1 month in, ready to give up. 3lb off, 2lb on.
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I am eating lowish fat but good fats and a reasonable amount of carbs. Averaging 1600-1700 cals a day. Slow loss of 114 kg to 105-106 kg in 4 months which included 5 weeks off diet due to holidays etc. Minimal exercise due to dodgy hip....it can be done! I am the same height as the OP and also older.... my chart is similar to the one shown earlier in that it is not linear.... it can be frustrating so hang on in there!0
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I see two options. You can either give up and be fat or you can continue for another month and even if it is exactly like this month you will be two pounds lighter than you started. But more than likely, the weight gain is just a normal weight fluctuation and next month you'll be several pounds lighter.10
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I'm no expert, but I'd say that if this is your first month of calorie counting and you've lost 1 pound the entire month, something is wrong. Either you have fed some bad info in to MFP regarding your weight and activity level, or you are misjudging your portions, or... something. Perhaps your body just has an abnormally slow metabolism and you need to adjust. Tweak something and try again. Maybe your bathroom scale is nuts. Maybe you need to tell MFP that you're sedentary. Those things affect your target calories per day. Are you getting enough sleep? Drinking enough water?
OP didn't just lose 1lb, she has fluctuated between losing 3lb and 1lb, this doesn't indicate that anything is wrong, it's quite a normal fluctuation for a woman.On the other hand, you say you've never been as active as you are right now. That could also cause you to lose more slowly in the short term, as you are likely building muscle. Muscle is more dense than fat, and you could be slimming without the scale detecting it. Are you also using a tape measure to track progress? Granted, that's a bit trickier to measure accurately, but the scale is only a single datapoint and not the whole story. Oh, and if you log exercise into MFP, don't make the mistake of eating all those calories back (they automatically add your exercise calories to your daily goal).
To the bolded bit - nope - highly unlikely that you would be building muscle eating in a 600-900 calorie deficit, OP has already stated that she is regularly under her calorie goal.3 -
theledger5 wrote: »It's not my time of month. Last week when I weighed and had lost it was just as my period had ended. It's just so disheartening. I know it's not linear but I have waited for a full month and was hoping that more than 1lb would be lost. It hardly seems to the effort when I factor in my efforts at exercise which I have been doing since January. Last week I burned 18500 cals and ate only 11500. I've looked back on all my meal planning and made sure I weigh food and usually over estimate on some things just to be on safe side. I feel hungry a lot of the time so not seeing the results is feeling frustrating.
It doesn't need to be TOM to happen.
My ovulation is 2 weeks before and that is when I gain.
Your gain times in 29 days to your last gain you posted about. If your using trend weight and can see that then I don't under stand why your worrying.
We are never one weight, we are a weight range within 4-5 lbs. A change of 2lbs is normal fluctuation.6 -
Don't let what the scale says dictate how you feel. If you know you have stuck to a calorie deficit, logged food accurately and tracked your exercise then you will have lost fat.
Water weight fluctuates and masks true weight loss.5 -
2 lbs could literally be that you haven't pooped today or that you had a bit too much sodium yesterday. It doesn't mean anything.trigden1991 wrote: »Don't let what the scale says dictate how you feel. If you know you have stuck to a calorie deficit, logged food accurately and tracked your exercise then you will have lost fat.
Water weight fluctuates and masks true weight loss.
This. Trust the science (as long as you're logging properly).5 -
Thanks for all the advice. I have opened up my diary so feel free to have a look and offer any more advice. I genuinely feel I need to cut calories even more as I'm not convinced the Fitbit is accurate with the figures. I'm aiming for 1000 a day deficit and feel I am doing this but it's just not showing. In the past I have done slimming world and feel I've eaten lots more food and over a month I would have lost 1/2 stone. I don't want to go back to the SW trap as I know long term it doesn't work but at the same time I get annoyed at seeing friends lose massive amounts over shorter time and I barely lose a couple of lbs in a month. Grrrrr!1
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I have had a thyroidectomy as well are you positive you are medicated correctly and have optimized free t3 levels? Also how's your vitamin D and ferritin levels? They tend to be deficient with hypothyroidism. Do you have any other medical issues and are on meds? Are you in perimenopause? I started at 40. Any other meds and health issues can stall weight loss for some people.0
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As my pt told me get off the scales. She would get hysterical texts about how my weight went up and down. And i too at times would cry. Use a tape measure. I actually weigh more now as I do weights but losing inches. Having said that im in my early fifties. Got girlie guns. Skinny legs. But the pooch is going down so slowly. 16 months. 4 pt sessions a week. 60km on the bike a week. Swimming. I was training for my first triathlon. Never lost a thing. So annoying. But I just keep on going. Nothing processed. Only fresh food. No sweeties. I cant be trusted so dont touch them. Protein is very important too for weight loss. I dont think of it as a diet but a life change.2
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I ran your stats through a TDEE calculator, and your sedentary TDEE looks to be 1900. So to lose approximately 1lbs a week, you should be consuming 1400 net calories per day.
Here's my suggestions:
- Track your intake as accurately as possible. That means using a digital kitchen scale, finding the most accurate MFP database entries and tracking every little thing that goes into your mouth.
- Eat back only half of your exercise calories. It can be difficult to get an accurate number for calories burned, so always err on the side of less. And only eat back calories if you're actually hungry and need to eat.
