What am I doing wrong?
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and my goal weight is 168 and I am 5'6L1zardQueen wrote: »How accurate is your calorie counting? Do you weigh everything solid? How do you calculate your calorie burns?
How much do you weigh now? How tall? Goal weight?
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I started faithfully about 2 months ago. at 265 i weighed in this morning at 268. I measure my portions through measuring cups and spoons. I dont have a food scale.How long have you been stalled
When did you start eating at a deficit, what was your weight when you started and what is it now?
How are you measuring your portions and are you choosing entries in the database carefully?
What about choosing database entries carefully? Do you understand why she's asking that? Have you been through any of the stickied "must reads" posts on accurate logging to be sure?0 -
. I usually use the scan option for foods but I try to find either the exact match or as close as I possibly can get to it.diannethegeek wrote: »
I started faithfully about 2 months ago. at 265 i weighed in this morning at 268. I measure my portions through measuring cups and spoons. I dont have a food scale.How long have you been stalled
When did you start eating at a deficit, what was your weight when you started and what is it now?
How are you measuring your portions and are you choosing entries in the database carefully?
What about choosing database entries carefully? Do you understand why she's asking that? Have you been through any of the stickied "must reads" posts on accurate logging to be sure?
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. I usually use the scan option for foods but I try to find either the exact match or as close as I possibly can get to it.diannethegeek wrote: »
I started faithfully about 2 months ago. at 265 i weighed in this morning at 268. I measure my portions through measuring cups and spoons. I dont have a food scale.How long have you been stalled
When did you start eating at a deficit, what was your weight when you started and what is it now?
How are you measuring your portions and are you choosing entries in the database carefully?
What about choosing database entries carefully? Do you understand why she's asking that? Have you been through any of the stickied "must reads" posts on accurate logging to be sure?
perfect example. I am eating a banana that I peeled. One option says raw banana 89 calories and the other says supermarket banana at a 105. Which one am supposed to choose?0 -
. I usually use the scan option for foods but I try to find either the exact match or as close as I possibly can get to it.diannethegeek wrote: »
I started faithfully about 2 months ago. at 265 i weighed in this morning at 268. I measure my portions through measuring cups and spoons. I dont have a food scale.How long have you been stalled
When did you start eating at a deficit, what was your weight when you started and what is it now?
How are you measuring your portions and are you choosing entries in the database carefully?
What about choosing database entries carefully? Do you understand why she's asking that? Have you been through any of the stickied "must reads" posts on accurate logging to be sure?
Good. You'd be surprised how many people take the barcode scanner as gospel and assume it's infallible or don't use the recipe builder and just grab something similar-ish to their homecooked meals in the database. We have to cover all the bases, you know?0 -
. I usually use the scan option for foods but I try to find either the exact match or as close as I possibly can get to it.diannethegeek wrote: »
I started faithfully about 2 months ago. at 265 i weighed in this morning at 268. I measure my portions through measuring cups and spoons. I dont have a food scale.How long have you been stalled
When did you start eating at a deficit, what was your weight when you started and what is it now?
How are you measuring your portions and are you choosing entries in the database carefully?
What about choosing database entries carefully? Do you understand why she's asking that? Have you been through any of the stickied "must reads" posts on accurate logging to be sure?
perfect example. I am eating a banana that I peeled. One option says raw banana 89 calories and the other says supermarket banana at a 105. Which one am supposed to choose?
Ideally you should weigh the edible part of the banana and choose the usda or similar entry for banana, raw by weight.3 -
diannethegeek wrote: »1. If you aren't already, be sure that you're logging everything. Sometimes people forget about things like veggies, drinks, cooking oils, and condiments. For some people these can add up to enough to halt your weight loss progress.
2. Consider buying a food scale if you don't already have one. They're about $10-$20 dollars in the US and easily found at places like Amazon, Target, and Walmart. Measuring cups and spoons are great, but they do come with some degree of inaccuracy. A food scale will be more accurate, and for some people it makes a big difference.
