Calorie defecit not losing weight
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rdruken
Posts: 16 Member
Hello! So I lost 17 pounds last winter and though I haven’t stopped trying I haven’t been able to get any further. I am still 20 pounds from my BMI but can NOT get my weight to budge. I’ve tried 5 months of weight watchers, lost 3 pounds the first month then gained them back on a week cruise. Since then I still can’t get it. I’ve attached a picture of my spreadsheet that I have used to crack down a little more this past month, I measure everything so eat.any muscle gain from the he gym shouldn’t be enough to counteract all losses. Any advice? 20 year old female. Any tips help!
The first week was looking good but I think that was mostly water weight with no change these last 2 weeks.
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Replies
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How are you calculating/creating a deficit?
How are you measuring what you're eating?
The most likely case is that you're overestimating calorie burn and underestimating eating.
Usually by accepting inaccurate burn information and by "measuring" instead of weighing.12 -
Open your diary. We may be able to help you troubleshoot your logging.0
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Yeah I'd say you are probably under-estimating your true caloric intake and in the initial months you lost but you are now eating at maintenance and don't realize it.
Here's the thing: if you are not losing and not gaining, then by definition, you are eating at maintenance. So if your logging tells you that you are eating at a 500 calorie/day deficit but you are not losing, then your logging is off. Sorry, no other way to interpret it.
Go back and review your logging. Measure and weigh EVERYTHING! If it goes in your mouth and you haven't weighed or measured it then you really have zero idea what your true "calories in" figures are.16 -
Hi all, I use a food scale to weigh everything and my burn is measured by my apple watch. I include all oils used to cook meats and use measuring spoons for everything like jam to mayo on my sandwiches. Most days my defecit is well over 500 calories so even if somehow i was off by like 300 calories I should still be losing something. I go to the gym for an hour most days and my calorie goal is 1300 calories so I really can't go any lower. How can I open my diary to you?4
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made my diary public0
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Hi all, I use a food scale to weigh everything and my burn is measured by my apple watch. I include all oils used to cook meats and use measuring spoons for everything like jam to mayo on my sandwiches. Most days my defecit is well over 500 calories so even if somehow i was off by like 300 calories I should still be losing something. I go to the gym for an hour most days and my calorie goal is 1300 calories so I really can't go any lower. How can I open my diary to you?
1. You need to be weighing the Mayo and Jam, especially as those sorts of things can add up very quickly. The easy way to weigh stuff like that is to put the jar on your digital gram scale and hit tare, then once you've made your sandwich or other dish/meal, the negative gram reading is how much you used.
2. Without knowing what sorts of activities you're doing, it's impossible to evaluate whether or not the watch is being inaccurate.
So, what sorts of activities are you doing, and what is the watch estimating as your burn.7 -
Hi again! I typically do about 20 min of cardio on the elliptical or running track then basic weight lifting with hand weights and the machines, nothing too extreme. My watch divides burned calories into "resting" and "active", where resting are like BMR calories and any movement gives active calories. My resting calories are typically 1500-1620 and my active calories I aim to get at least 500 per day, some days (like if I went out for supper) I work to increase that to 800 or more active.
To me these resting calories sound accurate (lower than estimates by online calculators) and the active ones are like 400 calories per an hour at the gym which sounds reasonable to me.
In terms of weighing jam and mayo I assumed measuring spoons like teaspoons and tablespoons would be just as accurate leveled out as the packages usually list serving sizes in tablespoons over grams?7 -
I see some things that may be no better than guesses like "Dessert - Lemon Meringue Pie, 0.1125 th of a pie." I agree with @stanmann571 that you want to be weighing your condiments, especially calorie-dense things like mayo. You have a fair amount of generic entries (like "Generic - Stuffing, 0.2 cup") and these are often no better than guesses. Things like "Homemade - Healthy Apple Crisp, 1 slice" were created by other people -- you have no idea what ingredients they used, how big their "slice" was, etc. Things like "Apple crisp - Apple crisp, 0.26666680000000004 slice" -- how are you possibly measuring that (even if the database entry matches the apple crisp you're eating)?
As others have said, there may be an issue with your calories out and how you're estimating it, but I think there is almost certainly an issue with your calories in and how you are estimating them. I think it is likely you are eating more than you think. I think your desserts and your cocktails almost certainly are higher calorie than what you're estimating for them. You have 109 calories for "1 glass" of vodka and cranberry. Just two ounces of vodka alone is about 140 calories, that's not even counting the juice.
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Hi again! I typically do about 20 min of cardio on the elliptical or running track then basic weight lifting with hand weights and the machines, nothing too extreme. My watch divides burned calories into "resting" and "active", where resting are like BMR calories and any movement gives active calories. My resting calories are typically 1500-1620 and my active calories I aim to get at least 500 per day, some days (like if I went out for supper) I work to increase that to 800 or more active.
