Am I eating enough/too much to lose weight?

chmcke01 · November 2016

TLDR:
I am a 28 year old male, 5'8" and 300 pounds. I have been exercising more and eating healthier for about a month but have not lost any weight?

Sorry, this is going to be very long but I want to make it as detailed as possible so that anyone who takes the time to read the whole thing can provide the best advice possible.

I am now 28 almost 29 years old...I was thin as a boy until around 8 then I started to put on weight consistently until I was about 200 pounds when I graduated from high school. As a 5'8" male that is pretty heavy. My biggest two I guess you would call them vices are pizza and pop...when I was growing up those were reserved for only special occasions like birthdays...so when I got old enough that I had a part time job in high school and could buy my own and I have dealt with an "addiction" to them pretty much ever since. When I first started college I was just going to class and I had a workstudy position but I didn't have a real job so my only exercise was just walking to-from class. This combined with the fact that at my college the meal plan allowed for Taco Bell, Chick-Fil-A, "home cooking" style foods, etc I was up to about 240 by the end of my first year of college.

After that first year I came to the realization that I couldn't afford to not have a real job so I took a job at Walmart on the night shift, I would help pull all the pallets of goods off the truck to the general area of the store where that item was (they were sort of pre sorted into grocery, pet supplies, etc so we could just pull the pallet to that area of the store). Then I would unload the pallets and stock the products for whatever department I was assigned that night...if my department had a light load that night I walked around until I found someone who looked like they needed help and helped them until they were done. Nobody leaves until everyone is done so we worked together as much as possible to avoid having to stay late. So, it was a pretty physical job and I worked there for about 2 years and by the time I left I was around 190 pounds as I still didn't eat healthily.

I left that job because I got my first job in IT (which is what I was going to school for) and I have worked in IT ever since. That is obviously a much less physically demanding job as I do at least 75% of my work sitting down at a computer. I steadily increased in weight and I knew I was getting bigger and tried eating healthier now and then but was pretty much of the mindset that if I didn't know how much I weighed then I couldn't really feel bad about how much I weighed. One day relatively early this year I weighed myself and was blown away...I was up to 310 pounds!

That woke me up and I started trying to eat better, limiting soda and fast food and working out as time allowed (I was working 40 hours per week at a job an hour and 20 minutes from where I live and I was married and had a 3 year old daughter by then so I didn't have a lot of free time) but didn't seem to really be making any progress.

A friend of mine sells/uses Advocare and talked me into doing the 24 day challenge. I did it strictly and did get down to about 290 pounds but it was VERY strict plus the supplements alone cost as much as I was used to spending on food...so I didn't continue past the end of the 24 day challenge and while I continued trying to drink more water, fewer drinks with calories and just make healthier food choices in general but I did creep back up to 300 pounds within a month or so.

A month ago I decided that I needed to do something if I wanted to be around to see my daughter get married and have kids of her own someday so I started only drinking water from the time I wake up until at least after I got home from work and limited myself to only one glass max of calorie'd drink per day and tried to stay more towards what I felt was healthier like 100% grape juice or 100% apple juice (no sugar added for both) rather than pop. I also cut out as much fast food as I could, cut out fried foods, watched my portion sizes better, and switched to whole wheat carbs instead of white. Also I started walking with my wife and daughter 1.5-3 miles per day 4 or 5 days per week and doing the 7 minute workout app in the mornings 4 days per week.

For the past few weeks I have been doing more research and trying to meal prep and I know it can get boring but it hasn't so far I have been making on Sunday a big bag of veggies and several chicken breasts (baked, boneless skinless) and some brown rice that we have for dinner that night and then the rest goes into meal prep containers for my lunches for the week. Last week it was just a big bag of like what I would call normal veggies like carrots and broccoli and cauliflower and it was OK but this week I got a bag of "stir fry" veggies which has been so good I look forward to it!