3. Logging accurately also means choosing accurate entries in the database. There are a lot of user-entered entries that are off. Double-check that you're using good entries and/or using the recipe builder instead of someone else's homemade entries.
4. Recalculate your goals if you haven't lately. As you lose weight your body requires fewer calories to run. Be sure you update your goals every ten pounds or so.
5. If you're eating back your exercise calories and you're relying on gym machine readouts or MFP's estimates, it might be best to eat back just 50-75% of those. Certain activities tend to be overestimated. If you're using an HRM or activity tracker, it might be a good idea to look into their accuracy and be sure that yours is calibrated properly.
6. If you're taking any cheat days that go over your calorie limits, it might be best to cut them out for a few weeks and see what happens. Some people go way over their calorie needs without realizing it when they don't track.
7. If you weigh yourself frequently, consider using a program like trendweight to even out the fluctuations. You could be losing weight but just don't see it because of the daily ups and downs.
8. Some people just burn fewer calories than the calculators predict. If you continue to have problems after 4-6 weeks, then it might be worth a trip to the doctor or a registered dietitian who can give you more specific advice.
That's pretty much all the info you need right there. Open up your diary if you'd like further help, but measuring doesn't generally work. Weighing does. Scales on Amazon are seriously cheap and will help you stay on track. Cheat days should be avoided at all costs. Also remember, water weight gain from high sodium meals can easily cause a gain of even 5-6 lbs that is temporary. If you're tracking sugar on MFP (this is by default) change it out for sodium. If you start to see a trend when you go way over on sodium for the day of gain, then you know it's water weight. Drink more water to compensate.4 -
Spliner1969 wrote: »diannethegeek wrote: »1. If you aren't already, be sure that you're logging everything. Sometimes people forget about things like veggies, drinks, cooking oils, and condiments. For some people these can add up to enough to halt your weight loss progress.
2. Consider buying a food scale if you don't already have one. They're about $10-$20 dollars in the US and easily found at places like Amazon, Target, and Walmart. Measuring cups and spoons are great, but they do come with some degree of inaccuracy. A food scale will be more accurate, and for some people it makes a big difference.
3. Logging accurately also means choosing accurate entries in the database. There are a lot of user-entered entries that are off. Double-check that you're using good entries and/or using the recipe builder instead of someone else's homemade entries.
4. Recalculate your goals if you haven't lately. As you lose weight your body requires fewer calories to run. Be sure you update your goals every ten pounds or so.
5. If you're eating back your exercise calories and you're relying on gym machine readouts or MFP's estimates, it might be best to eat back just 50-75% of those. Certain activities tend to be overestimated. If you're using an HRM or activity tracker, it might be a good idea to look into their accuracy and be sure that yours is calibrated properly.
6. If you're taking any cheat days that go over your calorie limits, it might be best to cut them out for a few weeks and see what happens. Some people go way over their calorie needs without realizing it when they don't track.
7. If you weigh yourself frequently, consider using a program like trendweight to even out the fluctuations. You could be losing weight but just don't see it because of the daily ups and downs.
8. Some people just burn fewer calories than the calculators predict. If you continue to have problems after 4-6 weeks, then it might be worth a trip to the doctor or a registered dietitian who can give you more specific advice.
That's pretty much all the info you need right there. Open up your diary if you'd like further help, but measuring doesn't generally work. Weighing does. Scales on Amazon are seriously cheap and will help you stay on track. Cheat days should be avoided at all costs. Also remember, water weight gain from high sodium meals can easily cause a gain of even 5-6 lbs that is temporary. If you're tracking sugar on MFP (this is by default) change it out for sodium. If you start to see a trend when you go way over on sodium for the day of gain, then you know it's water weight. Drink more water to compensate.
Thank you. This is very helpful.
