Can't seem to lose weight and I'm getting frustrated

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jennericksen
jennericksen Posts: 6 Member
in Challenges
Hi everyone! I have been tracking my calories and my workouts for about a month now and I cannot get the scale to move. I am eating healthy, drinking lots of water, working out with a trainer 1 day/week and on my own 2-3 days/week. Am I doing something wrong? I have a lot to lose and I am so frustrated that I am not seeing progress. :neutral: Anyone out there in the same boat or know what I can do differently so I start seeing some progress? Thanks so much!

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  • aeloine
    aeloine Posts: 2,163 Member
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  • aeloine
    aeloine Posts: 2,163 Member
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    You don't make mention of weighing your food. Are you using a food scale? Are you in a caloric deficit?
  • jennericksen
    jennericksen Posts: 6 Member
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    Thank you so much for that chart! That is awesome! For the last two weeks I have been following a detox menu plan so I have been following the serving sizes to a T. But maybe a food scale would be a good idea. I have been eating right around 1200 calories on the days that I don't workout and about 1500 on the days that I do. Should I be eating more? Less? I have never had such a problem before.
  • Mike1804
    Mike1804 Posts: 114 Member
    edited February 2018
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    I actually had a similar issue. Turns out my maintenance calories were lower than I had expected. I had been working out like a madman for a year and only lost 10lbs. I then estimated my maintenance calorie intake and subtracted what I needed to in order to lose my 1lb/week goal, and then started logging. After a little over a month of no results, I decided to tweak down my calories by about 500 and also reduced my carb intake and increased my protein... then it started to fall off as I was expecting. Since then, I've been consistently averaging 1 pound per week loss. Not to say this is your issue, because that calorie intake seems low already... but maybe a little tweaking is all you need. One thing I've definitely learned, weight loss is not linear, and all of our bodies react differently to diet and exercise. I think it will just take more experimenting and you'll find the right combo.
  • jennericksen
    jennericksen Posts: 6 Member
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    Thanks Mike! Maybe I need to add more protein and have less carbs... I am not going to give up that is for sure. Hopefully I can figure things out soon! :smile:
  • Katiebear_81
    Katiebear_81 Posts: 719 Member
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    Macro splits don't matter for actual weight loss, calorie deficits do. You'll retain more muscle with higher protein splits, but it won't actually do anything about the loss.

    Start with weighing your food and tracking accurately. What you think is 1200 calories might be a lot over. Once you've accurately logged your food for a month, you'll have a better idea of a) how much you're consuming and b) what effect that has on your weight. Once you understand the trend, you can make informed decisions about your deficit.

    It is not recommended for most women to go below 1200 calories, so I would start with being accurate, THEN worry about increasing the deficit.
  • Mike1804
    Mike1804 Posts: 114 Member
    edited February 2018
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    jennericksen wrote: »
    Thanks Mike! Maybe I need to add more protein and have less carbs... I am not going to give up that is for sure. Hopefully I can figure things out soon! :smile:
    personally, my body is hyper-sensitive to carbs. I still have them, but limit myself to 150g max and do my best to steer clear of refined sugar. I try to always have more grams of protein than carbs at the end of the day. Some days I come in lower, other days maybe a smidge over. I started at 235 and now 211(goal is 199) ... 14 of those lb's have been since 12/5/17 (that's when I broke the code).
  • Shan0185
    Shan0185 Posts: 1 Member
    edited February 2018
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    1,200 seems pretty low, is that the amount your trainer figured out for you? If you’re working out 3-4 days a week, you’re probably going to need closer to 2,000, if not over. Of course that depends on your activity level, too.

    As strange as it sounds, you won’t lose if you eat too little. I weight trained and did yoga 5 days a week and was eating 2,100 calories/day and lost 13lbs in 12 weeks. That’s approximately 1 lb a week, the recommended amount. If you’re unsure what you’re intake should be, check a TDEE calculator. IIFYM.com is a good one.
  • jennericksen
    jennericksen Posts: 6 Member
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    That is what I was thinking.... maybe I am not eating enough. My trainer hasn't really mentioned anything about nutrition... just been focusing on the workouts. I will totally loo into that TDEE calculator! Thank you so much!
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,728 Member
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    Shan0185 wrote: »
    1,200 seems pretty low, is that the amount your trainer figured out for you? If you’re working out 3-4 days a week, you’re probably going to need closer to 2,000, if not over. Of course that depends on your activity level, too.

    As strange as it sounds, you won’t lose if you eat too little. I weight trained and did yoga 5 days a week and was eating 2,100 calories/day and lost 13lbs in 12 weeks. That’s approximately 1 lb a week, the recommended amount. If you’re unsure what you’re intake should be, check a TDEE calculator. IIFYM.com is a good one.

    Not true.

