The norm isn't working!

When you say you're trying to stay around 1,400-1,600, does that include logging each day? How many days are you not able to hit that target?

If you open your diary, we may be able to help. Generally, a 150-pound woman getting 20,000 steps a day should lose weight if she's consistently hitting 1,400-1,600 so I'm wondering if accurate logging may be an issue here.

acullen31 wrote: »

estherdragonbat wrote: »

How are you measuring your portions and calculating your workout burns? Also, how long have you been trying to lose weight this outing?

Um, honestly, i've been measuring my portions with my eyes. lol I need to not do that! My workouts, I tend to follow my fitbit watch. It'll let me know what I burnt based on my heart rate. I've been slowly gaining these 25 lbs for two years while simultaneously trying to not gain those 25 lbs.

I just went through a spot check with my father. He wasn't losing and couldn't figure out why. I broke out the food scale and had him weigh out a serving of some of his common foods. Turns out his 1400 calories were closer to 1900 calories when he stopped eyeballing his portion sizes. Most of us are pretty rubbish at eyeballing portion sizes, sadly, so it might be a good idea to weigh (food scales are my favorite, so much easier for me and less mess) or measure more carefully for a bit just to see what's happening.

In a quick look at your diary, I do think more accurately measuring will help you figure out how much you're really eating.

Some other tips: try to minimize the use of "homemade" or "generic" entries for the database. If you're using an entry that someone else has created for things like stir-fry or buffalo chicken dip, you have no idea how they made it or how closely what you're eating resembles what they made. It's nice to have access to a big database, but the vast majority of entries were created by other users. Some of those users are detail-oriented people who are successful with weight loss but many of them have no real idea what they're doing and are creating entries that are hot trash.

Also, I know sometimes it can't be avoided, but try to avoid lots of days where you're choosing the closest thing in the database. Same logic -- you may be close, you may be not. I notice you have a day where you've logged a cookie from Safeway, cake from Aladdin, pasta salad from Outtakes . . . you may have gotten all those things there, but it's likely you were just choosing the closest thing in the database. Not saying *never* to do that, because we all have days when we're just doing out best. But if you're doing that a lot, then your log is going to be closer to estimates.

The more days you have that are accurate, the more wiggle room you have for days when you can't be as accurate and are logging your best guess. And keep in mind, it isn't forever. Once you get the hang of accurate logging, you often become better at estimating.