Fat loss myth?
SugarAndSugar
Posts: 84 Member
So theres the saying that you can lose 1-2 pounds of fat per week. Ive been eating at a caloric deficit using a food tracker aka Myfitnesspal and despite months of eating in a weekly deficit of somewhere around 6000-7000 aka nearly 2 pounds of fat, i dont see the scale or my body composition changing. I get that it can be water weight hormones or muscle, but if its been months of doing this, shouldnt the scale ar leasg change a bit?? Heres a math example so if fat weight was "F" and muscle and water and hormones was L then 1F+1L=FL. But if im losing fat, which according to my daily logs i should, wouldnt the new equation be .5F + 1L? This might be confusing but in shorter words, im in a deficit for months and i dont see a fat loss appearence or composition difference. I dont rely on body fat machines because lots of people said they are inaccurate. I also exercise for 2-3 hours a day at the gym. It seems im doing everything right, hydrating, macros and all that good stuff but its so stressful that my body structure isnt changing
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Replies
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Buy a food scale. Weigh everything. See if you are actually eating the amount of calories you think you are.11
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For those who find they aren't losing, more often than not that's down to inaccurate logging.
How are you measuring your calorie intake?- Are you weighing your food (accurate), using measuring (far less accurate) or guesstimating (can be wildly inaccurate)?
- Do you have the correct activity level based on your non-exercise activity i.e. day-to-day work/home/school life?
- Are you eating back exercise calories? if so, how are you determining the calorie burns?
Have you lost nothing at all on the scale the whole time in those months?3 -
quiksylver296 wrote: »Buy a food scale. Weigh everything. See if you are actually eating the amount of calories you think you are.
I already am but it still doesnt budge
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A few questions: How long have you been tracking? Have you lost anything at all? If you aren't losing at all or slower than expect then you are either overestimating your calorie burn or underestimating your food intake. Do you use a food scale? Are you eating back your exercise calories? Also if you could make you food diary public (it's option somewhere in settings) we could maybe point out where you might be messing up.
Oh an forgot to add that 2lbs is really agressive unless you have a whole lot to lose. What are your stats?3 -
tinkerbellang83 wrote: »For those who find they aren't losing, more often than not that's down to inaccurate logging.
How are you measuring your calorie intake?- Are you weighing your food (accurate), using measuring (far less accurate) or guesstimating (can be wildly inaccurate)?
- Do you have the correct activity level based on your non-exercise activity i.e. day-to-day work/home/school life?
- Are you eating back exercise calories? if so, how are you determining the calorie burns?
Have you lost nothing at all on the scale the whole time in those months?
I do hiit training every other day and the days im not i do light jump rope. However every day i also weight lift for that 2-3 hours and im sweating like crazy too so i guess it was intense and i put myself somewhere between light and moderate active so i think i multiplied bmr by 1.43 -
Open your food diary so that we can see it.9
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What are your stats? How much weight are you trying to lose? What calorie target did MFP provide? Are you eating back exercise calories? Can you open your diary so that people might be able to give you specific advice on your logging?0
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If you are weighing/measuring all of your food/drink intake accurately, and if you are eating at a calorie deficit and exercising 2-3 hours per day, you should definitely be losing weight. Have you checked with your physician? If not, you may want to seek some kind of medical help to rule out any possible health related cause.0
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SugarAndSugar wrote: »tinkerbellang83 wrote: »For those who find they aren't losing, more often than not that's down to inaccurate logging.
How are you measuring your calorie intake?- Are you weighing your food (accurate), using measuring (far less accurate) or guesstimating (can be wildly inaccurate)?
- Do you have the correct activity level based on your non-exercise activity i.e. day-to-day work/home/school life?
- Are you eating back exercise calories? if so, how are you determining the calorie burns?
Have you lost nothing at all on the scale the whole time in those months?
I do hiit training every other day and the days im not i do light jump rope. However every day i also weight lift for that 2-3 hours and im sweating like crazy too so i guess it was intense and i put myself somewhere between light and moderate active so i think i multiplied bmr by 1.4
This is a heavy amount of exercise if you are not training for something specific and is this every day?
