Weight staying the same.
lmcneely6
Posts: 7 Member
Hi!! I need advice. About four weeks ago I had enough of my weight and feeling frustrated that my clothes just didn’t fit. I changed my eating habits completely, started lifting weights, boxing and using my treadmill. I haven’t lost any weight. I notice certain places on my body that are slimmer and stronger, but the scale isn’t moving. I had lost 4 pounds, but now I’m right back where I started. WTH? I feel like my midsection hasn’t changed at all. I’ve had four csections so I know it’ll take time, but I figured I’d see some change in that area by now. I workout at least 5 days a week and alternate my routine. Any ideas/advice? Thank you!!!
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Replies
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Are you accurately measuring and weighing all your food? Thats number 1 for weight loss. New exercise can cause water retention, but generally passes after a couple weeks. Are you eating all your exercise calories back?3
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I actually don’t measure or weigh any of my food. However, I have done my research on how much of certain foods I should eat. I do watch what I eat very closely though and my calorie count doesn’t even come close to the amount of calories I’m burning, so I’m definitely not eating my exercise calories back. Could it be because I’m gaining more muscle so I haven’t seen the loss yet? That’s the only thing I can think of. I recently took my body measurements and will do so at the end of the month and see if there are any changes. Fingers crossed I see something because I have been working hard and my diet is very good.0
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Food scale. You would be surprised how wrong estimating is.6
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I actually don’t measure or weigh any of my food. However, I have done my research on how much of certain foods I should eat. I do watch what I eat very closely though and my calorie count doesn’t even come close to the amount of calories I’m burning, so I’m definitely not eating my exercise calories back. Could it be because I’m gaining more muscle so I haven’t seen the loss yet? That’s the only thing I can think of. I recently took my body measurements and will do so at the end of the month and see if there are any changes. Fingers crossed I see something because I have been working hard and my diet is very good.
It's unlikely you've gained muscle in a deficit and even any newb gains would not likely be high enough to offset fat loss. What may be happening is that you're retaining water as a result of the new weight lifting and boxing.
I'd highly recommend measuring and weighing your food intake, it's a lot easier to overeat than you might think.
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10634517/you-dont-use-a-food-scale/p1
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So i used to just eyeball my portions. It seriously shocked me how off i was on certain things. A serving (3.5 oz) of meat is tiny, in comparison to what i was used to. Same goes for oils and nut butters. Also after 6 months of lifting 5 days a week i put on 5lbs of muscle. Thats how long it can take to build. Sad but true 😂1
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I got on the scale this morning and lost 3 pounds. Lol. I really didn’t think weight fluctuated that much.1
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jenncornelsen wrote: »Also after 6 months of lifting 5 days a week i put on 5lbs of muscle. Thats how long it can take to build. Sad but true 😂
Yep same, 12 months of progressive lifting and rowing, eating a high protein diet at Maintenance/tiny deficit got me around 8lbs muscle. It takes a lot of hard work and calories.
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You are trying to so solve an equation without knowing the variables...it isn't going to go well. Don't guess, don't estimate. Weigh/measure. You are measuring yourself to determine if you got results. Why would you not measure your food in order to guarantee results?5
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Yes, weight fluctuates like mad!jenncornelsen wrote: »
One option for you would be to weight in the mornings - get up, use the bathroom, and weigh before eating or drinking anything (some people weigh naked, I wear a T-shirt and undies). That’s going to have less variables than at the middle or end of the day... more of a consistent pattern (but it does fluctuate with how much stuff is in your system, water weight, etc.)
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Your body is weighing at that point in time, as a combination of the food you've put in your mouth, the food that was already in your intestines, the water you've drunk, how hydrated you cells are, where in your cycle you are. As research, so you learn not to over think the scale numbers too much, why not spend a few days weighing morning, noon and night so you can see how much natural fluctuation you get. I can weigh 10 pounds more in the evening after eating a lot and two - three days later (after your body has finished processing the food its eaten) it doesn't mean that I've gained ten pounds of fat. You can't get the weight you actually are off one data point in time.1
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I actually don’t measure or weigh any of my food. However, I have done my research on how much of certain foods I should eat. I do watch what I eat very closely though and my calorie count doesn’t even come close to the amount of calories I’m burning, so I’m definitely not eating my exercise calories back. Could it be because I’m gaining more muscle so I haven’t seen the loss yet? That’s the only thing I can think of. I recently took my body measurements and will do so at the end of the month and see if there are any changes. Fingers crossed I see something because I have been working hard and my diet is very good.
