Eating between 1200-1375 calories a day, not losing weight.

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jessrudnicki
jessrudnicki Posts: 7 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I've been on a 6 day diet of 1200-1375 calories (with 1 cheat day a week) since July and I've lost a Max of 10 lbs. Sometimes I take a kickboxing class where I burn 700 calories and STILL, minimal weightloss. Anyone have any ideas? I'm 5'2, currently 171 lbs.
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  • gamerbabe14
    gamerbabe14 Posts: 876 Member
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    How are you measuring your calorie intake?
  • HellYeahItsKriss
    HellYeahItsKriss Posts: 906 Member
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    How are you getting your calorie info? do you weigh your food on a scale?
    Is your cheat day a day? is your meal massive? If you don't have much weight to lose, it would take about.. 1.5 hours to burn approx 700 calories IF you were doing continuous cardio... how are you determining that calorie burn?
  • RoxieDawn
    RoxieDawn Posts: 15,488 Member
    edited November 2017
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    What did you expect to lose by now (rate of loss setup each week?) You say minimal, does this mean you have stopped entirely? How long has it been?

    Are the 6 days you are eating 1200-1375 carefully weighed and logged? Wondering how many calories an entire cheat day costs?
  • jemhh
    jemhh Posts: 14,261 Member
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    RoxieDawn wrote: »
    What did you expect to lose by now (rate of loss setup each week?) You say minimal, does this mean you have stopped entirely? How long has it been?

    Are the 6 days you are eating 1200-1375 carefully weighed and logged? Wondering how many calories an entire cheat day costs?

    Right. My question was going to be how many calories do you eat on the seventh day.
  • jessrudnicki
    jessrudnicki Posts: 7 Member
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    HellYeahItsKriss wrote: »
    How are you getting your calorie info? do you weigh your food on a scale?
    Is your cheat day a day? is your meal massive? If you don't have much weight to lose, it would take about.. 1.5 hours to burn approx 700 calories IF you were doing continuous cardio... how are you determining that calorie burn?

    I don't weigh my food, I estimate mostly. Occasionally I'll measure. My cheat day is a full day, but I almost never go over 2,000 calories. The kickboxing class is a cardio kickboxing class, 60 minutes, and it is an estimated 700 calories.

    Could it be that I'm low balling my calories?
  • jessrudnicki
    jessrudnicki Posts: 7 Member
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    jemhh wrote: »
    RoxieDawn wrote: »
    What did you expect to lose by now (rate of loss setup each week?) You say minimal, does this mean you have stopped entirely? How long has it been?

    Are the 6 days you are eating 1200-1375 carefully weighed and logged? Wondering how many calories an entire cheat day costs?

    Right. My question was going to be how many calories do you eat on the seventh day.

    I don't count or log my calories on the seventh day, but I probably eat between 2,000-2,400. I see where the problem might be.
  • StatsGuy99
    StatsGuy99 Posts: 35 Member
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    A cheat day can wipe out a lot of your weekly deficit. This is especially true if you're not measuring your intake, as you might be consuming more than you realize. Where did you get the estimated calories burned for kickboxing? As HellYeahItsKriss is implying, that may be an overestimate. So, eating back those calories may also be reducing your deficit.
  • jjpptt2
    jjpptt2 Posts: 5,650 Member
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    janejellyroll wrote: »
    jessrudnicki wrote: »
    HellYeahItsKriss wrote: »
    How are you getting your calorie info? do you weigh your food on a scale?
    Is your cheat day a day? is your meal massive? If you don't have much weight to lose, it would take about.. 1.5 hours to burn approx 700 calories IF you were doing continuous cardio... how are you determining that calorie burn?

    I don't weigh my food, I estimate mostly. Occasionally I'll measure. My cheat day is a full day, but I almost never go over 2,000 calories. The kickboxing class is a cardio kickboxing class, 60 minutes, and it is an estimated 700 calories.

    Could it be that I'm low balling my calories?

    If you're just estimating your food intake, then it's likely you're eating more than you think. Your 1,200-1,375 a day could be much more and your 2,000 cheat days could be more too. This is probably why you're not seeing the results that you want.

    Agreed.