Are you trying to create your deficit mainly through exercise? Trying to lose 2 pounds a week with this amount of exercise surely has to be stressful on your body and not fueling it properly.6 -
SugarAndSugar wrote: »tinkerbellang83 wrote: »For those who find they aren't losing, more often than not that's down to inaccurate logging.
How are you measuring your calorie intake?- Are you weighing your food (accurate), using measuring (far less accurate) or guesstimating (can be wildly inaccurate)?
- Do you have the correct activity level based on your non-exercise activity i.e. day-to-day work/home/school life?
- Are you eating back exercise calories? if so, how are you determining the calorie burns?
Have you lost nothing at all on the scale the whole time in those months?
I do hiit training every other day and the days im not i do light jump rope. However every day i also weight lift for that 2-3 hours and im sweating like crazy too so i guess it was intense and i put myself somewhere between light and moderate active so i think i multiplied bmr by 1.4
Your exercise has nothing to do with your activity level, it's about how active you are in your normal day. For example someone who runs a lot but spends 8 hours per day in a desk job would still be considered Sedentary. Exercise is logged separately
Sweating does not dictate how high your calorie burn is either.
The more important question is how accurately are you logging your food? Are you choosing the right entries in the database and are you logging absolutely everything that has calories.
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Can someone post the flow chart? Pretty please?1
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WinoGelato wrote: »Can someone post the flow chart? Pretty please?
Ask and ye shall receive. ETA: Twice apparently. LOL
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Gracias ladies!1
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xSugarAndSugar wrote: »tinkerbellang83 wrote: »For those who find they aren't losing, more often than not that's down to inaccurate logging.
How are you measuring your calorie intake?- Are you weighing your food (accurate), using measuring (far less accurate) or guesstimating (can be wildly inaccurate)?
- Do you have the correct activity level based on your non-exercise activity i.e. day-to-day work/home/school life?
- Are you eating back exercise calories? if so, how are you determining the calorie burns?
Have you lost nothing at all on the scale the whole time in those months?
I do hiit training every other day and the days im not i do light jump rope. However every day i also weight lift for that 2-3 hours and im sweating like crazy too so i guess it was intense and i put myself somewhere between light and moderate active so i think i multiplied bmr by 1.4
This is a heavy amount of exercise if you are not training for something specific and is this every day?
Are you trying to create your deficit mainly through exercise? Trying to lose 2 pounds a week with this amount of exercise surely has to be stressful on your body and not fueling it properly.
In lieu of the flow chart and others comments above,
Working on body composition needs adequate protein in your diet, following an established lifting program (a program will not have you lifting 2-3 hours a day) and it will have proper rest/recovery built in. The amount of cardio and strength training needs proper fueling, you do not have to exercise more, actually its counter productive when not done properly.
You need to reassess your goals, as a proper setup of your calorie intake to handle your fat loss goals, your lifting and recovery should be re-done.3 -
This is not intended to sound harsh, though I know it kinda does (why I mentioned intent first): if you believe you are doing everything right, but the scale is not moving - over a long enough period of time - you are not.
To deal with that, you (all of us when this happens actually) need to troubleshoot with an open mind. Energy balance is a scientific law that is enforced by nature. You cannot eat at a caloric deficit over a long period of time and not lose weight. Whether it is a slower metabolism than you think (not very likely) or simply a higher caloric input (much more likely), the answer is somewhere in there.
Bear in mind that NEAT estimates generated by MFP are just that: estimates. Also bear in mind that exercise estimates are also estimates. You can have errors on both sides. If actual input (food intake measured by calories) is less than actual output (energy used measured by calories), your body has no choice but to take the deficit energy from what it has stored - in the form of fat and muscle. Your troubleshooting should start with how each side is measured. By far, the easiest to measure is food. With a scale. To the gram or tenth of an ounce. Everything.
To get assistance, you should open your diary and then allow some of those with expertise here to have a look.
Provide your stats: height, current weight, gender, age. Let some of us back up your calculations. Let us know what info you are using to determine calories burned.
