Still eating right and exercising but gained it all back!
Replies
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GemstoneofHeart wrote: »It doesn't just suddenly come back. It came back because you ate at a calorie surplus. It doesn't matter that you were "eating clean" if you were eating an excess of calories.
A lot of people have to continue tracking calories even in maintenance. I know I will or I will gain it back because I am very bad at estimating my intake.
I did not eat calories at a surplus. I actually don't meet my calorie goal of 1450 very often. I've never stopped tracking my food intake. I've logged at tracked everything for over 500 days. That's why I thought this was a medical issue but with my doctor saying my blood work is good and nothing abdominally I have became depressed.
I seriously honestly record everything I eat and I use to put 5 miles in a day, but have found it too hard now to do it since I've gained weight but I still do 3 miles. But when I started gaining I was still doing the 5 miles.
I'm so frustrated at this point is why I've reached out to the community.9 -
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Logging your food intake is not the same as weighing and measuring your food intake. Just logging it is guessing. I agree with the PP that you are probably overcompensating for the food you’re no longer eating.ss4vegeta48 wrote: »SibylDiane wrote: »If you are a woman and experiencing unexplained weight gain, abdominal bloating, and possibly other symptoms (fatigue, lack of appetite) go to your doctor or ob-gyn and explain your symptoms. There are a lot of issues that could be going on here that you would want to get checked out, not just possible pregnancy but ovarian problems and things of that nature. I am not a medical professional but I know people who have had these issues and their doctors were able to help them. Not saying you have anything terrible going on but medical issues (not just thyroid/blood work) are things that at the least you could rule out as causing this unexplained weight gain and abdominal bloating.
Yes this was my first thought. As I said I did have a full blood work up done and abdominal x-rays. I have been told by other women about the symptoms of ovarian cysts and that I might want to get an ultrasound done.
I've just concluded I don't have the answers. I do log everything I eat. I actually figure my daily meals out first thing in the morning. I try to stay on my calorie target but sometimes I'm actually under. I also try to make sure my fats, carbs and proteins balance but sometimes that's hard to do so I end up with too little proteins and more fats or carbs.
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cmriverside wrote: »Yeah, if you don't weigh meat, it's possible you're eating a lot more than you think. Salmon isn't exactly low-cal, either. What about oils, salad dressings, butter, cheese, dairy, nuts, avocado, potatoes, fruit, eggs? Do you eat them? Do you weigh them?
Well the reason I don't weigh my chicken breast is because it's the same kind I was eating when I was losing. As I said I do not eat red meats or porks. Salmon is a once in awhile meal. It's baked not fried and I do not bread anything especially now due to the gluten issue. I measure dressings by teaspoons and it's vinaigrettes only. I do not eat much dairy. I find it makes me bloat so I use almond milk. When I cook with olive oil I do record it in my baked chicken meal. I do not weigh an egg. I scanned the brand and record it as one egg ate. I'll be honest about the almonds. The labels says about 15 equals this amount of Calories so I count them out. I do not weigh a potato other then when I buy them for price lol.
Hope that helps.5 -
ss4vegeta48 wrote: »cmriverside wrote: »Yeah, if you don't weigh meat, it's possible you're eating a lot more than you think. Salmon isn't exactly low-cal, either. What about oils, salad dressings, butter, cheese, dairy, nuts, avocado, potatoes, fruit, eggs? Do you eat them? Do you weigh them?
Well the reason I don't weigh my chicken breast is because it's the same kind I was eating when I was losing. As I said I do not eat red meats or porks. Salmon is a once in awhile meal. It's baked not fried and I do not bread anything especially now due to the gluten issue. I measure dressings by teaspoons and it's vinaigrettes only. I do not eat much dairy. I find it makes me bloat so I use almond milk. When I cook with olive oil I do record it in my baked chicken meal. I do not weigh an egg. I scanned the brand and record it as one egg ate. I'll be honest about the almonds. The labels says about 15 equals this amount of Calories so I count them out. I do not weigh a potato other then when I buy them for price lol.
