Losing hope instead of weight :(
Replies
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kshama2001 wrote: »For the last week, you were under 1300 calories every day, sometimes WAY under 1300 calories.
For the next month, tighten up your logging, ***especially on cheat days***, and then get back to us.
Yes, there are several days with meals missing as well. Did you really only eat breakfast a few days ago and nothing else? Do you sometimes have just a hot chocolate for dinner? It looks like making your logging more accurate might be the first step.9 -
basically what I read was: "I log EVERYTHING....except for the stuff I don't log"
so, yeah. there ya go.
Good study. And here for the youtube generation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA9AdlhB18o 6 -
No one on this app ever listens to me 😡😡 I have said repeatedly I weight Everything yet majority of comments are telling me to weight everything and I have said I log everything I eat on normal days yet people are telling me my logins are inaccurate 😡😡😡😡😡😡. I’m a student which means I can wake up at 7am and only get home at 9pm at night therefore there are days where I will only have a hot chocolate all day or only eat 800 calories a day because I don’t have time to eat anything or go Home and make meals and I don’t buy pre packaged food because it’s expensive. Stop trying to tell me my logins are inaccurate Or I’m not logging when I’ve stated loads of times I am. I’ve also said I do log my cheat days just not on this app so why are people repeatedly telling me to do stuff I’ve said I already do 🥲🥲 it’s really rude to just ignore Everything I say and try to presume stuff or make things up lmao8
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So you're a student. You should be able to do literature research. Do research. Find properly conducted studies showing there are people who eat in a proper deficit, log correctly and don't lose weight. Find research in people who have a cheat day and permanently gain 4lbs. 4lbs corresponds to eating 14000 calories over maintenance. Have you done that on every cheat day where your weight permanently went up and didn't come down again?
Lets do this a bit differently.
1. Calm down! No, really. Relax. Panic and stress actually leads to increased cortisol, leads to waterweight gain. See, I write water, not bodyfat. That's important.
2. How often to you weigh? You're only at it for just over a month? Waterweight fuctuates constantly. It's very possible that you lose a bit of weight, but then, during a part of your cycle your body stores more water. Simples. Likewise, if you have a cheat day you might eat more carbs and/or more salt. Both lead to increased waterweight again. This can stick around for possibly a week. Until which time you might have your next cheat day. See what I'm aiming at? Repeated cheat days, and normal menstrual cycle can mask fat loss! If you happen to step on the scale where either of this is true you might think nothing has happened. The same actually is also true for exercise, new exercise, anything that causes sore muscles. Oh, and did I mention stress?
3. You're not at a very high weight, right? So every weightloss is going to be slow. Not because your body is holding onto everything (that's not how it works) but because a smaller body cannot lose too much at one given time. Have you chosen an appropriate weightloss goal here? Re-evaluate. It's not always the highest. With for example 10lbs to lose you should be looking at losing 0.5lbs per week. So 2lbs per month. See point above about waterweight. Patience. Again: relax! Trust the process.
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I don’t have nearly as much experience as a lot of the ppl giving answers but the one thing I would contribute is that I would absolutely record cheat days/meals in MFP. That way when the scale isn’t doing what you expected you can go back through your food diary and see what you ate that could be effecting the scale. It seems odd that you would record it but not on MFP…why not just record it here so all of your info is in one spot.
I don’t do cheat days/meals right now. I hate when the scale goes up so I’ve been really diligent at keeping my calories in check, that way when the scale fluctuates I don’t freak out…I know that I’ve done my part and it must just be my body doing it’s normal natural fluctuations.
Good luck figuring it out and getting in your groove.11 -
xx1chloe5xx wrote: »No one on this app ever listens to me 😡😡 I have said repeatedly I weight Everything yet majority of comments are telling me to weight everything and I have said I log everything I eat on normal days yet people are telling me my logins are inaccurate 😡😡😡😡😡😡. I’m a student which means I can wake up at 7am and only get home at 9pm at night therefore there are days where I will only have a hot chocolate all day or only eat 800 calories a day because I don’t have time to eat anything or go Home and make meals and I don’t buy pre packaged food because it’s expensive. Stop trying to tell me my logins are inaccurate Or I’m not logging when I’ve stated loads of times I am. I’ve also said I do log my cheat days just not on this app so why are people repeatedly telling me to do stuff I’ve said I already do 🥲🥲 it’s really rude to just ignore Everything I say and try to presume stuff or make things up lmao
Help us to help you by logging everything here where we can see it, including your cheat days. Otherwise, from the incomplete picture you provide, the only logical conclusion we can draw is that you are eating more than you acknowledge.