When I get up I drink a little bit of water because I am generally thirsty when I first wake up, then I do the 7 minute workout (if I wake up early enough) then get in the shower. Once I am showered and dressed and ready I throw 2 pieces of whole wheat bread in the toaster to lightly toast and fill a bag with my prepped lunch, two bananas, a no sugar added apple sauce cup, a bottle of water, and some sauce for lunch. The toaster is done by the time I finish that and I put 1.5-2 Tbsp of grape jelly on them (total, not each) then head out the door and eat them and one banana on the way to work.

When I feel hungry again I eat the apple sauce cup, then the next time I am hungry after that I eat my lunch I prepared which is 1 cup veggies, a half a cup of brown rice, about 4 oz of chicken breast, and 1-2 Tbsp of whatever sauce I was having that day (yum yum sauce, sweet and sour, teriyaki, etc). The next time I feel hungry after that I eat the second banana and that is all I have before I go home. The whole time I am at work I am drinking water and going to the bathroom. I work on the 2nd floor of a 4 floor building and there are two sets of stairs one on the side of the building where my office is and the other on the opposite side of the building where the closest restroom is...so every time I go to the bathroom or go to refill my water bottle I will go down the stairs by my office, walk to the other end of the building towards the bathroom, go up the stairs to the second floor (the second floor has a filtered water bottle fill station but the other floors just have water fountains) then use the restroom and/or refill my water bottle. Afterward I reverse the process so that I get more steps in and more stairs in (I heard somewhere that climbing stairs is much better exercise than walking, lol). When I get home I eat dinner with my wife trying to keep it generally healthy so for example last night we had spaghetti, we used whole wheat spaghetti and only made three servings (for myself, my wife, and my daughter). I added one can of canned traditional sauce and added diced tomatoes and sliced mushrooms to add more veggies and for protein we had Costco turkey meatballs. I got myself out about one serving of the pasta, got enough sauce to cover it and tried to get a good amount of the tomatoes and mushrooms, and where I overdid it was I had 6 meatballs...but still much healthier than I used to eat and I stopped eating when I felt full. Sometimes I don't feel hungry again before bed and sometimes I do, when I do I either eat another apple sauce cup or another banana.

So long story short I have been drinking more water (only averaging about 50 ounces per day but I am working on it), fewer calorie drinks, eating healthier, and exercising more for a month now. I have avoided the scale and I do feel better in general but haven't noticed any other changes (my shirts might fit a LITTLE bit better but it is hard to tell and not enough that it is obvious to myself or others....I weighed myself this morning for the first time since I started and I still weigh 300!

Am I eating too much? Some have said it doesn't sound like I am eating enough but I eat anytime I am hungry? Any suggestions or advice?

queenliz99 · November 2016

If you are not losing then you are not in a deficit. How accurate is your calorie counting? Do you pick the right things from the database? Open your food diary, someone maybe able see any logging errors you may have.

chmcke01 · November 2016

I am fairly certain I should be in a deficit. Since I eat the same things for breakfast and lunch and snacks every day I don't track them every day just when I remember but from the time I wake up until I get home from work I only eat about 900 calories. A nutritionist I saw a few months ago told me that with "very little exercise" I should be able to lose 1-2 pounds per week if I set my limit to 2200 calories per day.

I don't generally track my dinners in my diary unless it is a food that is already in there because it is a pain to add a recipe, etc but I am generally able to estimate the calories based on the nutrition information and portion I ate and I never exceed the 2200 calories daily and am usually under, so that alone should have me in a deficit not counting the calories I burn exercising.

kommodevaran · November 2016

If you aren't losing weight, you aren't good at estimating. If you want to lose weight and what you are doing isn't working: Weigh and log everything. Weight loss only happens when you do the right things. The pain you call it, is the thing you have to do to lose weight.

quiksylver296 · November 2016

Just to confirm - you lost 10 pounds?!? Ten pounds is awesome!!! This isn't The Biggest Loser. Every pound is a victory!

Here's a nifty flowchart you can check out to help make further adjustments.

lynn_glenmont · November 2016

quiksylver296 wrote: »

Just to confirm - you lost 10 pounds?!? Ten pounds is awesome!!! This isn't The Biggest Loser. Every pound is a victory!

