Not losing - don't know why

2

Replies

  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    ekim2016 wrote: »
    I weigh I log daily and have since May 2016 but I quit losing months ago.. just stuck and in fact gained 5 pounds the past two months!! My menu choices have been the same for two years but something must have changed for sure as I totally quit my swift weight loss trajectory I WAS on. I keep at it but fear my Celebrex is the culprit. If I continue to gain I will stop taking it and just suffer the painful, debilitating arthritis as I will not be fatter again, so be it.

    That's just water weight though - unless it's caused you to be notably more inactive as side effect.

    Likely during that "swift weight loss trajectory" you lost the common 20% LBM, including muscle mass - which spells difficulty for reaching and maintaining goal.

    That's the reason you'll see so many advocate for reasonable weight loss rate - usually better all around.

    Rate should slow as you get closer to goal weight - purposely by smart decisions.
    Not because the body forced it on you out of stress and adapting.

    You weigh all the foods that go in your mouth to confirm eating level?
  • snemberton
    snemberton Posts: 175 Member
    Psychgrrl wrote: »
    As evidence of the need to use a food scale, here is my crinkle cut fries experience from last week (which I am still bitter about, by the way ... )

    The package says one serving is 85 grams, 3 oz, about 23 pieces. I put a bowl on my food scale and put a few fries in, then a few more. You know how many fries made the 85 grams? Six. SIX!!!!!! Most of the fries in the package were about the same size. If I had counted and not weighed, I would actually have eaten 4 servings when I only counted one. Six stinkin’ stupid fries. #ThatWasJustMean
    Did you weigh frozen or cooked? It would be interesting to see if maybe the manufacturer calculations were the other.

  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    snemberton wrote: »
    Psychgrrl wrote: »
    As evidence of the need to use a food scale, here is my crinkle cut fries experience from last week (which I am still bitter about, by the way ... )

    The package says one serving is 85 grams, 3 oz, about 23 pieces. I put a bowl on my food scale and put a few fries in, then a few more. You know how many fries made the 85 grams? Six. SIX!!!!!! Most of the fries in the package were about the same size. If I had counted and not weighed, I would actually have eaten 4 servings when I only counted one. Six stinkin’ stupid fries. #ThatWasJustMean
    Did you weigh frozen or cooked? It would be interesting to see if maybe the manufacturer calculations were the other.

    Excellent point - I was wondering how there would be such a great difference between estimate and reality.

    But a frozen 85g should have lost water weight as they cooked, actually going the other direction.
    But this could have been the rare time they gave cooked weight, not frozen weight.
  • Psychgrrl
    Psychgrrl Posts: 3,177 Member
    snemberton wrote: »
    Psychgrrl wrote: »
    As evidence of the need to use a food scale, here is my crinkle cut fries experience from last week (which I am still bitter about, by the way ... )

    The package says one serving is 85 grams, 3 oz, about 23 pieces. I put a bowl on my food scale and put a few fries in, then a few more. You know how many fries made the 85 grams? Six. SIX!!!!!! Most of the fries in the package were about the same size. If I had counted and not weighed, I would actually have eaten 4 servings when I only counted one. Six stinkin’ stupid fries. #ThatWasJustMean
    Did you weigh frozen or cooked? It would be interesting to see if maybe the manufacturer calculations were the other.

    Frozen. Weigh raw or uncooked as that is the standard unless the packaging says otherwise. Foids typically lose weight in the cooking process and then we overeat.
  • Psychgrrl
    Psychgrrl Posts: 3,177 Member
    heybales wrote: »
    snemberton wrote: »
    Psychgrrl wrote: »
    As evidence of the need to use a food scale, here is my crinkle cut fries experience from last week (which I am still bitter about, by the way ... )

    The package says one serving is 85 grams, 3 oz, about 23 pieces. I put a bowl on my food scale and put a few fries in, then a few more. You know how many fries made the 85 grams? Six. SIX!!!!!! Most of the fries in the package were about the same size. If I had counted and not weighed, I would actually have eaten 4 servings when I only counted one. Six stinkin’ stupid fries. #ThatWasJustMean
    Did you weigh frozen or cooked? It would be interesting to see if maybe the manufacturer calculations were the other.

    Excellent point - I was wondering how there would be such a great difference between estimate and reality.

    But a frozen 85g should have lost water weight as they cooked, actually going the other direction.
    But this could have been the rare time they gave cooked weight, not frozen weight.

    Oddly enough, the total number of 85 gram servings equaled the approximate number on the package. It’s possible they changed the size of the fries but neglected to change all the labeling.
  • thechiopodist
    thechiopodist Posts: 216 Member
    As others have said, scale is important if you want to be accurate. I made it a little easier by making things in my usual way, then weighing then, like the milk in my coffee. I put the usual amount of milk in the cup, then measured it. Luckily it was exactly 200ml, so I can add my coffee every morning without having the fuss of measuring.
    Also, as others have pointed out, mfp over allocated calories used in excersize by around a third, so when I add my excersize, I put in a third less than I have actually done, to give me a more accurate estimate. That way I'm not as tempted to eat back more calories than I've earned. Good luck. I have a similar amount to lose and it is hard!
  • Cactusjack01
    Cactusjack01 Posts: 1 Member
    I don't stress about the perfect measurements. If its not working - increase the calorie deficit you're aiming for. A 300 calorie deficit is easy to get wrong with estimated measurements. So make it 400. if that isn't working (after a few weeks) make it 500. Then 550 etc...until you get the consistent results you were expecting. It's like calibrating the error.
    It's like my garmin forerunner 15. It doesn't really count steps. It measures distance and converts it into steps. So it's always 'wrong' but always relatively right (increasing my goal from 10,000 steps to 11,000 steps is an accurate 10% increase). Do the same thing with measuring the calories. If it's not working, decrease your intake by 5 or 10%. If it still doesn't work then do it again a few weeks later. Logically (and this isn't debatable) you will reach a point where you are either losing weight or miraculously surviving on zero calories.
    For me, this is for life so it has to be simple :)
  • 4legsRbetterthan2
    4legsRbetterthan2 Posts: 19,590 MFP Moderator
    edited June 2018
    If you would like to continue the debate about eating back exercise calories, or not, please see this thread:
    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10677272/to-eat-back-exercise-calories/p3

    In the future, if you find yourself in disagreement with a poster who is not the OP of a help thread, please take the debate over to the debate board.

    Lastly, Please only use the spam or abuse flags for bot style spam, or extremely inappropriate content (think pornographic images or something similar). If you would like more guidance it can be found here: https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10007789/flagged-content-reported-posts-warning-points#latest

    Thanks,
    4legs
    MFP moderator.
  • happytree923
    happytree923 Posts: 463 Member
    Psychgrrl wrote: »
    As evidence of the need to use a food scale, here is my crinkle cut fries experience from last week (which I am still bitter about, by the way ... )

    The package says one serving is 85 grams, 3 oz, about 23 pieces. I put a bowl on my food scale and put a few fries in, then a few more. You know how many fries made the 85 grams? Six. SIX!!!!!! Most of the fries in the package were about the same size. If I had counted and not weighed, I would actually have eaten 4 servings when I only counted one. Six stinkin’ stupid fries. #ThatWasJustMean

    I had this exact experience too recently! There were smaller pieces at the bottom of the bag so the more I took out of the bag the closer a serving was to the bag's estimate but I honestly don't know how they came up with the number. You shouldn't be allowed to classify crumbs as 'pieces' to make your serving size seem bigger.