Hope that helps.
Weigh everything solid and measure everything liquid. Everything. Make sure you're using accurate database entries. Your chicken breasts are not all going to be the same weight, likewise your potatoes, and everything else. Eat only 50-75% of any exercise calories. Do that for 4-6 weeks, if you're still not losing weight with accurate logging then you need to look further at possible medical causes.9 -
1. Once again agreeing with what many people have said: eating "right" is not nearly as important as eating LESS. Measure and control your portions, particularly of calorie-dense things like meat, starchy foods, and many condiments (e.g. sour cream, salad dressing, peanut butter). You have no idea of whether you are hitting a calorie surplus or deficit if you are measuring your portions using your eyeballs. Logging is not the same as tracking if you don't measure your portions. You lost weight tracking: great. Many people (including me) have to continue tracking AND DILIGENTLY MEASURING in order to maintain weight loss. It is very normal to like eating more food than you need. It is very easy to trick yourself about portion size if you are not measuring diligently. Some unicorns can pull it off. Don't assume you're one of them. Evidence is pointing to the contrary here. If you're not losing weight -- or you're gaining -- you just DON'T GET TO SAY you know you're hitting a specific calorie target when you're not measuring. If you're really sure your portions are right, you won't mind measuring for a few weeks to confirm the results.
2. Your doctor has ruled out common medical problems via bloodwork, and that's good. FWIW, it's better to listen to doctors than us randos on the internet, IN GENERAL, but you should also be aware that to get a medical degree and a medical license requires next to no knowledge of weight loss or weight control. My doctor was very up front with me about what I should and could rely on him for on this topic: he told me that he only had to take like half a credit course in med school, and he doesn't have any continuing education credits needed on the topic. His point was that doctors are as likely to pass around annecdotal diet nonsense like we are, but the extra danger is the sense of complacency it can give patients about "metabolism" (eyeroll), not to mention some particularly bad advice some doctors give regarding rather dangerous VLC diets they are trained to prescribe for patients who need "emergency" fast weight loss prior to surgery. Get a referral from your doctor to a registered dietitian for meaningful advice.
Bottom line: I see soooooo many people who are desperate to hear a solution to weight control that doesn't require them to be accountable for eating an appropriate amount of food. It's got to be their metabolism or else it's got to be that they're eating the "wrong" foods or that they haven't tried the latest miracle food that will "burn" their fat for them. BS. To control your weight, you just have to be accountable for how much you eat. It may be simple, but it's not easy, and that's why you don't want to do it.16 -
OP, if you want to figure out what's going on you need accurate data to work with. Doesn't matter if you are eating the same stuff you always have.
Commit to 4 weeks of putting every solid and semisolid food you possibly can on the food scale and log by the weight. Double check the entries you are using in the database to make sure they are accurate.
This will give you good data and two possibilities.
1. You have been eating more than you think and now you will know where you are missing cals so it will be easy to fix.
2. You will know you were in fact eating 1450 cals and the issue MUST be medical. If so, I second the suggestion to see an OB/gyn, several gyn issues can cause bloating and I have found generally ob/gyns are more open minded about symptoms women deal with, just my 2 cents.
Good luck!6 -
This could be maybe an insight? I don't know your scenario but are you stressed out? I read and heard that stress increases weight gain.8
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FWIW when I buy chicken breasts, I measure them and they range WILDLY in size, from raw weight=3oz (102 calories) to 20oz monsters (680 calories). In general they tend to mostly be between 8 and 12 oz (272 - 408 calories), but I do see wider variation. I buy them from the same place all the time, but they vary a lot is my point.
Surely you can see that those types of errors can add up to significant overage from a 1400 cal / day target.
