1200 calories and not losing
van780
Posts: 13 Member
Ok so I think I'm on day 45 straight of logging. I am 5'3 female
Sw 157
Cw 153 ish
Gw 145 (for now)
At a rate of 1.5 lbs a week, and mfp has suggested 1200 cal .
I exercise about 4 days a week, but it's usually fit walking indoors via youtube for 20-40 min . I have not started strength training very much yet.
I track steps with fitbit and rarely pass 7k , I'm usually between 5-6k .
I dont usually eat back many of my exercise calories , because I dont exercise that hard yet.
I am losing sooo slow . Am I missing something ?? I feel like I am eating enough. I am not suffering ... so I dont get it .
I have also had bloodwork done multiple times and all is normal including hormones.
I'm just getting frustrated because I've lost so little weight and I feel like any little slip up will put me right back to where I started , only 3 lbs ago
Sw 157
Cw 153 ish
Gw 145 (for now)
At a rate of 1.5 lbs a week, and mfp has suggested 1200 cal .
I exercise about 4 days a week, but it's usually fit walking indoors via youtube for 20-40 min . I have not started strength training very much yet.
I track steps with fitbit and rarely pass 7k , I'm usually between 5-6k .
I dont usually eat back many of my exercise calories , because I dont exercise that hard yet.
I am losing sooo slow . Am I missing something ?? I feel like I am eating enough. I am not suffering ... so I dont get it .
I have also had bloodwork done multiple times and all is normal including hormones.
I'm just getting frustrated because I've lost so little weight and I feel like any little slip up will put me right back to where I started , only 3 lbs ago
1
Replies
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Are you using a food scale for all solids?
Are you double checking the entries you choose in the database to make sure they show the correct calories?
Have you logged every single thing that has passed your lips in that 7 weeks?
Is 153 the lowest you've gotten in that 7 weeks?10 -
Weight loss isn't linear. Keep at it. Tighten up your logging and account for bites, licks, and tastes, incidentals like cream in your coffee, etc. Look out for whooshes, too and water retention. I usually don't lose anything for the first month, and then suddenly lose double what I was planning to for a couple weeks in a row. Then back to a holding pattern, and then another whoosh. I notice patterns around my period, around weight lifting sessions, around salt intake, and extreme changes in carb intake.
Just keep going. This isn't a race, and the time is gonna pass anyway, so keep doing what is healthy whenever possible.10 -
ElizabethKalmbach wrote: »Weight loss isn't linear. Keep at it. Tighten up your logging and account for bites, licks, and tastes, incidentals like cream in your coffee, etc. Look out for whooshes, too and water retention. I usually don't lose anything for the first month, and then suddenly lose double what I was planning to for a couple weeks in a row. Then back to a holding pattern, and then another whoosh. I notice patterns around my period, around weight lifting sessions, around salt intake, and extreme changes in carb intake.
Just keep going. This isn't a race, and the time is gonna pass anyway, so keep doing what is healthy whenever possible.
I'm hoping this is what will happen. I do tend to eat salt because my BP is low , but Its a regular thing for me , so i dont think it would cause spikes in weight regularly. I have also been trying to log every thing that passes my lips2 -
Normally when a person makes a post like this, it is because they are underestimating how much they are eating. I'd place money on the fact that you are eating more than an average of 1200 calories a day. Normally people that underestimate like this are not weighing, with a food scale, everything they eat. This includes processed foods that are prepackaged into individual serving sizes. They either eyeball portions or measure using cups and spoons which should be reserved for liquids only.
Many people can successfully lose weight without weighing everything but if you are not getting the results you are after this is the best place to start.14 -
Lillymoo01 wrote: »Normally when a person makes a post like this, it is because they are underestimating how much they are eating. I'd place money on the fact that you are eating more than an average of 1200 calories a day. Normally people that underestimate like this are not weighing, with a food scale, everything they eat. This includes processed foods that are prepackaged into individual serving sizes. They either eyeball portions or measure using cups and spoons which should be reserved for liquids only.
