WHY AM I NOT LOSING??? :(

Let's stay on point here. All I'm arguing is that it's a waste to eat back all your exercise calories. And your use of the word "extreme" is noted. Your body's vital processes require a certain amount of energy and certain key nutritional components. The argument that these resources are suddenly absent when some arbitrary daily calorie threshold is exceeded is fallacious at best

At no point did I state that there's a magic calorie number that you have to stay over no matter what, in fact in other posts I stated quite the opposite. Determining what the certain amount of energy for your body's vital processes is required is the part of this equation that's tricky. That is also not a finite number either. If only netting 200 calories a day will result in death, netting 201 calories a day isn't going to leave you healthy as an ox either. The larger the deficit, the more damage will be done. Finding a deficit that still results in weight loss but doesn't harm you is what's important. And I'm not going to keep talking about the size of the deficit, that's been my stance from the beginning, just because you don't want to emphasize it anymore doesn't change my point.

The entire argument posed here is that you should be eating back your calories to avoid creating too large a deficit. Exercise is useful for more than just burning calories. If you're already eating enough such that the exercise you do does not put you into a dangerously high disparity then by all means, continue not eating. If, however, it does, you should strongly consider increasing calories.

You say you eat 700 calories a day net and feel good. I would bet money on one or more of these three things:
A) You're underestimating your caloric intake
You're overestimating your caloric expenditure
C) You're a very tiny person (in which case I'm pretty sure B would still be a factor)

For Biggest Loser, people with significantly higher body fat percentages can handle larger caloric deficits before experiencing adverse effects. They were also monitored heavily by doctors to ensure safety. So yeah, by all means, toughen up and push yourself harder...when you have a slew of doctors monitoring you to make sure you don't die.

An increase in net calories that still maintains a healthy deficit will result in improved body function and performance. This will better equip the person to continue on with their diet.

You're explanation of primitive peoples doing it totally makes you one of those 'experts', infallible evidence right there. Ancient societies never had ANY problems with malnourished people and widespread starvation.

I love how you assume I'm soft because I'm siding with a more healthy and moderate approach to dieting.

Enjoy your workouts, I'd be interested to see how you're doing in 10 years.

Oh, and hurray for ruggers (@rtalencar85). I played lock on my college club for a couple of seasons.

Tight head prop here, you guys made me look a heckuva lot stronger in the scrum than I actually was

Earlier you said that eating back exercise calories was BS. Now you're saying do what works for you? Which is it?

The OP isn't eating back her calories and it isn't working for her, so now what? Are you trying to argue with me/us, or trying to help the OP?

Furthermore, very few people would say a regular diet of 600cal (net) per day is a good idea. While I agree that you should find out what works for you, I'm responsible enough to NOT run around blindly suggesting the things that work for me.

I said that eating back ALL your exercise calories was BS. And, just for the record, I think eating back any significant portion of exercise calories is ridiculous if your primary goal is weight loss. You're not going to convince me that an increase in net calories, any way you choose to spin it, is somehow going to lead to an increase in weight loss - not in the reality I live in. Do you realize how ridiculous that is? I just don't believe anyone who claims that this is indeed the case. There's no scientific basis for it. We can argue all day about what a healthy deficit is, but that's not what I'm trying to do here.

All I'm saying is that it's stupid to go and do a bunch of exercise with the goal of losing weight, and then eat it all back just because MFP says you should. Yeah, exercise has many more benefits than just losing weight. But I'd venture to guess that the primary drive of most MFP users is to lose weight. Eating back exercise calories is just plain sabotage to weight loss.

Have you ever watched The Biggest Loser on television? Do you think those people are eating back all their exercise calories? Do those deficits qualify as "extreme"? Give me a freaking break. Of course the "experts" don't advocate such aggressive weight loss programs. It's not that the human body can't physically handle the stress. It's just that the average physically lazy and overweight person isn't mentally tough enough to stick with it. Our primitive ancestors survived on a much more limited and less diverse diet than what we have, and they were a lot more active to boot. We've gone soft. Like I said earlier, people just need to harden the *kitten* up and stop obsessing about so-called unhealthy deficits.

Don't waste your time exercising (unless you actually enjoy it) if you're just planning on eating those calories back. I'm out.

