I need some help, really.

I have been trying to lose weight for a very long time. I have had many unsuccessful attempts. The only thing that is supposed to work is calorie deficit.
On my latest attempt to lose some weight, which started the beginning of October and is ongoing. I have gained a pound.
I weigh 209 pounds now. I started at 208. I am 6ft tall. I eat 1300 calories a day, which I track exactly in this app. I also walk about 6k steps a day.
Some days my feet hurt and on those days i do my exercise bike.

I am scared I am going to get discouraged and quit again. I dont know what else to do. I need some guidance.

How can i be eating in calorie deficit for 5 weeks and lose nothing but actually gain? It doesnt even make sense right?

This is why I need some help. I dont understand how I have not lost anything but actually gained instead.

Replies

  • Corina1143
    Corina1143 Posts: 3,631 Member
    edited November 2023
    2676
    How much deficit?
    According to tdee calculator, using 30 yrs old, 6 ft, 209, light exercise, tdee would be 2676.
    Eating 1300 calories would be putting stress on your body. Your bmi is 28.3, classifying you as overweight, not obese.
    How fast are you trying to lose?
    How did you reach a goal of 1300 calories?
  • MikeDiet2023
    MikeDiet2023 Posts: 9 Member
    edited November 2023
    Male
    age 43
    6ft
    i am eating 1300 calories a day or less
    i weigh 209 now. My start weight beginning of october was 208lbs.
    Desk Job
    Goals I’d like to get down to like 170 ultimately.
    But my short term goal is to get under 200.

    My very short term goal is to just make the scale go down instead of up.

    When I try and lift weights I always hurt my back. And I do extremely low weights and do it slowly.

    I walk a good amount. I try and do 6.5 k steps a day if my feet arent hurting me.
    If they are I do my exercise bike.

    Also anyone that reads this and is willing to help feel free to message me.
  • MikeDiet2023
    MikeDiet2023 Posts: 9 Member
    Corina1143 wrote: »
    2676
    How much deficit?
    According to tdee calculator, using 30 yrs old, 6 ft, 209, light exercise, tdee would be 2676.
    Eating 1300 calories would be putting stress on your body. Your bmi is 28.3, classifying you as overweight, not obese.
    How fast are you trying to lose?
    How did you reach a goal of 1300 calories?

    I looked at some app of how much i needed to eat a day to lose the weight i want and it said if i ate about that much Id be the weight i want by the date i want and all thats happened is i have lost literally nothing and gained instead.

    i have no idea what tdee or bmi is. I am not sure why you are writing the number 2676. What does that mean?

    I dont care if I lose weight super fast or anything. As long as the scale was going down. A pound every 2 weeks would be nice? But if that were the case i would have lost 3 pounds by now. And so far I gained one instead. Makes no sense.

  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 8,457 Member
    edited November 2023
    Also, with your height,you probably carry your weight a lot better than I did five inches shorter and 20 pounds heavier when I started out. It may not show up as quickly as it does on someone shorter.

    Don’t rush it. That’s when people lose the faith. Set a lower weekly goal that gives you some food. Take photos along the way. Measure yourself regularly.
  • MikeDiet2023
    MikeDiet2023 Posts: 9 Member
    You mention pain several times. Pain and inflammation can cause temporary water weight gain. Even “simple” pain like the good old duck walk from new exercise can be good for several pounds.

    I’m nursing a sprained toe right now. A stupid sprained toe. And I’m up a couple of pounds. 🤦🏻‍♀️

    Our very wise and intuitive bodies retain water and direct it to injuries or soreness, for the purposes of healing. Once the pain is gone, ya basically wee it out.

    If your weighing and logging is complete and accurate, you are severely under eating. I’m a 61 year old 5’7” female and would be comatose with those few calories. Nourish your body and fuel your activities, please. We don’t want to see you here in a month or two wondering why you’re losing hanks of hair, losing muscle, fatigued, and angry at the world.

    This is not to fuss at you. We want you to be successful. We all got off to equally rocky starts til we got the hang of it. Being here long enough to reach that stage is so important.

    Do you have a fitness tracker? My Apple Watch rocked my world- literally- and helped me jump the chasm of “I don’t get this” to “oooooooh, that’s how the numbers work”.

    Hugs to you, mike!!!

