Scale not moving
mleonards
Posts: 52 Member
Hello:
I am a very active triathlete. I am generally working out 8-12 hours a week as part of my training. Still struggling to lose weight. I have diligently measured every morsel of food the last month and have lost 0 pounds and inches. How is this possible? Been eating between 1500-1700 calories a day. I’m 5’1 and 119 lbs, trying to get down to 110ish.
Thanks for any insight. It’s very frustrating.
I am a very active triathlete. I am generally working out 8-12 hours a week as part of my training. Still struggling to lose weight. I have diligently measured every morsel of food the last month and have lost 0 pounds and inches. How is this possible? Been eating between 1500-1700 calories a day. I’m 5’1 and 119 lbs, trying to get down to 110ish.
Thanks for any insight. It’s very frustrating.
4
Replies
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Measured or weighed?
(FYI measuring cups feature very prominently in threads where people don't lose weight as expected.)
An open food diary would help as there's a lot of horribly inaccurate food database entries here.3 -
Well, if you are measuring - that's likely still giving a lot of error.
Use a digital food scale for six weeks. If you still haven't lost weight, then your calories are simply too high.
Set your Goal for "Lose 1/2 pound per week." At your weight and activity levels, you can ill-afford any larger deficit. Then be patient.
It took me nine months to lose the last 15.3 -
My diary is set to public. I do use a scale and tablespoon. I’m not sure how someone eats so little and doesn’t lose weight lol! I do know I’m not big to begin with and my body is used to exercise but dang!2
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Are you using the food scale for your daily peanut butter (and everything else showing in "cups", like eggs, goat cheese, etc)?
Weigh everything. Check out this thread.
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10634517/you-dont-use-a-food-scale/p15 -
Oh and MFP has me on 1200. But I am eating 1500-1700 due to exercise... maybe I should suck it up and not do that0
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quiksylver296 wrote: »Are you using the food scale for your daily peanut butter (and everything else showing in "cups", like eggs, goat cheese, etc)?
Weigh everything. Check out this thread.
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10634517/you-dont-use-a-food-scale/p1
Ok thanks. I’ve been using the scale for meat, yogurt, nuts. Been using a tablespoon for peanut butter. Been using cups for oatmeal. Sometimes I do think the things like chili are hard to be perfectly exact.0 -
quiksylver296 wrote: »Are you using the food scale for your daily peanut butter (and everything else showing in "cups", like eggs, goat cheese, etc)?
Weigh everything. Check out this thread.
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10634517/you-dont-use-a-food-scale/p1
Ok thanks. I’ve been using the scale for meat, yogurt, nuts. Been using a tablespoon for peanut butter. Been using cups for oatmeal. Sometimes I do think the things like chili are hard to be perfectly exact.
Peanut butter is the WORST.
Put your peanut butter jar on the scale, tare the scale to zero, scoop out what you think would be a normal tablespoon. I bet it isn't 16 grams.
You eat a lot of peanut butter. I suspect you're getting some serious extra calories just in PB.
Report back and let us know what you find!9 -
If triathlon was cycling, balancing the maximum amount of peanut butter on a spoon and cramming loads of grated cheese into a measuring cup I would definitely give it a go.
Your exercise estimates seem to fall into the realms of reasonable so really it's your food intake you need to get a bit better with. It's a learning curve and peanut butter is one of those very calorie dense foods where precision really pays off.5 -
quiksylver296 wrote: »Are you using the food scale for your daily peanut butter (and everything else showing in "cups", like eggs, goat cheese, etc)?
Weigh everything. Check out this thread.
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10634517/you-dont-use-a-food-scale/p1
Ok thanks. I’ve been using the scale for meat, yogurt, nuts. Been using a tablespoon for peanut butter. Been using cups for oatmeal. Sometimes I do think the things like chili are hard to be perfectly exact.
cups and spoons are going to be way off for peanut butter and oatmeal. Ive been there done that and learned the hard way. weigh everything that is solid and semi solid in grams on the scale.(food packaging can also be off by 20% per serving so weigh packaged foods too if you eat them,including bread). use cups and spoons for liquids only.I gained back half the weight I lost using cups and spoons by using cups and spoons lol. once I started weighing everything it started to come back off again and then some. as for the last little bit of weight you are going to have to be very very accurate and give it time to come off. its going to take the longest coming off.4 -
Thank you everyone. I do love my peanut butter, lol. I’ll do what you guys recommend and see what goes. Thanks again!3
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What do you guys do for things like soup? I have been doing my best but I’m sure it’s not perfect.0
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Oh and yeah my activity estimates I think are fairly accurate as I do use a heart rate strap and garmin. I also don’t eat all the calories back. I am hungry a lot though!0
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What do you guys do for things like soup? I have been doing my best but I’m sure it’s not perfect.
