Correct Calories, Not Losing Weight

Quite a few folks here have suggested using a food scale vs. cup measurements. I can attest to its effectiveness - it's made a world of difference for me. It's not a holistic answer for you by any means, but certainly something to think about trying.

if you make your/his food diaries open as well, ppl can take a look and provide recommendations

I have found for myself when I plateu is to either do 1 of 2 things. Either I massively increase my water intake - around 1.5 gallons - for 2 days before going back to around 1 gallon a day. That helps to flush out your system and get rid of a lot of excess water weight. Or option 2 is I take 2 days off my diet and go 7-800 calories over my daily intake just to give my metabolism a shock. Make sure you increase water intake with option 2 as you will have an increased intake of salt.

I also suggest to try over a week or two to have your daily water consumption around 1 gallon a day - 3.7 litres or 15 cups -. I have noticed a world of difference in alertness, energy and a lack of plateuing since I did it.

I'm 6'2" tall, weighed 305 when I started. I hit my initial goal of 190 within one year. I put myself at a 20% deficit at the start, then exercised and ate back 50% of those calories. The loss averaged around 2 lb/week for that year. there were times I lost less, stayed the same, or lost more than 2 lb a week. The one thing I can tell you is that my rate of weight loss was unhealthy and resulted in several injuries in that year. If I had to do it again, I'd probably set myself at 10% deficit, and eat back closer to 80% of my exercise calories and just let the weight loss take longer. Here's what I would suggest:

1) Figure out your TDEE without exercise first. For me, at 6'2" tall 305 lbs, it's 2681 calories according to iifym.com. Now, at 180lbs (my current weight), it's 2027 calories.

See the difference? Make sure that as he loses weight he's re-calculating his TDEE! It goes down as his weight goes down because it takes less effort for him to do every day tasks.

2) Choose the amount of deficit you want. If you want to lose roughly 1 lb a week, it's 3500 calories or so for that week, which calculates out to 500 calories a day. So use the calculator (either at iifym.com or one of your choosing) to figure your current TDEE without exercise, then subtract 500 from that number and set that as your daily goal. I'll bet you'll be under the calories you're set at now.

3) Use a HR monitor along with an app you trust to measure calories burned during exercise and link your app or device to MFP so those calories are added to your diary. Now.. once you have those.. don't trust it. Eat back no more than 80% of those calories each day, I started at 50% an adjusted over time. Most people start at 50%.

4) Plateaus are normal. If they last more than a couple of weeks I'd likely start looking closely at your calculations, but still until it lasts 3 weeks or more I wouldn't adjust anything. If the weight loss doesn't start up again then adjust your calories down 100 or 200 and give it a few weeks. Or simply re-calculate based on current weight.

5) Every time you lose 5 lbs re-calculate your daily goals. They will change. This will help you reduce the amount of plateaus you encounter along the way.

6) Remember, sodium can cause water weight gain, especially around big meals or holidays, so ignore plateaus around those times or even small gains. It's even worse for women around TOM. Get back on track then look at the weight again a week or so later.

7) I have a desk job so I calculate everything as sedentary to start with. But if your SO is active daily (factory job, teacher on their feet all day, etc.) without additional exercise you can adjust that with a good calculator like iifym.com's.

Good luck. To me it sounds like there may be 2 problems going on:

Your daily calorie goals probably need adjusting.
You should be weighing all solid foods in grams or ounces to be more accurate.

As always, just my opinion, based on my own experiences.

So many cups and fractions of cups. Do you weigh anything? 'A little mayo' can be hundreds of calories if you're not careful.

Yes to the food scale! I've had some products where if I used the measuring cup suggestion versus measuring the grams on my digital scale I would have actually been eating twice the calories

How long has it been since he has lost any weight?
Is he logging everything he eats and drinks? Can we look at a food diary?
Is he using a digital food scale and choosing accurate entries? You give measurements for breakfast foods but not others so it is hard to say how off the calories may be.

I would tighten up accuracy of logging first.

rough TDEE for your SO's side with a sedentary lifestyle is 2500(ish) - I used mid 30's as an age, since that wasn't given...it goes up to 2800 with light activity and higher as you go; I'd go with maybe light activity and try maybe 22-2300 a day

but like others have said, weight everything - it'll help

if you open up the diary that will also help

You can try setting him to 1.5lbs/week deficit for a while to see if that helps, that would be 750 cal per day instead of 500. As far as weight lifting, a tough workout can cause water weight gain while the body recovers, but adding muscle just isn't that fast for most people. It can take months to add a pound of muscle or more. Usually muscle is added at a much slower rate than fat. What are his overall stats, I'm assuming 6'1" tall, 215 lbs.. what about age and current daily activity level without added exercise? That way it can all be plugged into calculators so that people can give you their opinions on a target daily calorie intake. Also, the scale will blow your mind, and it's inexpensive, so no reason not to consider it. A decent one on Amazon can cost you $25 or less delivered to your door. To weigh things like mayonnaise, you simply weigh the bread, zero out the scale, then add mayo and re-weigh in grams. Makes things simple. For things like salads, I put my bowl or plate on the scale, zero it out (tare) add each ingredient zeroing the scale each time to weigh the next. Even dressing, since it's probably 70% of the calories in a salad, zero the scale out again with the salad on it, then weigh the dressing as you pour in grams. Easy peasy. Once you start using one you'll be surprised how inaccurate volume measurements were in the first place.

I'm interested in how you make out with this, mostly because I hope to have your husbands problem in a few months. I'm an accountant so I sit on my *kitten* all day. I'm 285 (down from 330) and have set my goal at 220 (overweight), but know I will want to get below that.

Just a comment on what Spliner1969 posted about weighing condiments. Somewhere I read that it is easier to weigh the container before taking the mayo (zero it out) and then once you have used it. The difference is what you used. I'm finding that works well for me.

The MFP food diary seems to be good enough. It's not perfect, but I've not seen a better one.

And congrats to him for getting down to where he is.

Now can I start with the lawyer jokes?

grmckenzie wrote: »

I'm an accountant so I sit on my *kitten* all day.

Brutal.

A temporary change in weight could be a blip due to water weight changing, though it seemed to come at a time when he increased his cals in. Correlation is not always the same thing as causation.

Get a food scale, start using it, to figure out what calories he is really taking in. By using cups/spoons it is a guess as to how much he is consuming. Logging 1950 means nothing if there is no accuracy.

MyFitnessPal-the site you're on now-is great for logging...

Ready2Rock206 wrote: »

He isn't weighing his food, he isn't logging his food, he doesn't appear to be involved in the process at all. Is he interested in losing weight or is this your idea? As others have mentioned it is highly possible he's eating when you're not around. This really needs to be something he is doing for himself. He's a big boy - time to pull up his big boy pants and do the work. Stop trying to mommy him.

Agreed with this.
1. Food scale. Cups and spoons are VERY inaccurate. And yes, so inaccurate that he may not even be losing weight/be in maintenance.
2. Log weighed food and measured beverages on MFP. Log bites and tastes. My husband has his own mfp and I don't interfere. I am losing weight for me, and he is losing weight for him. We may be married but we're still two different people.