Needing advice - not losing weight anymore
vjs18
Posts: 4 Member
Hi all! New to the forum and needing some advice.
I’m 25, about 5’7 and about 170 lbs.
I used to weigh about 120 lbs but after a series of unfortunately events, my weight climbed up to 185 lbs over the course of about 5 years. I decided it was time to make a change and started my diet on March 18th. The original plan was not to go above 1200 calories, but I was finding it very easy, and most days I was only eating about 800-900 calories.
I lost 13 lbs in the first month and then a couple more pounds over the next week or so, but then I stopped. For the last couple weeks my weight has been yo-yoing around the 170 mark. One day I’ll be at 169 and then 170 and then 171 and then 170 and then 169 and so forth.
I did some research and it looked like I wasn’t eating enough so I upped my calories to 1200 on Monday but my weight is still yo-yoing.
As for exercise, I sit at a desk at work all day and due to an injury I’m limited to what exercises I can do. 4-5 times a week I do some exercises with the dumbbells I have at home but I only have time for about 10-15 minutes of this.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!
I’m 25, about 5’7 and about 170 lbs.
I used to weigh about 120 lbs but after a series of unfortunately events, my weight climbed up to 185 lbs over the course of about 5 years. I decided it was time to make a change and started my diet on March 18th. The original plan was not to go above 1200 calories, but I was finding it very easy, and most days I was only eating about 800-900 calories.
I lost 13 lbs in the first month and then a couple more pounds over the next week or so, but then I stopped. For the last couple weeks my weight has been yo-yoing around the 170 mark. One day I’ll be at 169 and then 170 and then 171 and then 170 and then 169 and so forth.
I did some research and it looked like I wasn’t eating enough so I upped my calories to 1200 on Monday but my weight is still yo-yoing.
As for exercise, I sit at a desk at work all day and due to an injury I’m limited to what exercises I can do. 4-5 times a week I do some exercises with the dumbbells I have at home but I only have time for about 10-15 minutes of this.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!
1
Replies
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Are you weighing your food and logging everything you consume with accurate entries (i.e. no homemade or generic)? 13 pounds in a few weeks is more than a healthy rate of loss which is considered 0.5-2 pounds a week. You were correct to increase your calories, but since you don't need to lose much to get to a healthy weight range you should have a goal of 0.5-1 pound a week.5
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Are you weighing your food and logging everything you consume with accurate entries (i.e. no homemade or generic)? 13 pounds in a few weeks is more than a healthy rate of loss which is considered 0.5-2 pounds a week. You were correct to increase your calories, but since you don't need to lose much to get to a healthy weight range you should have a goal of 0.5-1 pound a week.
I’m actually very new to the app. I just started using it Monday to make sure I’m eating enough calories so I’m still getting used to it. Almost all the food I eat is labelled with its calories. I measure everything else by volume rather than weight.0 -
Watch this video to see how measuring by volume is not accurate for calorie counting. Also weighing the food in packages can be eyeopening since just because it says "1 slice = 20g" does not mean all slices are 20g.
https://youtu.be/JVjWPclrWVY4 -
Watch this video to see how measuring by volume is not accurate for calorie counting. Also weighing the food in packages can be eyeopening since just because it says "1 slice = 20g" does not mean all slices are 20g.
https://youtu.be/JVjWPclrWVY
Makes sense. It’s definitely something for me to consider, however I have a feeling that when I’m already cutting my calories so low (especially at my size) that a few grams isn’t really stopping me from not losing any weight at all. Even if all the missed grams added up to 1300 or 1400 a day, I should still be losing something. Definitely will put it into consideration though, thank you!
0 -
Watch this video to see how measuring by volume is not accurate for calorie counting. Also weighing the food in packages can be eyeopening since just because it says "1 slice = 20g" does not mean all slices are 20g.
https://youtu.be/JVjWPclrWVY
Makes sense. It’s definitely something for me to consider, however I have a feeling that when I’m already cutting my calories so low (especially at my size) that a few grams is really stopping me from not losing any weight at all. Even if all the missed grams added up to 1300 or 1400 a day, I should still be losing something. Definitely will put it into consideration though, thank you!
Agree if you were only consuming what you initially stated you should still lose so maybe you are consuming more than you think?3 -
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10634517/you-dont-use-a-food-scale/p1
Sometimes you can be off by a lot more than a few missed grams, you'd be surprised. See the video in this link.2 -
Stalls definitely suck and they can be hard to troubleshoot with a closed diary and few details. These are my pretty generic tips:
1. If it's been less than 3 weeks or so, don't sweat it! Normal fluctuations happen and unfortunately sometimes we stall for a week or two even when we're doing everything right. Give your body some time to catch up with the changes you're making. Especially with a new workout routine in the mix and the water retention you can expect with that.
2. 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.
3. Consider buying a food scale if you don't already have one and use it for everything. Everything. For a couple of weeks to see what kind of discrepancies you're running into. 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.
4. 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. Don't trust the barcode scanner or restaurant entries 100%.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. If you weigh yourself frequently, consider using a program like trendweight, happy scale, or libra to even out the fluctuations. You could be losing weight but just don't see it because of the daily ups and downs.
9. 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.6 -
As stated above, weigh EVERYTHING on a scale. Pre-packaged foods can be inaccurate as well. Meal replacement bars or frozen dinners can be off by quite a bit.
1200 (net) calories is the minimum intake anyone should go to. Stick with that number (or more depending on stats)
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Weight loss is not linear. two weeks feels long but big picture it isn't, it may just be water fluctuations masking loss. so it may just be a frustrating wait and just keep doing what you are doing.
But I WOULD highly recommend getting a scale and weighing everything. and double checking each entry you are using to log, there are tons of errors and issues. Or in my case I was using raw weight entries but using actual COOKED weight so i was off by a good amount even though I DID use a scale AND DID log the food (chicken/salmon in my case)diannethegeek wrote: »Stalls definitely suck and they can be hard to troubleshoot with a closed diary and few details. These are my pretty generic tips:
1. If it's been less than 3 weeks or so, don't sweat it! Normal fluctuations happen and unfortunately sometimes we stall for a week or two even when we're doing everything right. Give your body some time to catch up with the changes you're making. Especially with a new workout routine in the mix and the water retention you can expect with that.
2. 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.
3. Consider buying a food scale if you don't already have one and use it for everything. Everything. For a couple of weeks to see what kind of discrepancies you're running into. 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.
4. 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. Don't trust the barcode scanner or restaurant entries 100%.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. If you weigh yourself frequently, consider using a program like trendweight, happy scale, or libra to even out the fluctuations. You could be losing weight but just don't see it because of the daily ups and downs.
9. 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.
ALL of this.
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Thanks a bunch everyone! Lots of good advice here, appreciate it
2 -
@diannethegeek - that is a fantastic post about stalls. Thank you so much for posting1
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