Food scale for soup too. If it's store-bought, the weight is usually on the container. If it's homemade, then use the recipe builder and use weights for the ingredients. Use the total cooked weight for the number of servings so one gram = one serving. Then just record the number of grams served.5 -
Are you losing inches? Scale will always fluctuate3
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Oh and yeah my activity estimates I think are fairly accurate as I do use a heart rate strap and garmin. I also don’t eat all the calories back. I am hungry a lot though!
There are many reasons why calculated calories from HR can be off, because there are many reasons why HR can be inflated above what is actually needed for the effort done.
Like a long session you'll get HR drift - it just rises for same level of effort. 1 hr on a treadmill at exactly the same pace the whole time usually proves this out for people - and this is staying cool and hydrated so those aren't the factors
HR just steadily rises. So you'd be given more calorie burn at the end than the start - when actually burning the same amount from the same level of effort.
Now throw in the HR increase from being dehydrated, or hot in general - inflated calorie burn again.
Now the effect of doing a hard effort first - say sprints or tempo run - followed by something easy - inflated again.
So HR-based calorie burn can have decent accuracy if the formula has your true HRmax, and you are avg to the test subjects that the study used to create the formula, and you have no inflated HR increase.
So if you know those caveats, it may be fairly accurate. But I'm betting not.
When I'm doing long tri training and can't trust the built in formula with inflated HR - I'll take an adjusted HR and use the formula myself to get a calorie burn.
Or better formula for running and swimming, and watts for biking, and HR is merely used for stats and training method, not even used for calorie burn.
Doing that method - I had 1 test month of loss and very accurate food logging matched with manual exercise logging - and my loss was within 3% of expected for deficit I appeared to have.
I wanted to lose coming up on a 70.3 race, but not too much to effect training - so it was important to me to get it right, and I didn't have months to experiment.4 -
You haven't gained weight, either. Those plateaus are disheartening, but it sounds like by following the advice given above about peanut butter (yum!), you should see that scale needle move.2
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Oh and yeah my activity estimates I think are fairly accurate as I do use a heart rate strap and garmin. I also don’t eat all the calories back. I am hungry a lot though!
There are many reasons why calculated calories from HR can be off, because there are many reasons why HR can be inflated above what is actually needed for the effort done.
Like a long session you'll get HR drift - it just rises for same level of effort. 1 hr on a treadmill at exactly the same pace the whole time usually proves this out for people - and this is staying cool and hydrated so those aren't the factors
HR just steadily rises. So you'd be given more calorie burn at the end than the start - when actually burning the same amount from the same level of effort.
Now throw in the HR increase from being dehydrated, or hot in general - inflated calorie burn again.
Now the effect of doing a hard effort first - say sprints or tempo run - followed by something easy - inflated again.
So HR-based calorie burn can have decent accuracy if the formula has your true HRmax, and you are avg to the test subjects that the study used to create the formula, and you have no inflated HR increase.
So if you know those caveats, it may be fairly accurate. But I'm betting not.
When I'm doing long tri training and can't trust the built in formula with inflated HR - I'll take an adjusted HR and use the formula myself to get a calorie burn.
Or better formula for running and swimming, and watts for biking, and HR is merely used for stats and training method, not even used for calorie burn.
Doing that method - I had 1 test month of loss and very accurate food logging matched with manual exercise logging - and my loss was within 3% of expected for deficit I appeared to have.
I wanted to lose coming up on a 70.3 race, but not too much to effect training - so it was important to me to get it right, and I didn't have months to experiment.
Ok I am trying to understand this... what formula should I use? I use a garmin 935 and HR strap. My zones are done via the HR test my coach did. I don’t think my Calorie burns seem too inflated ... example my 4 mile run today (34 mins) I burned 318 calories via garmin.... interested in your thoughts. I am trying to get down as well before 70.3 in May0 -
Homemade. I don’t eat canned soup.. I built some recipes last night in MFP so I think that will help. I’ve noticed today my fruit portion is smaller using the scale vs the cup. The peanut butter wasn’t too off lol0 -
"Ok I am trying to understand this... what formula should I use? I use a garmin 935 and HR strap. My zones are done via the HR test my coach did. I don’t think my Calorie burns seem too inflated ... example my 4 mile run today (34 mins) I burned 318 calories via garmin.... interested in your thoughts. I am trying to get down as well before 70.3 in May "
For running a common formula uses an efficiency ratio of 0.63 multiplied by your weight in lbs multiplied by your distance in miles.
