Cant loose weight
eloisebalgowan
Posts: 4 Member
I have been eating the recommended 1320 calories a day and working out at the gym for approx 1.5 - 2 hours 4 days a week since September but have only lost 1kg. What am I doing wrong?
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Replies
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How are you measuring your food?1
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How tall are you, and how much do you weigh now?
Have you been doing this amount of exercise since September? If not, when did you start?1 -
Has your weight fluctuated up and down during that period?0
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You're probably eating more than you think you are. If you're not weighing and measuring your food, then you have no idea if you're eating 1320 calories a day or 2000 calories a day.6
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I am measuring and recording all food in this app. I am 65kg and 157cm talk. I work in an office job so sit all day but do 30min on treadmill during lunch break 4 times a week and go to gym 4 nights a week for 1-1.5 hours (circuit/full body work out classesand cardio). I have been going to gym since September and measuring food since november2
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with that weight you are eating already more than your BMR.. So first find out your BMR, then plan the calorie intake. Further You already are very near to desired weight, at that level, fat percentage is not very high, so weight loss is very slow.14
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(Copied and pasted from Mindfulness and Weight Management)
I think weight management and honest approaches to weight loss are rather simple and straight forward. This site tries to make it sexy and exciting. Nothing wrong with that except it denies the reality that each of us has to look deep into ourselves and find the strength, discipline and courage to face the demands of behavioral changes over a long period of time. At first we can feel inspired and highly motivated. And then, inertia sets in and we can easily drift back to old established and automatic patterns of eating.
I think it’s important to stay focused and mindful of our choices and decisions and not let the “lazy” brain and strong temptations lull us back to the rut of poor choices that we have been bogged in for years.
Let’s keep moving forward and make each choice mindful and deliberate. We call do this even if it takes time and patients. It’s worth the effort.
I have started a different thread which looks at Mindfulness and Weight Management if this is at all interesting to you.
Take care
Shel14 -
If you are working out this much, perhaps you are building muscle as well as losing fat. Have you measured yourself? It's possible you are slimming down, but not seeing it on the scale.14
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I am not slimming down as my clothes are not loose. When i put in my height and weight into this app it told me 1320 calories per day to lose 250g per week0
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Are you using a food scale?
In terms of accuracy eyeballing portions is the least accurate method of determining your intake. Measuring cups are better than eyeballing, but can still leave you consuming several hundred calories more than you think. Food scale is the most accurate method.
Double check the entries you are using from the database. There are a lot of entries that are incorrect. Avoid using “homemade - ...” entries. You don’t know the exact ingredients that were used or in what amounts so it’s highly unlikely to be accurate for what you ate.6 -
Are you measuring your food or weighing your food?
You’re set for a very small calorie deficit per day (which is fine - you don’t have a lot to lose). But a deficit of only 250 calories per day means your logging needs or be as accurate as possible. Nutrition info on packages is by weight. They give cups/spoons as an approximate guide, but 1 cup of something could vary a lot in weight depending on how it’s packed in there. So what you’re logging might be the value for what the package estimates is a cup of food, but what you ate might actually weigh much more than what the manufacturer estimates is in that cup of food.
Also-are you logging exercise and eating those calories back (you should be). How are you estimating calories burned in your workouts?
The reality is that your deficit is small so you won’t see massive weight drops. You’re only going to lose 1kg a month. My weight fluctuates by more than that on a daily basis-so it can be every more difficult to see weight changes.
