Slow Metabolism?

See your doctor and ask for a full thyroid panel if you suspect that your metabolism is doing something bad. I turned out to be hypothyroid. I now take medication for that.

Make certain you weigh all your foods. Sometimes the calorie counts on packaging are off. Cups are too inaccurate a measure for solid foods, though liquids like milk and yogurt are fine. When you do that make sure the cup is level. Don't pile yogurt above the rim of the cup, for example. And estimating is a sure way to gain weight, so def don't do that.

A good digital food scale is 15 bux on Amazon and it will enable you to know exactly how many calories you are truly consuming. When you make something like a casserole use the recipe builder function so that you can know how many calories in a serving. When I make something like a salad, I just tally all the ingredients of it separately. X weight of lettuce, x weight of tomato, etc and then MFP totals it.

women add muscle bulk slowly. Assuming that you are not a steroid user, I would not expect that to total more than 2-3 pounds, and that is if you are lifting heavy and eating plenty of protein. However, your muscles do temporarily add water and glycogen as part of their repair process after a workout. I never weigh the morning after a workout; it will be misleading.

Check your maths. You say you've lost 6lbs in three months since mid June. But it's only 2 months since mid June! Just under 1lb/week is excellent.
If you are new to dieting you might find that inaccuracies are creeping into your calorie counting (there are loads of inaccurate foods in this app - the green ticked ones have been checked).
Excellent that you are increasing your activity levels, keep that up and the weeks will tick by in no time. You might want to buy a cheap step tracker on eBay or somewhere. I find mine (a cast off from my husband) excellent for keeping track of normal activity.
Keep going, keep checking your calorie count, keep active and balance your diet and you'll do fine.

Gosh I didn't know that. Thanks! I have found some discrepancies in the verified quantities. I just assumed that they were checked by dopy staff! Need to double check!

jdubsms wrote: »

I'm in an interesting situation. I started exercising on a daily basis in mid-June and I weighed 171. At that time I started counting calories as well (1200 per day). I started by walking 5 miles 3 days per week. After a few weeks I went up to 5 days per week. Now I go to the gym Mon-Fri and do 60 minutes on a stationary bike and some light weights. I now weigh 165 pounds. I know that I've gained some muscle but 6 pounds in 3 months is disappointing. Anyone have any ideas of what I am doing wrong? Thanks in advance!

How tall are you and what's your goal weight? When you are within 25 pounds of your goal weight, you should be shooting to lose 0.5 pound per week. You're losing 0.75 pounds per week (assuming 8 weeks mid June - mid August) so you're either doing great or losing a little faster than you should, depending on how much more weight you have to lose.

Except for women who are very short, active women can eat more than 1200 calories and still lose weight. Are you eating 1200 calories total (net calories) or 1200 calories plus calories you've earned from exercise (gross calories)?

Focus on cleaning clean than working out too much. Honestly i was in the same boat. I was exercising at least an hour daily and eating 1200-1400 depending on my workout and was incorporating all food groups but nada weight was going down after I reached 171 from 180. I decided to focus more on my eating than working out. I dance at home for a at most 1hour... I just crank up the radio and dance. I eat 16 oz steamed veggies+ 4 oz grilled chicken/fish/or boiled eggs or eat 1 cup of rice+ 16 oz vegetables with salt as condiment , or just eat salad with a protein. In between I munch on apple sauce or low calorie fruits if needed. No dairy, No more than 1 Tablesspoon of oil daily, No bread etc. I started losing weight.

I havent read all of the posts but your body might be in starvation mode. Your body might be hanging on to all of the calories knowing its not getting enough food.

pjsdiets wrote: »

I havent read all of the posts but your body might be in starvation mode. Your body might be hanging on to all of the calories knowing its not getting enough food.

Dieters don't actually stop losing weight due to "starvation mode": http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/starvation-mode/

queenliz99 wrote: »

pjsdiets wrote: »

I havent read all of the posts but your body might be in starvation mode. Your body might be hanging on to all of the calories knowing its not getting enough food.

By 'hanging onto the calories' you could mean two things:
1) That the energy demands are the same but somehow the body is magically fuelling itself on fresh air, because its hoarding all the calories instead of using them. Not possible.
2) The energy demand has decreased - by slowing down non-essential processes such as hair growth, nail grow, skin cell turn-over, and also through becoming more lethargic in order to conserve energy. This is noticeable, but not usually the case.

sounds to me you'e working out too much… getting fit isn't losing weight. The body could struggle as you do both too aggressively.

