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MyFitnessPal Community

Down 71lbs now weight won't budge HELP!

jennygutt

Hello everyone. I am 5ft7 166 lbs. Since March of last year I have lost 71 lb thru weight watchers and walking/running. I would eat 15 to 20 WW pts a day which is around 1000 calories. Since Nov i can not lose anymore. I did have the holidays of course. But I have been trying since November and just cannot get anywhere. I typically eat around a thousand calories a day. I was getting about 12k to 15k steps a day on my Fitbit. Which would usually burn about 2,500 calories according to my Fitbit. So to try and help lose the rest of my weight the last two weeks I have ate 1000 calories a day and got 25k to 30k steps everyday. And my weight is still the same to the Ounce!! I am eating 1000 cals and according to my Fitbit i am burning 3000 to 3500 each day that's for the last 2 weeks and I still have not lost not one ounce. Anyone been through this please I will take any suggestions I'm about to pull my hair out with this lol I just don't understand the math of calories in and calories out does not add up. There's just absolutely no way that I should not be losing weight.

Replies

jennygutt

My goal is 150 btw

janejellyroll

Your diary is closed, but often when people are not losing when they think they should, it comes down to logging errors that are resulting in them eating more than they think they are. If you open your diary, we may be able to help.

toxikon

You don't mention anything about tracking your calories, so that's probably the missing link here.

You may think you're eating 1000 calories, but if you haven't lost weight since November, you're actually eating at your maintenance calories.

My advice would be to buy a cheap digital kitchen scale and weigh out a typical day of food and drink for you, down to the gram. Every bite. Then see how much you've ACTUALLY been eating. And adjust your intake from there.

cheryldumais

I've been there! I know it makes no scientific sense but the same exact thing happened to me last year. I was stuck for about 2.5 months. What I finally did was take a diet break on advice from several people on MFP. I ate at maintenance for a week (should have done two but was paranoid). When I got back on track I started losing again very slowly. Took me a year to lose 18 pounds but I am now 10 pounds from my original goal. Remember you are much smaller now so your calories need to be bang on because you have very little room for error when you get close to goal. 1000 calories is too low though. You need to be sure you weigh and measure EVERYTHING to ensure you aren't eating more than you think. Be very careful with your exercise calories if you use them. As you get smaller you burn less.

You said you were on Weight Watchers so I am wondering are you considering veggies and fruit free? They have calories so be sure you are counting those. While they are certainly good for you the calories still add up. Our bodies count every calorie no matter what form it's in. Good luck and don't give up.

jennygutt

Yes I track my calories on Fitness Pal the last month or so... I don't see how it's possible to be shooting to eat 1000 calories a day but actually be eating 3500 a day... I usually overestimate the amount of calories I'm eating... And I went from doing 12000 steps a day to getting 30,000 steps a day and that didn't change anything either it's still staying the same so if it was a calories calculating error it looks like that would have at least helped doubling my the amount of exercise... My exercises are HIIT running and brisk walking everyday.

HoneyBadger302

What @toxikon said....chances are, you're probably eating more than you realize. I've never used WW before, so can't speak to that program vs calorie tracking, but buying a digital scale and actually weighing my food was an eye opener for me. Some things (mostly veggies) I realized I could eat a ton with hardly any impact, but what I thought I could get away with on other foods (carb-type foods especially) wasn't so accurate - and I had previously used measuring cups and such religiously.

If you're seriously only eating 1000 calories a day, that's WAY undereating. Your body may not be getting the nutrition it needs and not processing food the way it should be. With only 16 pounds to go, losses are going to be slow. The closer you are to goal, the tighter your logging needs to be and the slower the weight comes off.

janejellyroll

jennygutt wrote: »

Yes I track my calories on Fitness Pal the last month or so... I don't see how it's possible to be shooting to eat 1000 calories a day but actually be eating 3500 a day... I usually overestimate the amount of calories I'm eating... And I went from doing 12000 steps a day to getting 30,000 steps a day and that didn't change anything either it's still staying the same so if it was a calories calculating error it looks like that would have at least helped doubling my the amount of exercise... My exercises are HIIT running and brisk walking everyday.