Many people can successfully lose weight without weighing everything but if you are not getting the results you are after this is the best place to start.
I do not use a food scale for everything. I have been using measuring cups/spoons. Am I supposed to weigh a cup of cereal for example ? Otherwise, i am pretty confident. I actually was wondering if I could possibly be eating too little ! I've been trying to stick with items that can be easily measured or weighed and have barcodes to scan and I swear I thought I've been doing really well !1 -
Are you using a food scale for all solids?
Are you double checking the entries you choose in the database to make sure they show the correct calories?
Have you logged every single thing that has passed your lips in that 7 weeks?
Is 153 the lowest you've gotten in that 7 weeks?
I am not . I've been using cups and spoons. And I have been double checking entries to make sure they are correct. I have been pretty diligent in logging everything that I've even nibbled on. There was only 1 day that I know I over ate . I had one short and sweet peek at 152.8
but I've been keeping in 153s . Hoping tomorrow is a 152 day ! 0 -
Lillymoo01 wrote: »Normally when a person makes a post like this, it is because they are underestimating how much they are eating. I'd place money on the fact that you are eating more than an average of 1200 calories a day. Normally people that underestimate like this are not weighing, with a food scale, everything they eat. This includes processed foods that are prepackaged into individual serving sizes. They either eyeball portions or measure using cups and spoons which should be reserved for liquids only.
Many people can successfully lose weight without weighing everything but if you are not getting the results you are after this is the best place to start.
I do not use a food scale for everything. I have been using measuring cups/spoons. Am I supposed to weigh a cup of cereal for example ? Otherwise, i am pretty confident. I actually was wondering if I could possibly be eating too little ! I've been trying to stick with items that can be easily measured or weighed and have barcodes to scan and I swear I thought I've been doing really well !
If you are not getting results weigh EVERYTHING, including that cup of cereal. There is often more in that cup than you think.12 -
If you are not getting results weigh EVERYTHING, including that cup of cereal. There is often more in that cup than you think.[/quote]
Wow , ok . I really didnt think it would be that much of a difference. Especially at 1200 calories. I will definitely try that ! Thank you
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Lillymoo01 wrote: »Normally when a person makes a post like this, it is because they are underestimating how much they are eating. I'd place money on the fact that you are eating more than an average of 1200 calories a day. Normally people that underestimate like this are not weighing, with a food scale, everything they eat. This includes processed foods that are prepackaged into individual serving sizes. They either eyeball portions or measure using cups and spoons which should be reserved for liquids only.
Many people can successfully lose weight without weighing everything but if you are not getting the results you are after this is the best place to start.
I do not use a food scale for everything. I have been using measuring cups/spoons. Am I supposed to weigh a cup of cereal for example ? Otherwise, i am pretty confident. I actually was wondering if I could possibly be eating too little ! I've been trying to stick with items that can be easily measured or weighed and have barcodes to scan and I swear I thought I've been doing really well !
Tighten up on using your food scale. Also, know that the bar code scans don't always give accurate info.
Also, you're at a very aggressive rate of loss per week, given the small amount you have to lose. If I were you, I'd change it to 1 lb/week.12 -
Not eating enough does not hamper weight loss. That is a myth. You said at first you were "trying" to log everything you eat, but then you said you were being diligent at your logging. I agree with everyone that accuracy in logging is the key. Sometimes I'm far from perfect at my logging, but I know on days where I do log accurately, I get better results on the scale. Even one accurate day makes a difference for me. There is a photo floating around in the boards that show two spoonfuls of peanut butter. They look identical, but one of them is weighed, and one isn't. And the difference in calories between the two is enormous!6
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According to scoobysworkshop, TDEE for sedentary 5’3 female at 153 is ~1660 calories. That assumes 30yo. A 460 calorie daily deficit yields almost 1lb/wk loss. Your actual loss has been closer to 0.5 lb/wk? That would suggest an actual average intake of 1410 cal. It’s really easy to undercount by 200cal. A food scale will help accuracy, and it’s much easier and quicker than measuring cups.
