Why am I not losing weight? (Macros included)
nikkibay8
Posts: 23 Member
For the past 6 weeks, I have been eating 1400 calories (1550 on workout days).
5'4.5"
136lbs
25.5% Body Fat
Workout 5-6 days/week
-60min heavy lifting and 30 min cardio every time
140g protein per day
140 carbs
30g fat
All protein comes from chicken breast 96/4% lean GB, fat free cottage cheese, and plain Greek yogurt.
Carbs mostly from fruit and oats.
Fat from cashews, avocado, and peanut butter.
I have gained 3 lbs, increased .2% in BF, and my body measurements have increased (less than an inch).
Am I eating too much protein? Someone help! I can't find an answer anywhere. Clothes are fitting the same, cellulite has reduced, same person measured me.
5'4.5"
136lbs
25.5% Body Fat
Workout 5-6 days/week
-60min heavy lifting and 30 min cardio every time
140g protein per day
140 carbs
30g fat
All protein comes from chicken breast 96/4% lean GB, fat free cottage cheese, and plain Greek yogurt.
Carbs mostly from fruit and oats.
Fat from cashews, avocado, and peanut butter.
I have gained 3 lbs, increased .2% in BF, and my body measurements have increased (less than an inch).
Am I eating too much protein? Someone help! I can't find an answer anywhere. Clothes are fitting the same, cellulite has reduced, same person measured me.
0
Replies
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How are you measuring your intake?3
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For the past 6 weeks, I have been eating 1400 calories (1550 on workout days).
5'4.5"
136lbs
25.5% Body Fat
Workout 5-6 days/week
-60min heavy lifting and 30 min cardio every time
140g protein per day
140 carbs
30g fat
All protein comes from chicken breast 96/4% lean GB, fat free cottage cheese, and plain Greek yogurt.
Carbs mostly from fruit and oats.
Fat from cashews, avocado, and peanut butter.
I have gained 3 lbs, increased .2% in BF, and my body measurements have increased (less than an inch).
Am I eating too much protein? Someone help! I can't find an answer anywhere. Clothes are fitting the same, cellulite has reduced, same person measured me.
it's not about macros it's about calories...
How are you logging and measuring your food?4 -
Are the workouts new? If so the lbs could be water weight (which would also account for the increased inches)
Are you weighing all solids and measuring all liquids properly? If not you could be eating a lot more than 1400 calories especially as cashews are notoriously bad for 1/4 cup being WAY MORE than 28g (I measured 5 different 1/4 cup scoops and the lightest one was over 40g which is 1.5 servings)
Are you close to TOM for the second measurement?
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In addition to the above, how are you measuring your bf%?1
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You should consider setting your food diary to "open" or "public" (I forget which they call it).
This will allow some people to take a look at specifics that may be highly relevant.0 -
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I didn't read all the responses, but this will happen when you lift and transform fat into muscle which is what I'm assuming is taking place. Happened to me a few summers back when I got ripped than lost it all and now working back towards where I was.0
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I didn't read all the responses, but this will happen when you lift and transform fat into muscle which is what I'm assuming is taking place. Happened to me a few summers back when I got ripped than lost it all and now working back towards where I was.
Fat does not transform into muscle.16 -
I didn't read all the responses, but this will happen when you lift and transform fat into muscle which is what I'm assuming is taking place. Happened to me a few summers back when I got ripped than lost it all and now working back towards where I was.
Fat does not transform into muscle.
*nods*
Agreed!2 -
With your stats it seems very unlikely that you would gain wt eating 1500 cals and exercising. So most likely your serving sizes are off and your eating more calories than you think. Avocado, peanut butter, cashews and fruit can add up pretty quickly if not measured correctly.9
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I didn't read all the responses, but this will happen when you lift and transform fat into muscle which is what I'm assuming is taking place. Happened to me a few summers back when I got ripped than lost it all and now working back towards where I was.
Fat does not transform into muscle.
Thankfully most of us know what she means - losing weight and gaining muscle - not a magical transformation of fat into muscle. It's short hand like "muscle weighs more than fat" - we could be pedantic and explain how that's wrong, or recognize its a short way of comparing the density of each.7 -
Always the same answer: you're either undestimating your food or overestimating your needs.4
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Jthanmyfitnesspal wrote: »Always the same answer: you're either undestimating your food or overestimating your needs.
