, any help/suggestions to get me moving in the right direction again would be greatly appreciated!
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The answer to a plateau is never to eat more. Are you using a food scale? And how are you measuring these burns? 700 could be very inflated depending on how it was measured.16
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I do measure/weigh my food and I wear a polar HR monitor to track each workout, so I can get an accurate calorie burn. I use that number when calculating my food. I've mixed up my workouts, taken time off, upped my calorie intake by 10% and then reduced, and switched up my workouts but nothing seems to work. I'm trying to be patient but it's frustrating. I keep thinking there's got to be something wrong with what I'm doing because I should be seeing results.0
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Weigh your raw food with an electronic scale. Anything you're about to put into your mouth, weigh it first and log it.
Also I'm on my phone so I don't know how to post the picture, so here's a link:
https://us.v-cdn.net/5021879/uploads/editor/cu/nnnaq5rggu08.jpg
Hope this helps.3 -
To answer the question in your thread title, no, the issue is not that you are not eating enough.
There are mistakes that people commonly make that cause them to not lose weight that we might be able to spot if you change your Diary Sharing settings to Public: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings
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sheenabyrd wrote: »I've been on my weight loss journey for almost 2 years. I've managed to lose almost 60 lbs with diet and exercise. Over the past 10 months, my weight loss has stopped and no matter what I try I am still not losing. Based on calories in and calories out, I should be losing at least 1 lb a week. I do mostly strength training but I do cardio too. I also do Zumba, boot camp, and Beachbody programs. Recently I've been looking in to Macros and all of the calculations say I should be eating 2000-2100 calories a day. I've only been eating about 1500 and burning about 700 calories per workout. Anyone have any suggestions on what I can do to burn fat and tone up gaining muscle? I'm a 29 year old female. I have a desk job, so really only active in the evening or on the weekends. I am 5'5 and weight 181 but I do have a bit of muscle built up already as I've been strength training for several months. However I still have fat to lose, any help/suggestions to get me moving in the right direction again would be greatly appreciated!
Nope, don't eat more because you are not losing weight. You need to figure out where you're making your errors.
What do you do to burn 700 calories? Where do you get those calorie burn numbers from? Are those from cardio workouts only? I ask because of these thing:- If you are getting your numbers from MFP, anywhere on the internet, machines, or Iphone apps, they are overestimated. It's a good idea to count about 60-70% of those numbers.
- The only calories from workouts you should use are for steady state cardio only. The rest, included strength training, are included in your daily activity level.
What about food? Do you weigh everything you eat and drink, including condiments, beverages, and anything else that has calories?
2000 - 2100 calories a day for weight loss for someone your height and weight seems a bit high, but I could be wrong. Did you get this number by putting your stats in MFP to lose 1 pound a week?
If you've been eating in a deficit, chances are you have not built up that much muscle, even if you are weight lifting. The goal during a deficit is to maintain muscle. Besides this, it's very difficult for women to build muscle.4 -
It could be due to water healing your muscles due to the strength training. That being said, I would go to a Dr for a check up. Maybe there is something that just isn't quite right. It wouldn't hurt any. Tell the Dr what you do and what you eat and how long you've been stuck. You may find an answer. You may not.2
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vespiquenn wrote: »The answer to a plateau is never to eat more. Are you using a food scale? And how are you measuring these burns? 700 could be very inflated depending on how it was measured.
Agreed.
A plateau for this long is an indication you are either eating more than you think or over estimating burns.
700 calories is a big burn...
Measuring is not weighing...
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hypodonthaveme wrote: »It could be due to water healing your muscles due to the strength training. That being said, I would go to a Dr for a check up. Maybe there is something that just isn't quite right. It wouldn't hurt any. Tell the Dr what you do and what you eat and how long you've been stuck. You may find an answer. You may not.
Water retention from the strength training should even out after a few weeks and the OP hasn't lost in 10 months.4 -
1. If you aren't already, be sure that you're logging everything. Sometimes people forget about things like veggies, drinks, cooking oils, and condiments. For some people these can add up to enough to halt your weight loss progress.
2. Consider buying a food scale if you don't already have one. They're about $10-$20 dollars in the US and easily found at places like Amazon, Target, and Walmart. Measuring cups and spoons are great, but they do come with some degree of inaccuracy. A food scale will be more accurate, and for some people it makes a big difference.
3. Logging accurately also means choosing accurate entries in the database. There are a lot of user-entered entries that are off. Double-check that you're using good entries and/or using the recipe builder instead of someone else's homemade entries.