However, for a 10 pound goal, 0.5 lb/wk is ideal. So it sounds like the only thing you need to change is your outlook on your progress and give yourself realistic time to lose at a healthy rate.18 -
As well as all the excellent accurate tracking and weighing food advice given above, I think you probably don’t have enough weight to lose to lose 1.5lbs a week, and MFP has defaulted to the minimum of 1200cals.
Have a look at your goal settings and see what you get if you enter a loss of 1lbs a week. I think it will be close to the 1200-1300 mark.
Just pointing out the above so you know not to expect a 1.5 loss.
Cheers, h.12 -
Here is some "food" for thought on how the body burns calories and the original definiton of a calorie... https://www.1843magazine.com/features/death-of-the-calorie0
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Lillymoo01 wrote: »Normally when a person makes a post like this, it is because they are underestimating how much they are eating. I'd place money on the fact that you are eating more than an average of 1200 calories a day. Normally people that underestimate like this are not weighing, with a food scale, everything they eat. This includes processed foods that are prepackaged into individual serving sizes. They either eyeball portions or measure using cups and spoons which should be reserved for liquids only.
Many people can successfully lose weight without weighing everything but if you are not getting the results you are after this is the best place to start.
I do not use a food scale for everything. I have been using measuring cups/spoons. Am I supposed to weigh a cup of cereal for example ? Otherwise, i am pretty confident. I actually was wondering if I could possibly be eating too little ! I've been trying to stick with items that can be easily measured or weighed and have barcodes to scan and I swear I thought I've been doing really well !
To answer your question: Yes, you need to weigh that cereal. And everything else you eat.
You're eating more than 1200 calories a day.
Weigh for a week. EVERYTHING. That will open your eyes.
Then keep doing it for at least six weeks to see what your actual intake and deficit can help you lose.5 -
MFP won't ever recommend less than 1200 calories per day, so when it says "1200" that doesn't mean you're going to lose 1.5 pounds per week. As @ahoy_m8 noted above, your TDEE is around 1660, so MFP looked at a 1.5 lb/week goal, calculated that that'd involve eating 910 calories per day (i.e. 1660 - 750), and told you to eat 1200, because 1200 is the minimum for safe dieting. Based on a 1660 TDEE, the 1200 calories, i.e. a 460 calorie per day deficit, should result in 5.8 lbs in 45 days. You've lost 4. Not really a huge difference. It could be accounted for by any combination of measuring your food a bit incorrectly, or water retention from a higher sodium diet, or having had a few off meals or off days - were you really 100 % compliant with the calories for 45 days?
You're actually probably fine. You're 1.8 pounds shy of being right on schedule with the weight loss. That amount can occur in a single whoosh day, which could come at any time.
Suggest just plowing forward for now and seeing where things end up in another month.
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serrano1000 wrote: »Here is some "food" for thought on how the body burns calories and the original definiton of a calorie... https://www.1843magazine.com/features/death-of-the-calorie
And yet, many of us here on this calorie-counting site have lost weight counting calories, then stayed at a healthy weight for years.
I guess it's a mystery. Or maybe, just maybe, those caveats and reasons it can't be exact, as outlined in the article, turn out to be relatively minor influences.11 -
iheartmyyorkie wrote: »Not eating enough does not hamper weight loss. That is a myth. You said at first you were "trying" to log everything you eat, but then you said you were being diligent at your logging. I agree with everyone that accuracy in logging is the key. Sometimes I'm far from perfect at my logging, but I know on days where I do log accurately, I get better results on the scale. Even one accurate day makes a difference for me. There is a photo floating around in the boards that show two spoonfuls of peanut butter. They look identical, but one of them is weighed, and one isn't. And the difference in calories between the two is enormous!