What won't help (and I'm not saying you are doing this) is digging your heels in and insisting you are doing everything right and that the process doesn't work. It's never the process. Energy balance is a law of nature just like gravity. You don't get to choose to follow it or not.15 -
Activity level is how you are with out the exercise.
I have a very active lifestyle but I put my activity level at sedentary because my phone automatically tracks my activity and gives me points. I wear my phone at all times. I don’t want to double up on my calories.
I have found that the calorie estimates that are on the exercise logger are high and I would not eat any more than half my exercise calories.
Are you logging everything before you put it in your mouth. It is easy to forget what you have eaten otherwise. A bite of something here and there can really add up the calories.
How are you eating at a 6000-7000 calorie deficit? That is 4x my estimated calories in a day. How many calories do you get in a day?2 -
Are you weighing yourself every day and tracking your weight? For weeks I kept going back and forth with the same 3 pounds. Up and down, up and down, up and down. Finally the scale went down and I am now going back and forth with a different, lower, 3 pounds.
If you're only weighing yourself once a week you're getting an inaccurate view of your weight loss. Weighing and logging my weight daily was a game changer for me. It made me see that I was making progress but it wasn't linear progress.0 -
SugarAndSugar wrote: »tinkerbellang83 wrote: »For those who find they aren't losing, more often than not that's down to inaccurate logging.
How are you measuring your calorie intake?- Are you weighing your food (accurate), using measuring (far less accurate) or guesstimating (can be wildly inaccurate)?
- Do you have the correct activity level based on your non-exercise activity i.e. day-to-day work/home/school life?
- Are you eating back exercise calories? if so, how are you determining the calorie burns?
Have you lost nothing at all on the scale the whole time in those months?
I do hiit training every other day and the days im not i do light jump rope. However every day i also weight lift for that 2-3 hours and im sweating like crazy too so i guess it was intense and i put myself somewhere between light and moderate active so i think i multiplied bmr by 1.4
This is a heavy amount of exercise if you are not training for something specific and is this every day?
Are you trying to create your deficit mainly through exercise? Trying to lose 2 pounds a week with this amount of exercise surely has to be stressful on your body and not fueling it properly.
Im for sure always in some kind of deficit. I might sneak like 10 almonds some day but im still eating at a 600-1000 calorie deficit and thats from my maintainence calories. I just put the exercise thing in my bmr by multiplying by 1.4 so then all i needed to do was count food calories3 -
Activity level is how you are with out the exercise.
I have a very active lifestyle but I put my activity level at sedentary because my phone automatically tracks my activity and gives me points. I wear my phone at all times. I don’t want to double up on my calories.
I have found that the calorie estimates that are on the exercise logger are high and I would not eat any more than half my exercise calories.
Are you logging everything before you put it in your mouth. It is easy to forget what you have eaten otherwise. A bite of something here and there can really add up the calories.
How are you eating at a 6000-7000 calorie deficit? That is 4x my estimated calories in a day. How many calories do you get in a day?
Per week so i do around 800 deficit a day2 -
Bottom line if you are not losing, then you have not established a caloric deficit. There is simply no getting around this.
Why so long at the gym? When in deficit I spend 1 hr maximum as I'm not getting sufficient fuel to workout.
How are you determining this deficit? A common mistake people make is to overestimate workout calories and underestimate caloric intake. If you are including a 3 hr session in your calculation this may be where the error lies.5 -
SugarAndSugar wrote: »SugarAndSugar wrote: »tinkerbellang83 wrote: »For those who find they aren't losing, more often than not that's down to inaccurate logging.
How are you measuring your calorie intake?- Are you weighing your food (accurate), using measuring (far less accurate) or guesstimating (can be wildly inaccurate)?
- Do you have the correct activity level based on your non-exercise activity i.e. day-to-day work/home/school life?
- Are you eating back exercise calories? if so, how are you determining the calorie burns?
Have you lost nothing at all on the scale the whole time in those months?
I do hiit training every other day and the days im not i do light jump rope. However every day i also weight lift for that 2-3 hours and im sweating like crazy too so i guess it was intense and i put myself somewhere between light and moderate active so i think i multiplied bmr by 1.4
This is a heavy amount of exercise if you are not training for something specific and is this every day?
