Not losing weight in a deficit
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I use barcodes on any packed foods, scanning them into my food diary.
Barcode scanning is simply a different way to get to a database entry and is no guarantee that entry is accurate.
As you do a significant amount of exercise (well done!) it would be foolish not to take your exercise into account but the flip side is that inaccuracies will be more significant to you than a low volume exerciser. Here's my opinions and suggestions....
I spoke to a trainer who says estimates burning approx 300 plus calories burnt during my weight training per the hour.
Unlikely. A problem with using your weight in part of the calculation (as MyFitnessPal does) is that unless your strength and therefore the amount of weight lifted is in proportion to your weight it's likely to badly over-estimate.
10 minutes on stair treadmill I burn approx 100 calories, as per the computer on the machines
Unlikely to be accurate.
A rate of 600 net cals / per hour would be possible by someone with an unusually high fitness level and pushing hard.
Are there any power meter equipped exercise bikes in your gym? If there are then pedal at 167 watts and that level is 601 net cals per hour. If you manage to sustain that power output then Bravo! :flowerforyou: - you have a remarkably good fitness level for your gender, weight and age.
If your rowing machine is a Concept2 then you can use their online calorie calculator in conjunction with your rower's readout.
https://www.concept2.com/indoor-rowers/training/calculators/calorie-calculator
For running and walking this is a pretty good caculator (use the net option) -https://exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs
MFP tends to add the burnt calories automatically when putting in excersise performed, and as a rule I change it to lower numbers as it tends to show higher numbers. Hope that makes sense.
It does make sense (especially as they are gross and not net calories). Taking off a 24th of your daily BMR per hour of exercise may well be sensible to get you closer to reality. Be wary of vague descriptions of intensity like moderate or intense as they are very subjective and calories don't have feelings.
I would emphasise though that the majority of the apparent discrepancy between your results and weight loss expectations are likely to be related to food logging rather than exercise logging issues.
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The stair climber shows 100 cal burnt in 10 minutes maybe because I have the pace/level set toggling between 5 and 8, but like go hard most of the time on there with a slow to 5 until I catch my breath, lol. Sundays I generally don't log anything, as is my main day off, but continue to stay around the 1300 deficit. As for the bread, I don't share my loaf, my son hates it. He's a naughty white bread lad. Looks like I'm going to have to invest in some scales and eat less, which doesn't really leave me much for fuel in the gym. It's awfully complicated this dieting stuff, haha.1
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You think you're doing the right thing, but not much in the way of results sadly. It's got to come together eventually and all just "click I didn't excersise for over a year and strangely enough lost weight, down to 71kgs, then 6 months ago I started training again and it's working the opposite. I dunno what's going on, UGH!!! Think my system is in need of an overhaul. If I don't eat sufficient calories I can feel it while working out, I don't have the stamina at all. I tried eating less and that was the result. No up and go. Maybe I'm exercising too much? Too little? *sigh* You guys have been amazing and I appreciate all the input xx3
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Oh, and yes the Rowing machine is a Concept2 👍0
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Exercise for health. Exercise machines are often high estimates.
Eating less calories than your body burns is the way weight is lost. ALWAYS.
Many people lose weight with no additional exercise. I lost 90 pounds before I began to even walk more.3 -
DonnaMiles1966 wrote: »The stair climber shows 100 cal burnt in 10 minutes maybe because I have the pace/level set toggling between 5 and 8, but like go hard most of the time on there with a slow to 5 until I catch my breath, lol.
Interval training feels hard but usually results in a lower calorie burn than pushing at a hard but sustainable level as the recovery intervals drag down your average. Going at "7" for the whole time might require more work in the physics sense than toggling between higher and lower.
As examples two indoor bike training sessions this week:
Really hard and exhausting intervals that left me pretty wiped out and needing recovery, that really was enough for one day - 611 net cals
Steady state and sustainable decently brisk effort but left me feeling fine afterwards and could have continued - 676 net cals
(Different training modalities for different fitness benefits which is what exercise should mostly be about though.)