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diannethegeek wrote: »
. I usually use the scan option for foods but I try to find either the exact match or as close as I possibly can get to it.diannethegeek wrote: »
I started faithfully about 2 months ago. at 265 i weighed in this morning at 268. I measure my portions through measuring cups and spoons. I dont have a food scale.How long have you been stalled
When did you start eating at a deficit, what was your weight when you started and what is it now?
How are you measuring your portions and are you choosing entries in the database carefully?
What about choosing database entries carefully? Do you understand why she's asking that? Have you been through any of the stickied "must reads" posts on accurate logging to be sure?
perfect example. I am eating a banana that I peeled. One option says raw banana 89 calories and the other says supermarket banana at a 105. Which one am supposed to choose?
Ideally you should weigh the edible part of the banana and choose the usda or similar entry for banana, raw by weight.
So very much this. IT could be a 50 calorie or a 250 calorie banana.
Inaccuracies can add up. Sometimes they'll even out on average, sometimes they'll throw you completely off the rails.1 -
Spliner1969 wrote: »
That's pretty much all the info you need right there. Open up your diary if you'd like further help, but measuring doesn't generally work. Weighing does. Scales on Amazon are seriously cheap and will help you stay on track. Cheat days should be avoided at all costs. Also remember, water weight gain from high sodium meals can easily cause a gain of even 5-6 lbs that is temporary. If you're tracking sugar on MFP (this is by default) change it out for sodium. If you start to see a trend when you go way over on sodium for the day of gain, then you know it's water weight. Drink more water to compensate.
While I completely disagree with the "cheat days should be avoided at all costs" line, given that you are having issues with getting this thing figured out I would avoid them until you get a couple weeks of logs=goals.
"Cheat days" are totally individual and up to the person to decide what even is a "cheat", but as I said if you already aren't losing at the rate selected then you should accurately log everything every day so you can see why the numbers aren't matching up.
As has been said previously, you should get a scale. The prepackaged foods and preloaded numbers in MFP are not always accurate...a scale is. For example: I eat a couple wraps a week from the brand Flat Out. They say they are 100 calories, BUT that 100 calories is for 50ish grams. I weigh them and often find them around 65g. You are talking a 30ish cal difference right there from one item for one meal. It adds up really quick.1 -
Example of why a food scale matters- I was measuring 3/4 cup dry oatmeal for breakfast.
With a food scale my 3/4 cup was same weight as 1 whole cup.
33% under-count. Big difference.2 -
There's a good post on food scales here: https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10634517/you-dont-use-a-food-scale/p1
And another one here: https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1290491/how-and-why-to-use-a-digital-food-scale/p1
And some other good ones on logging accurately:
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1296011/calorie-counting-101/p1
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10621050/how-to-use-the-usda-food-database-mfp-food-database-for-accurate-logging/p1
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10640205/the-basics-of-accurate-logging/p1
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1234699/logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide/p12 -
As has been mentioned, with your stats, even taking logging inaccuracies into account, it is odd that you haven't lost anything.
Menopause is often the time thyroid issues show up in women. Have you had yours checked lately?2 -
Scottgriesser wrote: »While I completely disagree with the "cheat days should be avoided at all costs" line, given that you are having issues with getting this thing figured out I would avoid them until you get a couple weeks of logs=goals.
"Cheat days" are totally individual and up to the person to decide what even is a "cheat", but as I said if you already aren't losing at the rate selected then you should accurately log everything every day so you can see why the numbers aren't matching up.
There is wisdom in what you say. It all depends on your definition of a cheat day. If you take a day, eat what you want, log it, average the extra calories over a period of time so that they fit into the deficit you want then it really isn't cheating. You can call it that all you want but it's not. However, a day where you log nothing, eat all the junk food you want, then go back to logging the next few days oblivious to the fact that you may have consumed 3000-5000 calories over your goal that day, is just plain silly if you expect to maintain a specific rate of loss. But there are those people who do it. Most of them end up posting in the forums wondering why they aren't losing weight like MFP says they should. Like you said, individual definition varies. I know some people that do an overly severe deficit 6 days a week just so they can eat 6k in calories one day a week. They are miserable six days a week so they can be happy 1. Makes no sense to me but it's individual choice.
