Please Help Me Understand :(

yankeesfan299
yankeesfan299 Posts: 6 Member
edited November 19 in Health and Weight Loss
Hey everyone, I'm having a little trouble. For the last 3 weeks, I've made drastic changes to my diet with the hopes of losing weight. I started off at 330 lbs and 5'9" (male). I haven't eaten any carbs, processed foods, added sugars in food or drink, have kicked cravings, and mostly eat protein, fruits, and veggies. Unfortunately...I'm yet to notice any change and it's really frustrating. I feel good, but I can't see any results and it just makes me so hopeless and wanting to give up. Does anyone have any suggestions or tips on how to keep going or what to change?
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Replies

  • robynrae_1
    robynrae_1 Posts: 712 Member
    Have you been logging your food? You can still over eat even when you eliminate the " bad" foods.
  • yankeesfan299
    yankeesfan299 Posts: 6 Member
    Yea, I really only eat roughly 800-1100 calories on a day since then. Usually its a banana for breakfast, 4oz chicken breast and veg for lunch, and if I eat dinner it's a little more chicken. I guess I don't have that much of an excessive appetite anymore so that's good.
  • everher
    everher Posts: 909 Member
    I would recommend buying a food scale if you don't already have one and weighing all your solids and measuring all your liquids.

    Cutting out certain foods doesn't mean you can't overeat on others.
  • DamieBird
    DamieBird Posts: 651 Member
    How many calories are you eating a day? Regardless of where they come from, you have to eat fewer that you burn in order to lose fat. You don't mention if you've weighed or measured yourself or not - sometimes it can take a month or more and 15-20 pounds lost for you to notice a difference in your clothes or in the mirror. Also, you say that you feel good - isn't that a positive difference?
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,011 Member
    Are you logging accurately and consistently (including beverages) and hitting your calorie goal?

    When you say "no results" have you lost any weight in the 3 weeks?

    It doesn't matter what you eat, it matters how many calories. You can overeat protein fruits and veggies. So hitting your calorie goal is the key!
  • yankeesfan299
    yankeesfan299 Posts: 6 Member
    kimny72 wrote: »
    Are you logging accurately and consistently (including beverages) and hitting your calorie goal?

    When you say "no results" have you lost any weight in the 3 weeks?

    It doesn't matter what you eat, it matters how many calories. You can overeat protein fruits and veggies. So hitting your calorie goal is the key!



    And yes, it's frustrating because I know for sure I'm not overeating and I literally have had only water for the last month haha. Idk, I guess I'll just have to give it more time.
  • yankeesfan299
    yankeesfan299 Posts: 6 Member
    kimny72 wrote: »
    yankeesfan299 wrote: »
    Yea, I really only eat roughly 800-1100 calories on a day since then. Usually its a banana for breakfast, 4oz chicken breast and veg for lunch, and if I eat dinner it's a little more chicken. I guess I don't have that much of an excessive appetite anymore so that's good.

    So this is going to be a bit blunt. There is NO WAY that's all you've been eating for 3 weeks. That's not enough food for a toddler, and you are a 330 lb man.
    1. Get a food scale.
    2. Start logging your food accurately and consistently and hit your calorie goal.
    3. There is nothing "good" about a grown man eating 800 cals a day, but if you really were you would be fatigued and dropping weight.
    4. You can eat a wide variety of foods, you don't have to just eat chicken, fruit, and veg.
    5. If you are legit only eating a few oz of chicken, a banana, and some veg every day for 3 weeks and can't eat anymore, you need to go to the doctor ASAP.


    I can assure you that's all I eat. Sometimes fish or pork instead of chicken but everything else is the same.
  • DamieBird
    DamieBird Posts: 651 Member
    edited June 2017
    yankeesfan299 wrote: »
    kimny72 wrote: »
    yankeesfan299 wrote: »
    Yea, I really only eat roughly 800-1100 calories on a day since then. Usually its a banana for breakfast, 4oz chicken breast and veg for lunch, and if I eat dinner it's a little more chicken. I guess I don't have that much of an excessive appetite anymore so that's good.

    So this is going to be a bit blunt. There is NO WAY that's all you've been eating for 3 weeks. That's not enough food for a toddler, and you are a 330 lb man.
    1. Get a food scale.
    2. Start logging your food accurately and consistently and hit your calorie goal.
    3. There is nothing "good" about a grown man eating 800 cals a day, but if you really were you would be fatigued and dropping weight.
    4. You can eat a wide variety of foods, you don't have to just eat chicken, fruit, and veg.
    5. If you are legit only eating a few oz of chicken, a banana, and some veg every day for 3 weeks and can't eat anymore, you need to go to the doctor ASAP.


    I can assure you that's all I eat. Sometimes fish or pork instead of chicken but everything else is the same.

