Net calorie geniuses, need help! 29 weeks documented.

KLi531:

Are you exercising?

It only goes back about 90 days, so what you're seeing is a break mid-August due to surgery (mommy makeover, lucky lucky me) followed by my easing back into things, a brief break corresponding with MFP week 24 (post-op week 7) where I had a healing complication. Every other day or 2-4x/wk was my usual pre-op which is outside of the scope of the report. Now it's a tad more sporadic but I still try to go 2-3x/wk.

photo_kyla:

Are the new clothes obsolete?...Have you done any measurements?

It appears that way. My lowest waist measurement pre & post-op (around 3 weeks after when swelling was gone) was 28.5", currently 29". My lowest hip measurement pre & post-op was 38.5", currently 40.25". I'm sure if I was tracking my other key spot at the widest part of my thigh there'd be an increase in proportion to the others. My jeans are snugger, fabrics with any stretch component to them do the rippling thing more on the back of the thigh than they used to.

photo_kyla:

Seeing a gain in weight but drop in body fat implies that it's muscle gain.

This is what makes me think that my maintenance threshold is somewhere back at 1,950 net, because it is physically impossible to gain muscle mass on a calorie deficit (and I believe, at maintenance... correct me if I'm wrong though). I'm not a body-builder, that isn't quite the look I'm going for, lol. In detailing this all out though, it's been a nice wake-up call that what I've been setting my net at isn't always what I actually net.

photo_kyla

(Also, if you are building muscles, if could be water retention *in* the muscles.)... If it isn't muscles, my default culprit is Sodium. Has that changed at all?

I currently take a drug called Spironolactone which should considerably mitigate sodium intake and water-weight fluctuations. It is a potassium sparing (sodium flushing) diuretic normally prescribed to edema patients to combat swelling/water-retention. I take it off-label for acne because they've found that in addition to flushing sodium, it also flushes excess amounts of androgens (male-type hormones, all women have these in teeny amounts) that contribute to luteal-phase/PMS-triggered acne. My ToM fluctuations went from 4lbs down to 1.5lbs on this med. If anyone is wondering, I do not have PCOS (which can cause a whole host of weight issues) just hormonal skin-flare-ups. Those extra androgens in hindsight are probably what made me aggressive and thick-skinned enough to be a good Marine & brig guard

inlander:

If your BF has gone from 26% to 18-ish%, you're doing something right. It looks like you're eating more calories now than you were when you were losing steadily, but I honestly think that if you've managed to gain muscle and decrease your BF% you shouldn't worry too much about what the scale says. Maybe try maintaining for awhile and if you're able to maintain on x calories, then you can cut them by y to begin losing again.

Thanks I remember how happy I was when I had the "ah-ha" moment where "eat more to lose" finally sunk in around week 12. I loved how each bump in net cals would result in breaking the plateau and moving the scale down. I'm trying to figure out where my maintenance is, because I've either obviously past it or my metabolism is just tapped out after 29 straight weeks. Like I mentioned before, I can handle maintenance or a plateau even, but this scale climbing crap... combined with the added inches makes this whole game unpredictable and I feel out of control. It's frustrating. 

inlander:

(It also looks like you may have been unintentionally zig zagging your calories on a weekly basis previously and that may have contributed to weight loss .... just a thought.)

 As for unintentional weekly zig-zagging, I'm taking the time right now to figure out the ranges of the lowest net week to the highest net week during "successful", "plateau", and "gaining" periods to see if you're onto something.

Ranges of variation during "successful" weeks are as follows:

Weeks 1-6: 550 net cal range
Weeks 12-14: 175 net cal range
Weeks 16-17: 50 net cal range

Ranges during "plateau" periods exceeding 1 week are as follows:

Weeks 7-11: 150 net cal range
Weeks 18-22: 625 net cal range

Range during "gaining" period:

Weeks 23-29: 865 net cal range

Lol, uh, maybe I should vary things up less, not more? At least that's what I get from it. It was worth a try! Thanks!

MrBrown72:

You're under 20% body-fat and a mother of three? I'd say you are doing fine... but personally I'd say go with the numbers and buy some new cloths. Best case scenario is to stay fit,... and just keep pushing the exercise. Other than that make sure you eat enough and go kick butt like you always have... Be healthy! that's all you need to be... You're the girl that can make a boy look at his shoes, kick a rock and say "aw shucks mam." and then kick his butt for calling you mam. 

That is all.

