NO weight loss, very frustrated.

Do you weigh/measure your food? How do you know you are eating 1600 calories? It sounds like you are eating at maintenance. Also, if you just started your exercise, you could be retaining a few pounds of water weight that could mask some weight loss.

What are you doing for cardio and how are you coming up with that calorie burn?

I'm not saying you're wrong. Just some ways of estimating can be out of whack.

gregsbabe12 wrote: »

I have been using MFP for about 4 years now. I used to do Atkins awhile back. I weigh myself once a week on Fridays but I will start daily to see if there is a fluctuation. I am really hoping that my body just hasn't wanted to let go but will give in at some point lol. It hasn't gone up which is good. It is a new scale, so not sure what is happening there lol. I actually love my new routine, just giving up the sugar made me feel better. When I drink coffee or something I use stevia or liquids sucralose. NO candy, or any other added sugars. Haven't completely cut out carbs, as Atkins was WAY hard. lol I feel good exercising as well. Hopefully the weight training will help, although I know that is a different beast adding muscle weight.

Some scales will do a false consistency thing, though I'd expect a week to be long enough to get it to reset. Maybe try the weigh, then weigh with heavy thing, then re-weigh option, see if anything changes - if you haven't?

New strength training can be a major confounder, with water weight (needed for muscle repair). I only see a couple of pounds' increase when I resume strength training in Winter, but I hang onto that as long as I keep training regularly/progressively, then have a drop in Spring when I stop again. I've seen people here say they "gained" as much as 7 pounds when starting or re-starting strength training, just from water retention shifts. Some people drop the water retention between lifting sessions, it seems; others (like me) don't.

After reading your post and all your follow up replies, my first thought was the scale. When the batteries on my scale get low it just shoots out similar numbers it's used before. So my daughter's weight won't change, mine won't change. I'll weigh myself then eat and weigh myself again, and the number stays the same. You said it's a new scale, but if it came battery included like most do, it could still be a old/bad battery.

So my *first* suggestion for you would be to simply change the battery on the scale.

And, as @AnnPT77 pointed out, the plateau or even temporary weight *gain* from new workouts can be alarming.

A couple of things, though...

First of all, the calculator I use puts your pre-exercise TDEE at 2249. And the hormone changes which come with menopause *can* affect your BMR which changes your TDEE. (Hormones are in large part responsible for the differences in BMR/TDEE between men and women, children and teens, teens and adults, etc... but calculators, while accounting for differences in testosterone vs estrogen... don't take these hormones into account in regards to age, because, well, that happens at different ages for everyone.

It could be off by as much as 200 calories, which might put your TDEE as low as 2049.

But you'd *still* be losing weight at 1600 per day. Especially with added exercise.

You mentioned drinking a lot of water. Most people who've been here for a long time weigh themselves before eating, but are you weighing yourself before drinking however many lbs of water? After using the restroom?

You also mentioned coffee and artificial sweeteners. These are considered essentially 0 calorie, because they are so low calorie that people who use a average amount don't take in enough calories from them to nean anything. But, for example, I drink enough "0 calorie" coke zero (5 cals per 20 oz bottle) that it throws off my tracking. I was drinking 10 per day... 50 calories per day... 350 calories per week. If I'm aiming for half a lb per week in loss, that's.. almost an entire day's deficit in just 0 calorie cola.

Not a huge difference if it's only one thing. But if I'm also doing that with coffee and sugar-free snacks and tons of "0 calorie" cooking spray, it adds up fast.

Again, this doesn't affect *most* people, but if you're genuinely logging everything and nothing makes sense, and you're logging a lot of 0 calorie items... that could be a factor.

In addition, water retention can be affected not only by exercise but by sodium intake, so I would suggest checking your sodium intake to see if that could be causing an issue.

When I plateau, I find it helpful to create a checklist of potential reasons. I'm not allowed to panic until I have eliminated all possible causes on the list. Or until it's been more than 3 months (my longest plateau in a deficit with fluctuations but no loss, lol).

gregsbabe12 wrote: »

Yes I am, I am double checking everything. Did go an replace my batteries in my scale. Stepped on it and it said 273.4, then did it again to check and it said 277.3...... in a matter of 10 seconds I gained 4 pounds, lol i give up on that thing. And it was newer and expensive.

Lmao oh no that's awful.

Well, ...at least you know it's likely a scale problem?

I hope you're able to get a different one soon! In the meantime I would just keep tracking/logging as normal.

Little things like a wonky scale can be really discouraging. Don't let bad assembly throw off all your progress ❤