How to fix metabolic adaptation?

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arizonaj22
arizonaj22 Posts: 57 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I am a a college student weighing 175 at 5'11. Now I usually hit the gym 6 days a week but coronavirus soo I cant anymore but I do have light weights and do the same 6 days and improvise. The whole gym to no gym shouldnt be a real problem with my current issue.
For the past few months I've been gaining rapid weight like 10 pounds in a month for 4 months. I was 135 about 4-5 months ago but 5'9 and cutting from my former fat life. However ever since spring break ended and then the whole corona virus happened and all got shut down, I've been taking more steps like 50-60k daily just to be more "active". However I feel like my body has gotten used to the activity and adapted to burn less calories for walking. I used to take like 30k daily before the whole spring break and stay home case.
I could give a more in depth answer to any questions you guys have but my real question is
How do I"reset" my body to burn the normal amount of calories for walking? Or light activity in general? Some bodybuilders on t nation said to increase intensity decrease quantity and I tried but it didnt work for some reason.

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Replies

  • arizonaj22
    arizonaj22 Posts: 57 Member
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    I also weigh everything on my food scale and Do Not eat anything else besides what I track. For some reason the picture option wont function to upload my food journal but heres the written out version in form of calories per food
    300 calories of chicken breast
    100 calories watermelon
    70 cal blueberry
    150 cal beans
    150 cal grits
    100 cal sweet potato
    120 calorie unsweetened almond milk
    100 cal cocoa puff
    100 cal HNcheerios
    100 cal honeycomb cereal
    150 cal tuna
    250 cal beef jerky
    100 cal banana
    200 cal soup
    I'll round it to 2000(its 1990 cal)
    Anyways that's a deficit for the average sedentary male and I'm over here doing all this activity and gaining fat just by looking at food!
    I thought it might be due to undereating aka starvation mode. Which is why I wanted to reverse diet and add calories but it seems that the more I add the more I gain(weight)
  • zebasschick
    zebasschick Posts: 1,053 Member
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    if you've stopped regular exercise and keep eating the same food, you WILL gain weight. i used to hit the gym for very intense exercise 5 to 6 days a week. when illness and injury sidelined me, i put on weight very fast, not because of metabolism but because i was eating the amount of food that supported 15 to 18 hours of intense exercise without the exercise. maybe 2000 calories is just too much for a sedentary lifestyle. when i was bodybuilding and doing heavy cardio, i ate 2500 calories per day - i'm a small woman, and without the exercise, that was easily 800 calories too much every day.

    have you been to a doctor to be checked for thyroid issues, diabetes, etc? my dad put on lots of weight eating the same foods and amounts when he developed hypothyroidism.

    btw, weighing your food isn't enough - you need to pick accurate food listings on MFP, and many are FAR from accurate. just last night, i was finding a listing for a particular soup i hadn't logged before, and i found listings that were literally 200 calories apart for a half cup of soup. i always compare to the manufacturer label or the USDA the first time i look for a new food listing.

    i see you list 100 calories of honeycomb - would that be like half a cup or weighed at about 28 grams? that is very little cereal, but here's what the manufacturer says "there are 160 calories in 40 grams of honeycomb". https://www.postconsumerbrands.com/honeycomb/

    also you list 120 calories of almond milk - is that all the milk you use on all three bowls of cereal? that's one cup of milk, so that would mean you eat your cereal dry or use 2 1/2 ounces per bowl of cereal, and that wouldn't be enough to cover it or make it wet. most people i've seen eat cereal pour about 8 ounces or more of milk into a bowl.

    do you eat butter on things? drink sweetened energy drinks, soda, juice? do you use sauces on your beans or chicken breasts? some of these things can have 100 calories or more per serving, so not logging them could easily mean eating 250 or 300 more calories than you're logging.
  • Noreenmarie1234
    Noreenmarie1234 Posts: 7,493 Member
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    zebasschick wrote: »
    if you've stopped regular exercise and keep eating the same food, you WILL gain weight. i used to hit the gym for very intense exercise 5 to 6 days a week. when illness and injury sidelined me, i put on weight very fast, not because of metabolism but because i was eating the amount of food that supported 15 to 18 hours of intense exercise without the exercise. maybe 2000 calories is just too much for a sedentary lifestyle. when i was bodybuilding and doing heavy cardio, i ate 2500 calories per day - i'm a small woman, and without the exercise, that was easily 800 calories too much every day.

    have you been to a doctor to be checked for thyroid issues, diabetes, etc? my dad put on lots of weight eating the same foods and amounts when he developed hypothyroidism.

    btw, weighing your food isn't enough - you need to pick accurate food listings on MFP, and many are FAR from accurate. just last night, i was finding a listing for a particular soup i hadn't logged before, and i found listings that were literally 200 calories apart for a half cup of soup. i always compare to the manufacturer label or the USDA the first time i look for a new food listing.

    i see you list 100 calories of honeycomb - would that be like half a cup or weighed at about 28 grams? that is very little cereal, but here's what the manufacturer says "there are 160 calories in 40 grams of honeycomb". https://www.postconsumerbrands.com/honeycomb/

    also you list 120 calories of almond milk - is that all the milk you use on all three bowls of cereal? that's one cup of milk, so that would mean you eat your cereal dry or use 2 1/2 ounces per bowl of cereal, and that wouldn't be enough to cover it or make it wet. most people i've seen eat cereal pour about 8 ounces or more of milk into a bowl.

    do you eat butter on things? drink sweetened energy drinks, soda, juice? do you use sauces on your beans or chicken breasts? some of these things can have 100 calories or more per serving, so not logging them could easily mean eating 250 or 300 more calories than you're logging.