Don't take this personally, we see this here again and again, and studies find that too.
You've logged 5,538 calories for the past 7 days; 791 calories per day. What are we supposed to do with that information?16 -
If you are logging accurately and maintaining your determined calorie deficit over the course of 4-6 weeks or more, you *should* see a change either on the scale, body comp or measurements. If you aren't, then it maybe time to see a doctor.
The reason most people haven't suggested that is that 99% of the time when we see posts like yours, it's not a medical issue but usually inaccurate logging. So if you are absolutely sure you're doing everything you need to do to create a deficit and waiting long enough to see results, then blood work is probably the next step.
I didn't see this asked... Are you on any kind of medication? Health issues? High-stress job/school? How much sleep do you get?7 -
I've had "cheat" days in that I didn't worry about staying in my calorie range, but I still weighed and logged every bite, LICK, or NIBBLE that went in my mouth (yes, even that 1/2 of a tortilla chip).
For me anyways, it is extremely easy to blow my deficit out of the water in one evening, and that's with logging everything (which makes me slow down and realize just how much I'm consuming and I almost always end up eating and drinking WAY less than I would without logging it as it goes into my mouth).
In fact, a couple days like that can undo WEEKS of deficits.
One night eating out, enjoying an appetizer and drinks with friends can blow the entire week plus some, then add in the extra water weight to boot - it can add up to putting on several pounds in the course of just a month! ONE evening a week! Restraunants also add a LOT of stuff like butter, and other high calorie (but oh so tasty) sauces into foods that aren't reflected in the list of "what you're eating" sometimes even if you request it plain they add stuff in so it tastes better
(not always by any means, but it does happen, or they are cooking on a surface that was just slathered in butter or oil). And who orders a plain chicken breast and plain broccoli at a birthday party?
Yup, it sucks!! But that's the reality. So if you want a "cheat" meal, don't just note it down - as things go in your mouth they are weighed, measured and entered in the app (I'll literally sit there with the food diary open on my app)...
And something else I found out the hard way, is that not all "like" things are the same. Beers, for example, can range from 100-over 400 calories for a 12oz beer - so if you're picking the wrong "beer" choice, you could be killing your entire day's work just in that sometimes (as a random example, I did not look in your diary).10 -
Are you taking measurments? When I went from 250 to 175 pounds there were several plateau's. Some were weeks long! Measuring (chest, waist, hips) was the proof that I was still moving in the right direction even though the scale was stalled.4
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How are you determining exercise calories burned and are you eating those calories back? I see this in your diary:
Walking, brisk pace for 30 minutes: 362 calories burned.
Where are you getting that calorie count as it seems very, very high. If you're eating all of those back and you're logging this several times a week with an inaccurate number, that could also account for the scale not moving. I would expect a 30 minute walk to be around 100-200 calories, and I would only give myself a portion of that to eat back. So if you're eating an additional 362 calories vs around 50 calories, that could make a huge difference over the course of a month.
In addition, I can easily walk briskly for 30 minutes as part of my daily activity. Is this an activity that you are logging completely separately from the exercise already included in your daily calorie calculation?7 -
If you are logging accurately and maintaining your determined calorie deficit over the course of 4-6 weeks or more, you *should* see a change either on the scale, body comp or measurements. If you aren't, then it maybe time to see a doctor.
The reason most people haven't suggested that is that 99% of the time when we see posts like yours, it's not a medical issue but usually inaccurate logging. So if you are absolutely sure you're doing everything you need to do to create a deficit and waiting long enough to see results, then blood work is probably the next step.
I didn't see this asked... Are you on any kind of medication? Health issues? High-stress job/school? How much sleep do you get?