I practice IIFYM and pre-calculate my calories including my exercise (TDEE method) which is averaged over 7 days so that I can eat the same calories every day rather than eating much less on rest days that I don't exercise. Kinda seems like every day is a cheat day for me, but I still watch my calorie goal. I simply eat what I want, when I want, but log it all, hit my macros, and stop at my daily calorie goal. The caveat is that you can't slack off on your calculated exercise or you have to adjust your daily calories. My method also makes it easy to deal with overages over the period of the next week, or in some cases, the previous week if I expected to go over (for a special occasion coming up). I simply eat under my daily calories for the prior or following weeks to make up for it. I don't call it cheating because that's how I do it.. week by week TDEE method.
So I'll stand by my "avoid them at all costs" statement, assuming the definition is the worst case scenario mentioned above. If you feel the need to eat what you want some days, or every day as I do, I suggest you work it into your daily calories, and look into using something other than the NEAT method that MFP uses. I had two ham/cheese sandwiches with mayo for lunch today with 2oz of my favorite bbq chips. Fit just fine into my daily calories and my macros. Seemed like cheating but it wasn't.
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So i just purchased a food scale. So hopefully that will help.
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You are getting some really good advice here but there's one thing I wanted to say that I don't think anyone else has said. As someone who lost 165 lbs and gained back 120, I have struggled with food and diets most of my life. In the last year or so, a good nutritionist helped me realize that I was making choices that were for the moment rather than for the lifetime, choices I couldn't maintain. So now I try to keep a particular mantra of sorts in the back of my mind: Don't do anything right now to lose weight that you aren't willing to do the rest of your life to maintain it. What I mean by that is... don't drop your calories too low in the hopes of losing a lot of weight quickly. That's not maintainable. Don't exercise 7 days a week for an hour each day hoping to burn off half your calories. That's not maintainable. Don't exclude whole food groups thinking they are evil while secretly desiring them. That's not maintainable.
It's about balance. Find out what your body needs to survive and make small adjustments from there. My nutritionist told me, "If you want a cookie, have a cookie"...just don't have 6 cookies and remember to balance out the rest of your choices. There are no "cheat days" if you can adjust your life to a new way of eating. It's about making choices that are sustainable over time.
As for the weight gain, it's definitely frustrating and hits the motivation hard. As someone else said, that could be water weight retained by eating too much sodium. If you are exercising a lot, your calories might be too low at 1700 (especially if you aren't eating up to 1700 and then exercising on top of that). A food scale would be a good investment for you and I agree with others about weighing your food vs. measuring it. If you are weighing yourself every day, you may want to change to once a week or even every other week. The number on the scale can fluctuate 3-5 lbs depending on so many factors.
Good luck! I know how hard it is to make these changes!
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Did you have a hysterectomy? I'm not sure anyone knows why, but a lot of ladies who have had them reported issues with weight gain. Search the forums for threads on this subject if this is your situation.0
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So i just purchased a food scale. So hopefully that will help.
It'll probably shock you how inaccurate some stuff that is measured really is. Even pre-packaged foods are off by an average of 10-15% because the USDA allows a margin for labeling. I don't have to be as strict since I've been in maintenance for over two years but I eat a protein bar every morning that is labeled as 60g total. Actual weight varies from 50g to 70g! If I were trying to stay within a calorie goal that was much lower I'd likely be going over without weighing them to be sure.
@Juniper_7470 makes very valid points as well. I don't think you're going to the extremes at all though, I think you're logging just isn't as accurate as you think. Be thankful you're tall, the extra calories that gives you will help. The scale will fix that. Be diligent and accurate with it and it'll make a difference. It did for me.0
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