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MyFitnessPal Community

So much effort for nothing?

valshine

In Augustus of 2016 I stopped drinking soda and stopped eating from fast food restaurants (McDonald's, BK, Arby's, Wendy's). I haven't had Taco Bell in 8+ years. I was exercising lightly and got more serious with my exercise at the beginning of May 2017. I'm doing Zone4 at OneLife Fitness (prev Sport & Health), which is like circuit training. Between may 8 to May 31 I gained 1 lb, given I wasn't being too careful with my calorie intake. On June 1st I decided to stop do a 30 challenge - no white bread, no white rice, no cookies or candy, no desserts of any kind, no teas or juices - only water. I'm doing my workout at least 4 times a week (M, T, W, S). Some days twice a day. I'm on a 1200 calorie budget. Some days I eat a little more than 1200 but with my workout will have 200, 400, sometimes 600+ calls left over. When I snack it's a yogurt and granola or just fruit.

I'm barely seeing any changes. Some days my weight actually goes up. Yesterday I ate just over 1200 calories, did two 50 minute workouts and had about 700 calories left over at the end of the day. This morning I weighed in at the exact weight as the day before. I thought I'd see at least some progress. What gives? I feel like I gave up so much and I'm sticking to a very strict schedule for my workouts and I don't see results that encourage me to keep going. I'm not gonna stop but ok at a loss of what I'm doing wrong. Any tips would be greatly appreciated

Replies

Alatariel75

How much have you lost since June 1?

NoLimitFemme

What are your current stats? Height, weight, gender, age? Are you weighing the foods you do eat?

bethany_rose8

What they said ^

vivelajackie

Unless you're very petite or very sedentary you could probably aim higher in calories and lose while not being miserable. What are your stats? Also, are you logging accurately, ie: weighing foods on a kitchen scale and finding the correct database entries?

tinkerbellang83

Pearlsss

Are you losing inches? Maybe take full body measurements ... I read on another site a lady gained 12 lbs up front, but lost several inches b/c she was working out, then after a while, the lbs went down. Also have you ever had your thyroid levels checked? And if you are not eating enough, your body may be "preservation" mode to save you. It's definitely hard to beat this battle of the bulge ... hang in there, we're all in this together:)

deannalfisher

valshine wrote: »

In Augustus of 2016 I stopped drinking soda and stopped eating from fast food restaurants (McDonald's, BK, Arby's, Wendy's). I haven't had Taco Bell in 8+ years. I was exercising lightly and got more serious with my exercise at the beginning of May 2017. I'm doing Zone4 at OneLife Fitness (prev Sport & Health), which is like circuit training. Between may 8 to May 31 I gained 1 lb, given I wasn't being too careful with my calorie intake. On June 1st I decided to stop do a 30 challenge - no white bread, no white rice, no cookies or candy, no desserts of any kind, no teas or juices - only water. I'm doing my workout at least 4 times a week (M, T, W, S). Some days twice a day. I'm on a 1200 calorie budget. Some days I eat a little more than 1200 but with my workout will have 200, 400, sometimes 600+ calls left over. When I snack it's a yogurt and granola or just fruit.

I'm barely seeing any changes. Some days my weight actually goes up. Yesterday I ate just over 1200 calories, did two 50 minute workouts and had about 700 calories left over at the end of the day. This morning I weighed in at the exact weight as the day before. I thought I'd see at least some progress. What gives? I feel like I gave up so much and I'm sticking to a very strict schedule for my workouts and I don't see results that encourage me to keep going. I'm not gonna stop but ok at a loss of what I'm doing wrong. Any tips would be greatly appreciated

reading this ,it sounds like you only netted about 500cal - did you eat back exercise calories? what is your weight loss goal set to? (maybe its too aggressive for what you want to lose)

deannalfisher

Pearlsss wrote: »

Are you losing inches? Maybe take full body measurements ... I read on another site a lady gained 12 lbs up front, but lost several inches b/c she was working out, then after a while, the lbs went down. Also have you ever had your thyroid levels checked? And if you are not eating enough, your body may be "preservation" mode to save you. It's definitely hard to beat this battle of the bulge ... hang in there, we're all in this together:)

no, preservation/starvation mode isn't a thing...