Are you trying to create your deficit mainly through exercise? Trying to lose 2 pounds a week with this amount of exercise surely has to be stressful on your body and not fueling it properly.
Im for sure always in some kind of deficit. I might sneak like 10 almonds some day but im still eating at a 600-1000 calorie deficit and thats from my maintainence calories. I just put the exercise thing in my bmr by multiplying by 1.4 so then all i needed to do was count food calories
Why are you using BMR x 1.4? And are your weighing food on a scale?
MFP does all the math for you. Depending on how much you have to lose, put your stats in, and tell MFP for example .5-1 pound per week (since you are working on body composition maintaining muscle mass at a less aggressive deficit).
What you are doing is not working, so why not look at the variables given to you here and reassess and make changes needed?6 -
As several people have already stated what you're saying and your results don't add up, you really should consider making your diary public for a short while so people can check if there is anything that stands out.
Fat loss isn't a myth, it's science.3 -
I think of it as simple math. If you are truly in calorie deficit you must lose weight. It sounds like you are maintaining so a slight reduction should get things going. I found it helpful to over estimate the calorie content of any thing without a bar code label. If one MFP user says a serving has 500 calories and another says 800 I always pick the higher number.1
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I think of it as simple math. If you are truly in calorie deficit you must lose weight.
Yep.
And it's actually simple enough that you may not even have to do that much troubleshooting. If you really are consistent with everything - including whatever built in errors you are currently dealing with - you can simply tweak your intake from whatever you think you are doing now to something a little lower.
For example, if you think you are eating 1500, but actually eating 1750, and you think you are burning 2500, but actually burning 2000 - you can still tweak from that and make a difference. Reduce your intake to a perceived 1250 and see what happens.
Does it make sense to get detailed? Sure. And it's better to know. But that shouldn't stop you from making a smart adjustment. If your body is telling you there is no deficit, you can still make an adjustment. The caution here, though, is don't do this if you are only talking about a few weeks. You should never make any substantial adjustment based on short-term numbers because fluctuations amplify or attenuate what's really going on.
So just keep an open mind that the process works. You just have to make sure you are actually doing the process.3 -
SugarAndSugar wrote: »SugarAndSugar wrote: »tinkerbellang83 wrote: »For those who find they aren't losing, more often than not that's down to inaccurate logging.
How are you measuring your calorie intake?- Are you weighing your food (accurate), using measuring (far less accurate) or guesstimating (can be wildly inaccurate)?
- Do you have the correct activity level based on your non-exercise activity i.e. day-to-day work/home/school life?
- Are you eating back exercise calories? if so, how are you determining the calorie burns?
Have you lost nothing at all on the scale the whole time in those months?
I do hiit training every other day and the days im not i do light jump rope. However every day i also weight lift for that 2-3 hours and im sweating like crazy too so i guess it was intense and i put myself somewhere between light and moderate active so i think i multiplied bmr by 1.4
This is a heavy amount of exercise if you are not training for something specific and is this every day?
Are you trying to create your deficit mainly through exercise? Trying to lose 2 pounds a week with this amount of exercise surely has to be stressful on your body and not fueling it properly.
Im for sure always in some kind of deficit. I might sneak like 10 almonds some day but im still eating at a 600-1000 calorie deficit and thats from my maintainence calories. I just put the exercise thing in my bmr by multiplying by 1.4 so then all i needed to do was count food calories
As others have said, if you aren't losing, you aren't in a deficit. The calculators can't tell you if you are in a deficit, results do.
But to give better advice, we need to know how much (how many calories) you are aiming for, what you believe you are eating (total, not net), and your stats (height/weight) and goals. If you are close to goal it is going to be slower.
Stress and such can affect it (not enough to counter a large deficit, but definitely can make it harder), and it does seem like you are overthinking it some.
Why are you doing so much weight training? Is it a planned out program or are you feeling like you have to to lose or what? Sounds like you might do better destressing some and that might mean backing off a bit on the training, especially if it's not a set program.2
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