So much effort for nothing?

valshine
valshine Posts: 2 Member
edited November 19 in Health and Weight Loss
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
    Alatariel75 Posts: 18,341 Member
    How much have you lost since June 1?
  • NoLimitFemme
    NoLimitFemme Posts: 118 Member
    What are your current stats? Height, weight, gender, age? Are you weighing the foods you do eat?
  • bethany_rose8
    bethany_rose8 Posts: 102 Member
    What they said ^
  • vivelajackie
    vivelajackie Posts: 321 Member
    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?
  • Pearlsss
    Pearlsss Posts: 10 Member
    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
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
    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)
  • Panda8ach
    Panda8ach Posts: 518 Member
    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
  • Sabine_Stroehm
    Sabine_Stroehm Posts: 19,263 Member
    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.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    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
    firef1y72 Posts: 1,579 Member
    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
    melissawill2017 Posts: 1,131 Member
    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
    mph323 Posts: 3,563 Member
    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
    mlinci Posts: 402 Member
    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.
  • valshine
    valshine Posts: 2 Member
    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
    toxikon Posts: 2,383 Member
    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
    CTcutie Posts: 649 Member
    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.
  • RubyLou25
    RubyLou25 Posts: 212 Member
    edited June 2017
    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.
  • Duchy82
    Duchy82 Posts: 560 Member
    edited June 2017
    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
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,179 Member
    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
    Holly2233 Posts: 16 Member
    tinkerbellang83 wrote: »
    cuzduiixlmcw.jpg

    This flow chart is awesome!
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