Chadxx

First off, slow down and take a deep breath. Weight loss is not the same as fat loss and is not linear. Day to fluctuations of several pounds are perfectly normal. A 16 ounce bottle water weighs over a pound. What do you think happens when you drink One? Also, new exercise will cause you to retain water for muscle repair. Food is fuel for the body, nothing more or less and the body needs fuel, especially when you exercise so don't under eat. Starvation mode is BS, plain and simple. If you are in a calorie deficit, you will lose weight. Just watch the trend over several weeks and forget about day to day. I have seen the scale go up many, many times and stall for a while at other times but the trend over time held true and the scale eventually moved and I have now lost 150 pounds so I know you can do this. Just relax, take it one day at a time, be honest and accurate, and stick to a reasonable calorie budget and you will get there.

Panda8ach

I find eating little and often works for me. If your body gets hungry and doesn't know when it's getting fed it WILL hold on to the fat

Muscleflex79

Panda8ach wrote: »

I find eating little and often works for me. If your body gets hungry and doesn't know when it's getting fed it WILL hold on to the fat

have you not seen people who are actually starving? anorexics? their bodies are not "holding onto fat"...

Sabine_Stroehm

Panda8ach wrote: »

I find eating little and often works for me. If your body gets hungry and doesn't know when it's getting fed it WILL hold on to the fat

Eating often signals insulin. Often. I'm not so sure that's a great idea, actually.

AliceDark

valshine wrote: »

I'm barely seeing any changes. Some days my weight actually goes up. Yesterday I ate just over 1200 calories, did two 50 minute workouts and had about 700 calories left over at the end of the day. This morning I weighed in at the exact weight as the day before. I thought I'd see at least some progress. What gives? I feel like I gave up so much and I'm sticking to a very strict schedule for my workouts and I don't see results that encourage me to keep going. I'm not gonna stop but ok at a loss of what I'm doing wrong. Any tips would be greatly appreciated

The sentences in bold are completely normal. Everyone's weight fluctuates on a daily basis. You will never see consistent weight loss every single day.

Additionally, your body doesn't respond as immediately as you seem to think it does. You're not going to see weight loss today in response to exercise yesterday. However, you may see small changes in water retention in response to exercise, so over-exercising may well cause small upward bumps on the scale.

Your expectations are highly unrealistic, and you're going to keep being frustrated unless you can recalibrate your expectations.

kshama2001

Assuming you are not very very short, you are undereating, which is stressful to the body, which can elevate cortisol levels, leading to water retention.

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/research-review/dietary-restraint-and-cortisol-levels-research-review.html/

...a group of women who scored higher on dietary restraint scores showed elevated baseline cortisol levels. By itself this might not be problematic, but as often as not, these types of dieters are drawn to extreme approaches to dieting.

They throw in a lot of intense exercise, try to cut calories very hard (and this often backfires if disinhibition is high; when these folks break they break) and cortisol levels go through the roof. That often causes cortisol mediated water retention (there are other mechanisms for this, mind you, leptin actually inhibits cortisol release and as it drops on a diet, cortisol levels go up further). Weight and fat loss appear to have stopped or at least slowed significantly. This is compounded even further in female dieters due to the vagaries of their menstrual cycle where water balance is changing enormously week to week anyhow.

And invariably, this type of psychology responds to the stall by going even harder. They attempt to cut calories harder, they start doing more activity. The cycle continues and gets worse. Harder dieting means more cortisol means more water retention means more dieting. Which backfires (other problems come in the long-term with this approach but you’ll have to wait for the book to read about that).

When what they should do is take a day or two off (even one day off from training, at least in men, let’s cortisol drop significantly). Raise calories, especially from carbohydrates. This helps cortisol to drop. More than that they need to find a way to freaking chill out. Meditation, yoga, get a massage... Get in the bath, candles, a little Enya, a glass of wine, have some you-time but please just chill.

firef1y72

Flipping heck it's been one day, I can go up or down 5lb in a day (record was 12lb over 2 days).
First eat more, you need to fuel your workouts, I'm a 45 yo, 5'1 female and I average 2000 to lose 1lb/week, no way I could perform my best for almost 2hours on just 1200 Caalories.
Then use an app like Libre or trendweight to record your weight, some days you'll be up some days down, but you'll be able to see whether you're trending down or not.

