Weight Loss and Exercise
Darla_Sue
Posts: 5 Member
I have been walking on the treadmill 4 miles every day, M-F, for the past 4 weeks. I have reduced my calorie intake to 1600 daily. I weigh myself every Sunday.
I am becoming discouraged because I have yet to lose any weight. In fact, I have gained 4 pounds. I really feel that I am doing everything right so I just cannot figure out what is going wrong.
I am becoming discouraged because I have yet to lose any weight. In fact, I have gained 4 pounds. I really feel that I am doing everything right so I just cannot figure out what is going wrong.
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Replies
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You aren’t in a calorie deficit. You’ll need to lower your weekly calorie amount. It sounds like you aren’t tracking calories properly and depending on your size and normal daily activity even if you are at 1,600 a day, every day, that may not be low enough for Fatloss.
If you just reduced calories a short time ago you may need to give it more time.6 -
I agree with the above poster, the first thing you should check is if you're tracking calories accurately. It happens more than you think, those little buggars are so sneaky... they have a way of adding up without noticing from a smidge here or a smidge there.
Have you been using a kitchen scale/measuring spoons/etc. to meal prep?
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It's the calories that matter. The exercise burns a few, but you burn more calories from just being alive and doing daily stuff than by walking 4 miles on the treadmill. If your calorie intake is sufficiently less than the number of calories you burn in total, you will lose fat.
Based on reading lots of threads here, plus personal weight loss experience, the most probable explanation is inaccurate calorie counting. That's not a diss: Most any of us who've calorie counted for a while have had some face-palm moments of realization that we'd been undercounting (unintentionally, unknowingly). If you make your diary MFP public, and say so here, perhaps some of the MFP will take a look and see if they notice anything they've stumbled over in the past.
I exercised hard (even trained and competed as an athlete, not always unsuccessfully) for a dozen years, but stayed overweight/obese. When I got my calorie intake in line with that activity as needed, I lost weight.
In your case, since it's only been 4 weeks, there's a narrow possibility that you're still experiencing some water retention from the new exercise. (I'm assuming it's new, or at least increased).
I'm guessing from your screen name that you're female, and water retention from monthly menstrual cycles can also cause confounding scale results, if the timing is just wrong. It's not the most common pattern, but a few women only see a new low weight once a month, even when their calorie level is just right for fat loss.
You don't say how tall, old, or active (in daily life) you are, nor what your current weight is. You don't say whether you're adding your exercise calories to the 1600 and eating those, too, as MFP suggests. All that gives us zero basis for even making a wild guess at whether 1600 would likely be a calorie deficit for you, or not.
For many women, 1600 calories, or even 1600 plus accurate exercise calories, would be a small to moderate calorie deficit, probably a pound a week loss or less. For some women, who are quite a bit larger than average and/or have a very physical job, it might be a bigger deficit, faster loss. For other women, usually ones who are smaller, older, sedentary, 1600 would cause weight gain.
Best recommendation:
Log meticulously, using a food scale, for a few weeks (whole menstrual cycle). Log every bite, lick, or taste. Log condiments, cooking oils, dressings, drinks: Every single thing that goes into your mouth, other than water. Log good days and bad days both, 100% honestly. Estimate when you must, but don't lowball. If you have so-called "cheat days" or "cheat meals", log them.
If you log and eat exercise calories, ask here whether your estimates are reasonable. For walking or running, I'd suggest using this, with the "energy" box set to "net":
https://exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs
That will give a conservative estimate.
Open your diary and ask experienced people to take a look. Don't be offended when they ask questions about things, they only know what they read.
You can make this work, if you continue to work at it. People here will try to help you, if you let them.
Let us know how it's going, as you go forward, if you feel up to it, OK?
Best wishes!6 -
tomcustombuilder wrote: »You aren’t in a calorie deficit. You’ll need to lower your weekly calorie amount. It sounds like you aren’t tracking calories properly and depending on your size and normal daily activity even if you are at 1,600 a day, every day, that may not be low enough for Fatloss.