I think you misread it. OP said he lost 10 lbs on Advocare and then regained it. He hasn't lost anything estimating his food intake for what he thinks is 2200 calories. At 300 lbs, he should be losing on 2200 calories even without exercise, so clearly, like a great many people, he's not good at estimating how much he's eating.

rosey35 · November 2016

Get a food scale and start logging until you know your calories being eaten, you can't say how much you're eating. You need to log when you don't feel like it or can't be bothered to do so good luck with your journey

chmcke01 · November 2016

I could be wrong but I think the issue may have been that the scale wasn't working right when I did my start weight. I know you are supposed to weigh a few times to make sure the scale says the same thing and I have had the issue before where it reads high or low if the scale isn't flat like if one corner was on top of the bathroom rug or something but I didn't that day...I just stepped on, saw I had gained 10 pounds back and got off disappointed in myself. It is possible I had gained more back than I thought.

The reason I think this is because I track the calories of the meals I eat for dinner, just not in MFP. When I said I estimated I meant the portion...so I just use a calculator to add up the total calories of the meal I prepared (so 3 servings of spaghetti plus one can of tomatoes plus one can of mushrooms plus one can of sauce plus 15 meatballs equals x calories), then I estimate how much of that I ate...so for example that evening I estimated that I ate 40%, my wife ate 40%, and my daughter ate 20%. Even if I ate the whole meal myself which I know I didn't I would have just barely gone over the 2200 calories for the day and that isn't even counting exercise.

Another reason I think that may be the case is that I weighed myself again this morning (3 times to make sure it was level and gave the same result every time) I was down 2 pounds from what I was Tuesday morning. This is also a scale that was purchased from Walmart for $18 over 5 years ago so that could be part of the problem as well.

I don't know if I should do a new post for this but I would love it if anyone could provide insight into the following:

1. I have read countless times on these forums that macros don't matter for weight loss and the only thing that matters is that the calories burned in a day exceed the calories taken in...is this true? I notice MFP has me on a ratio of 50C-30F-20P...and this seemed weird since most people seem to say that carbs should be at most equal to the other two?

2. Along this same vein...does time of day matter? I try to eat healthy all day and I don't starve myself at all, if I get hungry before a meal time I have a healthy snack to tide me over...but even considering this I probably eat half my calories for the day in the 4 hours before I go to bed. Since I am within my calorie allotment for the day does it matter that the majority are in the later part of the day?

3. Similar again...does it matter if I eat unhealthy foods as long as I fit them into my calories? For example I ate healthy all day yesterday until dinner. I ended up having to work late unexpectedly for a project and had already eaten my healthy snacks I had on hand and was hungry, so on the way home I swung by Rallys and got their 4 for $3 (a Rally burger with cheese, small fry, small drink, and apple pie...but I gave away the pie to a coworker because I don't like apple pie). They fit into my calorie allotment and I was running around the office a lot trying to get the project done and actually got a decent number of steps (MFP automatically adds my steps as exercise via Google Fit on my smart watch) and had about 900 calories left for the day after factoring in the exercise. When I got home my wife had made brownies and I had one and still finished with over 500 calories remaining according to MFP and I tracked everything that went in my mouth yesterday. Obviously I know those things aren't good for me, but can/will I continue to lose weight if I occasionally eat them as long as I fit them into my calorie limit for the day?

4. This is more marriage advice than anything...I weigh more than my wife but she is also shorter and we have very similar BMI's. She eats the healthy foods as long as I make them and that is fine, but she also insists on having junk food in the house because she "needs chocolate after a hard day at work." This is hard for me especially at this initial stage to have junk food readily available and avoid it...I do best to just remove the temptation and not have it in the house so if I do get a craving I settle for a healthier option like peanut butter on a rice cake or something. Has anyone else dealt with this and have any suggestions? I asked her to hide them but she just ended up putting them in a clear plastic tub in our room on her side of the bed which doesn't really count as hiding it in my opinion, lol.