    As an aside….No one can message you unless you’ve accepted them as a friend. Mods did that do to a pornbot attack a few years ago.

    Well yeah. Pain everywhere is pretty much my body. Okay, well not that extreme but i have a lot of it often.

    I will be real. I am supposed to be in calorie deficit to lose weight right? How in the world is rasining my calories going to help me get the fat off? How am I going to be in caloric deficit if i am going to eat more calories than I am supposed to? I have been told by a few people to raise my calories. Okay lets say I do that. Then how am I going to lose weight?
    Dont I need to be in calorie deficit?

    This is what this is like

    me “hi i want to lose weight help”

    person “be in calorie deficit thats all there is to it”

    Me “okay i have done calorie deficit for 5-6 weeks and gained a pound. its not working”

    Person “you should eat more calories”

    So which is it? This doesnt even make sense at this point. I am getting conflicting information.
  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 8,457 Member
    I know, it sounds counterintuitive.

    You can be to the point you are undereating so badly that you are stressing your body. Stress of any kind -mental, physical- can cause “gain”, usually water weight.

    All I can tell you is from my own experience, I started at 1470 doing little exercise. My dietician advised me to increase to 1700, by the time I began exercising regularly and hired a personal trainer, she made me increase to 1900 and then 2100.

    I lost weight steadily throughout, even at the higher calories. That’s the trend I see many people here reporting. I currently maintain averaging about 2800, although granted, I’m extremely active.

    So many things can cause stress and temporary weight gain: under eating, muscle soreness, over exercise, surgery, cabin pressure in airplanes, long car trips, a salty snack or meal, an unusually high carb meal or snack, job relationship or family stress, even obsessing about weight itself.

    My strongest advice would be to let the reins loose a little, set a lower weekly loss goal, tap in to a fitness tracker to start developing a database you can become familiar with, and let the process work. And most of all, have patience.

    All I’m hearing from you is pain, discomfort, worry, lack of results. That, my friend, is stress, major stress.

    I’d also suggest going over to the Success Stories board and looking for the NSV (non-scale victories) thread. Sometimes in our focus on the scale, we overlook other substantial wins we’ve made.

    You may be one of those people who struggle for a month or two and then experience a “whoosh”, which is a quick “overnight” lost (although we all know there’s nothing overnight in this game! 😂)

    But stick to it. Loss has helped me in so many ways: substantially better health, confidence, so so many ways life has changed.



  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    edited November 2023
    You mention pain several times. Pain and inflammation can cause temporary water weight gain. Even “simple” pain like the good old duck walk from new exercise can be good for several pounds.

    I’m nursing a sprained toe right now. A stupid sprained toe. And I’m up a couple of pounds. 🤦🏻‍♀️

    Our very wise and intuitive bodies retain water and direct it to injuries or soreness, for the purposes of healing. Once the pain is gone, ya basically wee it out.

    If your weighing and logging is complete and accurate, you are severely under eating. I’m a 61 year old 5’7” female and would be comatose with those few calories. Nourish your body and fuel your activities, please. We don’t want to see you here in a month or two wondering why you’re losing hanks of hair, losing muscle, fatigued, and angry at the world.

    This is not to fuss at you. We want you to be successful. We all got off to equally rocky starts til we got the hang of it. Being here long enough to reach that stage is so important.

    Do you have a fitness tracker? My Apple Watch rocked my world- literally- and helped me jump the chasm of “I don’t get this” to “oooooooh, that’s how the numbers work”.

    Hugs to you, mike!!!

    As an aside….No one can message you unless you’ve accepted them as a friend. Mods did that do to a pornbot attack a few years ago.

    Well yeah. Pain everywhere is pretty much my body. Okay, well not that extreme but i have a lot of it often.

    I will be real. I am supposed to be in calorie deficit to lose weight right? How in the world is rasining my calories going to help me get the fat off? How am I going to be in caloric deficit if i am going to eat more calories than I am supposed to? I have been told by a few people to raise my calories. Okay lets say I do that. Then how am I going to lose weight?
    Dont I need to be in calorie deficit?

    This is what this is like

    me “hi i want to lose weight help”

    person “be in calorie deficit thats all there is to it”

    Me “okay i have done calorie deficit for 5-6 weeks and gained a pound. its not working”

    Person “you should eat more calories”

    So which is it? This doesnt even make sense at this point. I am getting conflicting information.

