Calorie defecit not losing weight

rdruken wrote: »

heres my workout from thursday on the apple watch info screen. The other includes my weights, some walking, jumping jacks, boxer bounces and machine use. I know it isnt perfect but I am finding it more accurate seeming than my fitbit used to which matches with the research saying its about as good as you can get in a wearable but I'll put this here just for anyones interest.

In terms of eating I will crack down on things I can't measure and stick to things I can to see if that helps. The thing I'm having trouble wrapping my head around is that most days even if my over estimations of burn and underestimates of eating was off by even 500 calories I should still lose like half a pound a week at least, It just seems like there should be room in these calculations for a fair amount of error that should still cause loss.

For the elliptical, that's probably pretty close to right.


For the calisthenics. It's high by at least double and probably closer to triple.

I am 325 lbs and according to MFP exercise, I'd have to walk my dog at a 3mph pace for 50 minutes to cross the 400 calorie threshold. I have truthfully stopped logging the majority of my exercise because I feel that it is grossly overestimated. MFP is lower than most estimators it seems, but it is still too high. I could almost guarantee you that you are not burning anywhere near 400 calories during your exercising. Ever since I stopped logging my exercise, it has really helped me start heading in the right direction (again) on the scale, in clothing size, and where my relationship is with weight loss from a mental standpoint.

The way I see it, not logging exercise means you aren't obsessing about having to exercise to lose weight or burn extra calories for food that you've eaten or plan to eat. Get used to eating what you should eat and if you work out a lot in one day, then eat a little extra. If you don't get a workout in, then you'll still be fine.

That's just my advice...logging all of my exercise, even underestimating the caloric burn, was still giving me too high of a number for caloric burn compared to what the number really is. The inflated numbers led to overeating, which prevented weight loss. Weight loss really is 90% about what, and how much, you put in your mouth. When I was putting in 3hrs of working out in a day, if I ate all of those calories back, I didn't lose weight. Now if I eat my initial calorie goal and even (on the rare occasion) not exercise at all, I still go down in size. It works like it's supposed to, and is incredibly less stressful...how bout that!

laurimaki wrote: »

I am 325 lbs and according to MFP exercise, I'd have to walk my dog at a 3mph pace for 50 minutes to cross the 400 calorie threshold. I have truthfully stopped logging the majority of my exercise because I feel that it is grossly overestimated. MFP is lower than most estimators it seems, but it is still too high. I could almost guarantee you that you are not burning anywhere near 400 calories during your exercising. Ever since I stopped logging my exercise, it has really helped me start heading in the right direction (again) on the scale, in clothing size, and where my relationship is with weight loss from a mental standpoint.

The way I see it, not logging exercise means you aren't obsessing about having to exercise to lose weight or burn extra calories for food that you've eaten or plan to eat. Get used to eating what you should eat and if you work out a lot in one day, then eat a little extra. If you don't get a workout in, then you'll still be fine.

That's just my advice...logging all of my exercise, even underestimating the caloric burn, was still giving me too high of a number for caloric burn compared to what the number really is. The inflated numbers led to overeating, which prevented weight loss. Weight loss really is 90% about what you eat. When I was putting in 3hrs of working out in a day, if I ate all of those calories back, I didn't lose weight. Now if I eat my initial calorie goal and even (on the rare occasion) not exercise at all, I still go down in size. It works like it's supposed to, how bout that!

While good advice for someone your size or mine, it's less good for someone much smaller like the OP who may need 200 of those exercise calories in order to eat breakfast.

darrenbeckworth wrote: »

stanmann571 wrote: »

While good advice for someone your size or mine, it's less good for someone much smaller like the OP who may need 200 of those exercise calories in order to eat breakfast.

I think that may the problem many people have on this website. Everyone is "Playing" with so few calories to work with they are constantly getting super close one way or the other leading to not losing or even gaining. If people focused on eating a larger deficit/more workout calories they wouldn't be ruined by stupid things like olive oil consumption or that the elliptical was off by 20%. My two cents anyways.