Honesly, I can't disagree with you about eggs -- I weigh mine and they vary but not that much and it seems to average over time. Almonds -- hmm well I would weigh those to be sure. I eat a lot of nuts myself and have found count :: weight provided on packages to be pretty inaccurate, and since nuts are so calorie dense it makes a big difference. It's frighteningly easy to accidently eat an extra 150 calories from nuts and feel like it's NOTHING. Oh, that was hardly even worth CHEWING so it can't have f'ed up my log, wait, no, crap it DID send me over.5 -
Okay, please don’t take this the wrong way but it sounds like you are not grasping that it’s not the *kind* of food you’re eating, it’s HOW MUCH you’re eating. I can pull a package of chicken breasts from my freezer and one will weight 4ozs, one will weigh 6ozs, one will weight 8ozs and one will weigh 3ozs. If you are consistently eating the 8oz breast and logging it as four, you’re eating twice as much as you think you are. Do that with everything you’re eating and you put on weight.ss4vegeta48 wrote: »cmriverside wrote: »Yeah, if you don't weigh meat, it's possible you're eating a lot more than you think. Salmon isn't exactly low-cal, either. What about oils, salad dressings, butter, cheese, dairy, nuts, avocado, potatoes, fruit, eggs? Do you eat them? Do you weigh them?
Well the reason I don't weigh my chicken breast is because it's the same kind I was eating when I was losing. As I said I do not eat red meats or porks. Salmon is a once in awhile meal. It's baked not fried and I do not bread anything especially now due to the gluten issue. I measure dressings by teaspoons and it's vinaigrettes only. I do not eat much dairy. I find it makes me bloat so I use almond milk. When I cook with olive oil I do record it in my baked chicken meal. I do not weigh an egg. I scanned the brand and record it as one egg ate. I'll be honest about the almonds. The labels says about 15 equals this amount of Calories so I count them out. I do not weigh a potato other then when I buy them for price lol.
Hope that helps.
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Nony_Mouse wrote: »ss4vegeta48 wrote: »cmriverside wrote: »Yeah, if you don't weigh meat, it's possible you're eating a lot more than you think. Salmon isn't exactly low-cal, either. What about oils, salad dressings, butter, cheese, dairy, nuts, avocado, potatoes, fruit, eggs? Do you eat them? Do you weigh them?
Well the reason I don't weigh my chicken breast is because it's the same kind I was eating when I was losing. As I said I do not eat red meats or porks. Salmon is a once in awhile meal. It's baked not fried and I do not bread anything especially now due to the gluten issue. I measure dressings by teaspoons and it's vinaigrettes only. I do not eat much dairy. I find it makes me bloat so I use almond milk. When I cook with olive oil I do record it in my baked chicken meal. I do not weigh an egg. I scanned the brand and record it as one egg ate. I'll be honest about the almonds. The labels says about 15 equals this amount of Calories so I count them out. I do not weigh a potato other then when I buy them for price lol.
Hope that helps.
Weigh everything solid and measure everything liquid. Everything. Make sure you're using accurate database entries. Your chicken breasts are not all going to be the same weight, likewise your potatoes, and everything else. Eat only 50-75% of any exercise calories. Do that for 4-6 weeks, if you're still not losing weight with accurate logging then you need to look further at possible medical causes.
Thank you. I'll start weighing. I'll just need to go pick up a scale.10 -
OP just try weighing everything you eat and drink for at least a full month and see what happens.
I know if i went by package weights and eyeballing portions I'd be eating quite a bit more than what it said in my diary, i 100% guarantee it!!4 -
1. Once again agreeing with what many people have said: eating "right" is not nearly as important as eating LESS. Measure and control your portions, particularly of calorie-dense things like meat, starchy foods, and many condiments (e.g. sour cream, salad dressing, peanut butter). You have no idea of whether you are hitting a calorie surplus or deficit if you are measuring your portions using your eyeballs. Logging is not the same as tracking if you don't measure your portions. You lost weight tracking: great. Many people (including me) have to continue tracking AND DILIGENTLY MEASURING in order to maintain weight loss. It is very normal to like eating more food than you need. It is very easy to trick yourself about portion size if you are not measuring diligently. Some unicorns can pull it off. Don't assume you're one of them. Evidence is pointing to the contrary here. If you're not losing weight -- or you're gaining -- you just DON'T GET TO SAY you know you're hitting a specific calorie target when you're not measuring. If you're really sure your portions are right, you won't mind measuring for a few weeks to confirm the results.