If you just reduced calories a short time ago you may need to give it more time.
Tom apart from MFP
Do you know of any websites that can give u a good estimate on how many calories you can have per day?
I find your posts and replies inspiring
x 0 -
Any website calculator will just be an estimate at best.Lildarlinz wrote: »tomcustombuilder wrote: »You aren’t in a calorie deficit. You’ll need to lower your weekly calorie amount. It sounds like you aren’t tracking calories properly and depending on your size and normal daily activity even if you are at 1,600 a day, every day, that may not be low enough for Fatloss.
If you just reduced calories a short time ago you may need to give it more time.
Tom apart from MFP
Do you know of any websites that can give u a good estimate on how many calories you can have per day?
I find your posts and replies inspiring x
The best approach is to start somewhere reasonable and be accurate with counting and tracking for 6 weeks then review progress or lack of it and adjust calorie’s accordingly.
If you’re mostly sedentary apart from exercise activities shoot for a calorie amount on the lower end of the scale.
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Sailrabbit
I know, i know.... I thought it was a joke at first too!
Note that MFP sedentary is an activity factor of 1.25. MFP uses 1.25, 1.4, 1.6 and 1.8 sailrabbit and many other estimators use a slightly different activity factor. You see the activity factor in the small print
Based on your work with steps in the 10 to 15k range you would be in the very active category, at worsen in the active0 -
There are mistakes that people commonly make that cause them to not lose weight that we might be able to spot if you change your Diary Sharing settings to Public. In the app, go to Settings > Diary Setting > Diary Sharing > and check Public. Desktop: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings1
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A couple of questions: Do you hold on to the top of the treadmill or rails when you walk? Doing so reduces the resistance ESPECIALLY if you're one of those ones you jack it up to the highest level and hold on for dear life. What speed are you walking? Also do you measure you food by scale or just guess it's right?I have been walking on the treadmill 4 miles every day, M-F, for the past 4 weeks. I have reduced my calorie intake to 1600 daily. I weigh myself every Sunday.
I am becoming discouraged because I have yet to lose any weight. In fact, I have gained 4 pounds. I really feel that I am doing everything right so I just cannot figure out what is going wrong.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 35+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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Thanks for the responses. I’m 59, 5’7, and currently weigh 190. I walk the treadmill at 3.0 mph for 90 minutes. I hold onto the treadmill with one hand as I have issues with my balance. I wear my garmin on the left wrist and that counts my steps.
I do not weigh my food as I use pre-packaged meals. Please feel free to look at my diet and give me pointers. Thank you all so much.2 -
Thanks for the responses. I’m 59, 5’7, and currently weigh 190. I walk the treadmill at 3.0 mph for 90 minutes. I hold onto the treadmill with one hand as I have issues with my balance. I wear my garmin on the left wrist and that counts my steps.
I do not weigh my food as I use pre-packaged meals. Please feel free to look at my diet and give me pointers. Thank you all so much.
https://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/diary/Darla_Sue
I see a lot of days without any logging and days that are only partially logged; completing your diary every day is a good place to start.
I also recommend you do weigh pre-packaged meals as there can be a lot of variance. If something is supposed to weigh 100 grams and it is actually 120 grams, you'd use 1.2 for the serving.
I'm curious about the 0.25 cup of sugar in your breakfasts. If this is accurate, consider tapering down. And adding a protein source. Your breakfasts are currently 4 g protein and 50 g sugar. You'll quite likely feel fuller if that meal has a better balance.1 -
kshama2001 wrote: »Thanks for the responses. I’m 59, 5’7, and currently weigh 190. I walk the treadmill at 3.0 mph for 90 minutes. I hold onto the treadmill with one hand as I have issues with my balance. I wear my garmin on the left wrist and that counts my steps.