Understood. I really figured that even if it were just a little off, that I'd still be deficit enough to lose pretty smoothly . Thank you 1 -
Thank you for everyone's responses! I really thought I was doing a good job at counting and measuring but I will have to dive deeper into it to make sure that its accurate. I did not expect fast weight loss by any means - especially since I've yo yo ed a lot of my life. I am happy to be going down at all , I'm just getting anxious about gaining because it's so slow to lose I guess. Thank you for the advice and kind words. I'm gonna keep on logging and I will definitely do the weighing now that I know that it can be such a difference .
I really hate counting and measuring, but nothing else was working for me and this feels less stressful than diets that eliminate certain food groups etc. I wanted to do something that would allow me to live like a normal person and have a treat if I want it 8 -
MFP won't ever recommend less than 1200 calories per day, so when it says "1200" that doesn't mean you're going to lose 1.5 pounds per week. As @ahoy_m8 noted above, your TDEE is around 1660, so MFP looked at a 1.5 lb/week goal, calculated that that'd involve eating 910 calories per day (i.e. 1660 - 750), and told you to eat 1200, because 1200 is the minimum for safe dieting. Based on a 1660 TDEE, the 1200 calories, i.e. a 460 calorie per day deficit, should result in 5.8 lbs in 45 days. You've lost 4. Not really a huge difference. It could be accounted for by any combination of measuring your food a bit incorrectly, or water retention from a higher sodium diet, or having had a few off meals or off days - were you really 100 % compliant with the calories for 45 days?
You're actually probably fine. You're 1.8 pounds shy of being right on schedule with the weight loss. That amount can occur in a single whoosh day, which could come at any time.
Suggest just plowing forward for now and seeing where things end up in another month.
Thank you for this. I appreciate it. Numbers make my head spin lol . I am happy with the loss and fully intend on moving forward steadily . There was really only one day that I pretty bad , but aside from that i thought i was counting well.0 -
Also, what did you set your activity level to? Are you tracking / adding your walking to that as exercise? / is your fitbit synched with MFP?
If you're doing 5-7k steps a day, that not much over what MFP considers to be Sedentary. So, if you're also adding in exercise time and eating some of those calories, you may be overestimating your exercise.
I'm about an inch shorter than you and it doesn't make much difference what rate loss I select, MFP still gives me 1200 as it's not going to go below that. It does mean that weighing and tracking needs to be really really accurate to lose the final pounds. Eat an extra few calories, accidentally, and your deficit is negligible.4 -
serrano1000 wrote: »Here is some "food" for thought on how the body burns calories and the original definiton of a calorie... https://www.1843magazine.com/features/death-of-the-calorie
Boy, that was a tedious read.
And all it is really saying, in super long hand, is Weight Watchers is best - along with anecdotal (fictional? ) data about a person with PTSD and gems like calories in an apple and a lollipop might be the same but the apple is better for us - really?? You dont say!! - is anyone really unaware than an apple is more nutritious than a lollipop - that is ground breaking news????
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Just my two cents worth on weighing vs measuring. I love Boom Chick a pop popcorn so I eat it almost every day for a snack. The bag says 50 grams or 7.5 cups = 250 calories. So I measured it but that actually weighs more like 80 grams. There's a difference right there of 150 calories. Since my deficit is only 250 calories just one serving measured vs weighed can almost wipe out my deficit for the day. Add to that my chewable Calcium and some Evening Primrose supplements and no loss for me. When you are so close to your goal you really have to be meticulous. Hang in there, it's worth the battle.10
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I'm also 5'3". I started actively losing in May with about a 20 lb loss goal. Here are my losses by month:
May: -.5 lb
June: -.5 lb
July: -4 lbs (began MFP and proper tracking)
August: -1 lb
September: -3 lbs
October: -2 lbs so far
It's slow and frustrating at times, but the weight is coming off.