Errors in estimating your calories in or your calories out (or a combination of both) could account for this. 3,500 is a high calorie burn so it is possible that in addition to issues with logging, Fitbit is potentially over-estimating how many calories you're burning.

I know it seems ridiculous that errors in logging could keep someone from losing weight, but I've seen it again and again (and even experienced it myself before I began accurately measuring food).

jennygutt

Yes ma'am I was on Weight Watchers. That's how I lost 271 lb but I never counted veggies and fruits free always counted them. I agree it's like how in the world could those be free they have calories especially the sugary fruits. So the 20 points a day I eat on Weight Watchers was including fruit veggies and chicken that they say are free.

toxikon

jennygutt wrote: »

Yes I track my calories on Fitness Pal the last month or so... I don't see how it's possible to be shooting to eat 1000 calories a day but actually be eating 3500 a day... I usually overestimate the amount of calories I'm eating... And I went from doing 12000 steps a day to getting 30,000 steps a day and that didn't change anything either it's still staying the same so if it was a calories calculating error it looks like that would have at least helped doubling my the amount of exercise... My exercises are HIIT running and brisk walking everyday.

It is possible your Fitbit could be over-estimating your calorie burns. There's an article out there about a study that revealed that most wrist devices like Fitbits can be off by as much as 27%. This may be a silly question, but have you updated your body weight on your Fitbit since losing those 70lbs?

3500 TDEE sounds awfully high.

I'm also 5'7", currently 145lbs, and my TDEE is 1700. Mind you, I work a desk job, but even with an intense session at the gym, I may burn about 300-400 extra calories, bumping me up to a total of 2100.

A brisk walk shouldn't burn a whoooole ton of calories, really.

cheryldumais

I would for sure try the diet break then. I don't understand why it works. It doesn't make sense but I went through exactly what you are and everyone kept telling me I was eating too much. I don't know if the break just made me more careful after or what but it finally got things moving even if it was only 1/4 pound a week at least it was moving. There have been a multitude of posts on the diet break thing so just search the forums on diet break and you should find loads of instructions.

pinuplove

Here's the diet break thread (it's a long one, but everything you really need to know is in the first few pages), if you're interested. If you've lost 71 pounds with no diet break it might be time. You must commit to accurate logging and trust the process for it to work. http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10604863/of-refeeds-and-diet-breaks/p1

MichelleSilverleaf

Get a food scale and start weighing your food, all of it. When you get to a small number you have no room for error. You need to know exactly how much you're eating. Also aiming to eat only 1000 cal a day total is a bad idea. Even a deficit of 1000cal would probably be unrealistic.

amusedmonkey

I would try for a diet break too. It helps normalize hormones - stress hormones can drive huge water retention. If you really have been eating that low, it's very likely you've caused quite a bit of damage in that department. If you still can't lose after a diet break I would see a doctor. Some women can develop large cysts or fibroids and not even know it.

Check out this thread:
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10604863/of-refeeds-and-diet-breaks

Golferdrone

Your Fitbit needs to quit lying to you on calories burned. Change your routine to include a different challenge. More hills, stairs, you need to find new ways to make your body stronger. Muscle takes up less space. This way your clothes will fit better at least

TeethOfTheHydra

I agree with most of the sentiment here. 1,000 calories a day is not healthy for most people, I would suggest more like 1,300 - 1,500 as a minimum. I also do not believe the fitbit measures are accurate. As an alternative benchmark, I do elliptical for 45 min @ ~7.5 mph with moderate resistance and that machine claims about 700 cals burned which I still treat as an over-estimate. 30k steps a day is on the order of 15 miles, I believe. That's two hours of my elliptical which would be about 1,850 cals, not 3,500.

