Crossfit, counting calories, no weight loss!

The thing you have to understand is that you did not reach your current weight by eating reasonable portions. You got there because your perception of what is a large portion or a small portion is incorrect. So when you say "I didn't eat much", you are probably wrong about that.

I know this may sound harsh, but it's not coming from a cruel place - it's coming from experience. We've been where you are now and we know how badly skewed our ideas of proper portions were, how we would eat twice or three times what we needed just because we didn't know better.

The only way out of this is to weigh your food accurately. You may not need to weigh it forever, but you need to keep doing it for long enough that you really see how inflated your portions were, and really start to learn the proper portion sizes. Some of them will shock you. I know a lot of people on here were shocked by how small an ounce of cheese really is, or a portion of cereal, how many calories are really in a slice of bread or a bowl of ice cream.

It is hard. It's a tough process. But it's the only way to get the weight off, and you can absolutely do it.

cwolfman13 wrote: »

Getting back on track...

OP, I think you will find using a food scale to be very helpful...I know I did. Some people do fine with just guestimating portions...I wasn't one of those. The good news is that over time I did develop a pretty good knack for estimating my portions so 4.5 years later I don't weigh all the thingz...just the calorie dense ones that get me in trouble...and most meats.

It's an eye opener for a lot of people.

Agree. OP, it sounds like you're buying a food scale soon, so good on you. I suggest you use it religiously and reassess your progress in a month. If your weight loss is still stalled out at that point, let us know and we'll give you some guidance on other possible causes.

I think someone already said this, but I'd just like to echo the idea that keeping your food simple will help with logging also!

It can get boring to eat the same things all the time, but when you first start out it's nice to know exactly what you're consuming so that you know for sure whether your MFP-prescribed calorie goal is accurate and working for you.

Hang in there, don't give up!

matchbox_girl wrote: »

I guess I was confused because half of you are simply counting calories and swear by it and half of you are weighing your food by grams and swear by it, and I assume both ways are working.....?

Accurately counting calories means weighing and measuring your food. So it's really only one way. Counting calories is NOT a guessing game.

You also may want to double check your MFP recommended calories. We are close to the same size and MFP has me at 1200 at a (not quite) 2 lb. per week lose rate. I don't plan on eating back any exercise calories. Also look at your nutrition. I find that I lose much more weight eating lean meat, veggies, and fruit than I do eating processed foods.

You may also want to set your goals in 20-25 lb. increments. I've done this and it has really helped me - down over 150 lbs so far!

Lots of great advice above...accuracy, food reality (restaurant, estimates, weighing), etc.

Apologies if these are duplicate but I didn't see them (exactly)...

Specific to water retention, to help combat it (and sodium), intake needs to very high, more water than you've ever consumed. If you aren't complaining about how many times you've got to pop into the ladies room/day, you probably aren't drinking enough water...especially with new exercise.

In various forms, folks covered it above but to make it simple, once you really are logging accurately, keep this in mind "weight loss is not linear". You can go weeks without losing and then bam, 2 lbs (or whatever) down. Keep it up!

You may want to have a body measurement log too, if you are switching out fat for muscle this is a better way to tell if you are making progress. (myfitnesspal has an area to track these and a myo body tape is only $7.00)

zyxst wrote: »

Eating better and exercising doesn't mean you will lose weight. My advice is to be as accurate as you can with weighing/measuring/portioning out your food, eat back half of your exercise calories (if you're already doing this, eat less back), and be as sure as possible that you're eating at a deficit.

This. In order to lose weight you need to be at the correct calorie deficit for your weight goals. Doesn't matter what types of foods you're eating though, or what exercise you're doing. If you're not losing then you're not at a deficit.

I lost 50lbs and improved all my health markers-all while eating fast food several times a week and doing absolutely no exercise. But I was at a calorie deficit and lost the weight

bookstatic wrote: »

I've dropped two pants sizes in two months doing crossfit, and the scale is barely budging, after an initial loss. It's muscle. If you were sedentary before and doing crossfit now, you are putting on TONS of muscle. How else would inches disappear and the scale not change? Take measurements.

I'm sorry but this isn't physiologically possible. Newbie gains are a thing but by her own admission she's been doing the crossfit for a while so those have been and gone. You cannot "gain" anything without a surplus and even then, for women it's incredibly slow even if all things are being done perfectly and you have amazing genes to allow for faster mass building. You're looking at 0.5-1lb per month.

There is a tightening effect with exercise but if the scale isn't moving for months on end, you're eating too much. I lost quite a few inches in 6 weeks, it wasn't muscle, it was the scale not catching up yet. I had several whooshes after that.