Advice needed... my weight isnt shifting

Well your diary gave me good insight.

1. A pro is that it appears that you do use a food scale since I see a lot of entries in grams. Correct me if I'm wrong on this.
2. You don't log exercise so I have to ask, do you exercise at all? If you don't, that leads me to point 3.
3. I don't know your age, so I input your stats into a TDEE calculator as a 30 year old woman and it spits out a sedentary TDEE of ~1848. Your calorie intake is, on average, 1700 to 1800, which is not much of a deficit at all even if I bump you up to the lightly active TDEE of 2118 calories.
4. There are some days where you've only logged 400 calories or don't log at all. Are you having "cheat" days? If so, those could be wiping out the already small deficit you seem to have.
5. If you are actually more active than I'm assuming, water weight can easily be masking your loss. Throughout the month everyone, especially women, fluctuate on the scale. Ovulation and/or menstruation can cause a significant amount, ~3 to 5 pounds, of water weight to be held temporarily. On top of that, most people hold water from newly implemented exercise, sodium, etc. So if you are having cheat days, sodium can also be masking any loss.

This list just covers a few possibilities, but I'm really curious about 1, 3, and 4 the most.

AngeleyesJo wrote: »

Maxematics wrote: »

Well your diary gave me good insight.

1. A pro is that it appears that you do use a food scale since I see a lot of entries in grams. Correct me if I'm wrong on this.
2. You don't log exercise so I have to ask, do you exercise at all? If you don't, that leads me to point 3.
3. I don't know your age, so I input your stats into a TDEE calculator as a 30 year old woman and it spits out a sedentary TDEE of ~1848. Your calorie intake is, on average, 1700 to 1800, which is not much of a deficit at all even if I bump you up to the lightly active TDEE of 2118 calories.
4. There are some days where you've only logged 400 calories or don't log at all. Are you having "cheat" days? If so, those could be wiping out the already small deficit you seem to have.
5. If you are actually more active than I'm assuming, water weight can easily be masking your loss. Throughout the month everyone, especially women, fluctuate on the scale. Ovulation and/or menstruation can cause a significant amount, ~3 to 5 pounds, of water weight to be held temporarily. On top of that, most people hold water from newly implemented exercise, sodium, etc. So if you are having cheat days, sodium can also be masking any loss.

This list just covers a few possibilities, but I'm really curious about 1, 3, and 4 the most.

Thanks, your right im about 1700 to 1800 cal range. I work a very active job carrying lifting and running around and do about 11000 to 12000 steps a day. I dont do extra exercise at the moment since ive been very fatigued recently. I try to drink enough water i usually drink about 1.5 litre or just over. Sometimes i get confused and don't fill my diary fully. I do weigh food in grams.

Thanks for answering. I went back even further in your diary and you were logging regularly in April, stopped in May, then picked back up toward the end of May even though most days were half logged for a bit until June. Based on that, my assumption is that you just started to buckle down at that time. You didn't answer the question about cheat days, so I'm going to assume that the missing days which mainly fall on weekends are indeed cheat days. I know you said you have a very active job, but based on your data, your current intake is too high. If you are losing any weight, it's a maximum of 0.5 pounds per week which is why you keep seeing the same 1 to 2 pounds coming on and off. If you want to lose weight you should cut another 250 calories from your diet and give it a few weeks. If you are having a cheat day every week, you should start logging it and see what it's doing to your deficit and possibly cut it out altogether.

AngeleyesJo wrote: »

I allow maybe a treat meal on a weekend. I probably do only lose half a pound if lucky. I hadnt probably been logging because i have had issues with acid reflux due to stress making me hungry like vomit inducing hungry and i was not sure how to do my diet at the time. How many cals do you think i should go for?

@Maxematics gives good advice and it's probably what I would try next if I were in your shoes.

I'd add that you might consider using a weight trending app to help you see your weight loss over time. When you're losing a very small amount slowly it's very easy to get lost in the fluctuations. I like Trend Weight, but Libra and Happy Scale are also popular.

AngeleyesJo wrote: »

Yeh i had these weights:
Mon 159 pounds
Tues 159 pounds
Wed 158 pounds
Thurs 158 pounds
Fri 157 pounds
Sat 158 pounds

So you lost a pound that week, that's great! Eating a decent amount of calories, not always logging everything, and losing a lb in a week is kind of living the dream .

I'd bet if you could do a better job of logging those mystery days, or perhaps drop your calories by 100 or so on days you do log well to make up for those days, you would see good results.

It's important to remember that weight will fluctuate up and down from day to day, sometimes several lbs. There's lots of other stuff in your body than fat, and the volume and weight of that stuff naturally goes up and down, especially water weight. You're looking for a trend over weeks and months, not day to day.