Yep, this has ALWAYS been the case for me. If i ever stopped losing, or God forbid started gaining, i was able to trace it back to sloppy or incomplete logging, every single time!
I also definitely recommend downloading a weight tracker app, I use Trendweight.3 -
elleaitch11 wrote: »I didn't read all the responses, but this will happen when you lift and transform fat into muscle which is what I'm assuming is taking place. Happened to me a few summers back when I got ripped than lost it all and now working back towards where I was.
Fat does not transform into muscle.
Thankfully most of us know what she means - losing weight and gaining muscle - not a magical transformation of fat into muscle. It's short hand like "muscle weighs more than fat" - we could be pedantic and explain how that's wrong, or recognize its a short way of comparing the density of each.
you dont lose weight and gain muscle. its very hard to build muscle in a surplus let alone a deficit. which is why many do a recomp or bulk and cut cycles.4 -
elleaitch11 wrote: »I didn't read all the responses, but this will happen when you lift and transform fat into muscle which is what I'm assuming is taking place. Happened to me a few summers back when I got ripped than lost it all and now working back towards where I was.
Fat does not transform into muscle.
Thankfully most of us know what she means - losing weight and gaining muscle - not a magical transformation of fat into muscle. It's short hand like "muscle weighs more than fat" - we could be pedantic and explain how that's wrong, or recognize its a short way of comparing the density of each.
With all due respect, while I agree with you that the argument about "muscle weighs more than fat" is largely a matter of semantics, I don't think that is the case for people talking about turning fat into muscle.
I've encountered people both in person and on the forum who believe that fat turns into muscle and so my intention was not to start some sort of a debate about language to use or what people say versus what they mean.
I took the statement at face value because in my experience it is usually meant that way.9 -
Switch the cashews and peanut butter for canned tuna.
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elleaitch11 wrote: »I didn't read all the responses, but this will happen when you lift and transform fat into muscle which is what I'm assuming is taking place. Happened to me a few summers back when I got ripped than lost it all and now working back towards where I was.
Fat does not transform into muscle.
Thankfully most of us know what she means - losing weight and gaining muscle - not a magical transformation of fat into muscle. It's short hand like "muscle weighs more than fat" - we could be pedantic and explain how that's wrong, or recognize its a short way of comparing the density of each.
With all due respect, while I agree with you that the argument about "muscle weighs more than fat" is largely a matter of semantics, I don't think that is the case for people talking about turning fat into muscle.
I've encountered people both in person and on the forum who believe that fat turns into muscle and so my intention was not to start some sort of a debate about language to use or what people say versus what they mean.
I took the statement at face value because in my experience it is usually meant that way.
And often when people say muscle weighs more than fat it is not applicable to the situation at hand either. Aside from recomp which is a long slow process with tiny gains and losses, nobody, not even men, can gain muscle at the same rate as losing fat. And that's in ideal conditions. It's said on threads when the OP is only doing cardio.
So it's rare the whole you're gaining muscle replies apply if ever.
It really just comes down to being as accurate as possible with logging and monitoring results over time to nail your numbers.3 -
I am weighing *every single* thing with a scale. I don't drink liquids other than plain water.
BF measurements are taken with a skin fold caliper, and electronic caliper, and physical measurements with a BF equation. Then taken the average.
My diary is set to 'public.'
Thank you for the diagram. I have a doctor's appt scheduled next week to check my hormones regarding this issue.1 -
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a surplus of any one macro will not cause you to gain wieght. Your not in an overall caloric deficit is all it comes down to. How did you pick 1400 and 1550?2
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a surplus of any one macro will not cause you to gain wieght. Your not in an overall caloric deficit is all it comes down to. How did you pick 1400 and 1550?
I calculated my BMR for maintenance and then created a deficit at approximately 15%. A few different calculations gave me a healthy weight loss at 1400-1500 calories.0 -
For the past 6 weeks, I have been eating 1400 calories (1550 on workout days).
5'4.5"
136lbs
First of all, I think you are at a fine weight and it sounds like you are fit as well. Fantastic! Go celebrate!
