New dieter, gained weight in first week
kat_Anderton
Posts: 6 Member
I am brand new to dieting, I have damaged my knee and come off long term medication and gained 2stone. I now weigh over 13 stone at 5ft 5. I started my fitness last Monday, I have weighed everything I've eaten, scanned every food to get correct cals, I went over twice but still under for the whole week as had two very low cal days.... Why have I gained 2lb... Yes gained.... I could have understood not losing any as I realise that in reality 0.5lb weight loss a week is realistic on 1200 cal with a damaged knee.
PLEASE HELP ME. it is vital I lose weight for my health.
PLEASE HELP ME. it is vital I lose weight for my health.
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Replies
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Don't panic! The first week of my diet I gained too - 3lbs. It happens.
If you're weighing all your foods (even the ones scanned) and making good/accurate choices from the database then the weight will come off.1 -
Was 1200cal what you were given by MFP or a doctor?0
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You just need to give it time. Continue for another month, and then see what has changed.
I use Happy Scale and weigh myself every day. For almost two weeks my weight fluctuated within a 2kg range. It was SO frustrating to see my weight yo-yo. However, I continued to stay under my calorie goal the entire time, and I dropped 1.5kg suddenly after the second week ended, which is where Happy Scale predicted I would be based on my progress.
You can do it! Just be firm with tracking.2 -
1200 seems awfully low for a daily intake - was that on medical advice? I am not too far off your height 5ft 7 and weighed 16 and a half stone at my worse and I stuck to a 2200 cal a day plus exercise. I tended to lose 1 - 1 & a half lb a week but some weeks I gained. It happens, and its a bit of a downer especially at the start, but keep going.1
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MichelleSilverleaf wrote: »Was 1200cal what you were given by MFP or a doctor?
It was by mfp, the Dr was totally unhelpful and just offered me pills. I want to do it naturally not with medication.3 -
taysukidesu wrote: »You just need to give it time. Continue for another month, and then see what has changed.
I use Happy Scale and weigh myself every day. For almost two weeks my weight fluctuated within a 2kg range. It was SO frustrating to see my weight yo-yo. However, I continued to stay under my calorie goal the entire time, and I dropped 1.5kg suddenly after the second week ended, which is where Happy Scale predicted I would be based on my progress.
You can do it! Just be firm with tracking.
Thank you so much0 -
kat_Anderton wrote: »I am brand new to dieting, I have damaged my knee and come off long term medication and gained 2stone. I now weigh over 13 stone at 5ft 5. I started my fitness last Monday, I have weighed everything I've eaten, scanned every food to get correct cals, I went over twice but still under for the whole week as had two very low cal days.... Why have I gained 2lb... Yes gained.... I could have understood not losing any as I realise that in reality 0.5lb weight loss a week is realistic on 1200 cal with a damaged knee.
PLEASE HELP ME. it is vital I lose weight for my health.
When were you injured? Injuries accumulate water for healing.
What medication did you stop using? Was it a diuretic that caused you to lose excess water? Your weight should even out without it, and go down if you stick to your calorie deficit.
What "fitness" have you started? Increasing exercise causes water weight gain to heal micro-tears in muscles.
Gaining 2 lbs in one day is perfectly normal. Weigh loss isn't linear. A lot of people use an app such as Happy Scale to log their weight daily and see it smooth out to a downward trend over a longer term.
My weight goes up and down every day. Stick to a sustainable plan (you might need to increase your calories to last the distance) to stay on course for as long as it takes.0 -
1200 seems awfully low for a daily intake - was that on medical advice? I am not too far off your height 5ft 7 and weighed 16 and a half stone at my worse and I stuck to a 2200 cal a day plus exercise. I tended to lose 1 - 1 & a half lb a week but some weeks I gained. It happens, and its a bit of a downer especially at the start, but keep going.
It is what mfp told me to aim for0 -
kat_Anderton wrote: »1200 seems awfully low for a daily intake - was that on medical advice? I am not too far off your height 5ft 7 and weighed 16 and a half stone at my worse and I stuck to a 2200 cal a day plus exercise. I tended to lose 1 - 1 & a half lb a week but some weeks I gained. It happens, and its a bit of a downer especially at the start, but keep going.
It is what mfp told me to aim for
Yes but mfp gave you that number based on the info you gave. Did you select 2 pound loss per week? Might be too aggressive?1 -
I did put 2lb in as I thought that was average....0
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kat_Anderton wrote: »I did put 2lb in as I thought that was average....
It's the MAXIMUM rate of weight loss the app will allocate - not an average.
Also remember your calorie goal assumes you will log and eat back your exercise calories as that energy requirement isn't accounted for otherwise.
A week is far too short to judge if your calorie allowance and your logging accuracy are working - give it a month at least.