Anyway, sorry again for the long post. Thanks in advance for anyone who responds.

jadelois · November 2016

In brief to answer your 4 questions. 1) I think you can afford to up your protein to 30 and drop your carbs to 40 and still be pretty comfortable but nutritionally getting a better balance. Its the calorie total (in vs out) that determines weight loss though. 2) Nope time of day doesn't matter so long as calories out > calories in. 3) You probably know what I'm going to say here

however micronutrients are important and too much sodium can cause you to retain fluid so as such no it doesn't but for me if I don't get a healthy balance of foods in then then I'm more prone to picking/binging which is obviously detrimental to weight loss. 4) Maybe ask her again and tell her you struggle when its so readily available so could she do a decent job of hiding it. She should be supportive of your efforts however this isn't her problem per se and you yourself have to find a way of controlling yourself around these foods too.

If you want any more specific help then keep a truthful diary over a week or so, compare that with what you lose and then make it available for others to see.

crzycatlady1 · November 2016

chmcke01 wrote: »

I am fairly certain I should be in a deficit. Since I eat the same things for breakfast and lunch and snacks every day I don't track them every day just when I remember but from the time I wake up until I get home from work I only eat about 900 calories. A nutritionist I saw a few months ago told me that with "very little exercise" I should be able to lose 1-2 pounds per week if I set my limit to 2200 calories per day.

I don't generally track my dinners in my diary unless it is a food that is already in there because it is a pain to add a recipe, etc but I am generally able to estimate the calories based on the nutrition information and portion I ate and I never exceed the 2200 calories daily and am usually under, so that alone should have me in a deficit not counting the calories I burn exercising.

Weight loss is a math game and you have to make sure you're working with correct data. That means knowing you're in the correct calorie deficit for your weight loss goals. Are you measuring out portion sizes using a food scale, set to grams? Are you recording everything you're eating and drinking, and are you staying within the calorie parameters that MFP set for you?

You're doing a great job trying to lose the weight/improve your health, now you just need to get the details ironed out a bit better and you'll be good to go

Dogmom1978 · November 2016

OP do you weigh your foods or "eyeball"? If you don't have a food scale yet, get one and use it. Second, what method are you using to judge your distance walked? You said 1.5-3 miles, but if you are getting that info from a step caclulator, unless it can access your phones gps, they are wildly inaccurate. Those are the main things I would start with based on your post. Maybe I missed where you mentioned weighing your food.

ahoy_m8 · November 2016

Start with a food scale. Seriously. It will save you so much hassle and frustration. Since you mention peanut butter, many many sad faces around here when people weigh it the first time vs. measuring spoons. It's a shocker.

When you have a big family with lots of snacks in the pantry that are not on your plan, it is hard at first. What helps me is
(1) putting my snack food in a different cabinet
(2) asking myself if it's really worth the calories or if there's something I'd genuinely enjoy more for the calories
(3) pre logging

It takes practice but gets easier the longer you stick with it.

ETA: The recipe builder is your friend. Saves huge time for dinners you make often. You only have to enter it once.

Unknown · November 2016

This content has been removed.

trigden1991 · November 2016

A) Make sure your scales are working

Make sure you are in a calorie deficit
C) Use a food scale to weigh EVERYTHING you eat/drink

daffjr · November 2016

Best way to tell if your on track.....Measurements! put on your tightest clothing. In a month try them on again. Measuring is way more accurate than weighing. Also i found that if your diet is good enough, you shouldn't feel like all the (nasty but tasty) food. I've lost 17 pounds in 6 weeks. I was 250 pounds. Oh, one more thing meal prep is the way to go. Lots of info on Pintetest and YouTube

crzycatlady1 · November 2016

What do you mean-a diet that's 'good enough' And what's nasty food? I hate Brussels sprouts and cabbage, so those would definitely be in the 'nasty' column for me, but obviously these foods aren't nasty to those who like them.

PennWalker · November 2016

2. Along this same vein...does time of day matter?

No, the time of day you eat doesn't matter for weight loss. Plenty of people work on a night shift and lose weight just fine.