I do not weigh my food as I use pre-packaged meals. Please feel free to look at my diet and give me pointers. Thank you all so much.
https://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/diary/Darla_Sue
I see a lot of days without any logging and days that are only partially logged; completing your diary every day is a good place to start.
I also recommend you do weigh pre-packaged meals as there can be a lot of variance. If something is supposed to weigh 100 grams and it is actually 120 grams, you'd use 1.2 for the serving.
I'm curious about the 0.25 cup of sugar in your breakfasts. If this is accurate, consider tapering down. And adding a protein source. Your breakfasts are currently 4 g protein and 50 g sugar. You'll quite likely feel fuller if that meal has a better balance.
Yeah I just noticed that too
194 calories for 0.25g of sugar is quite high
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Darla…I’m new to this myself…Tom up there ^ has been a great help and he will correct me if I’m wrong but this is my take on things
194 calories for 0.25g of sugar is too high..unless it’s incorrect, or you do have a sweet tooth
like all people do I love a bit of cheesecake now and then (yum)
The steak thing..I just googled it, it’s an American thing right?
It contains 33g of fat…for just that one bit of steak (wasn’t sure if it included the mash and green beans like it does on Google images)
A sirloin steak (again googled so average) is 201 calories has no carbs and has 14g of fat… 27g of protein
Green beans are 31 calories so that’s 232 calories in total…so that’s about 1/2 of the calories of your meal that is 590
Maybe Google hungryman steak and look at some of the reviews
I know it’s easier to just heat things up in the microwave because of work purposes…I eat really crap at work too…I work 12.5 hour shifts…so I find it easy to buy just a sandwich or something sometimes
Take a deep breather, maybe take a step back…if at first you don’t succeed…try again xx 2 -
Hi Darla! I think you've done one of the most important things that will make you successful - seek answers rather than giving up.
I can tend to overwhelm myself with taking on too much at once, so I'm going to put in the disclaimer that my suggestions are meant to be taken one at a time. The order is what makes sense for me, but feel free to pick and choose what resonates with you.
1. Set a realistic goal for calories. I personally have a sedentary job, so I set my activity level at sedentary and I log most of my exercise (I use an Apple Watch for that). I have my MFP settings at "lose 1.5 Lbs/week" and "add back in exercise calories". I'm 5'4", 47, and weigh 185lbs and that puts me at a base calorie level of 1200. I walk about 3 miles on most days, which earns me another 300 calories, bringing my total to around 1500 calories a day.
2. Log everything you eat for (at least) a full month. Use a reliable kitchen scale (one that measures both oz and g is best) for things that don't come pre-measured. I haven't felt the need to weigh pre-measured items, but think the suggestion to do so would not be a bad one.
3. Weigh every day. This is a controversial one for some, but I find that once a week weighing puts too much weight (pun intended) on that one number. If something happens to artificially bumps my weight up that one day (lots of salt or carbs or other water retention), I am more discouraged and have to wait a whole week to see if that number was "real".
4.Pick something you can add to your diet that will improve nutrition and/or satisfaction level. An example would be to start adding fruit to your morning grits. The fruit would add vitamins, fiber, and volume to the meal. It might also make it easier for you to back off on the amount of sugar you want.
5. Pick a food to experiment with that boosts protein and/or fiber. My family still teases me about my chia seeds and jicama, but they are a normal part of my diet now and part of the reason I never miss my fiber goal.
6. Try meal prepping. It looks like you're already a creature of habit with meals and that can work in your favor. If you can't find prepared meals that are satisfying for you and meat your nutritional goals, invest some time once a week in prepping something that will. I have a go-to cabbage based salad that keeps well for a full week and only needs some pre-cooked chicken and salad dressing of choice to be a very nutritious and satisfying meal.