The best you can do is be as accurate as possible with your logging, use a weight trending app/site to help smooth out fluctuations, and be patient.2 -
Definitely weighing food with food scale0
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With weight loss it doesn’t really matter what you eat (in theory) as long as your calories in are less than calories out. But out of interest, what would a days eating look like for you? Similarly, what does your exercise regime look like?0
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Horsekeeper wrote: »If you are working out this much, perhaps you are building muscle as well as losing fat. Have you measured yourself? It's possible you are slimming down, but not seeing it on the scale.
no. muscle building (especially in a woman) is a long and slow process. plus, muscle will never go on at a rate that will outpace fat loss - especially while eating at a deficit (which she claims to be).4 -
eloisebalgowan wrote: »I am measuring and recording all food in this app. I am 65kg and 157cm talk. I work in an office job so sit all day but do 30min on treadmill during lunch break 4 times a week and go to gym 4 nights a week for 1-1.5 hours (circuit/full body work out classesand cardio). I have been going to gym since September and measuring food since november
Try to consume less carbs while increasing your protein consumption. A higher protein intake boots your metabolic rate, which can increase the number of calories you burn by 80-100 calories every day‼️😁👍🏾
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eloisebalgowan wrote: »I am measuring and recording all food in this app. I am 65kg and 157cm talk. I work in an office job so sit all day but do 30min on treadmill during lunch break 4 times a week and go to gym 4 nights a week for 1-1.5 hours (circuit/full body work out classesand cardio). I have been going to gym since September and measuring food since november
Try to consume less carbs while increasing your protein consumption. A higher protein intake boots your metabolic rate, which can increase the number of calories you burn by 80-100 calories every day‼️😁👍🏾
Well this just isn't true.10 -
most calculators also require your age and activity level to be accurate, you didn't post your age so it's a guess.
switching your routine from cardio to resistance/weights may improve your weight loss. Your body can start to adapt to the same exercise routine and this is typically responsible for when people "plateau" in their weight loss goals. Change up your exercise...if you can, add swimming. Swimming at a moderate to vigorous pace uses muscles you thought you never had!
You also should look at sodium and carbohydrates. Sodium makes you retain water and carbs make you retain fat. Adjust your carbs to 50g-150g per day, increase the protein and try to stay around 1600mg or less of sodium per day. And don't weigh yourself everyday...it's not an accurate measurement because like blood pressure it can fluctuate during the day.14 -
most calculators also require your age and activity level to be accurate, you didn't post your age so it's a guess.
switching your routine from cardio to resistance/weights may improve your weight loss. Your body can start to adapt to the same exercise routine and this is typically responsible for when people "plateau" in their weight loss goals. Change up your exercise...if you can, add swimming. Swimming at a moderate to vigorous pace uses muscles you thought you never had!
You also should look at sodium and carbohydrates. Sodium makes you retain water and carbs make you retain fat. Adjust your carbs to 50g-150g per day, increase the protein and try to stay around 1600mg or less of sodium per day. And don't weigh yourself everyday...it's not an accurate measurement because like blood pressure it can fluctuate during the day.
I'm all for changing up exercise from time to time. I get bored with one thing and realize I'm no longer putting in 100% effort so switching it up can help. And swimming is great exercise.
Carbs don't make you retain fat, excess calories do. There's no reason to arbitrarily limit sodium for someone who is not limiting it for a medical reason.
Weighing everyday is fine if you like the data and don't worry about the day to day fluctuations. The overall trend over time is what you are looking for.
OP - with not a lot to lose it is going to be slow. I'd double check your logging first to make sure you are being as accurate as possible. That's always where I start when it seems I'm not losing when I want to.4 -
Can you give an example about your meal plan for one day?0
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most calculators also require your age and activity level to be accurate, you didn't post your age so it's a guess.
switching your routine from cardio to resistance/weights may improve your weight loss. Your body can start to adapt to the same exercise routine and this is typically responsible for when people "plateau" in their weight loss goals. Change up your exercise...if you can, add swimming. Swimming at a moderate to vigorous pace uses muscles you thought you never had!
You also should look at sodium and carbohydrates. Sodium makes you retain water and carbs make you retain fat. Adjust your carbs to 50g-150g per day, increase the protein and try to stay around 1600mg or less of sodium per day. And don't weigh yourself everyday...it's not an accurate measurement because like blood pressure it can fluctuate during the day.