Easy to do if you're a larger person, harder to envision how this works for smaller people and/or those closer to their goal weight. A deficit large enough to absorb unlogged calorie-dense foods or major calorie burn estimation errors is more challenging when you're closer to goal weight.

Over the last month of tighter tracking, and especially over the past 2 weeks, water weight can be a very real factor, so patience may be good advice in addition to further tightening logging. Depending on where you are in your menstrual cycle, that can influence the water weight big time, and it's not always 100% consistent from cycle to cycle for everyone. I'd suggest monitoring for a full cycle plus a bit (maybe 6 weeks) before cutting further.

Are you using a weight trending app (such as Happy Scale for iOS, Libra for Android, Trendweight, . . .)? Those will also take a month or so to give you a useful trend, but can be helpful at the smaller deficits you're likely to be running as you head toward maintenance. (Many people find they need to be much more meticulous near the end. Just for the sake of argument: If we speculate you could be underestimating eating by 100 calories, and overestimating exercise by 100, your deficit could be low enough to take some time to show up through daily water-weight and digestive-contents fluctuation.)

I'd also argue for weighing things like mayo, if only on the grounds that it's easier than spoons. Put the open mayo jar on the scale, zero it, stick the knife in, pull out a glob, and spread it on your sandwich. Read the negative value on the scale: It's what you took out. Done, and no measuring spoon to wash. And, as a bonus, it's more accurate.

Just as a background comment: Keep in mind that any external consumer device - your Apple watch, a HRM, exercise machines, whatever - don't measure calorie burn. They estimate it, based on algorithms and measurements of proxies/correlates like motion, speed, distance, heart rate, etc. Their estimates are only as good as their algorithms and some research into population averages (similar to any other calorie estimates, just somewhat more personalized). You're an individual, not a population, so devices' and calculators' estimates may vary from your personal reality.

Best wishes!

I would recommend that you work out for the health benefits and not the dietary advantage you think you are getting. Unless you are going balls-to-the-walls for an hour plus, I would either skip logging it or just manually enter it with a 1 calorie burn, then focus on your diet.

I exercise for maybe 30-40 minutes at a time and almost never eat back my "recorded" calories burned because, a) I don't burn enough to create that much extra hunger and, b) if I am creating a deficit I'll just hit my goals that much faster.

I think your iWatch is leading you astray...

Weight loss goals are done in the kitchen, health goals are done in the gym (or on the road or in your basement exercising or whatever). I think the majority of your issues will be solved by tightening up your logging.

And if you aren't sure what the correct way to measure or track some food that you didn't make when you are out and about or at a friends house? Don't eat it. That's my way of handling those scenarios. Garbage data in = garbage results.

briscogun wrote: »

I would recommend that you work out for the health benefits and not the dietary advantage you think you are getting. Unless you are going balls-to-the-walls for an hour plus, I would either skip logging it or just manually enter it with a 1 calorie burn, then focus on your diet.

I exercise for maybe 30-40 minutes at a time and almost never eat back my "recorded" calories burned because, a) I don't burn enough to create that much extra hunger and, b) if I am creating a deficit I'll just hit my goals that much faster.

I think your iWatch is leading you astray...

Weight loss goals are done in the kitchen, health goals are done in the gym (or on the road or in your basement exercising or whatever). I think the majority of your issues will be solved by tightening up your logging.

And if you aren't sure what the correct way to measure or track some food that you didn't make when you are out and about or at a friends house? Don't eat it. That's my way of handling those scenarios. Garbage data in = garbage results.

I see a pattern in this thread (and others) of men advising a female OP to ignore exercise calories. When your TDEE is over 2000 cals, maybe it's fine to ignore 200 exercise cals. When you are a short woman who has to eat 1300 cals to lose even a small amount of weight, those 200 calories are magical gifts of sanity from the great beyond. And ignoring them could put you below the 1200 cal net minimum.

OP, I think your issues are all pretty basic, which is good news

1. Your logging is a little off.
2. Your exercise cals are a little over-estimated.
3. You are being a little impatient.

With 20 lbs left to go, you should be expecting to lose 0.5-1 lb per week, and water weight fluctuations are going to easily mask that rate of loss from week to week.Hang in there and good luck!