7. Probably should be at the top of this list and repeated frequently - give yourself grace and time. I can see several things that you are doing right, just in your initial post. You are moving your body more. You are increasing your awareness of what you are eating. You are weighing yourself to see how changes impact your weight. You are giving changes a few weeks to take effect before considering a change. You are asking for help. YOU ARE NOT GIVING UP! All of those should be celebrated.
Happy to answer any questions about what has worked for me specifically, but you've got lots of great guidance from others posting here.
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Lildarlinz wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »Thanks for the responses. I’m 59, 5’7, and currently weigh 190. I walk the treadmill at 3.0 mph for 90 minutes. I hold onto the treadmill with one hand as I have issues with my balance. I wear my garmin on the left wrist and that counts my steps.
I do not weigh my food as I use pre-packaged meals. Please feel free to look at my diet and give me pointers. Thank you all so much.
https://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/diary/Darla_Sue
I see a lot of days without any logging and days that are only partially logged; completing your diary every day is a good place to start.
I also recommend you do weigh pre-packaged meals as there can be a lot of variance. If something is supposed to weigh 100 grams and it is actually 120 grams, you'd use 1.2 for the serving.
I'm curious about the 0.25 cup of sugar in your breakfasts. If this is accurate, consider tapering down. And adding a protein source. Your breakfasts are currently 4 g protein and 50 g sugar. You'll quite likely feel fuller if that meal has a better balance.
Yeah I just noticed that too
194 calories for 0.25g of sugar is quite high
It's 0.25 cup, not grams
That is the right amount of calories for 1/4 cup of sugar - I was questioning if that is the actual amount used.2 -
It's a PIA but weigh and log everything every single day. It's the only thing that works for me, even if you only do it for a month it will give you a good idea.
I hate to be that guy, but try and get your sodium under control, you eat more in one meal that I do in an entire day. I was a salt fiend in my younger days and I had perfect blood pressure, it eventually caught up to me and I had no choice but to go on a very low sodium diet. It's totally changed my life, I feel a million times better, have way more energy, sleep better, I could go on and on but the improvements were shocking.
I did a 75 mile bike ride at a really fast pace and the next day I was 2 pounds heavier because I ate a ton of sodium after the ride. That plus not being able to control my blood pressure even with medication was my wake up call. I firmly believe one day high sodium diets will be seen like smoking, just super unhealthy. When I went low sodium I lost 6 pounds in 5 days and my blood pressure dropped 20-25 points2 -
kshama2001 wrote: »Lildarlinz wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »Thanks for the responses. I’m 59, 5’7, and currently weigh 190. I walk the treadmill at 3.0 mph for 90 minutes. I hold onto the treadmill with one hand as I have issues with my balance. I wear my garmin on the left wrist and that counts my steps.
I do not weigh my food as I use pre-packaged meals. Please feel free to look at my diet and give me pointers. Thank you all so much.
https://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/diary/Darla_Sue
I see a lot of days without any logging and days that are only partially logged; completing your diary every day is a good place to start.
I also recommend you do weigh pre-packaged meals as there can be a lot of variance. If something is supposed to weigh 100 grams and it is actually 120 grams, you'd use 1.2 for the serving.
I'm curious about the 0.25 cup of sugar in your breakfasts. If this is accurate, consider tapering down. And adding a protein source. Your breakfasts are currently 4 g protein and 50 g sugar. You'll quite likely feel fuller if that meal has a better balance.
Yeah I just noticed that too
194 calories for 0.25g of sugar is quite high
It's 0.25 cup, not grams
That is the right amount of calories for 1/4 cup of sugar - I was questioning if that is the actual amount used.
My bad…:) 194 calories is high x I thought it was incorrect aswell xx
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While the scale might not show immediate weight loss, walking on a treadmill can help you lose fat and gain muscle. Don't get caught up in weekly ups and downs, keep your eyes on the long term progress0
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Lildarlinz wrote: »Tom apart from MFP
Do you know of any websites that can give u a good estimate on how many calories you can have per day?