I don't think it's yet time to see a doctor. See my comment on water weight. We don't know how heavy TO is and whether the chosen deficit is realistic, nor do we know how often she steps on the scale. Say she does so once a week and can realistically only achieve a deficit of 0.5lbs. This small change can be hidden by water weight after a binge, or due to menstrual cycle. We really need more info to give proper advice.5 -
The first thing that jumps out to me is the phrase "cheat days". You can easily undo an entire week (or more) in one cheat day.
Absolutely! This is how I used to "maintain" my weight: I'd be good 6 days a week, eat at a deficit, then... WOO HOO! Party at the pub! Drinks, burgers, appetizers... more drinks
. One night out would set me back the whole week. Then rinse, wash, repeat. It worked for me for a long time, but yes not even one day off, but ONE MEAL OUT was enough to blow a whole weeks worth of work.
It took 3-4 days just to lose all the water weight from the carbs and sodium, FWIW.
If you are just starting your journey, I wouldn't recommend falling off the wagon for a few months to have a cheat meal, cheat day, day off, whatever you want to call it. Stick to the plan and figure out what works for you for a while first. Then you can manage your expectations better and decide if its worth it or not to deviate from time to time.
Good Luck!5 -
How are you determining exercise calories burned and are you eating those calories back? I see this in your diary:
Walking, brisk pace for 30 minutes: 362 calories burned.
Where are you getting that calorie count as it seems very, very high. If you're eating all of those back and you're logging this several times a week with an inaccurate number, that could also account for the scale not moving. I would expect a 30 minute walk to be around 100-200 calories, and I would only give myself a portion of that to eat back. So if you're eating an additional 362 calories vs around 50 calories, that could make a huge difference over the course of a month.
In addition, I can easily walk briskly for 30 minutes as part of my daily activity. Is this an activity that you are logging completely separately from the exercise already included in your daily calorie calculation?
A decent source for walking calorie estimates is here:
https://exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs
Be sure to select "Net" in the "Energy" box.
You need to know the speed, and amount of time, plus personal characteristics. There are other boxes there (like Grade), and might fine-tune the estimate if you know them, but they're optional.4 -
xx1chloe5xx wrote: »No one on this app ever listens to me 😡😡 I have said repeatedly I weight Everything yet majority of comments are telling me to weight everything and I have said I log everything I eat on normal days yet people are telling me my logins are inaccurate 😡😡😡😡😡😡. I’m a student which means I can wake up at 7am and only get home at 9pm at night therefore there are days where I will only have a hot chocolate all day or only eat 800 calories a day because I don’t have time to eat anything or go Home and make meals and I don’t buy pre packaged food because it’s expensive. Stop trying to tell me my logins are inaccurate Or I’m not logging when I’ve stated loads of times I am. I’ve also said I do log my cheat days just not on this app so why are people repeatedly telling me to do stuff I’ve said I already do 🥲🥲 it’s really rude to just ignore Everything I say and try to presume stuff or make things up lmao
Maybe give some thought to what a success mindset looks like?
You asked a question, got the attention of a good selection of MFP-ers, including some who've been long-term successful at losing excess weight and keeping it off. For free, they spent some of their time asking you questions and suggesting things that could possibly be part of the situation, given the limited information you provided.
Sure, those replies may be sub-par (worth every penny you paid for them?). Still, could be some useful nuggets in there, if gleaned calmly.
Faced with feeling (it seems) disbelieved and criticized, you get mad at those who've tried to help (however imperfectly they may have executed that attempt) . . . and seemingly also at everyone on the app, because we don't ever listen to you.
How likely is it that people will continue to try to help you (for free)? I admit, if the help is uniformly bad, then maybe that's a plus. Maybe it would go better for you on your own.
Perhaps this post seems mean, too; but that's absolutely not my intention. I'd absolutely like to see you (and anyone/everyone) succeed at weight management and health improvement, because I've personally experienced how wonderfully transformational that can be.
