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Moving weight loss

wjegillard
wjegillard Posts: 6 Member
in Introduce Yourself
Hi everyone
My name is Wendy and I am looking for some help. I started trying to lose weight in Sept 21 and so fat I've lost 22lbs. But I have stopped losing weight. I logged all my food everyday and go to the gym 3 to 4 times a week. But still I cannot move from 149lbs

What should I do to lose more weight ?
Any ideas would be great

Replies

  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 9,067 Member
    edited February 2022
    Hi Wendy. You don’t provide any details.

    But here is my take.

    1.) at 149, assuming average height, you are very close to goal. The closer you are, the slower it’s going to come off.

    How long have you been stalled? If it’s just a week or two or three, give it time and be patient.

    2.) your diary is closed, so I can’t lend specific advice there. Are you weighing and logging carefully? Or are you slap dashing? Choosing good entries to log? God bless my husband, but he found some fantasy entry for fajitas and entered an entire Mexican fajitas dinner at 400 calories. He was very hurt when I burst out laughing when we were reviewing his log. He didn’t understand that entries on MFP are crowdsourced and other users either don’t understand how to post foods, or even deliberately fudge the numbers.

    3.) you’re down 22 pounds. That’s a considerable percentage of your starting body weight. About 12.5%. Have you updated your goals? They don’t automatically update after loss. You have to go in an “recalibrate” every so often. The less you weigh, sadly the less calories you get. By the same token, hopefully fewer will satisfy you these days.

    4.) also related to not being able to see your diary, how many exercise calories are you recording and how many are you eating back? Some gym equipment and/or fitness trackers can greatly exaggerate (or even underestimate, occasionally) calorie burn.

    5.) has anything changed lately? Are you sore from working out, been on a flight, long car trip, ramping up for a period, been eating salty or carby food? All can contribute to temporary water weight gain. I’ve been baking and eating bread this past week which I never do, plus have a painful periformis injury that’s causing pain all over the dang place. I’m up several pounds, but otoh could visually see how swollen my hands were when I got up. (Yep. My trainer warned me that kind of injury would travel. But jeez, to my pinky and elbow?!)
  • wjegillard
    wjegillard Posts: 6 Member
    I am close to my goal and like to lise maybe 8 more pounds. I have opened my diary I'm pretty strict with my logging and try to scan bar codes on my food. I've been stuck for almost two weeks. I have not been on any trips etc so can't be that. Thanks fir the response
  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 9,067 Member
    Wendy, I use the iOS app, and for some reason can’t view it unless you’re a “friend”. Your entire feed is locked. I sent you a friend request. You’re under no obligation to accept if that’s not your jam. Or you can let me have a gander and then unfriend me afterwards.

    Barcoded scans were Initially entered by a user. Some are accurate. Some are not.

    Plus, nutrition info changes pretty regularly and the manufacturer updates the packages but no one notices or bothers to update the barcode. I’ll never forget the day I discovered my beloved chicken sausages had changed from 70 to 120 apiece. I’d been scarfing them down for lunches and snacks. That was a black day, indeed.

    Things like breads, cookies, crackers are often inaccurate and when you’re that close to goal, literally every calorie counts. I eat a low cal bread called Lewis Bakeries Healthy White. Two pieces are 42 grams for 70 calories. But when I weigh them, they are very often 46 or 48. It’s maddening.

    Are you weighing things like butter and especially high cal things like nut butters? Those can easily get away. For me, my particular weakness is “eyeballing” cheese on spaghetti or salads, because those are things I throw on at the table, and by then I’m ready to eat and don’t feel like walking the ten feet to the scale in the counter.

  • wjegillard
    wjegillard Posts: 6 Member
    I do weigh my foods and try to stick to fruit veg fish and chicken
  • experimentofone
    experimentofone Posts: 28 Member
    Are you "eating back" your exercise calories? Maybe they need adjusting?
  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 9,067 Member
    Ok. I took a quick look at your diary. Please don’t take anything personal. Here to help, not criticize or hinder.

    First thing that strikes me is you’re set at the lowest setting MFP allows: 1200. And, if your diary is honest, you often fall far below that. Please please please don’t do that. You can cause so much damage to your health if you’ve been doing that long term- everything from hair loss to muscle loss to heart issues (your heart is a muscle, too!)

    However, having said that, you’re probably eating more than you think.

    You’ve got a number of logging blips. (Been there, done that myself, and currently trying to walk my husband through the same issues.)

    For example, you eat a lot of chicken breast. (Yay! Protein!) You’ve picked an entry that says Chicken Breast Baked 4 oz @ 120 calories. Find one that has uncooked aka raw chicken breast. Uncooked chicken breast is 30 calories/ounce or 120 calories for 4 ounces.

    You’re logging cooked chicken. Cooked chicken is roughly 20-25% more in weight before cooking than after, depending on how you cook it, so if you’re earing 4 ounces cooked, you’re eating more in line of 5 or more ounces raw, more calories than you’re logging.

    Other days you’ve logged six ounces of shrimp at 18 calories. Shrimp is great value for calories, but no way is it that low.

    Several times you’ve used different entries for Jack Links jerky. One day you have “2 packages” at 100 calories total, and another day you have a totally different one for 1 package at another odd figure. Jack Links is 70-90 / 1 ounce serving and there’s about 2.5 servings per regular bag. Even their individual bags are packed at 100 calories apiece, so whether you had two servings or two packs, either way you’re out of whack.

    (BTW, Costco sells a brand called Pacific Gold that’s cheaper than Jack and fewer calories. If you’re a jerky fan like me, it’s quite good! Got a package of their Kirkland dried steak strips today. Even fewer calories but…..Meh. )

    Some of your entries for fruit are generic, like “20 raspberries” for 20 calories. That indicates to me that you’re not weighing.

    For example, I bought strawberries a couple of days ago. I weigh them as I slice them on top of my cottage cheese into a bowl. From the same container, one small berry was 12 grams, while several others were 56 and 63 grams. That’s a massive difference. Yeah, I know raspberries are smaller, but just using them to illustrate.

    Same with bananas, apples, etc. The average “medium” banana listing on MFP is for a 115 gram (I think) banana. That’s not a medium banana imho. I’ve had bananas that weighed as much as 160 ore more.

    Consider cleaning up your logging, weighing instead of relying on bar codes or generic entries, and giving yourself some more calories.

    Hope this helps.

    You’ve done fabulous so far and should be very very proud of yourself!

    Hugs!!!





  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 9,067 Member
    Oh, and another one that jumped out at me was the Carrara’s salmon. You ate half a serving for dinner. If you were at the restaurant, were there no sides? Just curious.

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