    To be clear, that's all you *think* you eat, unless you are weighing and measuring to the gram and pulling accurate calorie information from a website like the USDA database. Even MFP entries can be super wrong!.

    Edit: Packaging information is ALSO commonly incorrect. You have no idea what you're eating unless you're weighing, and if you aren't you are almost assuredly eating much more than you think.

    Still - that's not enough, full stop. At your height and weight, you should be eating MUCH more. Did you enter your information and goals into MFP and get a recommendation? A male at half your weight shouldn't consume under 1500/day, much less 800-1100.
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,011 Member
    yankeesfan299 wrote: »
    kimny72 wrote: »
    yankeesfan299 wrote: »
    Yea, I really only eat roughly 800-1100 calories on a day since then. Usually its a banana for breakfast, 4oz chicken breast and veg for lunch, and if I eat dinner it's a little more chicken. I guess I don't have that much of an excessive appetite anymore so that's good.

    So this is going to be a bit blunt. There is NO WAY that's all you've been eating for 3 weeks. That's not enough food for a toddler, and you are a 330 lb man.
    1. Get a food scale.
    2. Start logging your food accurately and consistently and hit your calorie goal.
    3. There is nothing "good" about a grown man eating 800 cals a day, but if you really were you would be fatigued and dropping weight.
    4. You can eat a wide variety of foods, you don't have to just eat chicken, fruit, and veg.
    5. If you are legit only eating a few oz of chicken, a banana, and some veg every day for 3 weeks and can't eat anymore, you need to go to the doctor ASAP.


    I can assure you that's all I eat. Sometimes fish or pork instead of chicken but everything else is the same.

    Well, your diary is closed and you haven't answered any of the questions looking at specifics of how you are measuring your portions or exact calories or if you have lost any weight at all, so I'll have to take your word for it.

    You should be eating a MINIMUM of 1500 calories per day. If you are unable to do so, you need to see a doctor as there is something very wrong. And honestly, I would suggest going anyway, because if you are eating 800-1100 cals per day for 3 weeks and haven't lost even a lb, unless there are some serious water weight issues involved, there is something medically wrong.

    The only options are either you are not measuring your portions and are eating more than you think (which is very common for new calorie counters), you have a medical condition that requires a doctor's care ASAP, or you are going to hurt yourself.
  • thewindandthework
    thewindandthework Posts: 531 Member
    What you're eating is really irrelevant for weight loss (although nutrition is another story, of course), what counts is calories in versus calories out. Are you logging every single thing you eat and drink? Are you weighing it to get the exact amount you're actually consuming? Don't trust packaging, don't trust volume measurements.

    If you have your stats in MFP, just eat the number of calories it says you should. That's easier said than done, of course, but it WORKS. If the ~1000 kcal you say you're consuming daily is accurate, that is NOT SAFE. Who knows what your body is doing to protect itself?
  • yankeesfan299
    yankeesfan299 Posts: 6 Member
    I'm not saying it's been easy staying at the calorie amount. First week was near death, but now it's not bad really, maybe it's just me. I keep busy and don't give much time to it anymore. As per the suggestions, I'll definitely read the forum stickies. And for measuring calories, I rely on packaging mainly as I assumed it would be correct. And to be blunt, but all my life I've tried dieting and exercising and different methods and I'm so fed up nothing works, so I've resorted to this. I've always trended positive in weight gain, I just need a change for once.
  • thewindandthework
    thewindandthework Posts: 531 Member
    You've found a really good tool in MFP. Be diligent in logging accurately, and try to be within 100 calories of the goal MFP sets for you.

    How often are you weighing, by the way? And are you doing it under similar conditions? Wearing the same amount, same time of day, etc?
  • DamieBird
    DamieBird Posts: 651 Member
    yankeesfan299 wrote: »
    I'm not saying it's been easy staying at the calorie amount. First week was near death, but now it's not bad really, maybe it's just me. I keep busy and don't give much time to it anymore. As per the suggestions, I'll definitely read the forum stickies. And for measuring calories, I rely on packaging mainly as I assumed it would be correct. And to be blunt, but all my life I've tried dieting and exercising and different methods and I'm so fed up nothing works, so I've resorted to this. I've always trended positive in weight gain, I just need a change for once.

    Don't give up or lose hope. The stickies will answer a lot of your questions. Lots of us on here have done the lifetime worth of trying diets that didn't work before figuring out that it really does all come down to taking in less than you burn, and having the patience to do in in a healthy manner. Please, check back in after reading the forum stickies if you still need some things cleared up, definitely get a cheap food scale and eat more food(!!), and give it some time.
  • thewindandthework
    thewindandthework Posts: 531 Member
    edited June 2017
    Honestly I wouldn't want it to happen any faster than it's happening for me. If I was losing more than 2 pounds a week there's no way I could keep myself dressed! Clothes are expensive and I'm broke!