    The two most common reasons we see for people not losing weight are:

    1. Temporary water weight. New exercise can cause this, as can the stress of undereating. Since you're five weeks in, I'm inclined to discount the new exercise scenario.
    2. People eating more than they think. Please don't take this personally. It is very common, as study after study has born out.

    Let's address # 2 first. Please 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_settings

    Then I'll give you a link explaining how eating more can lead to the counter-intuitive result of weight loss.

    cs17oe75dcn0.jpg
  • wm3796
    wm3796 Posts: 98 Member
    When I first started weighing and measuring my food, I realized I was eating nearly 2x as much as I needed for a proper serving size. I also eliminated eating out as much as possible and that also helped.
  • spiriteagle99
    spiriteagle99 Posts: 3,743 Member
    One more question: how often are you weighing yourself? Weight goes up and down significantly on a day to day basis, depending on how much salt we eat, how much water we are retaining to repair sore muscles, how much waste is in our system, etc. If you are only weighing yourself once a week, you may be missing the days that you are down a pound or two, or even more. For losing weight, it helps to look at the long term trend, not the day to day ups and downs.
  • Be_Brave09
    Be_Brave09 Posts: 1 Member
    I know you are probably sick of hearing this but I wonder if instead of just riding a bike, you should try to get a variety of workouts in. Like maybe a sprint 8 or just a run. Another thing you could do is strength training, I think the reason your back is hurt is because when you lift weights you have to keep your back straight, if you don’t you can seriously injure your back. Another thing you could do is try to keep a better posture while you are sitting. I also think that you are not eating enough, maybe try to limit things like favorite foods? Try to only eat a small amount of it instead of eating a huge amount for example like eat healthy during the day and instead of eating a huge bowl of ice cream just eat a small amount. As for the pain in your feet, what shoes are you wearing like do they have good padding if they don’t have enough padding in them to support your feet it might be hurting them. Also if you try new exercises be prepared to be sore. Whenever I do a new exercise or one I haven’t done in a long time I feel sore. But being sore is good if your muscles are hurt that means you got a good workout in and that your muscles are getting stronger. So if that is deterring you, it is a good thing. I’m not sure if this will help, I’m not a professional but I am an active person. Good Luck with this!! 🍀
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,416 Member
    sollyn23l2 wrote: »
    You mention pain several times. Pain and inflammation can cause temporary water weight gain. Even “simple” pain like the good old duck walk from new exercise can be good for several pounds.

    I’m nursing a sprained toe right now. A stupid sprained toe. And I’m up a couple of pounds. 🤦🏻‍♀️

    Our very wise and intuitive bodies retain water and direct it to injuries or soreness, for the purposes of healing. Once the pain is gone, ya basically wee it out.

    If your weighing and logging is complete and accurate, you are severely under eating. I’m a 61 year old 5’7” female and would be comatose with those few calories. Nourish your body and fuel your activities, please. We don’t want to see you here in a month or two wondering why you’re losing hanks of hair, losing muscle, fatigued, and angry at the world.

    This is not to fuss at you. We want you to be successful. We all got off to equally rocky starts til we got the hang of it. Being here long enough to reach that stage is so important.

    Do you have a fitness tracker? My Apple Watch rocked my world- literally- and helped me jump the chasm of “I don’t get this” to “oooooooh, that’s how the numbers work”.

    Hugs to you, mike!!!

    As an aside….No one can message you unless you’ve accepted them as a friend. Mods did that do to a pornbot attack a few years ago.

    Well yeah. Pain everywhere is pretty much my body. Okay, well not that extreme but i have a lot of it often.

    I will be real. I am supposed to be in calorie deficit to lose weight right? How in the world is rasining my calories going to help me get the fat off? How am I going to be in caloric deficit if i am going to eat more calories than I am supposed to? I have been told by a few people to raise my calories. Okay lets say I do that. Then how am I going to lose weight?
    Dont I need to be in calorie deficit?

    This is what this is like

    me “hi i want to lose weight help”

    person “be in calorie deficit thats all there is to it”

    Me “okay i have done calorie deficit for 5-6 weeks and gained a pound. its not working”

    Person “you should eat more calories”

    So which is it? This doesnt even make sense at this point. I am getting conflicting information.