I would trust the Concept2 calculation so you could try to see what effort you can sustain for 10 mins and compare that to your Stair Climber - although a far from perfect comparison it could provide some insight into your capabilities.4 -
DonnaMiles1966 wrote: »You think you're doing the right thing, but not much in the way of results sadly. It's got to come together eventually and all just "click I didn't excersise for over a year and strangely enough lost weight, down to 71kgs, then 6 months ago I started training again and it's working the opposite. I dunno what's going on, UGH!!! Think my system is in need of an overhaul. If I don't eat sufficient calories I can feel it while working out, I don't have the stamina at all. I tried eating less and that was the result. No up and go. Maybe I'm exercising too much? Too little? *sigh* You guys have been amazing and I appreciate all the input xx
I'm sorry your struggling! Just to give you some perspective... I spent my 30s trying to lose 20 lbs by doing every diet I could. I felt like I was eating next to nothing and was staying active and nothing worked. Assumed there was something wrong with me.
Then I did two things that changed everything - I started using a food scale and a step tracker. I discovered that I was eating several hundred cals more than I thought, and was only getting 4-5000 steps per day! So why was I hungry and unsatisfied? Because I was eating foods I didn't like and didn't fill me up, just because I was told they were "healthy diet friendly foods". Then I'd occasionally have one day where I ate far more than I thought I did because "I deserved it" for eating all that "healthy" food.
Once I was weighing and logging food accurately every day, I could eat foods I liked, but in a moderated amount. I started to learn which foods filled me up and which were a waste if precious cals. I kept having a weighed out serving of ice cream after dinner because it satisfied me, but had to ditch those advertised lower cal chips and crackers because I had to over eat them to feel like I'd eaten anything. I was able to use my food log history to play around with my macros. And I didn't need a break from it because it was food I liked. Plus as I focused on increasing my step count, it slowly increased my calorie needs.
The diet industry really gets so many of us running around in circles focused on unimportant stuff without any actual data. And it's so easy to feel like you're not eating anything but not noticing all the calories you waste. Starting with a dead accurate food log made it easier for me to figure out what food and calorie level worked for me personally. I bet focusing on recording some really accurate data in your food log for a few weeks will answer some questions for you. Good luck!20 -
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I, too, am suspicious that that treadmill is overestimating, and I say that as someone who used to be about the same size you are now (my starting weight was mid-180s pounds, around 83kg).
FWIW:
This is imprecise (for various technical reasons), but at your current 87kg weight, 600 calories per hour on the Concept 2 Rower is going to happen somewhere around 570 calories per hour on the C2 display. (The machine shows calories for a 175 pound (about 75kg) person. The weight adjustment calculator sijomial linked will give more calories to a person heavier than that, fewer to someone lighter than that.)
That calorie level expenditure level ought to happen around something in the vicinity of 2:45 per 500m average (exactly where depends on some other stuff I'm not going to go into here, but in that neighborhood). So, you can pretty easily hop on the rower, set the monitor on calories (a thing I would *never* usually recommend! 😆), shoot for that calorie number, and see how hard 10 calories per minute feels. (It will differ a bit between exercise types, but it's a ballpark concept.)
I don't usually row for a solid hour continuously, but I'm quite sure I could hold the 2:45 for a solid hour. But I've been rowing for 17+ years, with good coaching and some competitive experience in those years, and a decent fitness level at this point, so I don't know how well that generalizes, especially since I'm older as well (65).
Looking at it another way, that's not a super-fast split ("split" is what rowers usually call the time/500m) in the Concept 2 rankings for women in the 50-59 heavyweight women group (where OP would fall) rowing a full hour. People usually rank their best times, when they're trying very hard, and those ranking would probably be women of all experience levels and fitness levels (fit enough to row for a solid hour, of course). 86 of the 97 women who ranked full-hour rows went faster than that. (Of course, likely the very fastest ones are very, very fit.)
All of that with the usual caveat: . . . if I did the math right, which sometimes I don't. 😉3 -
This has been my favorite eye-opening example that happened to me personally... a poor sliced loaf of gluten free bread, shared with two other members of my family (so not as much of an opportunity for things to “even out”).Nony_Mouse wrote: »Thanks
Okay, I see loads of room for underestimating cals there - things like medium banana (highly subjective), the fried rice, is that a recipe you made and entered yourself, or did you just pick a fried rice entry from the database? Same for any other recipe type things. Small chicken thighs, again very subjective. Bread slices within a pack can be really variable in weight, not a big deal if you're the only one eating that loaf (evens out over time), but if you're sharing you may be eating an extra 50 cals without knowing it, for example. Same again with other pre-sliced items. You say you're eating lots of veg and greens, but I'm not seeing that, are you not logging your veg? That adds up.