Brilliantly put. Please stick around

Hey rtalencar85,

I use MFP only to track my calorie intake. MFP is severely flawed when it comes to everything else. I created a spreadsheet that does the real heavy lifting.

First of all, I use the Harris Benedict Equation to calculate my BMR requirements based on TODAY's weight - not my weight six weeks ago. Why can't MFP incorporate this simple concept into their program? I then log my daily calorie intake as calculated by MFP. My exercise calories are calculated using the calculators at healthstatus.com, which seem to be a bit more conservative and more in line with reality. Although, most of MFP's exercise calculations are not that far off. I arrive at my daily deficit by subtracting intake calories from the Harris Benedict basal calculation and then adding calories burned. I apply this deficit (as a ratio to 3500 calories) to today's weight in order to predict my weight tomorrow morning. I take it a step further by incorporating a simple numerical factor into the basal calculation. I tweak this factor once a week in order to make my predicted weight loss match my actual weight loss. In essence, I've customized the Harris Benedict formula to almost exactly match my real world results. The more data I log, the more accurate and precise my predicted weight becomes and any inaccuracies in my calorie intake or exercise calculations are automatically normalized. It works perfectly.

I only took the time to post all that because I wanted to point out that all of your assumptions are wrong. I am very analytical with my calculations - even going so far as to back calculate and adjust for error, as laid out above. Does MFP do that? And I don't consider myself a "tiny" person. I'm a 5'11 male and I weighed in at 179 lbs this morning. Down from 200 lbs on Labor Day. And I feel better than ever at my "dangerously high" caloric deficit. And I certainly couldn't go knock out a 10 mile run at a respectable pace 6 weeks ago. I guess any day now I'm due to collapse into a broken pile of skin and bones? Again, this is all anecdotal so take it for what it's worth - or don't, because it's not relevant to you. Just please stop making assumptions about me.

And you are absolutely right that people with significantly higher body fat percentages can handle larger deficits. That's 95 percent of the people here.

Hey rtalencar85,

I use MFP only to track my calorie intake. MFP is severely flawed when it comes to everything else. I created a spreadsheet that does the real heavy lifting.

First of all, I use the Harris Benedict Equation to calculate my BMR requirements based on TODAY's weight - not my weight six weeks ago. Why can't MFP incorporate this simple concept into their program? I then log my daily calorie intake as calculated by MFP. My exercise calories are calculated using the calculators at healthstatus.com, which seem to be a bit more conservative and more in line with reality. Although, most of MFP's exercise calculations are not that far off. I arrive at my daily deficit by subtracting intake calories from the Harris Benedict basal calculation and then adding calories burned. I apply this deficit (as a ratio to 3500 calories) to today's weight in order to predict my weight tomorrow morning. I take it a step further by incorporating a simple numerical factor into the basal calculation. I tweak this factor once a week in order to make my predicted weight loss match my actual weight loss. In essence, I've customized the Harris Benedict formula to almost exactly match my real world results. The more data I log, the more accurate and precise my predicted weight becomes and any inaccuracies in my calorie intake or exercise calculations are automatically normalized. It works perfectly.

I only took the time to post all that because I wanted to point out that all of your assumptions are wrong. I am very analytical with my calculations - even going so far as to back calculate and adjust for error, as laid out above. Does MFP do that? And I don't consider myself a "tiny" person. I'm a 5'11 male and I weighed in at 179 lbs this morning. Down from 200 lbs on Labor Day. And I feel better than ever at my "dangerously high" caloric deficit. And I certainly couldn't go knock out a 10 mile run at a respectable pace 6 weeks ago. I guess any day now I'm due to collapse into a broken pile of skin and bones? Again, this is all anecdotal so take it for what it's worth - or don't, because it's not relevant to you. Just please stop making assumptions about me.

And you are absolutely right that people with significantly higher body fat percentages can handle larger deficits. That's 95 percent of the people here.

