Frustrated with belly

How are you tracking your calories and your exercise calories? Exercise calories are usually inflated, so most eat back only half. Tracking calories correctly is important. Weighing foods on a food scale and measuring liquids is the most accurate way. It sounds like you are eating at maintenance and need to cut a few calories.

How many cals per day and for how long?

It would be unusual to gain fat without gaining weight.....

If you want targetted advice you need to tell people about yourself and give a timeline.

Had a look at your diary and with the caveat you haven't given any background data your daily calorie goal is unusually high for a female who describes themselves as having a very sedentary job and trying to lose weight.

Looks like you are eating to a Fitbit derived goal so maybe your Fitbit simply isn't very accurate for you and you simply need to eat less?
Maybe disconnect it for a trial month and use a MFP derived goal instead?

sijomial wrote: »

It would be unusual to gain fat without gaining weight.....

If you want targetted advice you need to tell people about yourself and give a timeline.

Had a look at your diary and with the caveat you haven't given any background data your daily calorie goal is unusually high for a female who describes themselves as having a very sedentary job and trying to lose weight.

Looks like you are eating to a Fitbit derived goal so maybe your Fitbit simply isn't very accurate for you and you simply need to eat less?
Maybe disconnect it for a trial month and use a MFP derived goal instead?

The calorie goal is a bit high sometimes perhaps, but not consistently, and overall the intake seems very reasonable, around 1575 calories per day (not knowing her stats, but she is walking 10k steps a day)

OP only started logging two weeks ago, so if that's when the weight loss attempt and exercise started, I'm in camp 'you need more time and water retention might be masking your fat loss on the scale'.

Lietchi wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

It would be unusual to gain fat without gaining weight.....

If you want targetted advice you need to tell people about yourself and give a timeline.

Had a look at your diary and with the caveat you haven't given any background data your daily calorie goal is unusually high for a female who describes themselves as having a very sedentary job and trying to lose weight.

Looks like you are eating to a Fitbit derived goal so maybe your Fitbit simply isn't very accurate for you and you simply need to eat less?
Maybe disconnect it for a trial month and use a MFP derived goal instead?

The calorie goal is a bit high sometimes perhaps, but not consistently, and overall the intake seems very reasonable, around 1575 calories per day (not knowing her stats, but she is walking 10k steps a day)

OP only started logging two weeks ago, so if that's when the weight loss attempt and exercise started, I'm in camp 'you need more time and water retention might be masking your fat loss on the scale'.

Yeah, I am in the water-retention camp. Especially since it's hot out there, and she's female and it hasn't been that long.

1575 is where I was set PLUS exercise calories, and with 10,000 steps that was an additional 250-300 calories on top of the 1575. I lost most of my 80 pounds set at that, and I'm a retired sedentary (tiny condo dwelling) woman, height 5'7".
I ate all the exercise cals. Still do.

I'd suggest checking and re-checking the food logging. Check that all your entries are correct. Use a food scale. Log all meals and snacks, even those you don't make yourself. Treat this like an experiment and use the best data you can possibly create. Those lunch items you're logging - the turkey bulgar burrito thing and the rice pudding? Those calories look to me like they are for one or two bites...are you sure you've got those correct?

OP, if belly fat is first-on for you, it'll probably be last-off.

On top of that, if you've lost any weight at all before this point (recently), a partly-depleted area of abdominal fat can be more droopy/squishy, so look more prominent.

Posture issues, even if not new, can make that belly fat more prominent (the common issues are anterior pelvic tilt, which is carrying the top edge of the pelvic bones in front of the lower edge, so the booty sticks out but any central fat also pooches out more; and the head-forward, rounded shoulders posture many of us get these days from spending time on computers/phones, a.k.a. "nerd neck").

cmriverside wrote: »

Lietchi wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

It would be unusual to gain fat without gaining weight.....

If you want targetted advice you need to tell people about yourself and give a timeline.
Had a look at your diary and with the caveat you haven't given any background data your daily calorie goal is unusually high for a female who describes themselves as having a very sedentary job and trying to lose weight.

Looks like you are eating to a Fitbit derived goal so maybe your Fitbit simply isn't very accurate for you and you simply need to eat less?
Maybe disconnect it for a trial month and use a MFP derived goal instead?