Second of all, any calorie calculator (including the built-in MFP set-up) will tell you that at your height and weight, (ignoring exercise and assuming you have a desk job), you will maintain your weight at about 1600kcals. To lose a pound a week, you'll have to go to 1100kcals per day. Check out this one.
But: Clearly, you need more calories to compensate for your exercise. There, you need to estimate carefully and eat them back sparingly. It sounds as though you are good at keeping track, so just keep at it and it will all work out!1 -
a surplus of any one macro will not cause you to gain wieght. Your not in an overall caloric deficit is all it comes down to. How did you pick 1400 and 1550?
I calculated my BMR for maintenance and then created a deficit at approximately 15%. A few different calculations gave me a healthy weight loss at 1400-1500 calories.
Your BMR or TDEE? You're supposed to deduct calories from your tdee, not bmr. My bmr is 1400 calories, but i don't go below 1600 cals to lose weight.
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I pulled a month of data and your intake looks reasonable. There were about 5-6 days out of the month that appeared to not be completely logged based on the data. That's perfectly normal for most people however it IS a potential source of error.
Having said that, when I removed those dates your averages came out to around 1450 cals and your maronutrient ratio was spot on as well.
I do have a question: How often do you weigh yourself and do you have that weigh in data handy?
It's worth noting that ALL (literally) sources of body-fat measurement have significant rates of error with them and the error rates are high enough that many methods are only conditionally beneficial.
As far as the body-fat percentage goes I would honestly ignore it entirely especially given that the difference you are seeing is WELL under the rate of error in measurement.
All of the available methods that are commonly used to estimate body-fat are truly estimating body-fat by measuring something other than body-fat and then extrapolating what it thinks your body-fat actually is.
Finally, I wouldn't YET be alarmed but I'm curious about your weigh in data. I would generally use 10 to 12 calories per pound of total body-weight to represent a reasonable place to stick calories for the goal of weight loss and I don't think 10/lb is uncommon or unreasonable at all.
Also: Do you track steps/day, and if so how many do you get daily, on average? If you don't track them, do you work a desk job or are you on your feet all day?7 -
When someone is in a deficit doing lot of activity but weight loss stops generally the problem is a "whoosh" http://leanmuscleproject.com/how-whooshes-impact-your-weight-loss/
If it's not water weight and you're weighting and counting correctly, it must be a miscalculation somewhere.As far as the body-fat percentage goes I would honestly ignore it entirely especially given that the difference you are seeing is WELL under the rate of error in measurement.
Agree with this, 6 weeks is not a long period of time, the BF% and weight can vary for the above reasons but I'm not sure about your body measurements.
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Your BMR or TDEE? You're supposed to deduct calories from your tdee, not bmr. My bmr is 1400 calories, but i don't go below 1600 cals to lose weight.
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Both! Should have specified. BMR multiplied by my activity level to get my TDEE, then a calorie deficit.0 -
I pulled a month of data and your intake looks reasonable. There were about 5-6 days out of the month that appeared to not be completely logged
These are my cheat days where I go out to dinner with my friends. Wondering if I am way overeating there.... I haven't really tracked those portion sizes..0 -
Look at what you are eating and when you are eating it. Look at your total carb intake. I keep mine below 150. Then reduce your calories by 100. Sometimes a slight reduction is all you need. If you have been doing the same workout for awhile. Modify or try a different work out1
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I pulled a month of data and your intake looks reasonable. There were about 5-6 days out of the month that appeared to not be completely logged
These are my cheat days where I go out to dinner with my friends. Wondering if I am way overeating there.... I haven't really tracked those portion sizes..
It's quite possible. At the very least I think it's helpful to acknowledge that the possibility exists that your actual calorie intake is higher than you think it is -- this is something that is VERY common, and it's not a function of honesty or intelligence. It's perfectly normal, but it's important to accept and then in some cases it's important to address.7 -
This web page is blunt but helpful: http://www.acaloriecounter.com/blog/why-am-i-not-losing-weight/
I lost 65 lb. by maintaining a consistent calorie deficit for nearly two years. Some days I was over my target, or even over maintenance, but on average, I was below. I then maintained for a year. And then I slowly put on about 10 lb. because there were days when I overate (on vacation, business trips, stress from a family illness) but I didn't compensate on the other days. I'm back on track now to lose them again by tracking more carefully and being honest with myself.2
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