4. Recalculate your goals if you haven't lately. As you lose weight your body requires fewer calories to run. Be sure you update your goals every ten pounds or so.
5. If you're eating back your exercise calories and you're relying on gym machine readouts or MFP's estimates, it might be best to eat back just 50-75% of those. Certain activities tend to be overestimated. If you're using an HRM or activity tracker, it might be a good idea to look into their accuracy and be sure that yours is calibrated properly.
6. If you're taking any cheat days that go over your calorie limits, it might be best to cut them out for a few weeks and see what happens. Some people go way over their calorie needs without realizing it when they don't track.
7. If you weigh yourself frequently, consider using a program like trendweight to even out the fluctuations. You could be losing weight but just don't see it because of the daily ups and downs.
8. Some people just burn fewer calories than the calculators predict. If you continue to have problems after 4-6 weeks, then it might be worth a trip to the doctor or a registered dietitian who can give you more specific advice.5 -
I did see my Dr and had blood work done. I told my Dr about the plateau and she just told me to keep doing what I'm doing, that it's a slow process. She did run a full panel of blood work and everything came back normal.
As far as my calorie burn, I get that number from my Polar HR monitor. I do wear a chest strap and I thought those were pretty accurate calculations. I was working out 6 days a week. I did different workouts each day focusing on different parts of the body. I would start off with cardio, move to different sets of strength training, and end with tabatha style workouts at the end based on whatever I was doing that day. My workouts consist of free weights and strength training. On leg day, I would do a mix of squats, lunges, box jumps, etc. I thought maybe I was overtraining, so I cut it down to 3-4 times a week. I still currently do a rotation of legs, arms and abs, straight cardio, and then full body.0 -
Are you using TDEE method or mfp method to get to 2000? Are you eating 1500 net or gross?
700 is a high burn, not realistic in my opinion unless you are exercising for 2 hours. If you are eating back those calories, you are over eating.
The other obvious answer is that you have some logging errors you don't realize and are eating more than you think you are. Do you eat out often? Weigh and measure every food that goes in your mouth and into recipes?3 -
Are you using TDEE method or mfp method to get to 2000? Are you eating 1500 net or gross?
700 is a high burn, not realistic in my opinion unless you are exercising for 2 hours. If you are eating back those calories, you are over eating.
The other obvious answer is that you have some logging errors you don't realize and are eating more than you think you are. Do you eat out often? Weigh and measure every food that goes in your mouth and into recipes?
700 doesn't have to be unrealistic, I usually get around 600-ish from an hour of intense cardio, according to my heart rate monitor. But this will be dependent on the person's gender/height/weight/age/etc, and the actual amount of effort and level of intensity of the cardio.
However, I am concerned about this estimate based on the fact that it seems like most of the OP's workout seems to consist of strength training. You burn a lot fewer calories doing strength training, and heart rate monitors do not give you an accurate burn for that type of exercise.
So maybe just consider lowering the estimated calories burned you input, or eating just a portion of those calories back.1 -
Perhaps what might help is eating more for a short period of time, like two weeks for instance. A refeed. Your weight will go up a little but you may find it easier to lose what you gained and then some afterwards. I've read opinions that say refeeds are more of a mental break than a physical advantage, but it's worked fairly reliably for me. (My refeeds have all been unplanned, but still seemed to be more helpful than harmful).2
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sheenabyrd wrote: »I did see my Dr and had blood work done. I told my Dr about the plateau and she just told me to keep doing what I'm doing, that it's a slow process. She did run a full panel of blood work and everything came back normal.
As far as my calorie burn, I get that number from my Polar HR monitor. I do wear a chest strap and I thought those were pretty accurate calculations. I was working out 6 days a week. I did different workouts each day focusing on different parts of the body. I would start off with cardio, move to different sets of strength training, and end with tabatha style workouts at the end based on whatever I was doing that day. My workouts consist of free weights and strength training. On leg day, I would do a mix of squats, lunges, box jumps, etc. I thought maybe I was overtraining, so I cut it down to 3-4 times a week. I still currently do a rotation of legs, arms and abs, straight cardio, and then full body.
While your exercise sounds fantastic, I believe a 700 calorie burn is way too high. If you are counting the entire routine's calorie burn, you are indeed overestimating. You should only be counting the steady state cardio and not the squats, weight lifting, and other exercise. Just count steady state cardio. Either this, or eat back only half of the exercise burns.7 -
goldthistime wrote: »Perhaps what might help is eating more for a short period of time, like two weeks for instance. A refeed. Your weight will go up a little but you may find it easier to lose what you gained and then some afterwards. I've read opinions that say refeeds are more of a mental break than a physical advantage, but it's worked fairly reliably for me. (My refeeds have all been unplanned, but still seemed to be more helpful than harmful).