I find your posts and replies inspiring x
You might find a website, but it will be a really rough estimate. It depends on a whole load of things such as your body composition, basal metabolic rate and your lifestyle. For example, lets say you had two people who both had the same composition and basal metabolic rate - one has a desk job and the other is a teacher - the teacher will burn more calories due to standing and walking around.
I treated it all as a big maths problem, but I needed to know the starting number so what I did to work out my calories is pick a number - my first go was 2000cal then stick to it for two to three weeks with high discipline and see if I lose any fat % (NOT weight as the first few weeks your % water will change) using scales like Garmin or Fitbit that calculate your fat % (if you have a gym with some proper composition equipment check against theirs too). I'm a 5ft 6in man and thought that a 500 calorie daily deficit would be fine, but the first two weeks I didn't lose any fat (or weight!). I have a desk job and I'm sat down 8 hours a day, so without additional exercise I can only go up to 1950 calories before I put weight on - I was shocked it was so low but it makes perfect sense given that I've tried to diet a number of times and never really got anywhere.
Knowing this has been a god send, as now I can plan my meals based on why my body needs and then exercise to add more food if I want or if I want to burn a little extra fat. I seem to need to be around 3000 calorie deficit per 1lbs per week (again, found out by logging everything and seeing the results over a few weeks) - so if I want to lose 2lbs a week I need to do this:
2lbs = 6000 calories deficit
1950 * 7 = 13650 calories per week
13650- 6000= 7650
7650/ 7 = 1092 calories per day - but I need to eat more than that to stay healthy!
Add 350 calories waking 3 miles per day to my allowance = 1442 calories per day to consistently lose 2lbs a week. It's worked great for me. I was still really hungry so I added swimming in 3 times a week which gives me an extra 125 calories per day taking me to 1567 calories per day which is doable and a more realistic number.
This obviously averages out over the week - some days you can consume more/less calories other days more/less exercise - but so long as over a week I'm roughly 6k down I should be close to the 2lbs loss mark.
The calories you can have will change over time too, as you might gain muscle which will burn a small amount more calories to maintain and as you lose weight you're using less calories to move yourself around.
The fact that it takes me 1567 calories WITH exercise to be in a deficit to lose weight is really eye opening and makes me understand why so many people find it hard to lose weight. If you don't stay disciplined and have a KitKat every other day, then a bowl of ice cream on a Sunday and say to yourself "Oh a small takeaway with my partner will be okay" on a Saturday night you've thrown away all the hard work for the whole week and will likely not lose anything - which is exactly what I've done for the last decade dieting on and off!2 -
AndyMcCall wrote: »Lildarlinz wrote: »Tom apart from MFP
Do you know of any websites that can give u a good estimate on how many calories you can have per day?
I find your posts and replies inspiring x
You might find a website, but it will be a really rough estimate. It depends on a whole load of things such as your body composition, basal metabolic rate and your lifestyle. For example, lets say you had two people who both had the same composition and basal metabolic rate - one has a desk job and the other is a teacher - the teacher will burn more calories due to standing and walking around.
I treated it all as a big maths problem, but I needed to know the starting number so what I did to work out my calories is pick a number - my first go was 2000cal then stick to it for two to three weeks with high discipline and see if I lose any fat % (NOT weight as the first few weeks your % water will change) using scales like Garmin or Fitbit that calculate your fat % (if you have a gym with some proper composition equipment check against theirs too). I'm a 5ft 6in man and thought that a 500 calorie daily deficit would be fine, but the first two weeks I didn't lose any fat (or weight!). I have a desk job and I'm sat down 8 hours a day, so without additional exercise I can only go up to 1950 calories before I put weight on - I was shocked it was so low but it makes perfect sense given that I've tried to diet a number of times and never really got anywhere.
