Daily calories

youknowyoursel
youknowyoursel Posts: 18 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I've been struggling to lose any weight for the past 6 months. I've been going to the gym regularly and since the start of the year working out 6 days a week. I lift weights and walk briskly on the treadmill for around 1.5 hours Mon-Sat. My Fitbit active minutes average about 80 mins per day. Yet I remain stuck at a frustrating 143kg. I weighed myself for the first time in 6 months yesterday and am devastated. I get up at 5am 6 days a week to get to the gym for what seems like no reason, other than my limbs are slightly more toned. My huge amount of belly fat won't budge.

Obviously, I'm doing something wrong. There have been times where I've not been strict with eating but generally I don't go over 2500 daily calories. I exist on protein shakes and wholemeal toast. Is there anything relevant to someone my size and activity level that I'm missing? Am I not eating enough? Should I pay more attention to macros? I'm totally lost with it all. I thought just working hard would get results and I'm extremely disappointed with myself for being so naive.

Replies

  • Redordeadhead
    Redordeadhead Posts: 1,188 Member
    2500 calories in protein shakes and toast would require a lot of shakes and toast....

    Exercise is good for health but the only way to lose weight is to eat fewer calories than you burn. If you're not controlling your diet, you're likely eating too much. Try keeping track what you eat for a few weeks and staying in your calorie goal, see if that helps.
  • youknowyoursel
    youknowyoursel Posts: 18 Member
    Lol yes sorry I should have added that I do eat an evening meal.

    Obviously im somehow eating more calories than I expend but is there anything else I should be mindful of that could be inhibiting weight loss? Is it possible I'm not eating enough? I really don't understand how it all works. There's so much stuff contradictory information online.
  • glassyo
    glassyo Posts: 7,741 Member
    Just be mindful of how many calories you put in your mouth. Then be mindful of what your fitbit says you expend. Then, after about a month, see what your weight's doing. Then adjust if you need to.

    Not losing because you're not eating enough generally doesn't work math and sciencewise. :)
  • Redordeadhead
    Redordeadhead Posts: 1,188 Member
    youknowyoursel wrote: »
    Lol yes sorry I should have added that I do eat an evening meal.

    Obviously im somehow eating more calories than I expend but is there anything else I should be mindful of that could be inhibiting weight loss? Is it possible I'm not eating enough? I really don't understand how it all works. There's so much stuff contradictory information online.

    No, it can't be that you're not eating enough, as you said you must be eating at least the same number (to maintain weight) or more (gain) calories than you expend.
  • youknowyoursel
    youknowyoursel Posts: 18 Member
    That makes sense to me! It's just too easy to worry about doing the wrong things and being preoccupied with macros and theories about starvation mode etc etc. If calories in calories out is the bottom line, then clearly I do need to simply be more mindful of what im eating.

    How do I set a daily calorie limit? Are the various online calculators accurate?
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    youknowyoursel wrote: »
    Are the various online calculators accurate?

    They tend to be more accurate than most people's food logging!

    What they should do is get you in a reasonable ballpark and then you can adjust based on results seen over a number of weeks.

    " I exist on protein shakes and wholemeal toast. "
    There really is no good reason to do that and from an overall nutrition POV good reasons not to, just like gaining weight doesn't need a special diet, neither does losing weight, just a smaller diet. Try to avoid making weight loss harder and more miserable than it has to be.
  • sbelletti
    sbelletti Posts: 213 Member
    Agree with everyone else about the importance of setting an appropriate calorie deficit and logging every single thing you eat accurately.

    Once you've got that handled, it looks like you're adding a ton of exercise which is awesome! Be mindful that exercise can create some body changes that may not appear on the scale. Water weight, exchanging fat for muscle, etc. So you might want to consider other ways to check your progress besides your scale weight. Body measurements can be helpful if you want to take those. Personally, I choose a smaller size dress or non-stretch jeans and try them on once a month or so. Sometimes the scale hasn't budged but my clothes fit much better!

    I didn't view your profile and don't know if you're female, but our monthly visits from Aunt Flo can create some crazy scale numbers as well. I weigh daily but try to look at trends over the past month and not per day or week.

    The less weight you have to lose, the slower your progress will be. I was dropping 1.5-2lbs a week for my first 30 lbs. Now that I am approaching my goal with about 10 lbs to go, it's sloooooow but steady.
  • Thewonderofitall
    Thewonderofitall Posts: 98 Member
    Get you daily calorie intake down to 1600 to 1800 a day and you'll lose weight! Oh, and eat that in real foods!
  • sbelletti
    sbelletti Posts: 213 Member
    If you need help determining the appropriate daily calorie intake needed to lose weight, post your stats here and we can make some recommendations. Age, sex, height, current weight, goal weight.

    Or enter those into MFP and it'll set your calories for you. I prefer to set my activity level to sedentary and then log my exercise as it's inconsistent from week to week. If you are consistent with your activity, you can set your activity level higher in MFP and it'll adjust your calories. Just don't add them in again when logging.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    There are mistakes that people commonly make that cause them to not lose weight that we might be able to spot if you change your Diary Sharing settings to Public: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    youknowyoursel wrote: »
    That makes sense to me! It's just too easy to worry about doing the wrong things and being preoccupied with macros and theories about starvation mode etc etc. If calories in calories out is the bottom line, then clearly I do need to simply be more mindful of what im eating.

    How do I set a daily calorie limit? Are the various online calculators accurate?
    Thewonderofitall wrote: »
    Get you daily calorie intake down to 1600 to 1800 a day and you'll lose weight! Oh, and eat that in real foods!

    The OP is 143 kg / 315 pounds. At that weight, they can lose on 2500 calories per day.

    @youknowyoursel when you put your stats into MFP and select the weekly weight loss goal of 2 pounds per week, how many calories do you get?
  • nooshi713
    nooshi713 Posts: 4,877 Member
    If you’re not losing weight, then you are eating too much. If you’re not logging all of your calories then you don’t know how much you are eating though.

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