Your 4 mile run would be 0.63 x 119 x 4 = 300 so your HRM estimate is pretty close.
My experience with a decent spec HRM with personalised settings and calibrated against a power meter for indoor cycling was that for steady state cardio it could be really close, for interval training it could be inflated by 25% and longer duration or simply getting too hot could inflate the numbers more.3 -
"Ok I am trying to understand this... what formula should I use? I use a garmin 935 and HR strap. My zones are done via the HR test my coach did. I don’t think my Calorie burns seem too inflated ... example my 4 mile run today (34 mins) I burned 318 calories via garmin.... interested in your thoughts. I am trying to get down as well before 70.3 in May "
For running a common formula uses an efficiency ratio of 0.63 multiplied by your weight in lbs multiplied by your distance in miles.
Your 4 mile run would be 0.63 x 119 x 4 = 300 so your HRM estimate is pretty close.
My experience with a decent spec HRM with personalised settings and calibrated against a power meter for indoor cycling was that for steady state cardio it could be really close, for interval training it could be inflated by 25% and longer duration or simply getting too hot could inflate the numbers more.
Thanks so much for the insight !1 -
I honestly never realized before how important the scale was until I started weighing everything. Like the serving for PB Fit is "2 tablespoons", but if you weigh the 2 tablespoons, it is almost twice as much as the grams they assume are tablespoons. I think it has to do with kind of how loose or packed those are with the powder. Major eye opener.3
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whatalazyidiot wrote: »I honestly never realized before how important the scale was until I started weighing everything. Like the serving for PB Fit is "2 tablespoons", but if you weigh the 2 tablespoons, it is almost twice as much as the grams they assume are tablespoons. I think it has to do with kind of how loose or packed those are with the powder. Major eye opener.
And sad...weighing pb is just sad
1 -
Oh and yeah my activity estimates I think are fairly accurate as I do use a heart rate strap and garmin. I also don’t eat all the calories back. I am hungry a lot though!
There are many reasons why calculated calories from HR can be off, because there are many reasons why HR can be inflated above what is actually needed for the effort done.
Like a long session you'll get HR drift - it just rises for same level of effort. 1 hr on a treadmill at exactly the same pace the whole time usually proves this out for people - and this is staying cool and hydrated so those aren't the factors
HR just steadily rises. So you'd be given more calorie burn at the end than the start - when actually burning the same amount from the same level of effort.
Now throw in the HR increase from being dehydrated, or hot in general - inflated calorie burn again.
Now the effect of doing a hard effort first - say sprints or tempo run - followed by something easy - inflated again.
So HR-based calorie burn can have decent accuracy if the formula has your true HRmax, and you are avg to the test subjects that the study used to create the formula, and you have no inflated HR increase.
So if you know those caveats, it may be fairly accurate. But I'm betting not.
When I'm doing long tri training and can't trust the built in formula with inflated HR - I'll take an adjusted HR and use the formula myself to get a calorie burn.
Or better formula for running and swimming, and watts for biking, and HR is merely used for stats and training method, not even used for calorie burn.
Doing that method - I had 1 test month of loss and very accurate food logging matched with manual exercise logging - and my loss was within 3% of expected for deficit I appeared to have.
I wanted to lose coming up on a 70.3 race, but not too much to effect training - so it was important to me to get it right, and I didn't have months to experiment.
Ok I am trying to understand this... what formula should I use? I use a garmin 935 and HR strap. My zones are done via the HR test my coach did. I don’t think my Calorie burns seem too inflated ... example my 4 mile run today (34 mins) I burned 318 calories via garmin.... interested in your thoughts. I am trying to get down as well before 70.3 in May
As it was commented by @sijomial also noting the increased HR, and using formula's for some workouts, I know about what my HR would normally be to see when it must be elevated from prior workouts or heat, ect.
So I can see a 5 to 15 increase usually easily because the breathing rate doesn't go up also - so it's not about more beats to supply more oxygen for harder effort, it's about more blood flow for cooling, or stress, or thicker blood from dehydrated.
In fact, the Garmins using FirstBeat algorithms (not sure if they still pay for that usage on new devices) do attempt to discern that breathing rate with HRV.