If you're not weighing or measuring, how are you estimating how much you're eating?2 -
I log all of my food, and I use the palm of my hand to measure. Honestly, I don’t have time to weigh and measure every piece of food I eat. I have four kids and run my own daycare. Finding time is tough. I’ve watched my sister weigh and measure everything and I’ve watched her struggle and just not enjoy eating. I don’t feel like I need to weigh and measure everything in order to properly lose weight.0
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I log all of my food, and I use the palm of my hand to measure. Honestly, I don’t have time to weigh and measure every piece of food I eat. I have four kids and run my own daycare. Finding time is tough. I’ve watched my sister weigh and measure everything and I’ve watched her struggle and just not enjoy eating. I don’t feel like I need to weigh and measure everything in order to properly lose weight.
And yet here you are, asking advice because the scale won't budge
If you won't commit to calorie counting long term, I would advise to at least take the time to do so during one week, to check if your portions and calories are what you think they are.
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I log all of my food, and I use the palm of my hand to measure. Honestly, I don’t have time to weigh and measure every piece of food I eat. I have four kids and run my own daycare. Finding time is tough. I’ve watched my sister weigh and measure everything and I’ve watched her struggle and just not enjoy eating. I don’t feel like I need to weigh and measure everything in order to properly lose weight.
You may not feel that an accurate estimate of your calories in is required for weight loss, but that actual results you're seeing now (no weight loss) suggest that it might be more important than you feel it is.
Using your hand to measure is a very rough measurement. A "palm" of potato has different calories and macronutrients than a "palm" of pork chop and Monday's "palm" of pork chop is going to be different from Tuesday's "palm" of pork chop. Studies have shown that most people have a very poor ability to visually estimate their calorie intake, so it's up to you if you want to use more accurate methods. It can be much more challenging to lose weight when you don't know how much you're eating, which I think is what you're seeing now.1 -
I log all of my food, and I use the palm of my hand to measure. Honestly, I don’t have time to weigh and measure every piece of food I eat. I have four kids and run my own daycare. Finding time is tough. I’ve watched my sister weigh and measure everything and I’ve watched her struggle and just not enjoy eating. I don’t feel like I need to weigh and measure everything in order to properly lose weight.
Regarding the bolded I'd bet that has more to do with a restrictive mindset than the tool itself. I see it as no different than when I am baking a cake or following a new recipe.
I thought for years I was estimating portion sizes properly, started using my food scale, boy was I wrong. I don't currently use it all the time, I use it a couple of times when I am using new foods, once I have weighed something a couple of times, I am usually pretty good at eyeballing the portion sizes now.
If weight loss slows or halts altogether, it's the most accurate way to rule out overestimating your intake (which is often the problem). So just keep it in mind if you ever do get to the point where the scale isn't moving over a longer period of time. It doesn't take as much time as you think, it's literally seconds when you use the Tare function.
This is one of my favourite examples of how off estimating can be:
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I log all of my food, and I use the palm of my hand to measure. Honestly, I don’t have time to weigh and measure every piece of food I eat. I have four kids and run my own daycare. Finding time is tough. I’ve watched my sister weigh and measure everything and I’ve watched her struggle and just not enjoy eating. I don’t feel like I need to weigh and measure everything in order to properly lose weight.
My wife went kicking and screaming into weighing her portions. As soon as she started, the weight came off. She was shocked at what a portion size really is on most foods.2 -
This is my motto...."When I quit making excuses, I found my results" this is NOT said to bash you or anything , but you did ask for advice on why your weight is staying the same and then refuse to even try our suggestions for even temporary to see if it works. Weighing food is a great tool and works, and no different than taking the time to brush and floss your teeth.3
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Your body is chemistry set. Chemistry is a science. Science is exact. If you want to go on feelings or estimation, then you can't reasonably expect a reliable outcome. Also, plenty of working moms find the time to measure so that is not an excuse. You are choosing not to, which is fine, but again you can't expect reliable results based on your actions. You absolutely can lose weight without measuring anything, but you are introducing more chaos into something that already isn't linear. Good luck.4
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nighthawk584 wrote: »This is my motto...."When I quit making excuses, I found my results" this is NOT said to bash you or anything , but you did ask for advice on why your weight is staying the same and then refuse to even try our suggestions for even temporary to see if it works. Weighing food is a great tool and works, and no different than taking the time to brush and floss your teeth.
I don’t think you’re bashing me, lol, and, I agree, I did ask for advice. If I were to buy a scale, how do I know how much my food is supposed to weigh?0 -
nighthawk584 wrote: »This is my motto...."When I quit making excuses, I found my results" this is NOT said to bash you or anything , but you did ask for advice on why your weight is staying the same and then refuse to even try our suggestions for even temporary to see if it works. Weighing food is a great tool and works, and no different than taking the time to brush and floss your teeth.
I don’t think you’re bashing me, lol, and, I agree, I did ask for advice. If I were to buy a scale, how do I know how much my food is supposed to weigh?