2. Your doctor has ruled out common medical problems via bloodwork, and that's good. FWIW, it's better to listen to doctors than us randos on the internet, IN GENERAL, but you should also be aware that to get a medical degree and a medical license requires next to no knowledge of weight loss or weight control. My doctor was very up front with me about what I should and could rely on him for on this topic: he told me that he only had to take like half a credit course in med school, and he doesn't have any continuing education credits needed on the topic. His point was that doctors are as likely to pass around annecdotal diet nonsense like we are, but the extra danger is the sense of complacency it can give patients about "metabolism" (eyeroll), not to mention some particularly bad advice some doctors give regarding rather dangerous VLC diets they are trained to prescribe for patients who need "emergency" fast weight loss prior to surgery. Get a referral from your doctor to a registered dietitian for meaningful advice.
Bottom line: I see soooooo many people who are desperate to hear a solution to weight control that doesn't require them to be accountable for eating an appropriate amount of food. It's got to be their metabolism or else it's got to be that they're eating the "wrong" foods or that they haven't tried the latest miracle food that will "burn" their fat for them. BS. To control your weight, you just have to be accountable for how much you eat. It may be simple, but it's not easy, and that's why you don't want to do it.
I have always measured my vegetables and things like peanut butter, dressings, And fruits. I just wasn't weighing my chicken/fish and my potato. Are you suggesting instead of measuring them by cups and teaspoons I should weigh those as well?
I really don't eat meat that much so honestly I didn't think it would make this big a difference. I thought that possible the problem might lie in the balance of fats, carbs, proteins. I always have a low count on proteins and sometimes carbs so I find myself in the morning recalculating my meals so I avoid so much fats. It's so hard for me to get the proteins I need. I have noticed more gluten free items seem to have more fats. Do you suggest I stop focusing so much on those numbers? I do focus on calories but those numbers within my calories.4 -
You ate healthy, but too many calories. I also "eat right" but I am most likely gaining weight. It's extremely easy to overeat by 200 calories every day. Boom. Weight gain.9
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ss4vegeta48 wrote: »1. Once again agreeing with what many people have said: eating "right" is not nearly as important as eating LESS. Measure and control your portions, particularly of calorie-dense things like meat, starchy foods, and many condiments (e.g. sour cream, salad dressing, peanut butter). You have no idea of whether you are hitting a calorie surplus or deficit if you are measuring your portions using your eyeballs. Logging is not the same as tracking if you don't measure your portions. You lost weight tracking: great. Many people (including me) have to continue tracking AND DILIGENTLY MEASURING in order to maintain weight loss. It is very normal to like eating more food than you need. It is very easy to trick yourself about portion size if you are not measuring diligently. Some unicorns can pull it off. Don't assume you're one of them. Evidence is pointing to the contrary here. If you're not losing weight -- or you're gaining -- you just DON'T GET TO SAY you know you're hitting a specific calorie target when you're not measuring. If you're really sure your portions are right, you won't mind measuring for a few weeks to confirm the results.
2. Your doctor has ruled out common medical problems via bloodwork, and that's good. FWIW, it's better to listen to doctors than us randos on the internet, IN GENERAL, but you should also be aware that to get a medical degree and a medical license requires next to no knowledge of weight loss or weight control. My doctor was very up front with me about what I should and could rely on him for on this topic: he told me that he only had to take like half a credit course in med school, and he doesn't have any continuing education credits needed on the topic. His point was that doctors are as likely to pass around annecdotal diet nonsense like we are, but the extra danger is the sense of complacency it can give patients about "metabolism" (eyeroll), not to mention some particularly bad advice some doctors give regarding rather dangerous VLC diets they are trained to prescribe for patients who need "emergency" fast weight loss prior to surgery. Get a referral from your doctor to a registered dietitian for meaningful advice.