Apologies, I went home, so only checking this now. First of all, I went to this site: http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/harris-benedict-equation/

For the formula, I guessed your age to be 30 because I don't know it, but given that you have a BMR of 1878.87. Even assuming you're sedentary, that puts your daily needs according to the method you use at 2255. Your BMR at 200 lbs using the same calculation was 2412. I'm going to cheat a bit and take the mean, so I am assuming constant weight loss. That puts a very rough estimate of your BMR over this period at 2333. According to your previous post, you net approximately 700 calories a day. There's 65 days between September 5th and November 8th. That brings your total deficit to 106145, or 30.33 pounds. You have lost 21 pounds. It's simple math as you say, you shouldn't have to tweak such simple math with a numerical factor to account for results 33% lower than expected (it's actually much worse than that, if you're burning 800 calories a day that puts you at very active, which would change the total deficit to 172,575 or 49.31 pounds). The fact of the matter is, you are likely over estimating your exercise and/or under estimating your caloric intake (people are NOTORIOUSLY bad at accurately logging caloric intake), which puts you closer to a healthier range. Alternatively, you listed one of your more extreme days when your average is much more moderate...that is just as bad. The fact is if you are truly on such an extreme diet and you can bang out a 10k at a respectable pace good for you, if you were eating more moderately and supplying your body with everything it needs your performance would be even better. Your weight loss might not be as drastic, but it would be healthier and you would lose less LBM.

Weight loss is easy...stop eating. My primary point when making suggestions is to promote weight loss that also encourages overall health and is more likely to be permanent loss than just a yo-yo. That is...I don't know...maybe because I have some experience with extreme weight loss.

If your argument had been from the beginning that MFP has a bad method estimating caloric requirements, or that the entries for exercise are a gross overestimate, or that larger deficits are fine for larger people (but at a certain point become dangerous) that would have been fine. I took issue with the blanket statement that eating back your exercise calories was BS. That was why I tried to be careful to note that it was extreme deficits that were unhealthy, not that deficits were unhealthy.

I'll admit, I was making assumptions about you. My general assumption was that 700 calories a day net was unhealthy for all but the most extreme cases (massive obesity or extremely low daily caloric needs, ie being REALLY small). My assumption about you was that you were incorrectly estimating one or more aspects of your diet/fitness routine and/or only listing one of your more extreme days and posing it as the norm. That is a disservice to anyone reading this. I doubt you're going to be able to change my mind about this, just like I imagine you're not going to change your opinion about me being 'soft', but in the event that I am wrong about you I apologize.

The OP, like many people on here, is only looking to lose 20 pounds. That's a very reasonable amount of weight. Saying 95% is just pulling a number out of the air and disingenuous.

Agreed. With reference to the Biggest Loser, Jillian Michaels is my God. She's the one who I quoted "Calories in, Calories out. Weight loss is simple math. Losing weight is simple, it is not easy." I just listened to her podcast in which she said it again. So it didn't come from me. Anyone wanna call Jillian and tell her she's wrong? Anyone wanna call her and tell her how mathematicians don't have to take biology courses because it isn't simple math? Lame

Also, I've only been on these message boards for a few days, and I can tell you honestly I absolutely HATE the bashing that goes around. Are you people here to help & motivate others or are you simply here to boast your egos around and bash others?

It's SICKENING. Educating others is not about tearing them down in the process. Learn how to get your points across without insulting someone.

To address bashing first. I will admit that my initial posts probably came off a bit rude, and that the subsequent discussion was heated. However, I was careful not to resort to name calling (I'll admit I was a bit sarcastic, but that's just how I talk) and tried to keep the debate at least somewhat civil. If I offended you in any way I apologize.

If I wanted to boost my ego, I wouldn't be on a weight loss forum. I do honestly want to help others with the same struggle I'm going through. I believe that some of the advice posted is a disservice to them, and can lead to failure with their diets/fitness routines or worse, health complications. That's why I reacted the way I did.

To your first point, I am biased against Jillian Micheals. However I do know that she has a variety of products out that have actually helped people, so I'll keep my thoughts to myself. I'm not lame for thinking that a mathematician shouldn't automatically be the supreme authority in nutrition. I believe your body needs a certain amount of nutrition to survive optimally. Determining those requirements and how to reach them in your own personal life is where the bio aspect comes into play.

Finally, to address the Biggest Loser. Those folks started out tremendously overweight. Their goal while they were on the show was exclusively focused on weight loss, no job, no family, no other obligations. They also had a slew of doctors, trainers, and nutritionists tracking them to make sure they were ok. To think that a person without nearly the amount of weight to lose that they had could mimic a routine like theirs in his/her normal daily life is, in my opinion, dangerous.

