I’ve been logging for 20 days and no results!

Are you accurately weighing your food?

did you just start working out?

How are you measuring your calories?

n0vtn wrote: »

I may get flamed for this post but, I think we expect too much from the ability of the app to calculate our Calorie ceiling. I suggest you use the ceiling as a starting point. If you aren't loosing weight fast enough, or not at all, then lower the bar by a couple hundred calories, and see if the weight starts coming off.

Another thing if the app is telling you that you will lose weight at 2150 calories, then you must have told it that you are fairly active. If you then enter your workouts, you are double counting your workouts. Someone I work with made this mistake. He wasn't losing any weight and gave up. Sad thing, he only wanted to drop about 5-10 lbs.

For example I weigh 175 pounds currently. The app says I should lose 1-1/2 pounds a week if I stay below 1650 calories. I told the app that I am only slightly active. I am doing Martial Arts 3 nights a week, and walk 3+ miles most other days. If I eat all 1650 calories, I seem to gain weight. I try to stay in the 1200 - 1300 calories a day and am losing a pound or two a week. I am down a little better than 20 lbs in 60 days. I also never eat back any of the calories I burn during workouts. Those are just a bonus to me.

To my mind, dieters get discouraged, or give up if they don't lose weight fast enough. I personally find it easier to eat even less, and tolerate the additional hunger, if I can see some light at the end of the tunnel.

Most import, Don't Give Up! You can do this!

Men shouldn't be eating below 1500 though, and that's at a minimum. If you're doing all that and can't lose on 1650, a check on logging would probably be in order. The number MFP gives a person is the number they should be eating towards, not to stay under.

diannethegeek wrote: »

1. If it's been less than 3 weeks or so, don't sweat it! Normal fluctuations happen and unfortunately sometimes we stall for a week or two even when we're doing everything right. Give your body some time to catch up with the changes you're making.

2. If you aren't already, be sure that you're logging everything. Sometimes people forget about things like veggies, drinks, cooking oils, and condiments. For some people these can add up to enough to halt your weight loss progress.

3. Consider buying a food scale if you don't already have one. They're about $10-$20 dollars in the US and easily found at places like Amazon, Target, and Walmart. Measuring cups and spoons are great, but they do come with some degree of inaccuracy. A food scale will be more accurate, and for some people it makes a big difference.

4. Logging accurately also means choosing accurate entries in the database. There are a lot of user-entered entries that are off. Double-check that you're using good entries and/or using the recipe builder instead of someone else's homemade entries.

5. Recalculate your goals if you haven't lately. As you lose weight your body requires fewer calories to run. Be sure you update your goals every ten pounds or so.

6. If you're eating back your exercise calories and you're relying on gym machine readouts or MFP's estimates, it might be best to eat back just 50-75% of those. Certain activities tend to be overestimated. If you're using an HRM or activity tracker, it might be a good idea to look into their accuracy and be sure that yours is calibrated properly.

7. If you're taking any cheat days that go over your calorie limits, it might be best to cut them out for a few weeks and see what happens. Some people go way over their calorie needs without realizing it when they don't track.

8. If you weigh yourself frequently, consider using a program like trendweight to even out the fluctuations. You could be losing weight but just don't see it because of the daily ups and downs.

9. Some people just burn fewer calories than the calculators predict. If you continue to have problems after 4-6 weeks, then it might be worth a trip to the doctor or a registered dietitian who can give you more specific advice.

Absolutely great advice. I wonder, OP, how you came up with your daily calorie count of 2150? It seems kind of high to me, but I don't know your other factors. The food scale really helps. I recently purchased one, and it has helped me tremendously. Also, logging every.single.morsel that goes in your mouth. And, be very selective about which entry you choose from the food database. Just reinforcing what diannethegeek wrote.

Best of luck to you! You got this!

concordancia wrote: »

I gained a half pound in my first three weeks, if that makes you feel any better.

Are you PMSing?
Is the exercise program new?
How is your sodium intake?
Are you having regular bowel movements?
Do you have any known medical issues that might require a special diet? PCOS, insulin resistance, diabetes, thyroid...

Give the program six weeks. If you don't see any changes by six weeks, drop a couple hundred calories and try again.

Weight loss involves patience, for some of us more patience than others. There is also some trial and error. MFP recommendations work off averages. Some of us have to burn below average. I set my goals to lose 2lb./week and hope for one.

OP is a male, so that first question is most likely out. And he hasn't been back since he posted this almost two weeks ago.

n0vtn wrote: »

I may get flamed for this post but, I think we expect too much from the ability of the app to calculate our Calorie ceiling. I suggest you use the ceiling as a starting point. If you aren't loosing weight fast enough, or not at all, then lower the bar by a couple hundred calories, and see if the weight starts coming off.