I'm certainly old enough to be your granny, so this is just some internet granny advice, possibly slightly curmudgeonly. 🤷♀️
Quoting for truth:kshama2001 wrote: »xx1chloe5xx wrote: »No one on this app ever listens to me 😡😡 I have said repeatedly I weight Everything yet majority of comments are telling me to weight everything and I have said I log everything I eat on normal days yet people are telling me my logins are inaccurate 😡😡😡😡😡😡. I’m a student which means I can wake up at 7am and only get home at 9pm at night therefore there are days where I will only have a hot chocolate all day or only eat 800 calories a day because I don’t have time to eat anything or go Home and make meals and I don’t buy pre packaged food because it’s expensive. Stop trying to tell me my logins are inaccurate Or I’m not logging when I’ve stated loads of times I am. I’ve also said I do log my cheat days just not on this app so why are people repeatedly telling me to do stuff I’ve said I already do 🥲🥲 it’s really rude to just ignore Everything I say and try to presume stuff or make things up lmao
Help us to help you by logging everything here where we can see it, including your cheat days. Otherwise, from the incomplete picture you provide, the only logical conclusion we can draw is that you are eating more than you acknowledge.
Don't take this personally, we see this here again and again, and studies find that too.
You've logged 5,538 calories for the past 7 days; 791 calories per day. What are we supposed to do with that information?20 -
Cliffs notes:
--Weight trend matters, not scale weight.
--Compare same points in monthly hormonal cycle
--Extremes get people no where:
** you can not sleep for days and then crash for a couple and can keep doing this for a few years... and after a few years you will no longer be able to and maintain your health.
** you can skip class and cram before the exams and once, twice, three times you will squeak through... and then discover that you actually missed the whole point since you pretty much learned *kitten all* from the whole endeavor (ask me how I know)
** you can watch no TV and then binge watch TV and then calculate your average and discover that you're watching more then a couple of hours of TV a day on average.
** you can eat nothing and then binge eat and discover that you're either losing or gaining an indeterminate amount of weight (because unless you're sampling your weight often enough and plotting the values you're unlikely to be able to differentiate between fat level changes and between changes in internal stomach contents on the way to disposal or fluid level changes in response to the biochemistry of your body that has to balance the trace minerals you ingest and keep you functioning in spite of what you go out of your way to do to it).
-- Nobody can function long term on sub 1000 Calories. In fact even 1200 is unlikely to even be remotely correct for a relatively young relatively not super short woman. You can try it and your body will continue to react (violently and detrimentally for your long term health) to it.
-- weight management is not "I am going to lose weight to go on vacation and wear a bikini by eating nothing for a couple of months"... that's the entry point to yo-yo dieting. And the short term mindset of getting to goal fast and without regard to consequences starting at a young age is why many people are using MFP in their middle and older years to try to get to a point where they can successfully manage their weight both to lose and to maintain.
There is nothing wrong with a weekly budget. There is something very wrong if you believe your weekly budget can consist of 700 Cal and 7000 Cal days.
Dampen the extreme swings.
If your budget is 1800 Cal a day, then CONSISTENTLY TRYING FOR six 1600 Cal days and a 3000 day is probably OK and probably do-able. CONSISTENTLY TRYING FOR Five 1200 Cal day and two 3300 Cal days is much much harder to do. And CONSISTENTLY TRYING FOR six 1200 Cal days followed by a 5400 Cal day is an incipient disaster. (Occasional SINGLE events can be shrugged off by most well functioning organisms, I'm talking something more regular than once a year here!)
Multiple 800 Cal days are a non starter.13 -
How are you determining exercise calories burned and are you eating those calories back? I see this in your diary:
Walking, brisk pace for 30 minutes: 362 calories burned.
Where are you getting that calorie count as it seems very, very high. If you're eating all of those back and you're logging this several times a week with an inaccurate number, that could also account for the scale not moving. I would expect a 30 minute walk to be around 100-200 calories, and I would only give myself a portion of that to eat back. So if you're eating an additional 362 calories vs around 50 calories, that could make a huge difference over the course of a month.
In addition, I can easily walk briskly for 30 minutes as part of my daily activity. Is this an activity that you are logging completely separately from the exercise already included in your daily calorie calculation?
A decent source for walking calorie estimates is here:
https://exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs
Be sure to select "Net" in the "Energy" box.