    Most unsweetend almond milk is 25-30cal per cup.
  • arizonaj22
    arizonaj22 Posts: 57 Member
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    zebasschick wrote: »
    if you've stopped regular exercise and keep eating the same food, you WILL gain weight. i used to hit the gym for very intense exercise 5 to 6 days a week. when illness and injury sidelined me, i put on weight very fast, not because of metabolism but because i was eating the amount of food that supported 15 to 18 hours of intense exercise without the exercise. maybe 2000 calories is just too much for a sedentary lifestyle. when i was bodybuilding and doing heavy cardio, i ate 2500 calories per day - i'm a small woman, and without the exercise, that was easily 800 calories too much every day.

    have you been to a doctor to be checked for thyroid issues, diabetes, etc? my dad put on lots of weight eating the same foods and amounts when he developed hypothyroidism.

    btw, weighing your food isn't enough - you need to pick accurate food listings on MFP, and many are FAR from accurate. just last night, i was finding a listing for a particular soup i hadn't logged before, and i found listings that were literally 200 calories apart for a half cup of soup. i always compare to the manufacturer label or the USDA the first time i look for a new food listing.

    i see you list 100 calories of honeycomb - would that be like half a cup or weighed at about 28 grams? that is very little cereal, but here's what the manufacturer says "there are 160 calories in 40 grams of honeycomb". https://www.postconsumerbrands.com/honeycomb/

    also you list 120 calories of almond milk - is that all the milk you use on all three bowls of cereal? that's one cup of milk, so that would mean you eat your cereal dry or use 2 1/2 ounces per bowl of cereal, and that wouldn't be enough to cover it or make it wet. most people i've seen eat cereal pour about 8 ounces or more of milk into a bowl.

    do you eat butter on things? drink sweetened energy drinks, soda, juice? do you use sauces on your beans or chicken breasts? some of these things can have 100 calories or more per serving, so not logging them could easily mean eating 250 or 300 more calories than you're logging.

    My unsweetened almond milk is 30cal for 240g and I use a hollow mini bowl so it's better for soaking. I dont use any sauce or such and RARELY season with salt. I usually eat plain. Also I measure the portion on mfp first and then pour it to match 100 cal. I hate soda and juice butter cream etc.. also I try my best to match the intensity of my workout at the gym to home. I might be on par or even burning more due to all these high reps and muscle squeezing, negatives and all those fancy things to make lifting harder(also the step count dramatically upped) so I'm confused why I gained weight(not just after the gyms closed but even when they were open it started like 4 months ago) and gym closed like last month
  • arizonaj22
    arizonaj22 Posts: 57 Member
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    cmriverside wrote: »
    Right. I find it impossible to believe that each one of your food items is exactly a rounded number for one thing. I also find it impossible to believe you're eating [exactly] 100 calories of cereal. Who does that? It's like a tiny amount.


    Then, what about sauces and oils? Are you putting anything on that sweet potato or that chicken? Where are your vegetables? Granted some days I eat like you do, but I don't have a problem with gaining weight because I log everything, I eat a varied plan with vegetables and I have been at this for a very long time.

    Please open your FOOD page for us to view so we can help. Go to FOOD > Settings, scroll down and click "Public" and Save.

    If you are gaining weight, you're eating a lot more than that and a lot more than you think. Adaptation? Why would it make that much difference just now that you're home? No. Either you aren't logging correctly or you need to see a doctor.

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1234699/logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide/p1

    I use a quick spray of pam and I use a mini bowl to trick myself that I'm eating a "bowl" of cereal when in reality it's like a 4th of a size of an actual bowl. If I were to compare its size it's a tad smaller than those individual packed cereal in those plastic bowls you can get at walmart or store for a dollar(usually 1 serving of cereal in the container at the store). Also the food diary keeps not responding like I just see that circle refresh sign but i did post my list written on my original post. Thanks!
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,096 Member
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    ...and open your FOOD diary so we can see what you're doing and maybe spot your errors.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    edited August 2020
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    Edit:
    found snippet of followup comment that explained more.

    Logging issue.
  • NovusDies
    NovusDies Posts: 8,940 Member
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    psychod787 wrote: »
    60k steps? Hell, you must just walk all day! No way to "fix" metabolic adaptation per se. I mean, unless you want to "repay" the energy gap. Why do I feel like I'm being trolled? 60k steps a day is like 30 miles. If burn 100 cals a mile, you are burning 3k cals before rmr and tef are taken into account.

    I thought about this again later. I wonder if one of the issues is that the steps are being counted twice, once on a phone and the second on a watch.

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