HELP eating 1200 calories and working out with no weightloss?

I’m 5’ tall 140lbs and want to loose 20lbs also, I’m almost in your same situation. I’ve tried loosing weight about 2-3 years ago, was consistent for a few months about eating healthy and working out and lost nothing so got frustrated and gave up. Decided a week ago to try again and hoping maybe something will click this time or that I’ll come across a magic tip that will help me loose the 20lbs.

consumone wrote: »

Here is another thought for you - are you sure you are eating enough food? I know when I don't eat enough I don't lose. Than get me going on eating less and less and than my body goes in starvation mode until I eat enough. Be honest with yourself and make sure you are eating the proper amount of food and the right foods.

It is a tough struggle I hear you, don't give up, look at others diaries and get food choices that way. Just maybe it will help, but maybe you also need more calories especially on work out days!

no, no, no. none of this is true - if this were true no one would starve to death - have you not seen or heard of the millions that die of starvation each year?

OP, as others said - you have no idea how many calories you are eating if you are not weighing ALL your food - not just the ones you have decided matter. start there.

I'm 5'1 and lost from 130 to a maintenance of 100-205 and have maintained it for over 7 yr.

It took a year to lose the 30 lbs eating 1200 cals plus 200 in exercise cals.

You need to measure all your food, prepackaged, single serving, veg, oils, butters, sauces, peanut butter,
e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g.

Being petite, and only just overweight, means your calories have to be spot on.

I found an hour of most exercises burnt around 200 cals (Zumba a little more, walking a little less), so my average intake was 9400-10000 a week.

It will be slow, expect .5-1 lbs a week until you reach about 120, then .5 or less for the remainder of your loss.

Find a way to eat that suits you. That includes timing and frequency, and including food you like.

I always think my success was because I didn't change what I ate, just ate a little less of almost everything. (Sweets things were a little less so protein could be a little more )

It takes believing in the method, and being consistent over time (even when things don't move for a couple of weeks).

Cheers, h.

you are probably eating more than you think, and being short, a missed 50-100 calories a day can really add up and completely blow your deficit for the week.

start logging everything BEFORE you put it in your mouth. measure, don't eyeball things. do this consistently for ~2 weeks, you'll be better able to see the patterns and see where to cut out calories to ACTUALLY hit that 1200 goal.

kcn2bluesky wrote: »

consumone wrote: »

Here is another thought for you - are you sure you are eating enough food? I know when I don't eat enough I don't lose. Than get me going on eating less and less and than my body goes in starvation mode until I eat enough. Be honest with yourself and make sure you are eating the proper amount of food and the right foods.

It is a tough struggle I hear you, don't give up, look at others diaries and get food choices that way. Just maybe it will help, but maybe you also need more calories especially on work out days!

I see this posted often on the forums....that a person is not losing weight because they aren't eating enough food. That's just not going to be the reason someone isn't losing weight. Think about it logically. Eating more food is going to cause you to gain weight. The OP in this thread has stated she isn't weighing and logging all of her food, and is only logging protein. Properly accounting for the calories she is eating is the starting point for her.

The problem with this linear type of thing is that the body doesn't maintain a standard TDEE. So often, by eating greater amounts of calories, one will increase the EE through a variety of means: spontaneous increase to NEAT, TEA (burn more calories through exercise), and TEF. In fact, this happened to me by going from 1800 to 2300 calories and I can't show you others who have increased as much as a 1000 calories and still seeing weight loss.

And while I agree that the OP should weigh her foods, she also really shouldn't be aiming for 1200 calories since she is not very over weight and workouts about 5 hours a week. If anything, she would benefit from a higher calorie diet and potentially incorporate refeeds every so often.

terrencebrown313 wrote: »

It might be any white carbs that are holding you back. Try to limit those if you can.

"White carbs" are not going to prevent weight loss if someone is in a deficit. Avoiding "white carbs" won't create weight loss unless someone is in a deficit. It's irrelevant.

Have u tried to add spices that help increases metabolism like cumin and cinnamon. Also eating a grapefruit before dinner helps.

liftingbro wrote: »

TavistockToad wrote: »

liftingbro wrote: »

I suggest never eating exercise calories at all. Simply pick a calorie intake level and eat that everyday.

Estimating calories burned can be wildly inaccurate or difficult to do consistently.

IMO, people who eat exercise calories tend to have more problems losing weight.

Incorrect. If you can be fairly accurate in knowing your burn then you should definitely eat them back. Or, if you don't want to, use a TDEE calculation, not MFP

TDEE is different than just saying I ran for an hour so I should eat 400 more calories.

TDEE minus 10-20% is good. Problem is people on here use the MFP calculator. I know for a fact it's not good to use the MFP calculation and eat the exercise calories as well. According to MFPI can exercise 30 minutes a day and lose 2 lbs a week by eating 3500 calories a day. I know that I would probably gain weight doing that given my TDEE is ~ 3000

This is why most people recommend eating a portion of the exercise calories and then adjusting depending on scale performance since all exercise calorie calculators are estimates... just like TDEE calculators. Since the OP is eating half her calories, she's taking a moderate approach to how this works.

You can't really extrapolate your experience to the OP's anyway.

OP, the advice to use a food scale is solid.

liftingbro wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

liftingbro wrote: »

I suggest never eating exercise calories at all. Simply pick a calorie intake level and eat that everyday.

Estimating calories burned can be wildly inaccurate or difficult to do consistently.

IMO, people who eat exercise calories tend to have more problems losing weight.

If someone is at 1,200 calories and close to goal weight, not accounting for exercise calories can result in a very low net. This isn't healthy.

While it can be difficult sometimes to estimate exercise calories, assuming they're "0" is guaranteed to be wrong. Why recommend someone choose the only number that can't be right?

I didn't say to eat 1200 calories, I said just choose an intake level and eat that everyday.

If you don't have a consistent intake it's hard to know what or how much to adjust if things aren't working.

Okay - but MFP does not use TDEE, it uses NEAT. Calorie goals here are based on Non-exercise activity thermogenisis.

TDEE (which includes exercise) less a cut is great when your exercise will be consistent.

If you are going to tell people not to eat calories back, ALSO explain that they need to use a different calculator because using this one is going to result in under eating.