Would eating more help?
BlueFlameLotus
Posts: 9 Member
I’m 45 5’8” 167lbs. Trying to lose 10lbs which was easy to maintain for years when I was free form dancing a couple times a week. Then 2 years ago after getting married I started eating refined carbs like my husband and I gained almost 15lbs!! I’ve quit all of that now. I work out with yoga, barre, and high rep low weights 4-5x week burning 300-500 a session. I regularly burn 2500 day even on my no work out days. I eat around 1300-1800 day. Sometimes I splurge on refined carbs but mostly veggies, berries, healthy fats, big salad, almond butter, and fish with some rice here and there. Been doing this for months I haven’t seen much progress. Anyone have insight?
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Replies
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What you eat doesn’t matter when it comes to weight loss, it’s how many calories you eat, and if you’re in a deficit or surplus.
That being said, it’s probably best to eat things that satiate you so you can be consistent about eating your goal calories.
If you’ve gained, it’s because you ate more calories than you use. That’s the only reason. Get a good scale and start weighing everything. And also eat a diet of foods you love and can eat for the rest of your life.20 -
If you aren't losing weight, eating more is not the solution20
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I suspect one of the first things you could look at are your exercise calorie estimates. It’s very doubtful that you’re burning 300-500 calories per workout doing the things you described.24
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I suspect one of the first things you could look at are your exercise calorie estimates. It’s very doubtful that you’re burning 300-500 calories per workout doing the things you described.
This for real. I weigh 160 lbs and burn about 150 calories/hour at best for yoga and weights. And that 150 is for a particularly animated session (so its usually a bit less).
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Agree, you should check your calorie burn, I can't burn 500 calories an hour unless I am balls to the wall running the whole time. Also check your calories consumed - unless you are weighing and measuring everything you eat, you are likely eating more than you think.9
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lemongirlbc wrote: »Agree, you should check your calorie burn, I can't burn 500 calories an hour unless I am balls to the wall running the whole time. Also check your calories consumed - unless you are weighing and measuring everything you eat, you are likely eating more than you think.
I agree, and plus when you go ALL OUT on a huge cardio session, you tend to overeat afterwards to a degree. I'm able to curb that using a good IF schedule, I eat no earlier than 9:30am and NLT 7:00pm, helps tremendously!2 -
Thank you all. I use measuring cups but not scales. Tracking ‘mostly’ diligently on MFP. I also use a polar chest strap and wrist band to track my day and burn rate.
I’ve heard tweaking macros can help and I wonder if my carb protein ration needs refining. I hear increasing carbs and also increasing protein decreasing carbs. Every body is different. I think it’s time to seek out a nutritionist.8 -
IF schedule is something I mostly follow as well. I don’t sleep more than 5 or 6 hrs a night, and it’s often interrupted. So perhaps sleep has something to do with this conundrum??6
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The type of yoga I do is a rigorous ashtanga flow. It feels balls to the wall. As does my barre class. My instructor was a drill sergeant.1
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Get a food scale and log everything. While sleep can effect weight loss, inaccurate logging is the largest culprit.13
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BlueFlameLotus wrote: »The type of yoga I do is a rigorous ashtanga flow. It feels balls to the wall. As does my barre class. My instructor was a drill sergeant.
How much do you think you're burning during barre? Because I know my class *feels* hard, but the reality is that it's only 200 calories or so for the 50-minute session.
Remember: Just because something *feels* hard doesn't mean that it's actually a good calorie burn.19 -
agree with using scale for many foods VS just cups. especially meat. Be careful about what entries you are picking, I found myself using some incorrect ones.
personally i prefer keeping my protein higher than the rest but that' s just what works for me.
I would also look at reducing how many of the exercise calories you eat back if you are eating them all.
Even on days I run 10k I don't think I hit that many calories...6 -
BlueFlameLotus wrote: »Thank you all. I use measuring cups but not scales. Tracking ‘mostly’ diligently on MFP. I also use a polar chest strap and wrist band to track my day and burn rate.
I’ve heard tweaking macros can help and I wonder if my carb protein ration needs refining. I hear increasing carbs and also increasing protein decreasing carbs. Every body is different. I think it’s time to seek out a nutritionist.
First I would make sure you are actually eating what you think you are. A food scale will help with that. This is a great thread on why you should use one:
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10634517/you-dont-use-a-food-scale/p1
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BlueFlameLotus wrote: »Thank you all. I use measuring cups but not scales. Tracking ‘mostly’ diligently on MFP. I also use a polar chest strap and wrist band to track my day and burn rate.
