I’m clueless, regarding my lack of fat loss!

Fortunately, your predicament is a very easy one to solve.

Your maintenance is not 2,800. Maybe it was when you started at 256 pounds, but it goes down with every pound lost.

I ran your stats through a TDEE calculator and got 2,009 if you're sedentary, or 2,302 if you're light exerciser. And there's the whole problem in one tidy nutshell. You are not running a 500 calorie deficit. If you've been eating 2,300, you've been eating at maintenance, and that's why you aren't losing weight.

You need an up to date, accurate maintenance level, from which you can then subtract 500. Then eat that 500 calorie deficit and you will lose a pound a week. One way you could do this is to run the MFP Goals page again, plug in your current weight, and find out what MFP thinks you should be eating.

Another, even simpler, thing you could do is just set your calorie target to 1800 and hit it every day. Then you'll get your pound per week.

lgfrie wrote: »

Fortunately, your predicament is a very easy one to solve.

Your maintenance is not 2,800. Maybe it was when you started at 256 pounds, but it goes down with every pound lost.

I ran your stats through a TDEE calculator and got 2,009 if you're sedentary, or 2,302 if you're light exerciser. And there's the whole problem in one tidy nutshell. You are not running a 500 calorie deficit. If you've been eating 2,300, you've been eating at maintenance, and that's why you aren't losing weight.

You need an up to date, accurate maintenance level, from which you can then subtract 500. Then eat that 500 calorie deficit and you will lose a pound a week. One way you could do this is to run the MFP Goals page again, plug in your current weight, and find out what MFP thinks you should be eating.

Another, even simpler, thing you could do is just set your calorie target to 1800 and hit it every day. Then you'll get your pound per week.

This ^

Hi there,
Have you looked at KETO diet?
I have just started today and have heard nothing but good things--If you have tried everything--give this a try

My two cents: apart from the fact I agree you're probably not eating at a deficit, like another poster said, it could also be that your years of being overweight has made you insuline resistant. Maybe have a look at that? (Intermitted) fasting could really help with that.

alexanderjordangonzalez wrote: »

Hannahwalksfar wrote: »

Are you still losing weight or are you on maintenance now? Weight loss comes from a calorie deficit

I’m on a 500 calorie deficit, but the results end up looking like if I’m on maintenance.

Sometimes people confuse the number that some calculator says should be a calorie deficit, vs. what is actually a real life calorie deficit. Could this be in issue in your case?

Some reasons for this confusion:

* People don't realize that, as they lose weight, they need to eat less if they want to keep losing at the same rate, because a smaller body burns fewer calories just being alive, doing daily tasks, and in any kind of exercise that involves moving one's body weight (like walking, say).

* People aren't tracking their calorie intake accurately or consistently, so they don't realize that an eating strategy that worked well when they had lots of weight to lose, will have less room for approximation or error as they have less weight remaining to lose.

* People don't realistically estimate exercise calories (or don't stick to the schedule they told a TDEE calculator), which, like approximating intake, leads to problems as they get lighter and have less room for error.

* People don't realize that calculators only give us a statistical estimate for our calorie needs, and that some people will require more or fewer calories (in rare cases, quite a few more or fewer calories) than the calculator estimates, because that's the nature of statistical estimates: Close for most, off for a few, way off for a tiny number. Individuals can differ from what the calculators estimate.

* People don't realize that as they lose weight - especially if they do it very fast - they can develop a form of subtle fatigue that reduces their daily life activity (they rest more, do less), so they burn fewer calories than they might expect even once they've accounted for their smaller body. (This is not the thing some people call "starvation mode" where you can't lose weight on low calories. This is undereating for so long, or so severely, that your body has less energy to Do Stuff. It's reversible.)

* People have "cheat days" that wipe out their calorie deficit, but don't account for them.

At your age, another possible complicating factor is growth: While you're still actively growing (not just height, but things like shoulders getting wider, etc.), you require more calories to fuel that growth, and your calorie needs decline a little once that phase is over. This is not a huge thing, but again, if it hit as you have less wiggle room in your calorie deficit, it could be a minor factor.

Overall, what matters is your actual deficit, not what some calculator says. If you're staying at the same weight over a period of at least several months, you're eating at maintenance, not eating at a deficit . . . by definition.

So: Recalculate your goal, tighten up your intake logging by being more meticulous (food scale, say), don't try to lose weight super fast, work on keeping your daily life energetic and active (in addition to formal exercise), reality check your exercise frequency (if you use a TDEE calculator) or your exercise calorie estimates (if you use MFP or another NEAT calculator), track your "cheat days" or other over-goal days, then compare your actual weight loss rate to predicted weight loss rate and adjust intake as necessary.