Anyway, decent FirstBeat formula is based on this study but tweaked:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2287267
Their formula for estimating VO2 is:
(male=1, female=0)*10.987+56.363+1.921*PAR-0.381*Age-0.754*(Weight in KG/((Height in M)^2))
PAR (Physical Activity Rating) is the number taken from following chart (used to have to manually do this on device):
https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=DJEru6ns626MZTh2kvUXZA
If you really want fun with numbers, I've included the more spreadsheet type formula below, but also available in website here with calculator, 2nd one down the page:
http://www.shapesense.com/fitness-exercise/calculators/heart-rate-based-calorie-burn-calculator.shtml
I just use this formula from that Polar funded study - it is much improved having a good estimate of VO2max.
I just have this stuff in a spreadsheet, so I can adjust the numbers as needed when I'm involved with big training loads and desire better accuracy potential. (this is spreadsheet formula, you can see 2 different actual formula for male/female)
(-59.3954+((male=1, female=0)*(-36.3781+(0.271*Age)+(0.394*Weight in KG)+(0.404*VO2max)+(0.634*avgHR)))+((1-(male=1, female=0))*((0.274*Age)+(0.103*Weight in KG)+(0.38*VO2max)+(0.45*VO2max))))*0.2388459*minutes
An elevated by 10 bpm can be about 200 calories for a 2 hour workout - which was easily obtained during summer training on good 5 days a week.
To me the wrong direction by 1000 calories weekly trying to train well but also lose reasonable rate was important to not miss. And the reason I did the test month was because prior months had gone not so great for that reason, with varied training levels wasn't just a simple matter of eating more or less to get what I wanted.
I needed numbers to go by - some may not need that and may not like it at all - I'm number junky so liked it anyway.3 -
Oh and yeah my activity estimates I think are fairly accurate as I do use a heart rate strap and garmin. I also don’t eat all the calories back. I am hungry a lot though!
There are many reasons why calculated calories from HR can be off, because there are many reasons why HR can be inflated above what is actually needed for the effort done.
Like a long session you'll get HR drift - it just rises for same level of effort. 1 hr on a treadmill at exactly the same pace the whole time usually proves this out for people - and this is staying cool and hydrated so those aren't the factors
HR just steadily rises. So you'd be given more calorie burn at the end than the start - when actually burning the same amount from the same level of effort.
Now throw in the HR increase from being dehydrated, or hot in general - inflated calorie burn again.
Now the effect of doing a hard effort first - say sprints or tempo run - followed by something easy - inflated again.
So HR-based calorie burn can have decent accuracy if the formula has your true HRmax, and you are avg to the test subjects that the study used to create the formula, and you have no inflated HR increase.
So if you know those caveats, it may be fairly accurate. But I'm betting not.
When I'm doing long tri training and can't trust the built in formula with inflated HR - I'll take an adjusted HR and use the formula myself to get a calorie burn.
Or better formula for running and swimming, and watts for biking, and HR is merely used for stats and training method, not even used for calorie burn.
Doing that method - I had 1 test month of loss and very accurate food logging matched with manual exercise logging - and my loss was within 3% of expected for deficit I appeared to have.
I wanted to lose coming up on a 70.3 race, but not too much to effect training - so it was important to me to get it right, and I didn't have months to experiment.
Ok I am trying to understand this... what formula should I use? I use a garmin 935 and HR strap. My zones are done via the HR test my coach did. I don’t think my Calorie burns seem too inflated ... example my 4 mile run today (34 mins) I burned 318 calories via garmin.... interested in your thoughts. I am trying to get down as well before 70.3 in May
As it was commented by @sijomial also noting the increased HR, and using formula's for some workouts, I know about what my HR would normally be to see when it must be elevated from prior workouts or heat, ect.
So I can see a 5 to 15 increase usually easily because the breathing rate doesn't go up also - so it's not about more beats to supply more oxygen for harder effort, it's about more blood flow for cooling, or stress, or thicker blood from dehydrated.
In fact, the Garmins using FirstBeat algorithms (not sure if they still pay for that usage on new devices) do attempt to discern that breathing rate with HRV.