My suggestions would be: a) consider eating more calories (and verifying your cal count); b) presume your exercise cals burn is much less than reported; and, c) think about changing your macro distribution. For example, I do 50% protein, 30% carbs, 20% fats. I have seen an appreciable difference in how my body deals with fat and lean when my mix is done differently but to the same total calorie count.
Just my advice, undoubtedly someone will criticize or have an alternative set of ideas.
Good luck!

Francl27

3500 calories for even 30,000 steps seems like a lot. I'm a bit smaller and lighter but even on my 40k steps day, I think I reached 3000 *maybe*. Yesterday I was at 19k steps and my total was 2300 (most steps from brisk walking)... so it's doubtful that 12k steps would give you 2500 with your stats.

Even then though, the math doesn't add up. There's no way you're only eating 1000 calories, or the weight would be falling off.

angelsja

I'm 5ft 8 176lbs my Fitbit said I burnt off 2576 calories yesterday for the whole day including 12326 steps

jennygutt

The 3000 to 3,500 calories burned is for the whole day. Its my BMR is 1530 cal a day....when i say brisk walk im not kidding. Start my morning workout with a 2-minute plank and push-ups. Followed by either a run @ 6mph for 3mi followed by a walk at a 6 incline @ 4mph for usually am hour. On the next day i do a 30 min HIIT followed by an hour walk @6 incline @ 4mph. So im not litely going for a stroll. Im drenched wih sweat and dead after my workouts each day. As i said i get upwards from 3ooo cal burned by the end of the day when at bedtime. The 3000cal burned includes my BMR of 1550 and then elall the exercising. I jog in place a lot thru out the day too any chance i have free time. Id say i get more toward 3500cal burned reading when i get closer to 335 to 37k steps. Its usually more toward 3000 cal burned reading for the day.

Lesscookies1

You're eating more calories than you think if you're not using a food scale start using it, and once you have the scale track your food intake better, and eat the calories recommended by MyFitnessPal good luck!!

jennygutt

Well I'm still not sure what to do. If I'm not counting my calories correct then maybe i am eating 1500 instead of 1000 a day. And if my Fitbit is overestimating my cals burned then say brings me to 2500 burned for the whole day including my bmr. That still brings to 1500 cals ate and burned 2500 thats still doesn't add up to why i stopped losing. It just doesnt make sense. I did this for 9 to 10 months and lost 71lbs. I ate about a thousand calories a day and exercised less than what I'm exercising now and would lose over 2 pounds a week. And it just stopped working. nothing changed. I increased my exercise within the last 2 months to try to see if that would help kump start it again and it's not helped either.

Lesscookies1

jennygutt wrote: »

Well I'm still not sure what to do. If I'm not counting my calories correct then maybe i am eating 1500 instead of 1000 a day. And if my Fitbit is overestimating my cals burned then say brings me to 2500 burned for the whole day including my bmr. That still brings to 1500 cals ate and burned 2500 thats still doesn't add up to why i stopped losing. It just doesnt make sense. I did this for 9 to 10 months and lost 71lbs. I ate about a thousand calories a day and exercised less than what I'm exercising now and would lose over 2 pounds a week. And it just stopped working. nothing changed. I increased my exercise within the last 2 months to try to see if that would help kump start it again and it's not helped either.

@jennygutt - Do you use a food scale to track your caloric intake?

jennygutt

Lesscookies1 wrote: »

jennygutt wrote: »

Well I'm still not sure what to do. If I'm not counting my calories correct then maybe i am eating 1500 instead of 1000 a day. And if my Fitbit is overestimating my cals burned then say brings me to 2500 burned for the whole day including my bmr. That still brings to 1500 cals ate and burned 2500 thats still doesn't add up to why i stopped losing. It just doesnt make sense. I did this for 9 to 10 months and lost 71lbs. I ate about a thousand calories a day and exercised less than what I'm exercising now and would lose over 2 pounds a week. And it just stopped working. nothing changed. I increased my exercise within the last 2 months to try to see if that would help kump start it again and it's not helped either.

Do you use a food scale to track your caloric intake?