melissawill2017

I think that you aren't eating enough calories. Our bodies are like furnaces, fuel them properly and they burn at an efficient rate. With all the exercising you've been incorporating and cutting back so many foods; theoretically you should be losing weight. I think you should try bumping up your calories and seeing if that helps. Good luck!!

mph323

valshine wrote: »

In Augustus of 2016 I stopped drinking soda and stopped eating from fast food restaurants (McDonald's, BK, Arby's, Wendy's). I haven't had Taco Bell in 8+ years. I was exercising lightly and got more serious with my exercise at the beginning of May 2017. I'm doing Zone4 at OneLife Fitness (prev Sport & Health), which is like circuit training. Between may 8 to May 31 I gained 1 lb, given I wasn't being too careful with my calorie intake. On June 1st I decided to stop do a 30 challenge - no white bread, no white rice, no cookies or candy, no desserts of any kind, no teas or juices - only water. I'm doing my workout at least 4 times a week (M, T, W, S). Some days twice a day. I'm on a 1200 calorie budget. Some days I eat a little more than 1200 but with my workout will have 200, 400, sometimes 600+ calls left over. When I snack it's a yogurt and granola or just fruit.

I'm barely seeing any changes. Some days my weight actually goes up. Yesterday I ate just over 1200 calories, did two 50 minute workouts and had about 700 calories left over at the end of the day. This morning I weighed in at the exact weight as the day before. I thought I'd see at least some progress. What gives? I feel like I gave up so much and I'm sticking to a very strict schedule for my workouts and I don't see results that encourage me to keep going. I'm not gonna stop but ok at a loss of what I'm doing wrong. Any tips would be greatly appreciated

Sometimes that's the algorithm the scale uses to determine your weight. I have an aria that weighs to the ounce, and periodically I'll weigh in the exact same weight for several days (to the ounce) which is really unlikely. Then I'll start going up and down three or four pounds, all of this without changing my eating or exercise patterns. If I look at my weigh-ins over a month I can see the downward trend, but I'd go crazy if I was taking the day by day as ground truth.

How did you determine 1200 calories is your goal? And if you are truly eating just 1200 and burning so much you will lose weight, but it may take longer than a couple of weeks to show on the scale because of water. If you are losing more than about 1% of your body weight a week (depending on your current weight) when the loss starts to show, you need to up your calories to slow it down.

mlinci

Here is my weight loss trend snapshot of a few months ago.
- see how the overall trend is down
- See also that when you look at day after day measurements, it's gone up almost as often as it's gone down. That is perfectly normal.

IMG_5357.PNG

valshine

Thanks for all of the feedback and tips. I'm a 29 year old female, 5'2" and currently about 162.4. I started at around 167 on June 1st. It seemed at first that it was going down at a steady rate then the pounds started going up and then not changing much. I can't seem to break past the 162 mark. I know it can fluctuate and I'm glad to be down the 4lbs but I'm working out harder than I ever have and I'm weighting and measuring all of my food and it's just a bit discouraging when it Seems like the more I do the more it goes up. It's possible I'm gaining muscle but I can't quite see where yet hahah
I'm gonna start measuring myself. I know I've lost a few centimeters around my waist from the way one pair of shorts fit but I know it's not inches from the way the rest of my shorts don't fit.
I lost most of the weight the first week I started being really serious so maybe it was just a shock to my body but then it was like 1 step forward, 2 steps back.
I'm not putting a fixed date for when I need to reach my goal but I do have a looong road ahead of me and a lot more research to do

toxikon

Panda8ach wrote: »

I find eating little and often works for me. If your body gets hungry and doesn't know when it's getting fed it WILL hold on to the fat

Not true at all! Check out "intermittent fasting". Meal timing has nothing to do with weight loss. I usually don't begin eating until 1pm and have great results.