    I'm going to irritate some people and say you're probably eating a lot more than you think you are. Really focus on tracking those calories and being honest with yourself.

    ^^THIS.

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10012907/logging-accuracy-consistency-and-youre-probably-eating-more-than-you-think/p1
  • Sweetzyd
    Sweetzyd Posts: 917 Member
    I understand your pain and frustration! I, like you had been tracking my calories and eating around 1200-1400/month for 6+ months, in a deficit and lost nothing. And yes, I measured my foods out and tracked everything. I then started paying more attention to other macros, besides just calories. For instance, sugar and carbs for me. I still stay within my calorie goal, but I stay under my recommended sugar intake for the day. Actually most days I'm only eating half the recommended amount of sugar (around 25 grams). Carbs I try to stay around 70 (no more than 90). I have lost around 7 lbs in 3 weeks! I will also say, 5 years ago I didn't pay attention to carbs and sugar, it was just a calorie deficit and I lost the weight I wanted. I guess as we age, it gets a little harder to lose. Good luck to you and I hope this helps!
  • Corina1143
    Corina1143 Posts: 3,631 Member
    edited November 2023
    Bmi = body mass index. General chart assigning labels like underweight, average, overweight.
    Bmr = basal metabolic rate. How many calories you would burn in 24 hours if you slept quietly or were in a coma 24 hours.
    Tdee = total daily energy expenditure. Àn estimate by someone who never met you of how many calories you may burn in an average day, using your age, height, weight, estimate of activity.

    We're all different, but looks like all of us agree you need more than 1300 calories a day.
    Looks like we don't agree on how much we think you eat and how much and what kind of exercise you should do.
    The easy answer for your exercise is: if your goal is weight loss, calories eaten count much more than exercise. So for now, do the amount and kind of exercise you like. Don't do things that hurt more than they help.

    Concentrate on eating.
  • Sweetzyd
    Sweetzyd Posts: 917 Member
    My comment above should have stated, eating around 1200-1400/day. Not month
  • loulee997
    loulee997 Posts: 273 Member
    edited November 2023
    I have been trying to lose weight for a very long time. I have had many unsuccessful attempts. The only thing that is supposed to work is calorie deficit.
    On my latest attempt to lose some weight, which started the beginning of October and is ongoing. I have gained a pound.
    I weigh 209 pounds now. I started at 208. I am 6ft tall. I eat 1300 calories a day, which I track exactly in this app. I also walk about 6k steps a day.
    Some days my feet hurt and on those days i do my exercise bike.

    I am scared I am going to get discouraged and quit again. I dont know what else to do. I need some guidance.

    How can i be eating in calorie deficit for 5 weeks and lose nothing but actually gain? It doesnt even make sense right?

    This is why I need some help. I dont understand how I have not lost anything but actually gained instead.


    The truth is weight loss can sometimes feel like trial and error.

    The following items may be the problem. I would always suggest you start with a physical. Make sure you do not have any underlying health issues/
    • 1,300 seems slightly low. Undereating can cause just as many issues as overeating. If you are also working out, walking, biking--you may just be eating too low. Bodies can try to hang onto fat reserves if they think you are eating too far under needed calories. It stresses the body in a bad way.
    • Are you eating highly processed foods/frozen dinners? They can have a lot of salt and cause water retention.
    • Does your family have a history of insulin resistance? Usually, you'd be heavier with IR, but this condition can cause your body to gain weight and make it difficult to lose weight.
    • Make sure you are sleeping well and consistently.
    • Check for underlying deficiencies or health issues.
    • Double-check that your calories and portion sizes are correct.


    Honestly, it sounds as though your calories are too low for your height/weight/exercise level. You 'gained a pound', but this may be water weight. Basically, you stayed almost the same. In your case, I believe your issue may be 'undereating' for your activity/size level. But I would HIGHLY recommend you check your portion sizes, calories, and what you are eating. Things like salad dressings, condiments, or cheese portions can really screw you over. Things can be sneaky. If you are truly correct in your portions/calories, I would try cutting sodium-laced foods down and adding additional calories to your day.

    If that doesn't work after a month, it may be time to mix up your menu and get a thyroid and vitamin panel from your doctor.

    Some people are more sensitive to salt, carbs, or sugar. If nothing else helps, you may want to try reducing sugar or carbs slightly. For SOME people that helps give you a jumpstart... especially if you have IR.