In terms of weighing jam and mayo I assumed measuring spoons like teaspoons and tablespoons would be just as accurate leveled out as the packages usually list serving sizes in tablespoons over grams?
No, the grams is going to be a much more accurate way to measure.8 -
Hi again! I typically do about 20 min of cardio on the elliptical or running track then basic weight lifting with hand weights and the machines, nothing too extreme. My watch divides burned calories into "resting" and "active", where resting are like BMR calories and any movement gives active calories. My resting calories are typically 1500-1620 and my active calories I aim to get at least 500 per day, some days (like if I went out for supper) I work to increase that to 800 or more active.
In terms of weighing jam and mayo I assumed measuring spoons like teaspoons and tablespoons would be just as accurate leveled out as the packages usually list serving sizes in tablespoons over grams?
Compare and see. You will probably be surprised.
20 minutes of running/elliptical and some light calisthenics isn't going to get you anywhere near the 800-1000 calorie burns you're recording.12 -
I don't think that the jam or the mayo can add up to 500 cals per day, you have to eat a lot more of them... Maybe you have some hormonal issues? Your BMR might be lower due to medical anomaly37
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I don't think that the jam or the mayo can add up to 500 cals per day, you have to eat a lot more of them... Maybe you have some hormonal issues? Your BMR might be lower due to medical anomaly
If you look at OP's diary, there is a lot more going on than just the jam and mayo. Typically in cases of logging errors it is never any one particular food -- it's a whole bunch of smaller errors, made consistently, that result in someone eating more than they think.
To suggest someone look into hormonal issues when they are using measuring spoons for their food and still using a bunch of generic/homemade entries is way premature.
I virtually guarantee OP doesn't have an anomaly, she's likely just like a lot of us were when we started -- terrible at estimating food intake and unsure how to log some items. It's really common, I went through the exact same thing myself. Combine that with over-estimating calories burnt through exercise and it will be very difficult to get the results you think you should.24 -
well on the average day my active calories is about 550, but that includes about 400 cal at the gym and I have to walk a fair ways into school so I think a hundred other calories above my BMR is pretty reasonable for the watch to calculate8
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well on the average day my active calories is about 550, but that includes about 400 cal at the gym and I have to walk a fair ways into school so I think a hundred other calories above my BMR is pretty reasonable for the watch to calculate
400 calories for 20 minutes of cardio seems pretty high.17 -
janejellyroll wrote: »well on the average day my active calories is about 550, but that includes about 400 cal at the gym and I have to walk a fair ways into school so I think a hundred other calories above my BMR is pretty reasonable for the watch to calculate
400 calories for 20 minutes of cardio seems pretty high.
I'm 230 lbs and male and I don't get to 400 calories until I get past 30 minutes of running.
50% or better overestimation of burn and 25% underestimation of calories and bingo! Maintenance.7 -
I don't think that the jam or the mayo can add up to 500 cals per day, you have to eat a lot more of them... Maybe you have some hormonal issues? Your BMR might be lower due to medical anomaly
in what world would a "medical anomaly" be more likely than janejellyroll's advice above??15 -
its not just 20 minutes of cardio at the gym, I typically start with that but I am there for an hour lifting weights and doing sets of jumping jacks to keep my heart rate high, like I run a lap here and there before I go do another set. Weight lifting does burn calories too, so the entire hour at the gym is about 400 average not the cardio alone. Sorry if that wasn't clear6
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Muscleflex79 wrote: »I don't think that the jam or the mayo can add up to 500 cals per day, you have to eat a lot more of them... Maybe you have some hormonal issues? Your BMR might be lower due to medical anomaly
in what world would a "medical anomaly" be more likely than janejellyroll's advice above??
It's a very common issue, well at least in my country I see people everywhere with similar problems, they usually don't know it until they struggle with diets. It was just a guess, you never know...27 -
its not just 20 minutes of cardio at the gym, I typically start with that but I am there for an hour lifting weights and doing sets of jumping jacks to keep my heart rate high, like I run a lap here and there before I go do another set. Weight lifting does burn calories too, so the entire hour at the gym is about 400 average not the cardio alone. Sorry if that wasn't clear
The running is maybe 150 calories and the light calisthenics is probably another 75 or so at best.
It's a lot closer to 200 than 400.11 -
its not just 20 minutes of cardio at the gym, I typically start with that but I am there for an hour lifting weights and doing sets of jumping jacks to keep my heart rate high, like I run a lap here and there before I go do another set. Weight lifting does burn calories too, so the entire hour at the gym is about 400 average not the cardio alone. Sorry if that wasn't clear
Weight lifting does burn calories, but it doesn't burn as much as you think.10
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