I’ve heard tweaking macros can help and I wonder if my carb protein ration needs refining. I hear increasing carbs and also increasing protein decreasing carbs. Every body is different. I think it’s time to seek out a nutritionist.
You're making this way too hard. Much easier to just accurately weigh and log your food to guarantee you're in a defecit. All the replies you've gotten have been spot on. Stay in an actual defecit and the weight will start to come off.
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if you are not weighing your food- all of it- on a scale... you are eating more than you think you are.
thats where your weight gain came from and why you aren't losing weight now.11 -
Are you watching your portion sizes? Even with healthy foods it is possible to overeat. I have to echo the advice about weighing your food - everything that goes in your mouth. It is possible that you have hit a weight loss plateau and your body is not dropping weight. It's so frustrating, but when you only have a small amount to lose, it seems like your body wants to hang onto it.10
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BlueFlameLotus wrote: »The type of yoga I do is a rigorous ashtanga flow. It feels balls to the wall. As does my barre class. My instructor was a drill sergeant.
I do have experience with Ashtanga. It's not in the cardio database, but when I put in your stats and "Calisthenics (pushups, sit-ups), vigorous effort" I get 606 for an hour, so don't have an issue with your 300-500 per session. How long is the jumping around part, and how long is it total?0 -
kshama2001 wrote: »BlueFlameLotus wrote: »The type of yoga I do is a rigorous ashtanga flow. It feels balls to the wall. As does my barre class. My instructor was a drill sergeant.
I do have experience with Ashtanga. It's not in the cardio database, but when I put in your stats and "Calisthenics (pushups, sit-ups), vigorous effort" I get 606 for an hour, so don't have an issue with your 300-500 per session. How long is the jumping around part, and how long is it total?
At TO's weight if did interval bodyweight training I'd give myself about 6-7kcal/minute. However, this only accounts for the time actually working out. The problem with database entries for such workouts is that you're not working out continuously for a full hour. You take small breaks, add in exercises that are more gentle, stretching, etc. Even if you do interval workouts you'd be having a 10 second break after ever 30-50 seconds or so. Hence the calorie burn is much lower. Btw, this number is based on tracking calories for a long time and figuring out the difference between weight loss rate and food intake. Might be a bit different for other people.6 -
It's incredibly easy to eat way more than you think if you aren't meticulously measuring everything you put in your mouth. I suggest you start there before shelling out the cash for a nutritionist.6
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its really easy to eat more than you think. like today my protein bar which is supposed to be 60g a bar was actually 69g. I gained weight back after I lost it not weighing my food. Iwas using measuring cups and spoons. I did a google search and it brought me here where everyone told me to get a food scale and weight EVERYTHING. I started doing that and I was shocked at how much things can be off weight wise,that means extra calories in most cases. once I started weighing everything the weight started coming off again.
almond butter if not weighed can be more calories than you think. a teaspoon/tablespoon can actually be twice the amount if weighed compared to using a spoon. what you perceive to be a teaspoon/tablespoon is really a lot less than you think. a half cup of oatmeal is 40g, if you use a measuring cup even the half cup size it will be more than 40g its over 50 if memory serves me correctly. everything adds up over time. at first it worked for me but then the pounds came creeping back on.4 -
Thank you all. It seems to be a consensus on your replies. Eating less. A scale will be helpful albeit not as convenient as measuring cups and spoons. Almond butter is a sneaky culprit for sure. For me it seems patience is the name of the game because all of a sudden it’s working. I think I hit a plateau that I needed to break and my frustration led me to asking here. I could’ve just hung in a day or two more because the melt is on. From one day to the next. Notable. I feel fit and back on track and confident I’ll reach my goal. Just needed the scale to budge in the right direction. For me it’s actually far more important to feel strong firm and flexible than to pay attention to the scale that much. One things for sure though, these last two years of inactivity and carbing out taught me a lot about my body image, how easy it is to add inches and fall out of fitness. Not going there again.1
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Just curious if any of you above use any HRV monitors to track your exercise? It sounds like some of you type in how many minutes you work out into a standard database. When I do that it’s often off by many calories sometimes more sometimes less. I don’t find the database accurate enough to rely on. I have found in clinical research that chest straps are most accurate, so I wear both. For the runner who runs 10k and doesn’t think they burn 500, it would be interesting to actually check that number with a monitor.0
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BlueFlameLotus wrote: »Thank you all. It seems to be a consensus on your replies. Eating less. A scale will be helpful albeit not as convenient as measuring cups and spoons. Almond butter is a sneaky culprit for sure. For me it seems patience is the name of the game because all of a sudden it’s working. I think I hit a plateau that I needed to break and my frustration led me to asking here. I could’ve just hung in a day or two more because the melt is on. From one day to the next. Notable. I feel fit and back on track and confident I’ll reach my goal. Just needed the scale to budge in the right direction. For me it’s actually far more important to feel strong firm and flexible than to pay attention to the scale that much. One things for sure though, these last two years of inactivity and carbing out taught me a lot about my body image, how easy it is to add inches and fall out of fitness. Not going there again.