Food scale is your friend. I think you will find you are eating a lot more than you think you are.
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DonnaMiles1966 wrote: »You think you're doing the right thing, but not much in the way of results sadly. It's got to come together eventually and all just "click I didn't excersise for over a year and strangely enough lost weight, down to 71kgs, then 6 months ago I started training again and it's working the opposite. I dunno what's going on, UGH!!! Think my system is in need of an overhaul. If I don't eat sufficient calories I can feel it while working out, I don't have the stamina at all. I tried eating less and that was the result. No up and go. Maybe I'm exercising too much? Too little? *sigh* You guys have been amazing and I appreciate all the input xx
I'm sorry your struggling! Just to give you some perspective... I spent my 30s trying to lose 20 lbs by doing every diet I could. I felt like I was eating next to nothing and was staying active and nothing worked. Assumed there was something wrong with me.
Then I did two things that changed everything - I started using a food scale and a step tracker. I discovered that I was eating several hundred cals more than I thought, and was only getting 4-5000 steps per day! So why was I hungry and unsatisfied? Because I was eating foods I didn't like and didn't fill me up, just because I was told they were "healthy diet friendly foods". Then I'd occasionally have one day where I ate far more than I thought I did because "I deserved it" for eating all that "healthy" food.
Once I was weighing and logging food accurately every day, I could eat foods I liked, but in a moderated amount. I started to learn which foods filled me up and which were a waste if precious cals. I kept having a weighed out serving of ice cream after dinner because it satisfied me, but had to ditch those advertised lower cal chips and crackers because I had to over eat them to feel like I'd eaten anything. I was able to use my food log history to play around with my macros. And I didn't need a break from it because it was food I liked. Plus as I focused on increasing my step count, it slowly increased my calorie needs.
The diet industry really gets so many of us running around in circles focused on unimportant stuff without any actual data. And it's so easy to feel like you're not eating anything but not noticing all the calories you waste. Starting with a dead accurate food log made it easier for me to figure out what food and calorie level worked for me personally. I bet focusing on recording some really accurate data in your food log for a few weeks will answer some questions for you. Good luck!
OP- please, read this and then read it again. Let it sink in. People often get the best advice and just glaze over it and continue to wonder why what they’re doing is not working. This quote has about everything you need to know and do. I would add to weigh at the same time consistently and follow your weight trend on Libra or another weight trend app, and stick to the program. Now it’s whether you will heed this advice, that is the question.5 -
Like others have said, it's likely a combo of not having accurate food portions and also over-estimating the calories burned in exercise. 300 from a weights session sounds very high to me. As a guy I enter 130 for myself, which I got from the formula below. The treadmill is probably over-stating your calories too. That could put you off by about 1,000 calories per week just on the exercise.
It sounds like you're going to be plenty diligent enough when you get the right numbers input, so I'm sure the gains will swiftly follow.
It's also possible that you are gaining some muscle from all that training.
Did you enter the correct activity level to MFP? i.e. sedentary/active/etc. That would be your typical daily activity not including the workouts you're tracking separately.
https://btn.academy/blogs/news/how-many-calories-do-you-burn-during-weight-training2 -
Retroguy2000 wrote: »Like others have said, it's likely a combo of not having accurate food portions and also over-estimating the calories burned in exercise. 300 from a weights session sounds very high to me. As a guy I enter 130 for myself, which I got from the formula below. The treadmill is probably over-stating your calories too. That could put you off by about 1,000 calories per week just on the exercise.
It sounds like you're going to be plenty diligent enough when you get the right numbers input, so I'm sure the gains will swiftly follow.
It's also possible that you are gaining some muscle from all that training.
Did you enter the correct activity level to MFP? i.e. sedentary/active/etc. That would be your typical daily activity not including the workouts you're tracking separately.
https://btn.academy/blogs/news/how-many-calories-do-you-burn-during-weight-training
Two pounds of muscle mass gain in a month would be a really good result, for a woman, under ideal conditions. Ideal conditions include a good progressive strength training program faithfully practiced, excellent nutrition (especially protein), favorable genetics, relative youth, and a calorie surplus (some of which unfortunately don't apply to me or to the OP).