    Even if your estimates/logs are fairly reasonable, 1 cheat day can very easily wipe out an otherwise good week. A bad day for me takes about 3 weeks to make up for.
  • cathipa
    cathipa Posts: 2,991 Member
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    If you aren't losing you are consuming maintenance calories. Get a food scale. Weigh everything you eat and log everything you consume. And 700 calories per kickboxing session seems to be a bit high. Are you using a HRM to get this number?
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    jjpptt2 wrote: »
    janejellyroll wrote: »
    jessrudnicki wrote: »
    HellYeahItsKriss wrote: »
    How are you getting your calorie info? do you weigh your food on a scale?
    Is your cheat day a day? is your meal massive? If you don't have much weight to lose, it would take about.. 1.5 hours to burn approx 700 calories IF you were doing continuous cardio... how are you determining that calorie burn?

    I don't weigh my food, I estimate mostly. Occasionally I'll measure. My cheat day is a full day, but I almost never go over 2,000 calories. The kickboxing class is a cardio kickboxing class, 60 minutes, and it is an estimated 700 calories.

    Could it be that I'm low balling my calories?

    If you're just estimating your food intake, then it's likely you're eating more than you think. Your 1,200-1,375 a day could be much more and your 2,000 cheat days could be more too. This is probably why you're not seeing the results that you want.

    Agreed.


    Even if your estimates/logs are fairly reasonable, 1 cheat day can very easily wipe out an otherwise good week. A bad day for me takes about 3 weeks to make up for.

    Yeah, I am someone who can easily eat enough on a "cheat day" to wipe out the deficit for the entire week.
  • maddyloses
    maddyloses Posts: 3 Member
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    Keep in mind that as a short person your expenditure without exercise will be somewhere around 1400-1500 calories. Working out will definitely help give you a little wiggle room but you have to really commit to a certain calorie deficit. Accurate measurements are key!
  • steveko89
    steveko89 Posts: 2,217 Member
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    OP I think you're under-estimating your intake (likely especially on cheat days) and doubling down by over estimating your kickboxing calories. What is the source of this calorie estimation for that exercise? Maybe try eating back about half of those exercise calories, commonly suggested and ended up being about right for me. Can't overstate the necessity for a food scale and accurately measuring your portion sizes.
  • dailyzey
    dailyzey Posts: 82 Member
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    I was reading about this - and apparently for packaged foods, their calorie count can be off by 20% and still be FCC approved. So imagine if you eat a breakfast bar or whatever and it says 200 calories. It could actually be up to 240 calories in reality. So for all the packaged food you eat, your estimates could be off by 20% which is a huge disconnect. Keep that in mind when you are logging. Personally i'm not ready to weigh things yet but I am thinking that I need to leave a bigger buffer between what I eat and my daily goal, to account for these fluctuations.
  • toxikon
    toxikon Posts: 2,384 Member
    edited November 2017
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    700 calories burnt for an hour of exercise seems a bit high. That's about the equivalent of a person running a 10k (without any breaks) in an hour. Is your class non-stop high intensity?

    As for measuring your food intake, a digital food scale is extremely important. They're only $20 or so, definitely worth the investment. Estimating just doesn't cut it for most people.

  • apullum
    apullum Posts: 4,838 Member
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    You have some good advice here. To sum it up, here's what is probably going on:

    1. Underestimating your calories by not weighing/measuring your food accurately.
    2. Overestimating your exercise calorie burn.
    3. Eating back your deficit on your cheat day.

    And here's what I would do:

    1. Get a food scale and a good set of measuring cups. Use the food scale for solid foods and the measuring cups for liquids. Measure everything you can measure.
    2. If you're relying on database estimates for your exercise, then only eat back half of your exercise calories. The database tends to overestimate calorie burn. If you have a more accurate method of measuring, such as a heart rate monitor, then you should eat more of your exercise calories.
    3. Log the cheat day, if not scale it back or eliminate it.
  • dailyzey
    dailyzey Posts: 82 Member
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    @jessrudnicki - this article keeps me sane: http://blog.myfitnesspal.com/6-tips-pushing-weight-loss-plateau/ I have hit the plateau, exactly as predicted, when I lost 10% of my body weight.

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