Actually, a scale is more convenient that cups and spoons! Say you make a marinade: you put the bowl on the scale, tar, put first ingredient in and note weight and go on like this, either with a tar inbetween or not. With spoons and cups you end up washing them in the end. Saves you the cleaning. And if you use something sticky you have to wash the cups inbetween.8 -
BlueFlameLotus wrote: »Just curious if any of you above use any HRV monitors to track your exercise? It sounds like some of you type in how many minutes you work out into a standard database. When I do that it’s often off by many calories sometimes more sometimes less. I don’t find the database accurate enough to rely on. I have found in clinical research that chest straps are most accurate, so I wear both. For the runner who runs 10k and doesn’t think they burn 500, it would be interesting to actually check that number with a monitor.
You are mistaking accuracy in counting heartbeats with accuracy in counting calories. There isn't a direct and universal correlation between HR and energy use. It's using HR as a rough indicator of oxygen uptake (which is hard to measure outside a sports science lab).
Exercise heartrate is very, very varied across people (I've seen 50% difference between two very fit cyclists producing the same power/calorie burn.
Unless you have validated your steady state cardio burns suggested by your HRM against a more reliable method you are really just using an electronic gizmo to give a somewhat educated guess of a rough average of the population.
Someone weighing around 130lbs would indeed be burning about 500 net calories for a six mile run.
(Bodyweight in pounds x 0.63 x miles = net cals)13 -
What is the most reliable method in your opinion?
The reason I chose the polar chest strap was because of the comparative research on accuracy that was done within a sports science lab.
Because everyone is different I just don’t think the standard data bases are a reliable number either. In regards to people eating back calories they think they’ve burned, which is clearly not a good idea, it may be better to lean towards a lower number estimate.2 -
BlueFlameLotus wrote: »What is the most reliable method in your opinion?
The reason I chose the polar chest strap was because of the comparative research on accuracy that was done within a sports science lab.
Because everyone is different I just don’t think the standard data bases are a reliable number either. In regards to people eating back calories they think they’ve burned, which is clearly not a good idea, it may be better to lean towards a lower number estimate.
Depends entirely on your exercise what method is best.
My main sports are cycling (I use power to estimate calories) and strength training (a HRM would be useless and exaggerated) and the database entry is modest and perfectly usable.
If I was a runner I would use the formula above.
Eating back exercise calories is entirely sensible, I would be desperately skinny and have awful exercise performance if I didn't!
It's better to pick the right tool(s) for the job rather than trust either the database or a device that counts heartbeats.
How did the study validate that the Polar was accurate for calories?
For what demographic?
For what particular exercise?
Which Polar from their range?
Personal experience: My Polar FT7 was far too generous, my FT60 took a lot of experimentation and adjusting settings to become accurate for steady state cardio but was hopeless for interval work (25% over even when calibrated).2 -
BlueFlameLotus wrote: »Thank you all. It seems to be a consensus on your replies. Eating less. A scale will be helpful albeit not as convenient as measuring cups and spoons. Almond butter is a sneaky culprit for sure. For me it seems patience is the name of the game because all of a sudden it’s working. I think I hit a plateau that I needed to break and my frustration led me to asking here. I could’ve just hung in a day or two more because the melt is on. From one day to the next. Notable. I feel fit and back on track and confident I’ll reach my goal. Just needed the scale to budge in the right direction. For me it’s actually far more important to feel strong firm and flexible than to pay attention to the scale that much. One things for sure though, these last two years of inactivity and carbing out taught me a lot about my body image, how easy it is to add inches and fall out of fitness. Not going there again.Actually, a scale is more convenient that cups and spoons! Say you make a marinade: you put the bowl on the scale, tar, put first ingredient in and note weight and go on like this, either with a tar inbetween or not. With spoons and cups you end up washing them in the end. Saves you the cleaning. And if you use something sticky you have to wash the cups inbetween.
@BlueFlameLotus for the reasons above, I think that you will find a scale to be more convenient once you get used to using it.
However, brace yourself for being sad about the almond butter
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