Agreed. With reference to the Biggest Loser, Jillian Michaels is my God. She's the one who I quoted "Calories in, Calories out. Weight loss is simple math. Losing weight is simple, it is not easy." I just listened to her podcast in which she said it again. So it didn't come from me. Anyone wanna call Jillian and tell her she's wrong? Anyone wanna call her and tell her how mathematicians don't have to take biology courses because it isn't simple math? Lame

Also, I've only been on these message boards for a few days, and I can tell you honestly I absolutely HATE the bashing that goes around. Are you people here to help & motivate others or are you simply here to boast your egos around and bash others?

It's SICKENING. Educating others is not about tearing them down in the process. Learn how to get your points across without insulting someone.

To address bashing first. I will admit that my initial posts probably came off a bit rude, and that the subsequent discussion was heated. However, I was careful not to resort to name calling (I'll admit I was a bit sarcastic, but that's just how I talk) and tried to keep the debate at least somewhat civil. If I offended you in any way I apologize.

If I wanted to boost my ego, I wouldn't be on a weight loss forum. I do honestly want to help others with the same struggle I'm going through. I believe that some of the advice posted is a disservice to them, and can lead to failure with their diets/fitness routines or worse, health complications. That's why I reacted the way I did.

To your first point, I am biased against Jillian Micheals. However I do know that she has a variety of products out that have actually helped people, so I'll keep my thoughts to myself. I'm not lame for thinking that a mathematician shouldn't automatically be the supreme authority in nutrition. I believe your body needs a certain amount of nutrition to survive optimally. Determining those requirements and how to reach them in your own personal life is where the bio aspect comes into play.

Finally, to address the Biggest Loser. Those folks started out tremendously overweight. Their goal while they were on the show was exclusively focused on weight loss, no job, no family, no other obligations. They also had a slew of doctors, trainers, and nutritionists tracking them to make sure they were ok. To think that a person without nearly the amount of weight to lose that they had could mimic a routine like theirs in his/her normal daily life is, in my opinion, dangerous.

sometimes the truth hurts...
an opinion is an opinion and it counts, you have very valid points, its just sometimes people dont want to hear it everyone on this site has had success through some form of eating/exercises and are all seeing results differently so there isnt one way or the other, its what is working for you XO

Bump!

The massive amounts of weight loss that Jillian and Bob have SHREDDED off of these massively obese people wasn't because they ate back their exercise calories. They don't lose 10 pounds every week by eating back their exercise calories. They keep it off by maintaining with the education they learned at the Ranch.

I recently attended a talk given by the cute little blonde gal from the Seattle area who was on The Biggest Loser and married another The Biggest Loser contestant. Can't remember their names, sorry. Both of them have gained back quite a bit of the weight they lost on TBL and stated that the regime from TBL was unsustainable due to it not being real world and both are working on getting off the weight they've gained in a slower, healthier manner. I don't watch the show and certainly have no idea if most contestants have kept off the weight or not but I thought I'd throw this out there, for what it's worth.

The obesity level of TBL contestants makes a 10#/week weight loss less bad for them but, for the long haul, losing weight that quickly means that you're losing too much of your lean muscles mass. There is a lot of evidence out there that fast loss usually means regaining the weight, while slow loss means you're more likely to keep it off. I'd rather keep it off then get into a yo-yo dieting situation. YMMV.

As for my weight loss. I am a success story that has failed. I lost 60 pounds got down to my goal weight and kept it off for a year, which yes, felt incredible. But I gained it all back And the reason why is because I continued to eat whatever I wanted and stopped exercising. So I'm pretty sure I have experience in how to lose weight but I certainly need help in maintaining. I'm back on the train again. You are correct however, about my lack of time in the forums. Which doesn't make me a noob in this game. It only makes me new to you.

Regardless of this debate, I'm sorry that you faltered with the weight loss. A very similar thing happened to me 2 years ago where I lost about 75 pounds and gained back 90. I'm trying to do things more moderately this time around in the hopes that the weight will stay off this time. Good luck in your efforts!