=D I'm pretty sure I'm the one saying "Aw shucks" right now, you know just what to say. I hope you can forgive me dissecting your post into the three themes. Flattery being the first, thanks! 

MrBrown72:

Sure you could drop some carbs and fat and add more cardio to your life...maybe do add some cardio to your schedule... Most importantly it's about passing PFT with a better score than you guy friends... You look like you're reacting to weight gain by seriously dropping your calories. stop it

My trainer suggested "carb cycling" before, anything from something uber-structured to just going "no carb" once a week or so; he said it would "reset" my metabolism. Granted he's just a trainer and not a nutritionist. Is there validity to that? I figured 40% carbs is already kinda low, diary is open, just please turn a blind eye to my sugars in the past week! *blush*. 40% fat is pretty high, you're right, though I've fallen into the brain-washed "French-diet" theory that explains their lower obesity rate by them getting enough fats, therefore their bodies don't hang onto fat (generally 35% to the U.S.'s recommended 20% or so that has been in vogue since the '80's). Though it certainly bears mentioning that France's lower obesity rate is also due to other lifestyle factors and their fat intake is >quality< fats (avocado, fish, leguemes) while my fat intake is certainly lacking in the quality department  I guess it's been naive of me to think I could get through this without changing my diet. I just need the damn willpower. 

You're dead-on about the cardio thing. Honestly, that's probably what all of this is about now that I think on it!!! The minor "complication" *blush* (doc says it's totally normal & will subside in time) I experienced awhile back is a slight crepitus feel/sound (internal, hubby has to put his ear on it to hear) when one of the implants is manipulated. It actually so closely resembles the location, rumbling feeling & sound of chest congestion when I'm running that it tricks me into coughing! LMAO. Then when the cough isn't productive, I feel like an idiot for wasting my energy. It's so weird and off-putting that I dropped my 10-20min warm-up run for a 3min warm-up incline brisk walk. So yeah, sit-ups, flex-arm hang PFT-wise, check. 3mi run, EPIC FAIL!

In response to every other plateau, I've actually increased my net cal setting, from 1500-1700, 1700-1950, 1950-2100 & 2100-2350. The first two times it got the scale moving down for 2-3 weeks before stalling again. The last two times it moved down the first week, then started climbing! Hence my confusion. Is "eat more to lose" not working anymore because I've exceeded maintenance, or because it takes way more eating to lose and I'm in starvation mode, or because my metabolism's had it after 29wks? This is the first time I've reduced my goal net setting (2350-2000) in response. 

MrBrown:

and stop stressing about the scale. It's natural to yo-yo in weight. Hell it's natural to put on weight for winter come to that...It's about health, not scales. It's about how you look, now what the magazines think you should measure up to... If you feel the need to be a model I'll grab my camera, lights, and stage sets and make you one next time I'm in town...But you're not a model, you're a marine

Yes, that evil demon scale! I've learned the hard way to stay the hell away from scale-based challenges (sorry Hot Mom's Challenge Group 7!!!). But that infernal ticker stares at me every day reminding me that I've gained back 6.4lbs (as of this morning, yay! Yesterday when I originally posted this it was looking more like 8.8lbs, I think I forgot to take my spironolactone or something) of the 11lbs lost, 2.6 of which are assets... *sigh* you're right, 3.8lbs is chump change and I'm a whiny vain b!tch. That doesn't change the fact that those 2.6lbs are part of me now, I can't always be putting an asterisk next to my scale number. My lowest post-op weight of 152.4 already beat my pre-op 151 plus assets weight of 153.6. Ack! There I go again. It's never been about looking like some waify model. I love my .72 WHR and the proportionate balance my new "bolt-ons" give my hips, I freaking LOVE the muscle tone I have now and not worrying about all the dimples my trainer sees when he tells me to clench my *kitten* cheeks and push my hips through at the top of a squat rep! I'd like to just keep or improve on my body comp and be more... compact. A little less "college softball player" bulky and a little more "first-term Marine" lean. My body composition is what has prevented this from becoming a full-scale meltdown. It's mildly tolerable. I'd just be happier with plateauing/maintaining hand over fist instead of gaining. I'm a control freak and when this whole MFP business feels unpredictable I get anxious.

paulabob:

Some calorie cycling tends to help. Or even a brief 2 or 3 weeks maintenance period before trying to shed more weight might help.