A scale doesn't tell you how much your food is "supposed" to weigh, it tells you exactly how much you're consuming so you can log it accurately and understand if you're hitting your calorie goals. You still get to decide how much of each food you want to eat.5 -
food isn't supposed to weigh anything, it's so you can log it accurately and eat the appropriate amount of calories overall. A food scale isn't that expensive. I understand not wanting to weigh and measure everything you eat but it can be a nice tool in order to *at least* figure out what your problem areas are. For instance you might weigh something and realize the portion is much smaller than what you were guesstimating before. You could have been logging something at 200 calories but in reality it was actually 250. That multiplied by several different food items in a day makes a big difference.
That, and you've only been at it for four weeks. Maybe your body is retaining water because you just started a new workout regimen?3 -
I don’t think you’re bashing me, lol, and, I agree, I did ask for advice. If I were to buy a scale, how do I know how much my food is supposed to weigh?
Nutrition facts on the label (use the grams or oz, usually in parenthesis). Then you add up all the ingredients' calories. Done and done. Some people find it easier to work backwords like: "I have 2000 cals for the day, I want 2 eggs so how much is that? 180cals (random number based on variety of egg sizes, use what the label says). So 2000-180= 1820 left for the day. Now I want a snack...ooo, planters peanuts! yum! Grab a handful....oh damn nuts are pretty caloricly dense according to this bag, let me weigh out the serving size the label says (1oz=28g=170cals) So 1820-170=1650 for the rest of the day now. " I prefer to plan out my week ahead of time, but you may want to just do 1 day, or 1 meal at a time.1 -
I have 4 children as well, we homeschool so not quite the daycare situation (I worked in daycare before, I understand the potential for chaos). Looking at your profile pic it looks like they are older at least, so that’s helpful. We have gotten into a routine for meals where I go first so I can weigh out mine so I don’t hold up the whole family. My husband and children have a general idea how I do it so there have been sweet moments like when my 10 year old made me breakfast in bed, complete with a notecard of all the food weights so I can later log them... or the weekend when I hit 20 lbs and they made me a special dessert, paired with an approximate calorie total.I log all of my food, and I use the palm of my hand to measure. Honestly, I don’t have time to weigh and measure every piece of food I eat. I have four kids and run my own daycare. Finding time is tough. I’ve watched my sister weigh and measure everything and I’ve watched her struggle and just not enjoy eating. I don’t feel like I need to weigh and measure everything in order to properly lose weight.
If you are super busy, you can preplan foods. Even prepackaged can be off, so be mindful of that. I do soups or salads a lot for lunch.
Is it as easy as piling food on a plate without thought? No, but it’s not a major deal to tare out the scale between items. I know it’s what I need to do to get where I want to go. Things like peanut butter can be done in negative weights - put the jar on the scale, tare it out, take a scoop and see what the negative grams say for your serving size.
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moonangel12 wrote: »
I have 4 children as well, we homeschool so not quite the daycare situation (I worked in daycare before, I understand the potential for chaos). Looking at your profile pic it looks like they are older at least, so that’s helpful. We have gotten into a routine for meals where I go first so I can weigh out mine so I don’t hold up the whole family. My husband and children have a general idea how I do it so there have been sweet moments like when my 10 year old made me breakfast in bed, complete with a notecard of all the food weights so I can later log them... or the weekend when I hit 20 lbs and they made me a special dessert, paired with an approximate calorie total.I log all of my food, and I use the palm of my hand to measure. Honestly, I don’t have time to weigh and measure every piece of food I eat. I have four kids and run my own daycare. Finding time is tough. I’ve watched my sister weigh and measure everything and I’ve watched her struggle and just not enjoy eating. I don’t feel like I need to weigh and measure everything in order to properly lose weight.
If you are super busy, you can preplan foods. Even prepackaged can be off, so be mindful of that. I do soups or salads a lot for lunch.
Is it as easy as piling food on a plate without thought? No, but it’s not a major deal to tare out the scale between items. I know it’s what I need to do to get where I want to go. Things like peanut butter can be done in negative weights - put the jar on the scale, tare it out, take a scoop and see what the negative grams say for your serving size.
I love this!!! It actually made me feel better about doing this. Thank you!!!2 -
I assume you're in the habit of batch cooking meals that you do over and over? At the start it's more of a faff yes, but when you've saved the recipe or meal you can just repeatedly add it in. Most of my family meals I've done before by now, or a make a big batch of things for lunch in one go and copy and paste in day after day. Then you don't have to think about it again. As long as you know what's likely to be a game changer if you misestimate (peanut butter, oil, butter and generally calorie dense things) then it won't matter as much if you go by instinct afterwards when your repeating recipes. A cup of spinach won't put you over if you misjudge it, guessing you're pouring a tablespoon of oil and ending up with two or three can wipe out your deficit family quickly.0
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