Bottom line: I see soooooo many people who are desperate to hear a solution to weight control that doesn't require them to be accountable for eating an appropriate amount of food. It's got to be their metabolism or else it's got to be that they're eating the "wrong" foods or that they haven't tried the latest miracle food that will "burn" their fat for them. BS. To control your weight, you just have to be accountable for how much you eat. It may be simple, but it's not easy, and that's why you don't want to do it.
I have always measured my vegetables and things like peanut butter, dressings, And fruits. I just wasn't weighing my chicken/fish and my potato. Are you suggesting instead of measuring them by cups and teaspoons I should weigh those as well?
I really don't eat meat that much so honestly I didn't think it would make this big a difference. I thought that possible the problem might lie in the balance of fats, carbs, proteins. I always have a low count on proteins and sometimes carbs so I find myself in the morning recalculating my meals so I avoid so much fats. It's so hard for me to get the proteins I need. I have noticed more gluten free items seem to have more fats. Do you suggest I stop focusing so much on those numbers? I do focus on calories but those numbers within my calories.
Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh. Weigh.27 -
The macro balance isn't going to make you gain or lose weight. Just be very methodical about accurately measuring calories in from weighing everything, even on "cheat days" or "cheat meals" or alcohol days. If you are eating back exercise calories and getting them from MFP database or gym equipment you may be overestimating your burn, maybe cut back to eating half your exercise caloross4
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Yeah, I can overeat "healthy" food like nobody's business. Sometimes a poster says "no one binges on broccoli"... err
Loved sympha01's comment about nuts hardly being worth chewing but still being 150 cal. So sad! So true!
You asked if anyone had a similar experience,OP. I did. Couldn't figure out what changed. Same exercise, same food. Wondered if it was old age slowing my metabolism. No, it was none of that. I changed careers. So although my intentional exercise was the same, I was no longer running through airports flying 4x/week and sitting a whole lot more= less activity, fewer calories out. I bought a food scale, weighed everything I ate or drank, and lost exactly as predicted.
I throw out the daily activity change only because it happened to me. In your case, though, it seems more likely that when you went gluten free, you substituted something that's not getting counted accurately. I just discovered last week I had been using an erroneous entry for something I've been eating regularly FOR A YEAR. It happens.
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Same thing happened to me. I lost, then gained. I was logging my food every day and THOUGHT I was eating at a deficit. I would SWEAR I was eating under calories. I gained 18 pounds back in 2 years. Guess what? I wasn't weighing my food and was eating more than I thought I was. I bought a food scale, started weighing everything that went in my mouth and I started losing again.
Some people can eat intuitively. Some can stop weighing their food and maintain their weight. I cannot.
I concur with everyone else. You're eating more than you think and you need to start weighing your food.10 -
ss4vegeta48 wrote: »I thought that possible the problem might lie in the balance of fats, carbs, proteins. I always have a low count on proteins and sometimes carbs so I find myself in the morning recalculating my meals so I avoid so much fats. It's so hard for me to get the proteins I need. I have noticed more gluten free items seem to have more fats. Do you suggest I stop focusing so much on those numbers? I do focus on calories but those numbers within my calories.
This is magic metabolism thinking. In theory macro composition can make a difference but in reality it's a very small difference (let's say AT BEST 5% of your total burn is at stake) and you've much more improvement available to you by cutting the amount you eat down a smidge. It's honestly a lot easier to cut 10% of your calories by eating less, even if you already think you're "eating less" (especially if you're not measuring your potatoes).
I think you really need to focus on being accountable for how much you're eating (yes, potatoes and meat too, heck ESPECIALLY POTATOES AND MEAT) before you start grasping at magic metabolism straws.
FWIW, in my opinion the real benefit to tracking macros (if you are not a hard core athelete) is that it helps you learn how to control your satiety. I've learned that 100 calories of protein is way more hanger-controlling than 100 calories of carbs. (In fact 100 calories of pure carbs makes me want to eat more generally, and more sad and resentful to be done eating my meal). So I make sure I get plenty of protein at every meal. But not because eating more protein makes my metabolism roar along like a particularly thirsty F1 car.12
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