I'm about your height, 5'1", but older (57) and lighter (120 lbs.). I wear a Fitbit Charge HR, which actually measures by burn all day based on heart rate. I'd say my inactive metabolism is at 1200 or even lower (some days as little as 1050 to 1100) so eating that much with no activity would give me 0 weight loss. Yesterday, I did 10,000 steps, typical for my daily walking, which got me around 200+ calories and then pilates, so maybe another 100. By the end of the day I got less than 1600 calories. So, to lose weight, I'd actually have to eat 1200, not "net" 1200 because the deficit I can have to lose is very small (since you need to eat 500 calories less than you burn to lose 1 lb. a week). The estimates MFP gives me for the amount of exercise I do is actually much higher than the "burn" the Fibit calculates based on my heartrate and effort. For instance, MFP way overestimates the burn riding on a stationary bike. So, if you're "netting" 1200 and eating back exercise calories based on MFP estimates you might actually be eating more than you are burning. I'd eat back only have 1/2 to 2/3 of the MFP exercise calories and see what happens.

jdubsms wrote: »

Thank y'all so much for the insight. I never thought about weighing food. I weigh 166lbs and I'm 5 feet tall. -like a rolly polly. I want to get down to 150. Anything below 150 would be a miracle. My calories are net; I take into consideration the exercise I do. I looked at my weekly nutrients and I am very low on carbs. I've been meeting/exceeding my protein intake. Just trying to find out where I'm going wrong.

No, anything below 150 would not be a miracle. I used to think the same thing, and I now weigh much less than my "miracle weight" and am in a healthy BMI. You can do this!

rosebette wrote: »

I'm about your height, 5'1", but older (57) and lighter (120 lbs.). I wear a Fitbit Charge HR, which actually measures by burn all day based on heart rate. I'd say my inactive metabolism is at 1200 or even lower (some days as little as 1050 to 1100) so eating that much with no activity would give me 0 weight loss. Yesterday, I did 10,000 steps, typical for my daily walking, which got me around 200+ calories and then pilates, so maybe another 100. By the end of the day I got less than 1600 calories. So, to lose weight, I'd actually have to eat 1200, not "net" 1200 because the deficit I can have to lose is very small (since you need to eat 500 calories less than you burn to lose 1 lb. a week). The estimates MFP gives me for the amount of exercise I do is actually much higher than the "burn" the Fibit calculates based on my heartrate and effort. For instance, MFP way overestimates the burn riding on a stationary bike. So, if you're "netting" 1200 and eating back exercise calories based on MFP estimates you might actually be eating more than you are burning. I'd eat back only have 1/2 to 2/3 of the MFP exercise calories and see what happens.

So what settings did you use on your fitbit to determine your resting and working out HR? I mean, if you have a fairly slow heart rate in general then the fitbit can only conclude you have a very low 'metabolism', whatever it means by that. HR simply cannot be correlated to calorie burn if your heart rate deviates a bit away from the mid point. I read somewhere that only about 40% of all people sit anywhere near that mid point. How high your heart rate goes is partly influenced by genetics. Some people have a very high maximum heart rate, some a very low one. it has nothing to do with how fit or unfit you are or how many calories you burn. It's just a fact, like having naturally red hair vs. blond hair. If you are unfit and you more around though, your heart rate will go further up, at least for a moment than when you are fitter. Do you burn more calories? No, you don't. Furthermore, some medical problems, like hypothyreodism can lower the heartrate somewhat. If you're on betablockers your heartrate might stay low as well.

Imagine this: my maximum heart rate is very high, around 210. if I sit on the sofa it might just be around 50-60 as I'm fairly fit. Fitbit will assume I'm burning very few calories, based on the low HR. If I get up and run to the supermarket around the corner my heartrate might go up to 170 and fitbit will assume I just did something extraordinarily difficult and overestimate the calorie burn big time while it was just a very light, easy jog for me.

Oh, some other numbers: I wore my HR sensor for a few nights as I wanted to know what my minimum HR for running is. After 9 hours of measuring I got around 300kcal out of it. Over 24 hours that would be less than 900 calories. Honestly, no. My base metabolic rate is not below 900. I just have a very low resting heart rate.

xvolution wrote: »

I have to agree with the full thyroid panel if you're doing everything right and either at a plateau or actually gaining weight. I plan on getting one myself at my next doctor's visit, since even though I'm keeping calories down I'm actually gaining weight [yes, I'm weighing all my food and even keeping my calories below my current bmr]. The only things I can think of is hypothyroidism or iodine deficiency [I'm on a dairy and sodium restrictive diet, both of which are the main sources of iodine].

I snooped your diary and doesn't look like you weigh everything. You use cups, weigh in ounces and a lot of your entries are exactly the same. You also have generic entries, are those your recipe built recipes? If you really do use a food scale, my apologies.

If you are not losing you could eat just cut another 100 off your current daily intake, see that helps you a little.