Anyway, decent FirstBeat formula is based on this study but tweaked:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2287267
Their formula for estimating VO2 is:
(male=1, female=0)*10.987+56.363+1.921*PAR-0.381*Age-0.754*(Weight in KG/((Height in M)^2))
PAR (Physical Activity Rating) is the number taken from following chart (used to have to manually do this on device):
https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=DJEru6ns626MZTh2kvUXZA
If you really want fun with numbers, I've included the more spreadsheet type formula below, but also available in website here with calculator, 2nd one down the page:
http://www.shapesense.com/fitness-exercise/calculators/heart-rate-based-calorie-burn-calculator.shtml
I just use this formula from that Polar funded study - it is much improved having a good estimate of VO2max.
I just have this stuff in a spreadsheet, so I can adjust the numbers as needed when I'm involved with big training loads and desire better accuracy potential. (this is spreadsheet formula, you can see 2 different actual formula for male/female)
(-59.3954+((male=1, female=0)*(-36.3781+(0.271*Age)+(0.394*Weight in KG)+(0.404*VO2max)+(0.634*avgHR)))+((1-(male=1, female=0))*((0.274*Age)+(0.103*Weight in KG)+(0.38*VO2max)+(0.45*VO2max))))*0.2388459*minutes
An elevated by 10 bpm can be about 200 calories for a 2 hour workout - which was easily obtained during summer training on good 5 days a week.
To me the wrong direction by 1000 calories weekly trying to train well but also lose reasonable rate was important to not miss. And the reason I did the test month was because prior months had gone not so great for that reason, with varied training levels wasn't just a simple matter of eating more or less to get what I wanted.
I needed numbers to go by - some may not need that and may not like it at all - I'm number junky so liked it anyway.
I like numbers too. Yay data junkie!
Heat definitely plays a part in my heart rate no doubt. I’m just trying to lose while still perform well so after all this I am still unsure how many calories I should aim for, lol.
0 -
Homemade. I don’t eat canned soup.. I built some recipes last night in MFP so I think that will help. I’ve noticed today my fruit portion is smaller using the scale vs the cup. The peanut butter wasn’t too off lol
Besides the tip above about putting the PB jar on the scale, taking some out, and noting the negative (which you can also use with things like chunks of cheese, or other things you cut off a block), there are other scale tricks.
For making something like soup, I use one of two methods quite a lot for measuring ingredients.
If you add several ingredients at the same time, put the pot on the scale, zero it, add an ingredient, note amount, zero, add another ingredient, note . . . etc. (Works great for making salads or sandwiches, too, with bowl or plate on the scale.)
The other is for ingredients added at different points in cooking, that need to be cut up or chopped. Keep them a bit segregated on your cutting board. When it's time to add one, put the whole cutting board & cut up stuff on the scale, zero it, then push one ingredient into the pot. Put the cutting board back on the scale, note the negative. If the board is too big to see the scale readout, put a bowl or something on the scale to elevate the board, then go through that routine.
If you weigh the pot before you start, then weigh the finished product, you'll know how many total grams of soup to use in figuring the servings for recipe builder.
Once you get used to it, I think you'll find that using the scale is quicker and easier than cups/spoons, with fewer dishes to wash, and more accurate as well.7 -
Have you tried intermittent fasting? I have had recent success, but I’m definitely not a triathlete.3
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christopherdubose9599 wrote: »Have you tried intermittent fasting? I have had recent success, but I’m definitely not a triathlete.
intermittent fasting will work IF it puts one into a deficit. I have gained and maintained doing IF(done it more than 3 decades)4 -
Have you tried a high calorie day to increase your body's response to consumables? (not crap food) Speeds up your metabolism to deal with the extra calories and then the next day when you go back to 1350 it is burning calories faster expecting 2500 or 3,000. It does work for some people who do it once a week to throw their bodies into high burning gear.
Maybe your exercise intensity is signalling your body to hold on to some calories (it thinks that you need it to continue like that).
Or maybe you are really at a perfect weight for you and your body doesn't think that you should weigh less to function properly.11 -
dawnbgethealthy wrote: »Have you tried a high calorie day to increase your body's response to consumables? (not crap food) Speeds up your metabolism to deal with the extra calories and then the next day when you go back to 1350 it is burning calories faster expecting 2500 or 3,000. It does work for some people who do it once a week to throw their bodies into high burning gear.
Maybe your exercise intensity is signalling your body to hold on to some calories (it thinks that you need it to continue like that).
Or maybe you are really at a perfect weight for you and your body doesn't think that you should weigh less to function properly.
a high calorie day can wipe out a deficit.it doesnt speed up your metabolism. your body doesnt hold on to calories either(nor fat or weight)6
This discussion has been closed.
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