Knowing this has been a god send, as now I can plan my meals based on why my body needs and then exercise to add more food if I want or if I want to burn a little extra fat. I seem to need to be around 3000 calorie deficit per 1lbs per week (again, found out by logging everything and seeing the results over a few weeks) - so if I want to lose 2lbs a week I need to do this:
2lbs = 6000 calories deficit
1950 * 7 = 13650 calories per week
13650- 6000= 7650
7650/ 7 = 1092 calories per day - but I need to eat more than that to stay healthy!
Add 350 calories waking 3 miles per day to my allowance = 1442 calories per day to consistently lose 2lbs a week. It's worked great for me. I was still really hungry so I added swimming in 3 times a week which gives me an extra 125 calories per day taking me to 1567 calories per day which is doable and a more realistic number.
This obviously averages out over the week - some days you can consume more/less calories other days more/less exercise - but so long as over a week I'm roughly 6k down I should be close to the 2lbs loss mark.
The calories you can have will change over time too, as you might gain muscle which will burn a small amount more calories to maintain and as you lose weight you're using less calories to move yourself around.
The fact that it takes me 1567 calories WITH exercise to be in a deficit to lose weight is really eye opening and makes me understand why so many people find it hard to lose weight. If you don't stay disciplined and have a KitKat every other day, then a bowl of ice cream on a Sunday and say to yourself "Oh a small takeaway with my partner will be okay" on a Saturday night you've thrown away all the hard work for the whole week and will likely not lose anything - which is exactly what I've done for the last decade dieting on and off!
Hi Andy!
I’ve been really good I’ve had no takeaways for 2 weeks, no alcohol, made my own sweet treats or stuck to very low calorie ice pops (41 calories for a rocket lolly) due to the hot weather and I’ve lost 5lb
I’m so proud of myself…
I plan to get on my weights hopefully next week.I’ve just been suffering from sciatica this week.
I’m a healthcare assistant on a busy ward so I can get about 17,000 steps in at least in one day and I do it 3 times a week…
I’ve set my lifestyle to sedentary…but I Google steps to calories and put them in MFP which I will be doing with my other exercises next week
I have a treadmill at home, some weights, the elastic band things haha and a weighted hula hoop I feel more comfortable in my own home doing my workouts than going to the gym…
Calorie counting really works!
Hope u are good xx
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Yeah, you're not going to gain muscle on the treadmill from walking on it. Muscle is gained through progressive overload and losing weight would reduce resistance, not increase it.Mark031111 wrote: »While the scale might not show immediate weight loss, walking on a treadmill can help you lose fat and gain muscle. Don't get caught up in weekly ups and downs, keep your eyes on the long term progress
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 35+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
2 -
Unorthodox suggestion and I'm not a paid shill, but it works so well for me. I buy Home Chef meals every week and they have the calories per meal already calculated for you--it's great portion control. Make a 2 serving meal and save one for leftovers. The calories are between 350-750 per meal and because it's more fresh ingredients and not processed/frozen, it takes longer for your body to break them down and you feel fuller longer. The trick is waiting that extra 10 or 15 minutes for your stomach to feel full after consuming a meal and not continuing to eat more. I really love breakfast foods, but I've gotten my body used to intermittent fasting and now I even drink my coffee black so I can IF until lunch every day. With exercise added back in (strength training with dumbbells, lawn mowing, and walking my dogs) I'm often able to eat 2 home chef meals and still have a half-pint of my favorite ice cream as an evening snack and still hit my goal. By working in food that I like, it doesn't seem so onerous and monotonous.
It doesn't take a lot of work to make the meals and the food is so good. I don't feel like I'm dieting at all. I just thought of this for your issue because it might help you to control some more of the factors around your weight and see what the results may be. I also don't stress MFP calorie counting perfection at the close of every day. It's more about putting in the calories you consume from earlier in the day so you can make good final choices at the end of the day. The proof is in the weight loss rate calculated over multiple weeks. Mine started at about 2.33 pounds per week and it's been levelling down to 2.1 per week as I continue with my regimen.1
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