"Weight" is made up of many things not just fat. Water weight fluctuations easily mask the overall picture in the short term.2 -
Change to one pound loss per week.kat_Anderton wrote: »I did put 2lb in as I thought that was average....
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kat_Anderton wrote: »I did put 2lb in as I thought that was average....
It's the MAXIMUM rate of weight loss the app will allocate - not an average.
Also remember your calorie goal assumes you will log and eat back your exercise calories as that energy requirement isn't accounted for otherwise.
A week is far too short to judge if your calorie allowance and your logging accuracy are working - give it a month at least.
"Weight" is made up of many things not just fat. Water weight fluctuations easily mask the overall picture in the short term.
Thank you so much... I just added a step counter but I was ignoring exercise as I can't really do aggressive work outs due to my knee but beginning to think I need too. I will stick with it and see how it goes1 -
Confused what is stone never heard of this term
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I've been on MFP for 7 weeks and have lost at a rate of half a pound a week. Pretty slow going, but it's progress in the right direction. I note that I have to weigh myself first thing in the morning to get an accurate reading. My weight fluctuates up by three pounds throughout the day! Hang in there, you'll begin to see the results you want.0
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MFP is not a reliable place to get your daily caloric number. You need to find a good TDEE calculator and then subtract a percentage from that number to get the deficit you should be going for. MFP gave me 1200 calories when I first started, but because I was obese at the time, I really needed closer to 1800 calories per day and still lost 1-2lbs a week. Now I am a bit smaller but still eating 1350-1700 calories depending on the day. 1200 is too low for most people and it is not sustainable if you're starving all the time. Weight loss is a marathon, not a sprint.3
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MFP is not a reliable place to get your daily caloric number. You need to find a good TDEE calculator and then subtract a percentage from that number to get the deficit you should be going for. MFP gave me 1200 calories when I first started, but because I was obese at the time, I really needed closer to 1800 calories per day and still lost 1-2lbs a week. Now I am a bit smaller but still eating 1350-1700 calories depending on the day. 1200 is too low for most people and it is not sustainable if you're starving all the time. Weight loss is a marathon, not a sprint.
MFP is no less reliable than a TDEE calculator, the allowance it gives you is determined by the information you give it. All a TDEE calculator does is works out the same thing but adds on the exercise calories you would log additionally with MFP using the NEAT method.
TDEE is only really useful if you are consistently doing the same exercises.0 -
MFP is not a reliable place to get your daily caloric number. You need to find a good TDEE calculator and then subtract a percentage from that number to get the deficit you should be going for. MFP gave me 1200 calories when I first started, but because I was obese at the time, I really needed closer to 1800 calories per day and still lost 1-2lbs a week. Now I am a bit smaller but still eating 1350-1700 calories depending on the day. 1200 is too low for most people and it is not sustainable if you're starving all the time. Weight loss is a marathon, not a sprint.
Actually it wasn't the fault of the method - it was the goals you entered.
If you entered the same aggressive weight loss goal into a TDEE calculator you would also get an inappropriately low calorie goal.
Do agree with the marathon not a sprint mentality though.0 -
tinkerbellang83 wrote: »MFP is not a reliable place to get your daily caloric number. You need to find a good TDEE calculator and then subtract a percentage from that number to get the deficit you should be going for. MFP gave me 1200 calories when I first started, but because I was obese at the time, I really needed closer to 1800 calories per day and still lost 1-2lbs a week. Now I am a bit smaller but still eating 1350-1700 calories depending on the day. 1200 is too low for most people and it is not sustainable if you're starving all the time. Weight loss is a marathon, not a sprint.
MFP is no less reliable than a TDEE calculator, the allowance it gives you is determined by the information you give it. All a TDEE calculator does is works out the same thing but adds on the exercise calories you would log additionally with MFP using the NEAT method.
TDEE is only really useful if you are consistently doing the same exercises.
Endorsed. All of the calculators, under the covers, use one of a small number of research-based formulas that tend to produce fairly close results for most people.
The big difference is that the TDEE calculators include exercise in the base calorie goal, but NEAT calculators (like MFP's) don't - they expect you to estimate and add exercise separately.
MFP's whole setup calculates NEAT, gives you a base calorie goal with whatever deficit you've requested already built in, and expects you to eat back exercise in addition to those base calories.
OP, like others, I'd encourage more patience and time. Healing does often add water weight, and the first couple of weeks at a deficit often exhibit strange water weight effects, as does menstrual cycle (at varied points) if you're female/premenopausal.
I'd argue that you don't want to be in a huge calorie deficit while first healing, anyway: I stayed in a deficit after gall bladder surgery, and it was a Bad Plan. I paid for it in fatigue and weakness. (Thank heaven my body prioritized healing above those AFAIK!) Let healing be job one, for a bit. Don't cut further.0
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