I do not. But I usually overestimate the amount to be safe. And a lot of what I eat is the same thing. I usually have three pieces of toast for breakfast. A banana partly through the day. For dinner I usually have a grilled piece of chicken breast and vegetables or Salad to go with it. 8 days out of 10 that is what I eat lol... But even if I am a little off in the waiting area of my calories logging in it 1000 a day and then let's say I'm off 500 calories a day by accident which is highly unlikely because like I said I usually overestimate but if I was off by 500 s day or so I still should be losing a little bit each week... It just seems to me anyways. I do think I will get a food scale and start trying to weigh just to eliminate that.

jennygutt

I just can't decide if I'm not getting enough or if I'm getting too much. I can't possibly see how I'm eating too much though everyone around me each twice as much as I do and does not get the exercise I do in a day's time and they can lose a little bit of weight each week.

charlieandcarol

The reality is that you have reached a point where the amount of energy you are burning is the same as the amount you are consuming. This has to be true regardless of what your fitbit numbers are saying or what number of calories you think you are consuming. If it wasn't true you would be either losing or gaining weight.

So your options are to increase expenditure or decrease intake, or some combination of the two. Since it sounds like you are exercising plenty then you need to adjust intake.

If I were you I would get a food scale and weigh all solids in grams and measure liquids for a week without changing what I was eating and see what totals I get, then eat less than that per day, say 500 less. Then eat that for a month, weighing etc and see what happens.

No point focussing on why what you were doing isn't working anymore. It just isn't and you need to try something new. If not you will just keep spinning your wheels.

Edited to add: I am not advocating you eat only 500 cals a day because I believe if you weigh your food and use accurate database entries and log everything you will find you are eating >1000 cals

Lesscookies1

jennygutt wrote: »

Lesscookies1 wrote: »

jennygutt wrote: »

Well I'm still not sure what to do. If I'm not counting my calories correct then maybe i am eating 1500 instead of 1000 a day. And if my Fitbit is overestimating my cals burned then say brings me to 2500 burned for the whole day including my bmr. That still brings to 1500 cals ate and burned 2500 thats still doesn't add up to why i stopped losing. It just doesnt make sense. I did this for 9 to 10 months and lost 71lbs. I ate about a thousand calories a day and exercised less than what I'm exercising now and would lose over 2 pounds a week. And it just stopped working. nothing changed. I increased my exercise within the last 2 months to try to see if that would help kump start it again and it's not helped either.

Do you use a food scale to track your caloric intake?

I do not. But I usually overestimate the amount to be safe. And a lot of what I eat is the same thing. I usually have three pieces of toast for breakfast. A banana partly through the day. For dinner I usually have a grilled piece of chicken breast and vegetables or Salad to go with it. 8 days out of 10 that is what I eat lol... But even if I am a little off in the waiting area of my calories logging in it 1000 a day and then let's say I'm off 500 calories a day by accident which is highly unlikely because like I said I usually overestimate but if I was off by 500 s day or so I still should be losing a little bit each week... It just seems to me anyways. I do think I will get a food scale and start trying to weigh just to eliminate that.

That's your problem you're not using a food scale if you want to lose weight buy yourself a food scale, start tracking your intake better, and eat the amount of calories MyFitnessPal suggests the absolute minimum is 1,200 calories, but you're probably going to be able to eat more than that possibly. Also MyFitnessPal will track your exercise calories if you track it on here, and you're going to be able to eat back at least half of it back.

Feel free to keep us updated but first buy a food scale.

jennygutt

charlieandcarol wrote: »

The reality is that you have reached a point where the amount of energy you are burning is the same as the amount you are consuming. This has to be true regardless of what your fitbit numbers are saying or what number of calories you think you are consuming. If it wasn't true you would be either losing or gaining weight.

So your options are to increase expenditure or decrease intake, or some combination of the two. Since it sounds like you are exercising plenty then you need to adjust intake.

