Weight not budging

MelindaMcLaren · February 2

I have logged in for 7 weeks with MFP saying "if you ate like this for 5 weeks, you would be 135lbs" with me still at 143 lbs
What am I doing wrong?
I am at 1300 calories, more on lifting days, I do my fat burning treadmill walk 4 days a week for 40 to 50 mins on a fast, I eat my goal weight in protien 130g p 81 c and rest in fat and lift heavy 3 times a week.
I am 51. Do you think it's a hormonal thing blocking weight loss?

yirara · February 2

Here to help.

How do you log your food? Do you use a foodscale, cups/spoons or guessing? Do you eat out a lot? Do you log every day and everything that has calories?

What do you do with exercise calories? Do you eat them back and how do you determine them?

Would you also mind sharing your current stats with us?

celestialsecrets7232 · February 2

1300 calories is not enough. You are starving yourself and that's why you are holding on to your weight.

caffeinebuzz10 · February 2

my story is different, but for what it's worth, i'm considerably bigger....currently at 325ish, on the way to 185

because of my size, and sex. I burn quite a few more calories....so I think the fact that you are a 51 year old female is a factor, but just part of the equation

7 weeks is a long plateau, but they happen....consider the possibility that at your low weight, good things could be happening to your body that the scale does not show....there is no way in hell, you put in all that work and it not be good for you...you did good

i don't eat my exercise calories, but i'm a 325lb man....we are different....at your size, and calorie budget, i'd be careful that you are getting good nutrition which might mean eating at least part of your exercise calories

AdahPotatah2024 · February 2

Me, too..I am thinking some of it is my age..late 40s and I must be eating my maintenance calories even though mfp says 1300-1400, it's probably closer to 1500 or more. I am just going to continue to eat healthy and exercise and whatever weight appears must be the right one!

mtaratoot · February 2

celestialsecrets7232 wrote: »

1300 calories is not enough. You are starving yourself and that's why you are holding on to your weight.

While 1300 calories may in fact not be enough, eating too little doesn't make the body "hang on to weight." That would be like your car getting better fuel economy because the gas gauge looks like a compass and you're heading East.

It is possible that @MelindaMcLaren might actually be logging inaccurately. It's also possible they are using foods in the database that don't have the correct nutritional information. It's hard to know what is on the menu because the food diary is private.

@MelindaMcLaren - have you used a TDEE calculator to see a different estimate of what you should be eating? I like SailRabbit. I don't know all your stats, so I just randomly looked up a 40 year old female 5'4" tall who exercises four days a week. It puts your TDEE at just over 2000 calories (BMR closer to 1300). It suggests that to lose a half pound a week, your intake would be 1771 calories. Funny - that is my calorie goal in maintenance before exercise. Just coincidence.

I suspect the issue is logging.

AnnPT77 · February 2

MelindaMcLaren wrote: »

I have logged in for 7 weeks with MFP saying "if you ate like this for 5 weeks, you would be 135lbs" with me still at 143 lbs
What am I doing wrong?
I am at 1300 calories, more on lifting days, I do my fat burning treadmill walk 4 days a week for 40 to 50 mins on a fast, I eat my goal weight in protien 130g p 81 c and rest in fat and lift heavy 3 times a week.
I am 51. Do you think it's a hormonal thing blocking weight loss?

"Hormonal things" don't block weight loss for 7 weeks in a healthy person: Usually their impact is via water retention (not fat), maybe fatigue or appetite . . . eating the right number of calories will result in fat loss.

If you're logging 1300 calories (or close on average) daily, no so-called cheat days in the regular mix, there are a few things that could result in zero weight loss:

* Errors in logging food. That's not a diss, logging can be a surprisingly subtle skill, and most of us have had face-palm moments where we discovered we were making some systematic error. Usually I'd offer that you could make your diary MFP-public so some of the MFP old hands could look at it and help you out, but I think diary sharing maybe has a bug right now.
* Overestimating exercise calories, if eating back exercise calories (as one should eat them back, if following the way MFP is designed).
* Being non-average. MFP or any other calorie calculator (even fitness tracker) is just estimating based on statistical averages for our demographic. Most people will be close, but a few individuals can be noticeably high or low in calorie needs, and a rare few may be surprisingly fat off. (MFP is off by hundreds of calories daily for me, not common, but possible.)
* Water retention from increased exercise. That doesn't usually mask weight loss for 7 weeks, but it could in rare cases if exercise has increased along those weeks.

For most people, the answer to "why am I not losing weight" is somewhere in this flowchart:

You mention being 51, and hormones. Not sure where you are in the hormonal process, but I'm 68, was 59-60 when I lost weight . . . firmly in menopause, pretty old, even severely hypothyroid (medicated): I didn't find those insurmountable barriers to loss. It can take a little analysis and problem solving along the route, though.

By the way: The 5-week prediction is IMO dumb. It says "if every day were like today", which can never be true, and there are other issues with it. I don't close my diary anymore, so don't even see it.

You can figure this out, make it work. The results will be worth it. Best wishes!

PAV8888 · February 2

My eyes suck currently. But your tiny avatar I believe depicts a pretty strong person. As in a person who when lifting heavy is lifting heavy and who is pretty athletic. Do you have that much "fluff" available to lose? Are you hitting the gym after time off or with additional vigor? Certainly you don't talk about gaining. Is wright static or decreasing? Ann's answer covers the bases but recomp and retention would not be impossible if low fluff and re activating

tomcustombuilder · February 2

celestialsecrets7232 wrote: »

1300 calories is not enough. You are starving yourself and that's why you are holding on to your weight.

incorrect
No loss after 7 weeks signals that the person is not in a weekly calorie deficit, taking in more calories than they think.

kshama2001 · February 2

MelindaMcLaren wrote: »

I have logged in for 7 weeks with MFP saying "if you ate like this for 5 weeks, you would be 135lbs" with me still at 143 lbs
What am I doing wrong?
I am at 1300 calories, more on lifting days, I do my fat burning treadmill walk 4 days a week for 40 to 50 mins on a fast, I eat my goal weight in protien 130g p 81 c and rest in fat and lift heavy 3 times a week.
I am 51. Do you think it's a hormonal thing blocking weight loss?

Are you referring to low estrogen due to your age? No, I don't think that is the culprit.

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_settings

zebasschick · February 4

celestialsecrets7232 wrote: »

1300 calories is not enough. You are starving yourself and that's why you are holding on to your weight.

Without knowing the posters height, you can't know if this is true. I lose a half a pound a week at 1,230 calories so for me, 1,300 is close to maintenance.

BTW, if starvation mode were a real thing, when I was anorexic and eating about 800 calories a day, I wouldn't have kept losing weight - but I did.

Kst76 · February 7

For me to lose 1 pound a week I have to eat less than 1000 calories a day. Ridiculous.
For 1/2 pounds I get slightly over 1250 or so.

Weight not budging

Replies

Categories