On the flip side, two pounds a month would be about the slowest observable rate of fat loss (250 calorie daily deficit).
I wish it were otherwise, but the sad conclusion is that it's fairly unlikely that a woman is failing to see weight loss on the scale while eating low calories, because of muscle mass gain.10 -
OP just curious: have you invested in a food scale yet? They’re fairly cheap so I really really think if you haven’t yet, you should get one NOW.
Best of luck!2 -
She thinks she is in a calorie deficit but the fact she is maintaining or gaining weight suggests otherwise. This, combined with her high protein intake and high levels of working out suggests she may well be gaining muscle while also losing some fat.Two pounds of muscle mass gain in a month would be a really good result, for a woman, under ideal conditions. Ideal conditions include a good progressive strength training program faithfully practiced, excellent nutrition (especially protein), favorable genetics, relative youth, and a calorie surplus (some of which unfortunately don't apply to me or to the OP).
On the flip side, two pounds a month would be about the slowest observable rate of fat loss (250 calorie daily deficit).
I wish it were otherwise, but the sad conclusion is that it's fairly unlikely that a woman is failing to see weight loss on the scale while eating low calories, because of muscle mass gain.
She didn't say anything about "two pounds", but she did say she noticed she has gained muscle. Basically I'm saying if she has gained X pounds of muscle and lost X pounds of fat, she shouldn't feel discouraged at that progress.4 -
Also, how's your sleep?
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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Just curious if anyone else notices that many OP’s typically disappear once we all encourage a food scale? I just wish I could help them understand it’s not as scary or complicated as they think. And it could save them years of yo-yo dieting if they gave it a fair chance. 😔
OP- please come back and let us know if you have questions. We really are here to support you.11 -
Retroguy2000 wrote: »
She thinks she is in a calorie deficit but the fact she is maintaining or gaining weight suggests otherwise. This, combined with her high protein intake and high levels of working out suggests she may well be gaining muscle while also losing some fat.Two pounds of muscle mass gain in a month would be a really good result, for a woman, under ideal conditions. Ideal conditions include a good progressive strength training program faithfully practiced, excellent nutrition (especially protein), favorable genetics, relative youth, and a calorie surplus (some of which unfortunately don't apply to me or to the OP).
On the flip side, two pounds a month would be about the slowest observable rate of fat loss (250 calorie daily deficit).
I wish it were otherwise, but the sad conclusion is that it's fairly unlikely that a woman is failing to see weight loss on the scale while eating low calories, because of muscle mass gain.
She didn't say anything about "two pounds", but she did say she noticed she has gained muscle. Basically I'm saying if she has gained X pounds of muscle and lost X pounds of fat, she shouldn't feel discouraged at that progress.
@Retroguy2000
No idea why you are getting so many disagrees to what is a very reasonable post - can only think people are disagreeing with something you haven't actually said!
(Note to those disagreeing - It wasn't said that lack of weight loss was DUE to muscle gain, it was merely said that some muscle may well have been gained.)
OP says herself she is maintaining or even gaining a little weight (clearly not actually in a deficit), is weight training five hours a week and has been for months and is seeing some muscle gain.
The conclusion that someone may be recomping is entirely reasonable and should be encouraging to the OP that although weight loss isn't happening she is getting some payback from all her efforts.
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Thank you. I just saw my post saying essentially what you just said has 4 dislikes and 1 like.@Retroguy2000
No idea why you are getting so many disagrees to what is a very reasonable post - can only think people are disagreeing with something you haven't actually said!
(Note to those disagreeing - It wasn't said that lack of weight loss was DUE to muscle gain, it was merely said that some muscle may well have been gained.)
OP says herself she is maintaining or even gaining a little weight (clearly not actually in a deficit), is weight training five hours a week and has been for months and is seeing some muscle gain.
The conclusion that someone may be recomping is entirely reasonable and should be encouraging to the OP that although weight loss isn't happening she is getting some payback from all her efforts.1 -
I think AnnP was talking generally, just to give an idea what kind of muscle gain might be possible for women under ideal conditions, not that TO is gaining 2lbs per month. That's how I understood it anyway. But yes, TO, please come back and let us know what you think.1
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