- Weight fluctuations are totally normal. Your weight can bounce around a few pounds day-by-day, due to a lot of factors you can't control. Try not to let it get you down. Weigh regularly, track those fluctuations and look for the downwards slope on your chart over several months. Then you'll know you're on the right track.6 -
This might be where I am going wrong. I presumed with my activity levels that I am not sedentary. I train 4 times a week doing high intensity cardio classes and boxing, plus 10k + steps a day on average. Perhaps I am eating more still than my body needs .1
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theledger5 wrote: »This might be where I am going wrong. I presumed with my activity levels that I am not sedentary. I train 4 times a week doing high intensity cardio classes and boxing, plus 10k + steps a day on average. Perhaps I am eating more still than my body needs .
I personally like using my sedentary TDEE as my baseline, then manually logging my daily exercises to determine how many extra calories I can eat on top of my baseline.
So for example - my sedentary TDEE is 1700. I want a 300 calorie deficit, so I'm eating 1400 calories per day. On a lazy day with no exercise, I eat only 1400 calories. If I go for a half hour run, it might say I burned 300 calories. I don't totally trust that number, so I will only eat back 150 calories. So my total for the day will be 1550.
Now - this works for me because I have a desk job. So my activity level is very low when I'm not purposefully working out. If you have a job where you're on your feet and walking around a lot, your baseline TDEE would be higher.
Hope that helps.2 -
theledger5 wrote: »I do use happy scale to trend the loss. I love my exercise and it's really been the catalyst in changing my mood and helping with joint pain so I don't want to give it up. But I don't see the changes either in the mirror, clothes or on the scales. I am however stronger and fitter so I guess the changes are internal.
I would definitely not consider giving up the exercise ever. and I don't know what workouts you do, or what youre eating, but its only been a month. Honestly most of your weight loss is going to be contributed to your change in diet than the exercise anyway. Don't worry about the scale. Maybe you havent yet lost enough weight to see results but if you keep working it will happen. Maybe with the amount of calories youre burning, you should stick to the recommended 1800 calories and see if that makes a difference. When I was doing bootcamp, I actually had to increase my calories a bit, and it was usually calories in the form of a recovery snack like a protein shake.1 -
Looking at your diary, there are some easy switches you can do that might help. Ditch the breakfast cereal for something like eggs or oatmeal, swap out the mayo for plain greek yogurt, little things like that. Also, are you planning your calories out ahead of time or eating what you find and then logging them? If you can plan a little ahead of time, it's easier to figure out what the healthy swaps are. All those little things add up.3
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You are A, over estimating calories burned. B, under estimating calories eaten. C, both A&B or D, you have a medical issue.2
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If it's any consolation to you, I had a counselor at Jenny Craig accuse me of not sticking to the plan many years ago. I was soooo pissed...I had been exercising, eating what I was supposed to eat, drinking enough water to fill a built-in pool. I had only lost 1 lb...but guess what? I HAD LOST 17 INCHES in that month! The scale is not the only form of measurement when it comes to weight loss/slimming down. Just a thought...6
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Looking at your diary, there are some easy switches you can do that might help. Ditch the breakfast cereal for something like eggs or oatmeal, swap out the mayo for plain greek yogurt, little things like that. Also, are you planning your calories out ahead of time or eating what you find and then logging them? If you can plan a little ahead of time, it's easier to figure out what the healthy swaps are. All those little things add up.
as long as she is sticking to her goal calories, then switching our cereal for eggs/oatmeal etc is not needed - calories in/calories out - a calorie is a unit of energy
now for satiation, potentially consider switching foods up - but its not required to lose weight4 -
theledger5 wrote: »This might be where I am going wrong. I presumed with my activity levels that I am not sedentary. I train 4 times a week doing high intensity cardio classes and boxing, plus 10k + steps a day on average. Perhaps I am eating more still than my body needs .
I personally like using my sedentary TDEE as my baseline, then manually logging my daily exercises to determine how many extra calories I can eat on top of my baseline.
So for example - my sedentary TDEE is 1700. I want a 300 calorie deficit, so I'm eating 1400 calories per day. On a lazy day with no exercise, I eat only 1400 calories. If I go for a half hour run, it might say I burned 300 calories. I don't totally trust that number, so I will only eat back 150 calories. So my total for the day will be 1550.
Now - this works for me because I have a desk job. So my activity level is very low when I'm not purposefully working out. If you have a job where you're on your feet and walking around a lot, your baseline TDEE would be higher.
Hope that helps.
Yes it does thank you. I generally try not to eat my calories back as I feel it defeats the object of trying to be in deficit. However I do have a desk job 4 days a week- despite this I still manage my 10k steps as I am pretty active before and after work. Weekends are non stop and I walk lots. Having said all this I think I will reduce my cals down to 1400 and see if this helps, I worry I can't maintain this level but for a couple of weeks I will try and see if I notice a change.
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If 1 pound per week is your goal and you are only one month in, I'll reiterate something: you don't have enough data to make a rational decision. You may actually be meeting your goal right now, but since you haven't given the process the time enough to unmask the fluctuations, you can't know. You are making an adjustment based on feelings, not necessarily on fact.
If your intake is being measured accurately, and your burn is close to accurate, the process will work. In this short of a time frame, your fluctuations could mask your progress. On the flip side, if you had lost 8 pounds with your 500 calorie deficit, then fluctuations could exaggerate your progress. Same issue here exists - there is not enough time to determine your actual loss rate because the magnitude of fluctuations are bigger than your intended progress.
Be careful of rash decisions....8
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