Thanks! I touched on weekly calorie cycling in an earlier response, are you suggesting daily calorie cycling then? If I can figure out what my maintenance level is as opposed to this steady gaining thing, I'd love to be there!

kristelpoole:

I'd say start netting fewer calories again. Not at 1200 but maybe less than 2000 again. Seemed to really work for you before...xo

(MrBrown72: Ah, there's that willpower to change my diet! Found it!!! She's right here. The woman eats so clean she probably never has a BM, lol). That's kinda what I was thinking. I just dropped my goal net from 2350 to 2000 thinking I took my "eat more to lose" theory and skipped right past maintenance (wherever that is?!?!). Lol, you won't see me doing anything less than 1500 again!

BeautyFromPain:

Start eating back half your exercise calories if not more and see your metabolism speed up!

I always try to eat them ALL back. If I don't it's an honest matter of piss poor planning and not eating enough, frequently enough throughout the day... which is why I swapped out the traditional meal-break-down MFP default in my diary to 4hr time blocks. Experimenting with only eating back a percentage of exercise calories has never been an option, thankfully... I'm tracking enough variables as it is! Though it HAS occurred to me to either drop exercise logging altogether and accounting for it on my activity level setting... (Though I really don't pay attention to MFP's lbs/week settings or activity level settings or "if every day were like today" snake oil) or spreading out calories earned through exercise over evenly to my non-exercise days... but that might go against the calorie cycling principal recommended, wouldn't it? So confusing!

(almost done, I just peeked at the additional responses)

Rachel6503: Surgery swelling fully resolved by 3 weeks post-op, the back/SI joint thing resolved with the rest and the Spironolactone med is like a total "cheat" in the water-retention arena, and yeah... you probably already read about the measurements. 

msf74: ALL REALLY AWESOME POINTS!!! Thank you! I think I clarified on some in the other responses; meds mitigate sodium/water retention, acknowledging artificial weight added surgically, pointing out weight/measurement lows post-op were already reached at the 3wk mark ("healed", right?) the trainer mentioned the glycogen thing in conjunction with the carb-cycling/carb-free-day suggestion... (could you please explain that in detail or direct me to a good layperson's breakdown?), my cardio is seriously lacking, eating cleaner, improving the quality of fats I do eat, that I likely exceeded maintenance, I did recently take a "break" in late September, that TDEE & logging exercise should account for two separate things or I'm giving myself double-credit (though I did bump my activity level in hopes the "if every day were like today" would be at least a little accurate; it would predict gains when I was still losing, now the opposite... unreliable at best) etc. Lol, head-scratching it is! 

I'm just glad I'm getting my freak-out moment out of the way now when the worst that can happen is everybody looking at me like I'm a little nuts instead of several weeks/months down the road where people are like, "great body comp, but you could use a chromosome-check Xena Warrior Princess!". Not quite the look I'm going for... What I am going for is a bit like Lena Headey in 300, you know... spray tanned muscles aside :P


SOOOO, IN SUMMARY... Thank you all for the wonderful compliments! I really have come a long way on the body composition front. The scale thing with me is more of a control thing; up until now I really enjoyed the predictability of "avoid starvation mode & you'll lose", "plateaued? Eat more to lose!", and "If you are at maintenance, you'll stay the same weight." Steadily gaining just turns this into a guessing game again and it's frustrating. I dropped about a % in body fat since June, but added 1/2" on my waist and a 1.75" on my hips and honestly gained 3.8lbs.  Odd. So if I'm gaining muscle, I must have been exceeding maintenance when I was set at  2100-2350 net/day (which actually broke down to 2050-2400). If I set at 2000, I should actually net slightly less. I just need to pinpoint maintenance and any more "eat more to lose experiments" will probably be on a smaller scale, like +50 cals. I'll also be reintroducing cardio back into my warm-ups and even putting back in that 4th workout each week that'll be just cardio. Also, I will be making it to Sunflower mart with kristelpoole's cleaner style of eating in mind.

Yeah, finding maintance IS hard. That's where I am at, but I'm trying to do so so I can start eating above it. If you really want to know you could get one of those bodybugg things. In the 2000+ thread someone was saying they were on sale...

Also, are you any good at excel? I have this excel chart I use to track average calories and their correlation to weight changes. I could send you a copy and you could replace my data with yours. However you'll need some minor excel skills to keep the links between the data and the chart operational. And yeah, you have to enter data by hand. There's no easy way to down load it from MFP.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/Rachel6503/view/my-nerdy-excel-plot-161396

YES! I am an Excel Queen Bee in remission! My hubby is going to be so thrilled I have a new reason to be hooked! I'll PM you an email you can send to, THANKS!