Another thing if the app is telling you that you will lose weight at 2150 calories, then you must have told it that you are fairly active. If you then enter your workouts, you are double counting your workouts. Someone I work with made this mistake. He wasn't losing any weight and gave up. Sad thing, he only wanted to drop about 5-10 lbs.

For example I weigh 175 pounds currently. The app says I should lose 1-1/2 pounds a week if I stay below 1650 calories. I told the app that I am only slightly active. I am doing Martial Arts 3 nights a week, and walk 3+ miles most other days. If I eat all 1650 calories, I seem to gain weight. I try to stay in the 1200 - 1300 calories a day and am losing a pound or two a week. I am down a little better than 20 lbs in 60 days. I also never eat back any of the calories I burn during workouts. Those are just a bonus to me.

To my mind, dieters get discouraged, or give up if they don't lose weight fast enough. I personally find it easier to eat even less, and tolerate the additional hunger, if I can see some light at the end of the tunnel.

Most import, Don't Give Up! You can do this!

1200 gross calories for a male? Good way to lose a lot of muscle mass. If you weren't losing on 1650, you were most likely eating more than you think.

MichelleSilverleaf wrote: »

n0vtn wrote: »

I may get flamed for this post but, I think we expect too much from the ability of the app to calculate our Calorie ceiling. I suggest you use the ceiling as a starting point. If you aren't loosing weight fast enough, or not at all, then lower the bar by a couple hundred calories, and see if the weight starts coming off.

Another thing if the app is telling you that you will lose weight at 2150 calories, then you must have told it that you are fairly active. If you then enter your workouts, you are double counting your workouts. Someone I work with made this mistake. He wasn't losing any weight and gave up. Sad thing, he only wanted to drop about 5-10 lbs.

For example I weigh 175 pounds currently. The app says I should lose 1-1/2 pounds a week if I stay below 1650 calories. I told the app that I am only slightly active. I am doing Martial Arts 3 nights a week, and walk 3+ miles most other days. If I eat all 1650 calories, I seem to gain weight. I try to stay in the 1200 - 1300 calories a day and am losing a pound or two a week. I am down a little better than 20 lbs in 60 days. I also never eat back any of the calories I burn during workouts. Those are just a bonus to me.

To my mind, dieters get discouraged, or give up if they don't lose weight fast enough. I personally find it easier to eat even less, and tolerate the additional hunger, if I can see some light at the end of the tunnel.

Most import, Don't Give Up! You can do this!

Men shouldn't be eating below 1500 though, and that's at a minimum. If you're doing all that and can't lose on 1650, a check on logging would probably be in order. The number MFP gives a person is the number they should be eating towards, not to stay under.

Thanks for the consructive response.

As I see it the great value in MFP lies in how it simplifies the process of logging/tracking what I am eating. Many of the commenters have mentioned carefully weighing your food, being suspicious of the listed calorie value of food and exercise, etc. These are all different ways of saying the same thing. It says the O.P. is either eating more than they think, or not exercising enough, or both. One can fix it by putting in extra effort to carefully weigh our food, or to troubleshoot the MFP database. After all this effort the O.P. figures out his/her numbers are off, and needs to eat less anyway.

My suggestion is to asume that there are a great many variables in this process, and that it is difficult at best to account for all of them. Concentrate on one variable (Calories), and adjust it until you get reasonable results. Are the numbers that the O.P. and I are using wrong? Probably. But if the O.P. is eating mostly the same things regularly, then it is probably also fairly consistent, and easily adjusted for the desired outcome.

I have two bathroom scales at my house they differ by 4.4 lbs. Which one is correct? Who knows. And I don't care. As long as I use the same one all the time. A pound lost, is still a pound lost. If the Calorie numbers we use are suspect, make the necessary adjustments and move on. This gets us to the same place, only without all the over analysis. This may also reduce the frustration level for some, and reduce the probability of giving up as a result.

Same with my 1650 Calories. I know there is an issue, either with the ceiling I get from MFP, or with the differential between my perceived vs actual intake. Either way I have to eat less to lose weight. Six years ago I lost 40 lbs. on MFP, and kept it off about three years. Then I got over confident, stopped using MFP and gained it all back. Now, I am a little over half way back down to my goal. I am 100 percent confident in my ability to get there, without being hungry. My body calculates ALL the variables, provides feedback in the form of pounds/inches. I use MFP to adjust the input required, to get the desired results. It really is that simple, lets not over complicate it.

Good luck to all of us striving toward better health!