I highly recommend a weight trend app like Happy Scale (Apple?) or Libra. Seeing the downward trend really helps during those weeks when weight just bounces around. I know Libra allows entering previous weights, so you can have your whole history on there.
I have a .5 lb/ week goal on here and MFP gives me 1210 calories. I actually eat an average of 1300 for the losses mentioned above. Most days (based on the past 3 since I found my old Fitbit and linked it), I get about 10,000 steps. I'm a pretty careful tracker/weigher for food. For example, even if the database entry I selected says ".25 cup" for a solid, I actually weighed the item in grams.
My diary is open to friends if you want to send me a request.2 -
Another vote for meticulous logging. Attempting to lose a relatively small amount of weight (compared to some on the platform) tends to require more diligence as the margin for error shrinks. I know it can take some time but if you work on cultivating weighing and logging as a habit it does become much easier and not too time-consuming. I'm a big proponent of pre-logging as much as possible, especially if you eat much the same things each day. I find this makes things much easier in terms of planning my day, overall adherence, and not having to scramble figuring out what to have for dinner to fit X calories I have left.2
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Ok so I think I'm on day 45 straight of logging. I am 5'3 female
Sw 157
Cw 153 ish
Gw 145 (for now)
At a rate of 1.5 lbs a week, and mfp has suggested 1200 cal ......
I don't think anyone has specifically said this yet - You shouldn't be expecting 1.5 lbs a week of weight loss. MFP won't recommend anything below 1,200 calories a day for a woman. You could enter wanting to lose 2 lbs a week and it will say 1,200. Try playing around with it by entering maintain (0 lbs a week) and you'll see what MFP thinks your maintenance calories are... then compare your 1,200 to that and you'll see what your theoretical weight loss per week really is. That is more what you should be expecting over the long-term if you are accurately logging. Obviously there will be large variation but right now your expectation of 1.5 lbs a week is higher than what MFP is even trying to give you.
3 -
When you're not losing (over the course of 6+ weeks) at the rate you expect, then as others have said: it is time to firm up your logging.
Food packaging does not have to be accurate. The package says 2 slices of bread is 45 grams? If you weigh them, you'll probably find most are 50-55 grams in weight. If you log a small banana, how can you know how YOUR banana relates, in size, to the example banana in the entry? And when it comes to solid food and 'cups' - you can pour a cup 5 times and it won't be exactly the same amount because each 'cupful' will settle differently.
For eating prepackaged items, at times when a food scale is not available, I would err on the safe side and log it as 110%. Instead of logging that you had 1, log 1.1. That will help to account for some of the packaging error.
When TDEE is not very high, the best you can do is aim for a smallish deficit. And if your target deficit is only 300-500 calories then errors in logging will make a big difference.
The other side of the coin is you can try to fit in more activity. Not so much to have a bigger deficit, but to be able to have more food. If I don't bother, my TDEE is only about 1500-1600 per day. I have found 1300-1500 is my sweet spot. I can't really function under that on a regular basis. So by making an effort to get in a daily walk, I can eat 1300-1500 and have my TDEE around 1750-1850.2 -
Read this thread, OP.
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10697068/how-i-stopped-kidding-myself/p14 -
6 -
Are you using a food scale for all solids?
Are you double checking the entries you choose in the database to make sure they show the correct calories?
Have you logged every single thing that has passed your lips in that 7 weeks?
Is 153 the lowest you've gotten in that 7 weeks?
I am not . I've been using cups and spoons. And I have been double checking entries to make sure they are correct. I have been pretty diligent in logging everything that I've even nibbled on. There was only 1 day that I know I over ate . I had one short and sweet peek at 152.8 but I've been keeping in 153s . Hoping tomorrow is a 152 day !
Take time out to read the sticky posts at the top of the forums. There is a ton of useful information that you've missed about how to be sure your logging efforts are done correctly.4 -
quiksylver296 wrote: »
That was an excellent read1
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