Past solutions not working- what’s next?

You are probably eating more than you think you are, so tracking is definitely a good place to start. It can be a real shock to realize how many calories you eat or drink even when eating a healthy diet.

Your recent weight gain may be water weight due to your recent increase in activity. A hard workout makes you sweat, which makes your body decide to hold on to water for a while so it doesn't get too dehydrated.

You said your bloodwork was good, so I assume they did thyroid tests? That doesn't usually cause a lot of weight gain, but it can make it harder to lose -- at least it did for me.

Look at some of the pinned posts on how to use MFP effectively. Log everything. Maybe get a food scale to at least see if you're over or underestimating foods. Are you weighing everyday and seeing that number go up? That could be water weight. Are you eating back exercise calories? Exercise calories may be overestimated if not using a device that takes into account your heartrate.

Azurite27 wrote: »

Look at some of the pinned posts on how to use MFP effectively. Log everything. Maybe get a food scale to at least see if you're over or underestimating foods. Are you weighing everyday and seeing that number go up? That could be water weight. Are you eating back exercise calories? Exercise calories may be overestimated if not using a device that takes into account your heartrate.

Exercise calories may be overestimated even if using a device that takes into account heart rate. Heart rate doesn't correlate exactly with calorie burn. Calorie burn, via cardiovascular methods broadly, correlates reasonably well with oxygen uptake. Heart rate correlates approximately with calorie burn, better in steady state moderate intensities, worse in high/low intensities or interval work. Heart rate is a pretty bad way to estimate exercise with a significant strength component. Individuals differ in oxygen delivery per heart beat, including the same person varying as fitness improves or declines.

JenLV228 wrote: »

Hi, I’m a 47 y/o woman looking to lose 25-30 lbs. I’ve used MFP with moderate success a few times in the last 8-ish years and then I always get off track and the weight comes back.

Now that I’m older, everything I used to do to try and lose weight is no longer working. The scale keeps creeping up. Officially starting over Monday (7/18) and I have a family wedding and my daughter’s graduation in May to keep me motivated. Trying to lose 25-30 lbs.

I just joined a gym and this week will be #4 of HIIT classes MWF for an hour. Now I just need to start tracking my food.

Bloodwork is perfect, so why am I steadily gaining instead of losing or at least maintaining?!

Feel free to add me, looking for others in the same boat to share ideas and stay accountable.

Weight change (or lack thereof) is all about the balance between calorie intake and calorie expenditure. It's pretty easy to eat more when we work out more, not even realize, especially because the caloric value of exercise tends to be smaller than many people assume, and portion creep difficult to recognize if not tracking. (I worked out hard 6 days most weeks for well over a decade, ate mostly healthy foods . . . and stayed class 1 obese.)

If you're careful about accuracy in the food tracking, I think you'll get some insights, and find ways to make progress. I sure did (and lost over 50 pounds in less than a year at age 59, plus have stayed at a healthy weight since, now 66).

Another factor, as we age, is that many of us gradually and subtly reduce daily life movement. (We're not chasing toddlers any more, our jobs may involve less physical movement, we hire chores done that we once DIY, hobbies and social activities may become more sedentary, and more.) That has an impact, and it's a thing we can work on changing, too. Ideas from lots of MFP-ers here:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10610953/neat-improvement-strategies-to-improve-weight-loss/p1

If you're patient and persistent, you can do this. Food logging should help.

Wishing you success!

AnnPT77 wrote: »

Azurite27 wrote: »

Look at some of the pinned posts on how to use MFP effectively. Log everything. Maybe get a food scale to at least see if you're over or underestimating foods. Are you weighing everyday and seeing that number go up? That could be water weight. Are you eating back exercise calories? Exercise calories may be overestimated if not using a device that takes into account your heartrate.

Exercise calories may be overestimated even if using a device that takes into account heart rate. Heart rate doesn't correlate exactly with calorie burn. Calorie burn, via cardiovascular methods broadly, correlates reasonably well with oxygen uptake. Heart rate correlates approximately with calorie burn, better in steady state moderate intensities, worse in high/low intensities or interval work. Heart rate is a pretty bad way to estimate exercise with a significant strength component. Individuals differ in oxygen delivery per heart beat, including the same person varying as fitness improves or declines.

Still more accurate than simple time and current weight as MFP tries to estimate. Always best to pick a certain method and use it consistently and then you can adjust if it is estimating low or high as long term weight changes show.

You mentioned you've steadily gained - were you logging your calories in during that time? If you were logging AND thought you were at a deficit but gained over weeks/months: then either your logged calories in or your expected calories out are inaccurate. Or both?

If the weight gain is a short term thing, like over the course of 1-2 weeks: it could easily be due to water retention.

I am also 47 (48 in October) and back to losing weight again. Lost ~50 in 2014, and now I'm working on losing some of it again. I have done well the past ~6 weeks with getting back into logging & increasing my activity, and feel like I'm making progress. Slowly but surely! I signed up for a half marathon for Mar 4 2023 and I'm starting a couch to 5k. (I'm on week 1.)

You haven't answered if you are logging your food accurately... with a food scale and measuring cups for liquids. If you are gaining, you're eating more than you are burning, full stop.

HIIT is cardio.
But there's a very high chance what you are doing that is called HIIT isn't HIIT anyway - about 95% of what is advertised as HIIT is more like sub-maximal calisthenics and circuit training.
(BTW - even pro athletes wouldn't do three sessions of real HIIT every week as that would be an awful way to train!).

"There’s not an option to enter that on MFP since it only counts cardio calories, right?"
Wrong - MyFitnessPal doesn't just allocate calorie estimates for pure cardio exercise, you will find entries for both strength training and circuit training in the database. It's just a weird piece of MFP programming where the strength part of the diary is just a journal and only the "cardio" diary has calorie functionality.

It does sound like consistent food logging is what you need for a few weeks to get some useful data to work with. If you have no confidence in the dietary advice from your product pushing Dietician are you sure you want to take their calorie suggestion?

Eating a fixed calorie allowance is fine (if that actually suits you) but be aware some of that fixed allowance is from your exercise. Just like it would be if you went from a daily total from your Apple watch, a FitBit or a TDEE calculator.

BTW - no it's not your age, it's just your calorie balance. Which is good news as that is within your control to influence.

nanastaci2020 wrote: »

You mentioned you've steadily gained - were you logging your calories in during that time? If you were logging AND thought you were at a deficit but gained over weeks/months: then either your logged calories in or your expected calories out are inaccurate. Or both?

If the weight gain is a short term thing, like over the course of 1-2 weeks: it could easily be due to water retention.

I am also 47 (48 in October) and back to losing weight again. Lost ~50 in 2014, and now I'm working on losing some of it again. I have done well the past ~6 weeks with getting back into logging & increasing my activity, and feel like I'm making progress. Slowly but surely! I signed up for a half marathon for Mar 4 2023 and I'm starting a couch to 5k. (I'm on week 1.)

Good luck on your half! I did two fulls this year, but am going to do a half with my daughter in October. Just started my training program today! I recommend Hal Higdon (I think that’s the spelling) you can find a 12 week milage program to follow online for free.