I try to eat healthy all day and I don't starve myself at all, if I get hungry before a meal time I have a healthy snack to tide me over...but even considering this I probably eat half my calories for the day in the 4 hours before I go to bed. Since I am within my calorie allotment for the day does it matter that the majority are in the later part of the day?

No, the way you allot your calories shouldn't matter. BUT if you add low calorie food that will fill you up, you should stay feeling full longer. Vegetables are your friends for hunger -- steamed leafy greens, sliced vegetables simmered or stir fried, salads, etc. give you a lot of bulk and fiber with low calories.

3. Similar again...does it matter if I eat unhealthy foods as long as I fit them into my calories? For example I ate healthy all day yesterday until dinner.....Obviously I know those things aren't good for me, but can/will I continue to lose weight if I occasionally eat them as long as I fit them into my calorie limit for the day?

People lose weight by calories, not the type of food. If you are trying for better nutrition as well as losing weight, most people can stick with it if they allow some treats and favorite foods instead of cutting all those foods out completely (unless you have a medical problem and absolutely can't eat something, or have trigger foods you can't stop eating once you start).

goldthistime · November 2016

chmcke01 wrote: »

...the issue may have been that the scale wasn't working right..."

...3 servings of spaghetti plus one can of tomatoes plus one can of mushrooms plus one can..."

...MFP has me on a ratio of 50C-30F-20P...

I probably eat half my calories for the day in the 4 hours before I go to bed. Since I am within my calorie allotment for the day does it matter that the majority are in the later part of the day?

...does it matter if I eat unhealthy foods as long as I fit them into my calories?

"she just ended up putting them in a clear plastic tub"

Scales measure only weight changes, including water weight which you don't care about. You care about fat loss. Try not to get too hung up on short term fluctuations. Easier said than done, I know, but it's important. As much as possible, I try gauge my success by how well I am sticking to the plan. Longer term changes (a month or more) tell you whether you need to adjust your plan.

I use the same 50C 30F 20P ratio. The macro I focus on is the 20P. I treat it as a minimum. Some days I may get more (up to 30), which is great. Not sustainable for me personally to get 30% of my calories in protein day in and day out. Mind you, meeting this macro has nothing to do with weight loss, only fullness, and perhaps muscle retention.

Canned foods and fast food have more sodium than fresh food, which can cause water retention. Water retention doesn't affect your real goal of losing fat, so keep doing what you're doing, but be aware that the scales might be affected. Making the weight loss process as easy as possible is important so I want to repeat, no need to ditch the canned foods.

Time of day doesn't matter. Personally I find it easier to eat to my hunger levels earlier in the day (which I track) and then ignore hunger cues and stick to my numbers in the evening (which means I tend to eat less in the evening). But if you're tracking accurately, it doesn't matter one iota. Making the process easy is what counts.

"Unhealthy foods", aka enticing foods with low satiating properties, can fit in, especially if they are a small % of your overall intake. If you can't bring yourself to track accurately though, and are using fullness cues primarily, they're going to make it tougher.

Just buy her an opaque bin. Out of sight, out of mind. What you're really saying is that you want her to follow your lead. You know yourself, you're ready only when you're ready. Your example may yet inspire her.

fitmom4lifemfp · November 2016

chmcke01 wrote: »

I am fairly certain I should be in a deficit. Since I eat the same things for breakfast and lunch and snacks every day I don't track them every day just when I remember but from the time I wake up until I get home from work I only eat about 900 calories. A nutritionist I saw a few months ago told me that with "very little exercise" I should be able to lose 1-2 pounds per week if I set my limit to 2200 calories per day.

I don't generally track my dinners in my diary unless it is a food that is already in there because it is a pain to add a recipe, etc but I am generally able to estimate the calories based on the nutrition information and portion I ate and I never exceed the 2200 calories daily and am usually under, so that alone should have me in a deficit not counting the calories I burn exercising.

If you aren't losing, then you aren't in a deficit. There's no way around that.

Am I eating enough/too much to lose weight?

Replies

Categories