They don't lose 10 pounds every week by eating back their exercise calories. They keep it off by maintaining with the education they learned at the Ranch. The point here is a deficit and you're not going to tap into your body's resources by giving it back the fuel you just burned. I agree that there are other reasons people do not lose weight, such as thyroid issues or high estrogen levels. We cannot diagnose that for the OP as we are not doctors. All we can do is keep her motivated to continue the diet & exercise routine. However, that doesn't help if she's eating back her exercise calories. I'm sorry, but no one is going to convince me.

I do agree with you in general. If you're eating at maintenance or at a surplus, and you exercise to burn calories, and then you eat back the calories that you burned, you won't see results. If you already have a deficit built in, however, and then you exercise to burn calories, that deficit widens. Too large of a deficit is, in my opinion, hazardous to your health. Even if you eat at a deficit, burn a small number of calories, and don't eat it back, that's probably fine. The issue is when that happens to the extreme, when you eat very little and burn a lot, when you don't get enough energy to fuel your body's basic functions. That's my point. I also believe that doing things in moderation (ie smaller deficits over longer time as opposed to larger deficits over shorter time) make those changes more likely to stick, but that's a very fuzzy stance and the question becomes 'how much of a deficit then'? This is why I stuck to the purposely vague term 'extreme deficits'.

They do it in Biggest Loser because they're tremendously overweight and can afford deficits that large, and because they are under constant supervision for safety. When they leave, they go to more moderate habits that are much more safe when not under the strict supervision of experts. THAT was my point. Too large of a deficit can be unhealthy and/or dangerous. Nothing more. I think we are, in theory, in agreement here. I make such a big deal of it because of my past history with dieting. I had unnaturally high deficits and although I lost a lot of weight eventually burned out and gained it all back. I'm lucky nothing more serious than that happened.

Again, I agree with you in general, I just feel it's important to preface that agreement with my own opinion (as I admitted before, this is do to my own past experiences). Got luck with your second go at weight loss.

Your not eating enough! You need to be eating the extra workout calories. Your metabolism is trying to jump start but it won't be able to if you don't eat enough. Excercise speeds the metabolism up if you don't feed it it will slow down and in some cases stop all together no matter how heatlthy or how less of calories you eat. Case in point there was a 800 pound women on tv only consuming 400 calories a day and she was not losing weight bc her metabolism was dead. Eat the calories and see if that helps.

What a great post!! Pretty inspiring!

(I wrote this to somebody earlier) "Losing weight is a goal that can be frustrating and confusing. "You're gonna be exercising the next 20 years anyway!" That's what I tell myself when the scale doesn't move. Its not about JUST weight loss. Don't give yourself 6 months to reach your goal and then give up if you don't reach it. Try to look at it like, "No matter what, no matter how long this takes, or how confusing and frustrating.....I WILL do this!"

Also, don't believe all those magazines at the supermarket telling you to have your dream body in 12 weeks. That's a bunch of BS. Those fitness models didn't take 12 weeks to look like that, they practice exercising as a way of life. ADOPT THAT WAY OF LIFE FOR YOURSELF. Commit to exercising for 1 year, slowly at first. I spent my first 3 months walking mostly, then stepped it up to jogging/walking for about a month, then I joined a gym and got into a program, then I started getting lazy and I quit going to the gym, then things got really bad and I only exercised maybe 4 times a month for about 2 or 3 months, Now Im back to exercising 5 or 6 times a week. My current gripe is that I'm not losing any weight. But its because I don't ever log in my food. I need to change that. I'm learning that its something that MUST be done. LEARN how to do this through trial and error. Hopefully I come back to this thread next year as a super hot and buff, cut and ripped piece of man-meat for you.

But I wont reach that goal if I give up because I fail along the way. Never give up on this!"

Hi! DON'T GIVE UP!!! You can do this!! Have you tried HIGH protein, with only 25 carbs per day? When you drastically reduce the carbs for a 2 week period you WILL see results. Then slowly go to 50 carbs over the holidays and not more than 100 carbs a day thereafter. Sugar & flour has to be cut out completely and diet drinks that have aspartame must go! They increase your appetite and cause belly fat. But if you have to have diet sodas try to get your taste buds to enjoy the coke with splenda. If you want more info I would be glad to give you the fat burning menu I've had to cause weight loss. it isn't easy. Keep telling yourself "NOTHING TASTES AS GOOD AS SKINNY FEELS!" Hope this helps!