    ETA: I have my MFP goal set to 2 pounds a week, and according to TrendWeight, my average weight loss is 2.1 pounds per week. MFP is just a really great tool if you log accurately.
  • anubis609
    anubis609 Posts: 3,966 Member
    edited June 2017
    I'm going to play the part of *that guy* and say severe caloric restriction, while not ideal or sustainable, is not going to destroy him if done correctly. Metabolic adaptation plays a heavy part in what happens with the amount of food we eat or don't eat. Will he lose fat mass? Yes. Will he lose lean mass? Yes. Does water and poop count as lean mass? Yes. Does anyone need excessive lean mass (by pure definition of "more than necessary") if our bodies are physically smaller? No.

    It's not necessarily a bad thing. #Context

    Dieting is, in itself, a very loose concept of starvation. You're reducing the influx of an outside source of energy to maintain size and weight. If you want to argue that, you're welcome to but it is what it is. The body is constantly going to protect itself to prevent from dying, and if his caloric intake is accurate, his body has protected itself for 3 weeks so far. Again, is it ideal or sustainable long-term? No.

    Also, it seems that everyone here forgets that if you've lost weight, your own body fat has contributed to your daily caloric requirements during your energy deficit. It's literally stored energy and 330lbs on a 69 inch frame is maxed out on storage and has been forced to cram more into it.

    But to argue everyone's point, it sounds like you're either on some kind of modified keto style of diet, so have a free meal every few days (2-3x) out of the week to spare the severe metabolic adaptation that comes as part of dieting too hard; i.e. drop in leptin, testosterone, thyroid and increases in cortisol and ghrelin.

    And focus on protein as your main macro. If you're only getting ~8 oz of chicken per day as your source of protein, that's roughly 45g-50g of protein, which would calculate out to about 200kcal total out of your 1000kcal average. You would be losing a lot protein from your body at that point, which can and will come from skeletal and smooth muscle if necessary. If your dietary fat is taking up the bulk of your calories, switch that to protein as the bulk of your calories. 150-200g of protein would be 600-800kcal, which sounds a lot better. As long as you don't suffer from kidney disease, the protein amount is fine. The rest of your calories come from either higher carbs or higher fat or moderate amounts of both, but if your mostly sedentary and/or diabetic, then you don't really need as much carbs.

    Finally, go see a doctor if you have any issues that might be hindering your progress. Scale weight isn't completely indicative of fat loss, but you should at least be seeing something unless you're drinking so much water that you're replacing what you should be losing in gravity manipulation.
  • waffle944
    waffle944 Posts: 13 Member
    edited June 2017
    There is a lot of good advice in this thread (and I agree with anubis609 that severe calorie restriction can be safe and effective, but generally should be done under the supervision of trained professionals).

    You've already passed the first hurdle, which is being motivated to make a change. But the second is much harder for most people: actually following through and executing on that motivation. Your original post suggests that you haven't been very specific and deliberate about how you're actually losing weight, nor are you specific about how you're measuring your progress. As others have commented, you need to add some structure to this, otherwise you'll just get spun around every time you step on the scale and feel frustrated that your efforts, whatever they may be, aren't doing anything.

    Echoing others in this thread, I strongly encourage you to take a closer look at your calorie log. Are you not measuring foods properly? Are you excluding cooking oils and butter? There are three possible explanations for why you aren't losing weight despite maintaining a calorie deficit... #3 is most likely:
    1. The science is completely wrong.
    2. You have a medical condition, and should go see a doctor.
    3. You aren't actually eating as little as you claim you are.

    It sounds like you've made some healthy changes, but at the end of the day, you are not losing weight. Make sure you are looking at the trend, and not just day to day weight changes. If your weight indeed is stable despite your efforts, then your efforts are not producing a calorie deficit. Lots of people think they eat healthy, but 2 in 3 American adults are overweight... so clearly there is a disconnect here. You've taken the first step, but take the next one! Create a concrete plan, and measure everything - your calorie intake, your exercise, your progress.
  • Jriggs46615
    Jriggs46615 Posts: 50 Member
    Tacklewasher wrote: »
    yankeesfan299 wrote: »
    Yea, I really only eat roughly 800-1100 calories on a day since then. Usually its a banana for breakfast, 4oz chicken breast and veg for lunch, and if I eat dinner it's a little more chicken. I guess I don't have that much of an excessive appetite anymore so that's good.

    Oh lord.

    Don't do this. It is not good for your health to eat that little at your size. You should be losing weight on 2500 cals at this point.

    Please, read the forum stickies. Your going to hurt yourself if you are truly eating that little.

    No kidding! I was starving just reading his post.
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