    And since we're on MFP, why not use MFP's calorie calculator. It's pretty good.
  • aeloine
    aeloine Posts: 2,163 Member
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    jennericksen wrote: »
    Thank you so much for that chart! That is awesome! For the last two weeks I have been following a detox menu plan so I have been following the serving sizes to a T. But maybe a food scale would be a good idea. I have been eating right around 1200 calories on the days that I don't workout and about 1500 on the days that I do. Should I be eating more? Less? I have never had such a problem before.

    How do you know? Are you weighing your food? Cup/volume measurement can some times be so far off as to eat up your entire deficit.

    Get a food scale, and ideally stop with the "detox." Your kidneys and liver detox your body just fine. All this diet will do Is to make you lose water weight (which you will regain very quickly) and make you cranky.
  • jennericksen
    jennericksen Posts: 6 Member
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    stanmann571 I was using MFP's calculator which stated that I should be at 1220 cals on the days that I don't work out.
  • jennericksen
    jennericksen Posts: 6 Member
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    aeloine I am going to get a food scale this week.
  • LisaWeir74
    LisaWeir74 Posts: 88 Member
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    Katiebear_81 wrote: »
    Macro splits don't matter for actual weight loss, calorie deficits do. You'll retain more muscle with higher protein splits, but it won't actually do anything about the loss.

    Start with weighing your food and tracking accurately. What you think is 1200 calories might be a lot over. Once you've accurately logged your food for a month, you'll have a better idea of a) how much you're consuming and b) what effect that has on your weight. Once you understand the trend, you can make informed decisions about your deficit.

    It is not recommended for most women to go below 1200 calories, so I would start with being accurate, THEN worry about increasing the deficit.

    Why do you think macro splits don't matter? The nutrients in your food matter! Weigh your food, track your macros....I have been doing this for 2 weeks and I have lost 7 lbs. I have not worked out one bit. I don't pretend to be an expert, but just eating in a calorie deficit will not make you lose weight long term.
  • Mike1804
    Mike1804 Posts: 114 Member
    edited February 2018
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    LisaWeir74 wrote: »
    Katiebear_81 wrote: »
    Macro splits don't matter for actual weight loss, calorie deficits do. You'll retain more muscle with higher protein splits, but it won't actually do anything about the loss.

    .

    Why do you think macro splits don't matter? The nutrients in your food matter! Weigh your food, track your macros....I have been doing this for 2 weeks and I have lost 7 lbs. I have not worked out one bit. I don't pretend to be an expert, but just eating in a calorie deficit will not make you lose weight long term.

    I agree with Lisa. Of course a calorie deficit is needed to drop weight in the first place, but *for me*, macros make a more noticeable imapct than just focusing on creating a calorie deficit. I’ve been tracking my MFP stats over the last 3 months by plugging them into a spreadsheet, daily. This way I can view/compare the data over time and figure out what works for my body. I am tracking MFP data, exercise data, and sleep patterns. I’m doing this is best understand my body and how it reacts to these different variables and how I can be most effective at dropping my weight.

    I have made a direct correlation in my macros and my weight loss - mainly centered around protein & carb balance. The weeks where I have increased the margin between my carb & protein intake (and created deficit) the greater and more consistent my weight loss. The weeks where my protein intake is lower, I experience much smaller results. Could be water retention? Time will tell. Just to clarify, I DO have carbs... I just focus more on consistent protein intake throughout the day (usually no more than 40g at a time).

    I also found another interesting revelation.... more excercise doesn’t always guarantee greater weight loss for me. I get better results when eating clean and focusing on my overall diet and getting proper rest, rather than beating myself up at the gym (which strangely, I enjoy).

    Not to say this is the same for everyone. I think one thing we have to keep in mind, all of our bodies are different. Our bodies are terribly complicated, and just like fingerprints, I really feel they all work differently from one another. We just need to understand what works best for our own physiology. I won’t feel 100% comfortable with my data until I reach the 12 month mark, but it’s pretty interesting to see these correlations. I can’t do it without the deficit though first.

    There’s more, but I will leave it there :)
  • bbell1985
    bbell1985 Posts: 4,572 Member
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    LisaWeir74 wrote: »
    Katiebear_81 wrote: »
    Macro splits don't matter for actual weight loss, calorie deficits do. You'll retain more muscle with higher protein splits, but it won't actually do anything about the loss.

    Start with weighing your food and tracking accurately. What you think is 1200 calories might be a lot over. Once you've accurately logged your food for a month, you'll have a better idea of a) how much you're consuming and b) what effect that has on your weight. Once you understand the trend, you can make informed decisions about your deficit.

    It is not recommended for most women to go below 1200 calories, so I would start with being accurate, THEN worry about increasing the deficit.

    Why do you think macro splits don't matter? The nutrients in your food matter! Weigh your food, track your macros....I have been doing this for 2 weeks and I have lost 7 lbs. I have not worked out one bit. I don't pretend to be an expert, but just eating in a calorie deficit will not make you lose weight long term.

    This is false. Eating in a calorie deficit will cause weight loss. Macros are for health, satiety, adherence, body composition

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