Lance Armstrong exercised about 3 to 6 hours a day and his efficiency at doing the same exercise improved by about 1% in a year.
It simply isn't a significant factor.
Also weighing yourself every day is an accurate measure, it tells you your total body weight at that point in time. And that is all it tells you.
That your weight fluctuates for many reasons is also true and weighing daily helps many people understand and accept why.3 -
eloisebalgowan wrote: »I am measuring and recording all food in this app. I am 65kg and 157cm talk. I work in an office job so sit all day but do 30min on treadmill during lunch break 4 times a week and go to gym 4 nights a week for 1-1.5 hours (circuit/full body work out classesand cardio). I have been going to gym since September and measuring food since november
Try to consume less carbs while increasing your protein consumption. A higher protein intake boots your metabolic rate, which can increase the number of calories you burn by 80-100 calories every day‼️😁👍🏾
OH! And lower your carbs to anywhere from 20-50g per day.21 -
[quote=
Try to consume less carbs while increasing your protein consumption. A higher protein intake boots your metabolic rate, which can increase the number of calories you burn by 80-100 calories every day‼️😁👍🏾
[/quote]
OH! And lower your carbs to anywhere from 20-50g per day.[/quote]
Carbs have nothing to do with it unless you're diabetic. Plus, carbs fuel you and if you're working out that much you definitely need more than 50g of carbs a day. Higher protein does not boost your metabolic rate. Now, if you mean that protein will help maintain/build muscle and more muscle burns more calories then you're sort of correct. But it takes a long time to build muscle like that.
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Yeah, I've lost over 108lbs on 200+ grams of carbs daily.5
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Hi,
Can you open your diary up as public? Sometimes the most common issues can be identified by having a look at it. Unfortunately with such a small calorie deficit even a little bit of discrepancy can wipe out a decifit. So things like condiments and the odd 5kcals here or there can often add up and make progress very slow.
Also is that 1kg weight loss since September? And has that been steady, or up and down?
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OP, I don't know why your post has attracted so much bad advice, but you've gotten a LOT of it. Let's start from the top.
- You don't have to worry about your BMR. Some people like to know what theirs is, but if you're following the MFP calorie goal, it already includes a deficit and you don't have to calculate one for yourself.
- You don't have to follow any sort of mindfulness practice to lose weight. That's something you can choose to do or not.
- You've almost certainly not built that much muscle since September, especially not while in a calorie deficit.
- For weight loss, it doesn't matter what macro ratios you're eating. You don't need to decrease your carbs or increase protein in order to lose weight. Everyone needs enough protein, and eating a lot of carbs makes some people feel hungry, but it is your calorie intake and not your macro ratio that determines weight loss.
- You don't have to change your exercise routine. You can do this if you're bored with it or if it's not meeting your other fitness goals.
- You don't have to swim or do any other specific exercise for weight loss. Do the exercise that you enjoy and that helps you meet your fitness goals.
- Sodium doesn't have anything to do with fat loss. Eating more sodium may cause a little temporary water retention, but you don't need to worry about sodium unless your doctor told you to eat less of it.
- There's nothing wrong with weighing yourself every day if you want to. You should try to do it at a consistent time, place, wearing the same/no clothes, etc.
Here's the good advice you've gotten:
- You're only 3 kg (6 pounds, for us in the US) above the high end of your optimal BMI range. Weight loss happens slowly at that point since you don't have much to lose and your deficit is very small. Even a few logging errors can wipe it out. Make sure you really are weighing EVERYTHING, including oil, fruit, veggies, etc. Sometimes we forget to weigh and log things like that.
Also, make sure that your exercise calorie burn is not exaggerated. Some exercise calorie burn calculators, including the MFP one, give very high estimates. This is why we often tell people to only eat back half that number and see how it works from there. Since you have a small deficit at this point, if you're accidentally eating back more calories than you really burn, you'll unknowingly cut into that small deficit even further.14 -
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