The calorie goal is a bit high sometimes perhaps, but not consistently, and overall the intake seems very reasonable, around 1575 calories per day (not knowing her stats, but she is walking 10k steps a day)

OP only started logging two weeks ago, so if that's when the weight loss attempt and exercise started, I'm in camp 'you need more time and water retention might be masking your fat loss on the scale'.

Yeah, I am in the water-retention camp. Especially since it's hot out there, and she's female and it hasn't been that long.

1575 is where I was set PLUS exercise calories, and with 10,000 steps that was an additional 250-300 calories on top of the 1575. I lost most of my 80 pounds set at that, and I'm a retired sedentary (tiny condo dwelling) woman, height 5'7".
I ate all the exercise cals. Still do.

I'd suggest checking and re-checking the food logging. Check that all your entries are correct. Use a food scale. Log all meals and snacks, even those you don't make yourself. Treat this like an experiment and use the best data you can possibly create. Those lunch items you're logging - the turkey bulgar burrito thing and the rice pudding? Those calories look to me like they are for one or two bites...are you sure you've got those correct?

Dittoes. Even at age 59-60, 5'5", I lost fine on 1400-1600 plus (carefully estimated) exercise calories, when I started on MFP in the mid-150s pounds. I'm sedentary, or very close, outside of exercise - almost never 10,000 steps, unless I take an intentional walk.

I share Riverside's feeling that your logging could be tighter, maybe give you more insight.

Jacq_qui wrote: »

Agree two weeks is no time at all. I read some good advice here that after making significant changes to your regime to wait at least three weeks before changing it again!

Also agree about fitbit sabotaging progress. Although when I first connected my fitbit (and had more weight to lose) it seemed to all work and I ended up in a deficit, but as my weight reduced so did my progress. After disastrously trialling a 1200/day (and not lasting a week) to try and get things moving again, I disconnected my fitbit (advice from the good people here) and after a week to rebalance, weight loss started up again. Best of luck.

For a woman of the relevant age/stage, it's important to go for at least one full menstrual cycle, so she can compare body weight at the same relative point in at least two different cycles. Hormonal water fluctuations can be very distorting of scale weight: It's rare, but some women report only seeing a new low weight once a month (when losing fat at a reasonable rate based on long-term observation).

For men or menopausal women, 4-6 weeks would be a good idea, IMO.

I'm sure you (Jacq_qui) realized and adjusted for this, but I think some people forget that their devices (like fitness trackers) typically also ask us for personal descriptive data when we first get them, like age, weight, height, etc. Those data need to be updated as we lose weight, too, though the mechanisms for doing that differ depending on brand/model. As we get lighter, our base calorie needs decrease (moving less weight through the world every minute of every day), and our exercise calorie estimates for many exercise types should decrease, also. If we don't tell the device we lost weight (somehow), it doesn't know, doesn't adjust its estimates.

kshama2001 wrote: »

lisamerrison wrote: »

I’ve not lost weight but I’ve not gained it either but feel like I’ve gained belly fat. Any thoughts?

Lietchi wrote: »

There are feelings and there is reality. The two are not necessarily connected 😉
Are you measuring yourself or using the tightness of (non stretchy) clothes to judge progress, on top of weighing yourself? Or taking progress pictures?

As for not losing weight: if it's been only a few weeks and the exercise is new, water retention from the exercise could be masking fat loss on the scale. (with more info about yourself and your settings on MFP we could perhaps give more specific advice)

Yes, I used to feel like my biceps were getting bigger, but the tape measure proved they were actually getting smaller.

I second the recommendation to measure, or use the same pair of jeans to measure progress, etc.

I agree with that, so this is not a disagreement, but a "both, and" kind of comment.

I mentioned upthread that partly-depleted fat masses can be more soft, so droop a little with gravity, when part way through weight loss. It seems possible that someone's fat distribution or fat loss patterns could result in a temporary increase in waist measurement or tightness in jeans, if the central fat is the only thing the person's focused on. Bodies can be weird. "Temporary" is a key word there: If the person keeps up with weight loss, the size reduction will happen.