CTcutie

I'm short, too, but I really just think you need to eat more than 1200 (aka some of your exercise calories)... and give it more time. Like a month. Workouts = water retention, etc.

dawnna76

valshine wrote: »

Thanks for all of the feedback and tips. I'm a 29 year old female, 5'2" and currently about 162.4. I started at around 167 on June 1st. It seemed at first that it was going down at a steady rate then the pounds started going up and then not changing much. I can't seem to break past the 162 mark. I know it can fluctuate and I'm glad to be down the 4lbs but I'm working out harder than I ever have and I'm weighting and measuring all of my food and it's just a bit discouraging when it Seems like the more I do the more it goes up. It's possible I'm gaining muscle but I can't quite see where yet hahah
I'm gonna start measuring myself. I know I've lost a few centimeters around my waist from the way one pair of shorts fit but I know it's not inches from the way the rest of my shorts don't fit.
I lost most of the weight the first week I started being really serious so maybe it was just a shock to my body but then it was like 1 step forward, 2 steps back.
I'm not putting a fixed date for when I need to reach my goal but I do have a looong road ahead of me and a lot more research to do

ITS BEEN TWO WEEKS!

losing weight takes time, 5.6 pounds is a lot for two weeks and its unrealistic to expect that kind of results continuing to go forward.

Luna3386

You are focused on the wrong things. Breads, etc don't make you fat. Eating too much does.

Eat all of the calories mfp gives you, along with some exercise calories.

Weigh everything on a food scale.

RubyLou25

I'm about the same stats. 29 years old, 5'3.5 and weigh about 160. I eat a base of 1400 calories a day and 75% of exercise calories. I've lost a steady pace of about 6 pounds a month.

I also recommend a trend app and watch the trend instead of individual weigh ins. Yesterday I weighed more than 2 pounds then the range I've been in and didn't change my eating or exercise one bit. It all came off today, plus a tad more.

CSARdiver

valshine wrote: »

Thanks for all of the feedback and tips. I'm a 29 year old female, 5'2" and currently about 162.4. I started at around 167 on June 1st. It seemed at first that it was going down at a steady rate then the pounds started going up and then not changing much. I can't seem to break past the 162 mark. I know it can fluctuate and I'm glad to be down the 4lbs but I'm working out harder than I ever have and I'm weighting and measuring all of my food and it's just a bit discouraging when it Seems like the more I do the more it goes up. It's possible I'm gaining muscle but I can't quite see where yet hahah
I'm gonna start measuring myself. I know I've lost a few centimeters around my waist from the way one pair of shorts fit but I know it's not inches from the way the rest of my shorts don't fit.
I lost most of the weight the first week I started being really serious so maybe it was just a shock to my body but then it was like 1 step forward, 2 steps back.
I'm not putting a fixed date for when I need to reach my goal but I do have a looong road ahead of me and a lot more research to do

There's a concept that has been very helpful to me with this process - the Pareto Principle. It states that 80% of problems come from 20% of root causes. It's a quick and easy tool to prioritize the factors that will help and dumping those factors that don't matter. From your initial post you seem to be concerned with the 80% that really doesn't matter.

I recommend opening up your diary and being honest throughout this process. This allows more experienced people to find potential errors in your logging activities.

Biological systems don't like changes, so you likely will not see the fat loss immediately, but over several weeks (4-6 on average). Those immediate gains/losses are water weight fluctuations. Your body enters into a defense mode when forced to adapt to a calorie deficit or increased physical activity and responds by taking on additional water to protect the cells. Need to incorporate some delayed gratification to this process and focus on the long game. Think marathon over sprint.

Other than that you're on a good starting path, just focus on your intake and accuracy of logging, make sure you're not overestimating exercise calories and when the number on the scale doesn't cooperate - focus on other gains such as increased strength, endurance, heart rate, measurements - hell anything that's moving in a desired direction.

Duchy82

5lbs in 2 weeks is excellent progress, I think your expectations are unrealistic. 1-2lb a week is a perfectly acceptable rate of loss.

Fuel your workouts and eat some exercise calories back or risk burning out fast. If you struggle with the fluctuations then maybe weighing only once a week may be better for you or a trending app as others have suggested.

JeromeBarry1

If you've indeed lost 10 lb since August 2016 that works out to about 1 lb per month. Does your weight history on your Reports look like a smooth curve or is it a very jagged sawtoothy pattern?

Holly2233

tinkerbellang83 wrote: »

This flow chart is awesome!