Frusturated beyond belief

RudeboyCantFail wrote: »

Might I suggest you take a step back and look at the positive: You've lost about 1/2 pound per week over the last year and a half - that's awesome! 30+ pounds!! And it's despite the fact you've done "the weight loss thing on an off." Maybe it's not as fast as you are expecting/desiring, but that's great success...so keep going!

PAV8888 wrote: »

I will disagree with the vast majority of people here.

First of all double check your figures on Scooby.

Secondly 25% is too much. 20% max would be appropriate.

Thirdly you're not doing "light exercise"

Fourthly you're possibly over logging what you eat. Banana raw entries are for the raw pealed fruit. Unless you peeled the bananas to weigh them, you are recording significantly excess cslories when you eat a banana.

Fifth with a partial recomp attempt and exercise taking place use a weight trending web site or app. You weigh every day the fit for a trending app is great and at worse it is an extra data point to consider, and best it is sanity saving.

"Starvation mode is not a thing". Uh-huh. But adapting to burn the least amount of calories that you can when under eating for your activity and exercise level IS a thing, and the result is slower than expected weight loss.

You are THINKING you're going for a 25% deficit, you are actually probably hitting 40% plus "expected" deficits and becoming as efficient at not burning calories as you can ESPECIALLY when coupled with a long period of previous 1200s and sub 1000 nets in the past which is implied in your post when you say you're doing it more "right" this time.

Have you used an activity tracker before? How much do you move in a day other than deliberate exercise that you account for separately?

So, I am not sure that the calories you don't record for your "zero" calories spray (nothing is zero calories in sufficient quantities) are more than your under recorded banana.

But unless you are extremely sedentary other than during these exercise sessions (and I mean not getting up from a chair for more than a total of 30 minutes in a day), I would seriously start thinking about cutting out all exercise at the 1500 Cal level OR looking at more calories if you want to effectively perform all this exercise and get results for your efforts.

In any case results are seen in 4-6 weeks of consistent effort. If you ARE effectively recomping, the scale will move very little.

In case it is lost to the agony of the starvation mode shoot down, the result of adaptation is lower than expected NEAT and more efficient exercising. Thus TDEE falls below expected and CI has to be lowered to actually create the desired deficit.

So from one point of view, eating less to lose weight is always an option.

From my point of view, eating the most that you can while still meeting your goals is the ONLY correct and long term flexibility promoting option.

sunparakeet wrote: »

coolcoci_115 wrote: »

I've now realized it's important to weigh all food raw, and then weigh when it's cooked as there is a drastic difference in the water content when cooked. I was logging 100 grams of sweet potato after I baked in the oven, but really raw 100 grams of raw sweet potato is equivalent to around 60-65 grams baked.

If you weigh food raw there is no need to weigh it again cooked. If 100 grams of raw sweet potato is 86 calories, it's still going to be 86 calories after cooking even if it weighs less due to water loss. Same is true of all foods. 45 grams of dry rice is 160 calories. Cook that rice and it will weigh over 100 grams due to water absorption but it's still 160 calories.

Look for USDA entries for raw foods in the database, for thinks like produce and meat. I always use raw weight whenever possible.

shoofly435 wrote: »

coolcoci_115 wrote: »

I'm resurrecting this post after I have done more research into weight loss plateaus. The majority of posts I've found refer to one of two things:

1) Ensuring accurate measurement of food
2) Patience and allowing time for body to change

After posting a week ago and today was meal prep day I took a really hard look at exactly what I was eating. I realized I was underestimating approximately 135 calories per day or 945 calories per week. This amounts to 0.27 pounds per week. I've now realized it's important to weigh all food raw, and then weigh when it's cooked as there is a drastic difference in the water content when cooked. I was logging 100 grams of sweet potato after I baked in the oven, but really raw 100 grams of raw sweet potato is equivalent to around 60-65 grams baked. The same thing with with all the meat, especially the steak which is more calorie dense then the leaner proteins in my diet (chicken, tilapia, and somewhat salmon).

But more importantly I've come to the realization that I was probably only very slightly below maintenance (1797 kcal) for the entire month of January as I was nearly immobile for the majority of the day. Eating at 1550 kcal / day would only put me at a 250 cal deficit per day or 0.5 lb/ week and if I had a cheat meal at some point during that time I would have wiped out the majority of any deficit.

I've also only just recently increased dramatically the amount of exercise I do from 0 times a week to 3 times a week to 6 times a week of cardio and strength training. This dramatic change may be causing water retention and I have not given enough time to see changes.

So for all that have been asking, I've made my diary public now. The last few days are the most accurate, but I've realized that I just need to stay consistent and honest. I have all the pieces in the right places now and just have to trust in the physics.

OP - I have been following this thread and feel for you. You said you are in the medical field so I'm just going to throw this out there FYI and not to start a controversy..... But....The whole notion that weight loss is purely CICO is controversial. Do your own research - there's a lot of evidence that CICO is outdated and simplistic. I can give you an anecdotal example of this. Five years ago my DH was diagnosed with young onset Parkinson's disease - he was 48. Within 6 weeks of starting Sinemet, which is dopamine replacement, he mysteriously lost 30 lbs. I assure you he has a healthy appetite and was not eating less. His doctors (Neurologists) are all clueless. They insisted he must be moving more, since Sinemet worked so well with him. I assure you he may have started moving a little more, but he was still basically sedentary. In any event, to lose 30 lbs in 6 weeks just via movement, if that's even possible, it would take intensive exercise 5 or 6 hours a day - I assure you that was not happening.

So the point is, no one can explain the weight loss, which shows that it's way more complicated than CICO. In my Dhs case, the only thing that changed was tuning up his levels of the neurotransmitter Dopamine. Go figure.

If I were in your shoes, with all your awesome Data, I would try to track down some kind of braniac nutrition/metabolism/fitness expert, someone who is familiar with the latest research and can think outside the box. I have no idea what's going on with you, but I have never seen such an intense effort yield no results. Maybe your diet needs to be tweaked in some way (carbs, whatever...) I am not remotely any kind of expert - I've just witnessed that CICO is not the whole story.

Best wishes.