You need to know the speed, and amount of time, plus personal characteristics. There are other boxes there (like Grade), and might fine-tune the estimate if you know them, but they're optional.
As depressing as it was, this calculator showed me during the year I gained and lost the same poundthat my fitbit's exercise calories were NOWHERE NEAR what my true exercise calories were. Once I started using the exrx.net calculation, I started losing again.4 -
How are you determining exercise calories burned and are you eating those calories back? I see this in your diary:
Walking, brisk pace for 30 minutes: 362 calories burned.
Where are you getting that calorie count as it seems very, very high. If you're eating all of those back and you're logging this several times a week with an inaccurate number, that could also account for the scale not moving. I would expect a 30 minute walk to be around 100-200 calories, and I would only give myself a portion of that to eat back. So if you're eating an additional 362 calories vs around 50 calories, that could make a huge difference over the course of a month.
In addition, I can easily walk briskly for 30 minutes as part of my daily activity. Is this an activity that you are logging completely separately from the exercise already included in your daily calorie calculation?
A decent source for walking calorie estimates is here:
https://exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs
Be sure to select "Net" in the "Energy" box.
You need to know the speed, and amount of time, plus personal characteristics. There are other boxes there (like Grade), and might fine-tune the estimate if you know them, but they're optional.
This calculator seems to be using a multiplier of roughly 0.36 for average walking speeds in flat terrain. Thus 0.36* weight in lbs * distance in miles. Might be easier than figuring out how fast someone walks. The distance can for example be pulled out of google maps.1 -
How are you determining exercise calories burned and are you eating those calories back? I see this in your diary:
Walking, brisk pace for 30 minutes: 362 calories burned.
Where are you getting that calorie count as it seems very, very high. If you're eating all of those back and you're logging this several times a week with an inaccurate number, that could also account for the scale not moving. I would expect a 30 minute walk to be around 100-200 calories, and I would only give myself a portion of that to eat back. So if you're eating an additional 362 calories vs around 50 calories, that could make a huge difference over the course of a month.
In addition, I can easily walk briskly for 30 minutes as part of my daily activity. Is this an activity that you are logging completely separately from the exercise already included in your daily calorie calculation?
A decent source for walking calorie estimates is here:
https://exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs
Be sure to select "Net" in the "Energy" box.
You need to know the speed, and amount of time, plus personal characteristics. There are other boxes there (like Grade), and might fine-tune the estimate if you know them, but they're optional.
As depressing as it was, this calculator showed me during the year I gained and lost the same poundthat my fitbit's exercise calories were NOWHERE NEAR what my true exercise calories were. Once I started using the exrx.net calculation, I started losing again.
Yeah, I know what you mean. Both fitbit and garmin give me crazy calorie burns for walking. Say I do a 20km hike in flat terrain. I don't do it often, but it might happen. Both devices would give me around 1800 calories. So that's probably gross calories, but even if I assume net I'd still be looking at 1500 calories or so. This calculator would give me about 600 calories. I feel that the truth might be a bit higher as there's still a difference between walking through a mall and walking in actual nature where nothing is truly flat, but it's eye opening.1 -
The difference won't be huge, but the calorie burn does vary according to speed. This is the basis for the calculator:
https://exrx.net/Aerobic/WalkCalExp
I went 'supernerd' and made my own calculator in a spreadsheet, but I also know the speed of all my walks and runs through my fitness tracker. For people who don't time their walks, a more simple formula certainly has its benefits too.1 -
I went 'supernerd' and made my own calculator in a spreadsheet, but I also know the speed of all my walks and runs through my fitness tracker. For people who don't time their walks, a more simple formula certainly has its benefits too.
I have a spreadsheet somewhere that compares this and similar equations (I usually use the slightly lower 0.3 and 0.67 multipliers) to an exercise test I once had, and amount of energy from fatty acids and glycogen. Don't ask... The lower multiplyers seem to provide a rather good fit for me, but all my movement is aimed at preserving energy as much as possible, like not lifting up feel properly, not walking on sidewalks because they constantly go up and down a bit, using lots of other small hacks. Btw, I'm getting likely two more exercise tests with a prof in sports medicine to figure out what's wrong with me
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