This is bad advice. If you're not losing weight, you don't eat more and work in re-feeds.4 -
sheenabyrd wrote: »I did see my Dr and had blood work done. I told my Dr about the plateau and she just told me to keep doing what I'm doing, that it's a slow process. She did run a full panel of blood work and everything came back normal.
As far as my calorie burn, I get that number from my Polar HR monitor. I do wear a chest strap and I thought those were pretty accurate calculations. I was working out 6 days a week. I did different workouts each day focusing on different parts of the body. I would start off with cardio, move to different sets of strength training, and end with tabatha style workouts at the end based on whatever I was doing that day. My workouts consist of free weights and strength training. On leg day, I would do a mix of squats, lunges, box jumps, etc. I thought maybe I was overtraining, so I cut it down to 3-4 times a week. I still currently do a rotation of legs, arms and abs, straight cardio, and then full body.
While your exercise sounds fantastic, I believe a 700 calorie burn is way too high. If you are counting the entire routine's calorie burn, you are indeed overestimating. You should only be counting the steady state cardio and not the squats, weight lifting, and other exercise. Just count steady state cardio. Either this, or eat back only half of the exercise burns.
i agree, i wouldn't take into account calories burned in strength training,for example, if you are running 30 mins in a day, you only use HRM in this 30 mins. stop the counter after that. and do your strength training.4 -
sheenabyrd wrote: »I did see my Dr and had blood work done. I told my Dr about the plateau and she just told me to keep doing what I'm doing, that it's a slow process. She did run a full panel of blood work and everything came back normal.
As far as my calorie burn, I get that number from my Polar HR monitor. I do wear a chest strap and I thought those were pretty accurate calculations. I was working out 6 days a week. I did different workouts each day focusing on different parts of the body. I would start off with cardio, move to different sets of strength training, and end with tabatha style workouts at the end based on whatever I was doing that day. My workouts consist of free weights and strength training. On leg day, I would do a mix of squats, lunges, box jumps, etc. I thought maybe I was overtraining, so I cut it down to 3-4 times a week. I still currently do a rotation of legs, arms and abs, straight cardio, and then full body.
While your exercise sounds fantastic, I believe a 700 calorie burn is way too high. If you are counting the entire routine's calorie burn, you are indeed overestimating. You should only be counting the steady state cardio and not the squats, weight lifting, and other exercise. Just count steady state cardio. Either this, or eat back only half of the exercise burns.
i agree, i wouldn't take into account calories burned in strength training,for example, if you are running 30 mins in a day, you only use HRM in this 30 mins. stop the counter after that. and do your strength training.
This. HRM to count strength training workouts are known to be inaccurate. HRM for cardio only.
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goldthistime wrote: »Perhaps what might help is eating more for a short period of time, like two weeks for instance. A refeed. Your weight will go up a little but you may find it easier to lose what you gained and then some afterwards. I've read opinions that say refeeds are more of a mental break than a physical advantage, but it's worked fairly reliably for me. (My refeeds have all been unplanned, but still seemed to be more helpful than harmful).
This is bad advice. If you're not losing weight, you don't eat more and work in re-feeds.
The OP was asking about eating more. It sounded to me as though she needed a diet break if only just mentally. If she were just beginning a diet, of course it would be bad advice, but after losing 60lbs it has the possibility of improving her metabolism, hormone levels, and her outlook.
OP if you're still around, here's an article that might interest you.
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/sclark60.htm5 -
OP, do a little experiment. First take a week off. Don't go nuts, but just eat well and don't weigh yourself or stress about calorie burns. This is strictly for your head, sometimes you just need to not think about it for a week
Then commit to two weeks of weighing every single thing it's physically possible to get on a scale. Raw foods, packaged foods, peanut butter, yogurt, everything. Log it all and make sure you are really eating the calories you think you are. It will also help you "reset" how you see a serving. I find after being at this for a while I will just go with what I "know" to be a serving of some things I eat every day, and don't realize the size is slowly creeping up.
Also, HRMs are only accurate for steady state cardio, not for weightlifting, circuits, etc. So you might be eating back more calories than you should.
Once you get down to the last 10-15 lbs, you have no wiggle room, so all the little discrepancies that were no big deal now can become the whole story. It can be frustrating, but hang in there and good luck!3 -
I would go talk to the doctor if this had continued for a month or more.
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