If I were you I would get a food scale and weigh all solids in grams and measure liquids for a week without changing what I was eating and see what totals I get, then eat less than that per day, say 500 less. Then eat that for a month, weighing etc and see what happens.

No point focussing on why what you were doing isn't working anymore. It just isn't and you need to try something new. If not you will just keep spinning your wheels.

Edited to add: I am not advocating you eat only 500 cals a day because I believe if you weigh your food and use accurate database entries and log everything you will find you are eating >1000 cals

Yeah I hear what you're saying. I did not change the way I ate and I was getting 12000 steps a day. During the last two weeks I update to 30,000 or more steps a day. So obviously I started burning more calories. But I still have not lost any weight in the last 2 weeks. My food has stayed the same I made sure I did not eat any more or less than what I had been and I increased my activity from 12000 steps a day to 30. I guess that's why I'm so confused about what to do because it looks like that would have made some type of difference.

jennygutt

charlieandcarol wrote: »

The reality is that you have reached a point where the amount of energy you are burning is the same as the amount you are consuming. This has to be true regardless of what your fitbit numbers are saying or what number of calories you think you are consuming. If it wasn't true you would be either losing or gaining weight.

So your options are to increase expenditure or decrease intake, or some combination of the two. Since it sounds like you are exercising plenty then you need to adjust intake.

If I were you I would get a food scale and weigh all solids in grams and measure liquids for a week without changing what I was eating and see what totals I get, then eat less than that per day, say 500 less. Then eat that for a month, weighing etc and see what happens.

No point focussing on why what you were doing isn't working anymore. It just isn't and you need to try something new. If not you will just keep spinning your wheels.

Edited to add: I am not advocating you eat only 500 cals a day because I believe if you weigh your food and use accurate database entries and log everything you will find you are eating >1000 cals

And I cannot see how I can possibly eat any less than what I am. I am starving constantly as it is. Pretty much don't even eat lunch except for maybe a banana. 3 pieces of toast with spray butter for breakfast. And then some chicken and vegetables for dinner. How on Earth can I possibly eat less than that. And like I said everyone else around me is eat twice that amount so it just doesn't make sense to me.

yirara

Nobody can say becauyse nobody really knows what you are consuming. You don't know either. What about snacks? How do you prepare the ckicken and veggies? With oil? What do you put on your toast other than spraybutter? Milk in tea or any other drinks? Any snacks inbetween?

LivingtheLeanDream

I don't know how you can do 30k steps a day on only 1000 calories. When I used to average 20k+ a day I needed to eat at least 2400 and I'm only 5ft 2. But that aside, if you aren't losing something is off with your calorie tracking. Have you tried a week eating at maintenance calories? sometimes that kick starts a loss again. The most calories I ever burned according to fitbit for a 40k step day was 2700.

Also sometimes doing more exercise is not necessarily the thing, you can be over training and your body will hold on to more water. (I've been there done that).

jennygutt

yirara wrote: »

Nobody can say becauyse nobody really knows what you are consuming. You don't know either. What about snacks? How do you prepare the ckicken and veggies? With oil? What do you put on your toast other than spraybutter? Milk in tea or any other drinks? Any snacks inbetween?

I dont use any oils on my chicken...i place a breast vin the airfryer nothing on it...no oils EVER! I steam veggies.. or a salad with no cheese. Just imitation bacon bits and light italian dressing and lettuce. Nothing on my toast but spray butter. I dont drink Anything but water thru the day. I have a 48oz cup i drink on all day. I refill it 2 or 3 times by the end of the day. I will have a diet drpepper 3 or 4 times a week. But thats the only things i ever drink. I hate milk and tea lol...if i snack its handful of frostes mini wheats or animal crackers something like that but i read the box and count out exactly what it says and track it. It usually says 16 animal crackers for 120 calories.. ill count them out exactly...i have coffee with creamer 3 or 4 times a week too. Forgot about that. But same thing i use 1 pk stevia, and fatfree crramer measuring out 2 tblsp of creamer. But thats a few times a week.