Ideas as to why not losing weight?

michis05
michis05 Posts: 99 Member
edited October 7 in Health and Weight Loss
I'm having a little issue. I can't seem to lose weight. I am stuck in 145-150. I exercise 6 times a week, for about an hour. I consider myself very active My eating isn't to healthy but it is on the good side. I have cut out alot of the bad stuff. I was doing a little research and some of the reasons that stood out were no sleep and not eating enough calories. Which I am guilty of :/ I will try to get my 8 hours and eat more. If I see no change in a month or 2 I will probably make an appointment to see if it isn't a medical problem. Anyone ever had this problem? If so did you identify what you were doing wrong and when you fixed it did you see a change?

Replies

  • Stacyanne324
    Stacyanne324 Posts: 780 Member
    It is hard to tell without being able to see your diary. How many calories are you taking in a day (net)?
  • michis05
    michis05 Posts: 99 Member
    I have not been logging in my food, but i recently started and i noticed that i barely hit my 1600, I tend to hit 1000-1300, which with all the exercise i do, i think i need more calories than this.
  • bizco
    bizco Posts: 1,949 Member
    When I reached a plateau I gradually increased my calorie intake and the weight starting dropping again. I upped them by 100 and followed that for about 10 days and then upped them again by another 75. And I always eat back some, if not all, the extra calories earned from exercise. And you are correct, getting enough sleep is very important when operating at a calorie deficit and exercising.
  • aekaya
    aekaya Posts: 163 Member
    Yep, try to increase your calorie intake so you net out to at least 1200 every day, and try changing up your workout routine.
  • auticus
    auticus Posts: 1,051 Member
    You need to raise your calories. Your body is excellent at taking the little bit of food you are giving it and making it last.

    Raising calories seems to go against the math and common sense, but it really does work.
  • carrie_eggo
    carrie_eggo Posts: 1,396 Member
    You should be logging everything and hitting your 1600 calories (or whatever it is) NET. :flowerforyou:
  • michis05
    michis05 Posts: 99 Member
    Cant do 1200 so thats out of the question, since from the looks of it im not loosing anything..so i guess ill try to make it 1600 (from what MFP came up with) I do love food, but i will try to keep it in moderation of course
  • tigersword
    tigersword Posts: 8,059 Member
    Based on your first post, it sounds like you already know the answer.
  • philOHIO
    philOHIO Posts: 520 Member
    "My eating isn't to healthy but it is on the good side. I have cut out alot of the bad stuff"

    sounds like a contradiction only YOU can answer
  • ShrinkingNinja
    ShrinkingNinja Posts: 460 Member
    Hard to say without seeing your food log....

    Too low of calories and working out like you do could be doing it. Lord knows it slowed my progress down to a near halt.

    But also, you can't out train a bad diet... So you might benefit from looking at over-hauling your diet some more.
  • CassysRoses314
    CassysRoses314 Posts: 4
    increase your calories. Have 6 small meals throughout the day rather than 3 regular. Lots of water and not nessacarily 8 hours of sleep but a consistent sleep pattern. Good luck :) And Dont excersize at night... that will get al;l worked up and your body cant slow down to fall asleep try morning or mid-day work outs! :)
  • Natural
    Natural Posts: 461 Member
    throw in a little strength training as well. sometimes the body is bored with the same old routine. it turns on the auto pilot and puts its feet up on the desk and watches us while we workout.
  • susanofscottsdale
    susanofscottsdale Posts: 114
    I learned that I had to manage both my carb and calorie intake to lose weight, and that my carb intake had to be less than 50% of MFP's target. To lose weight I increase my lean protein and descrease carb intake so that carbs are about 10% or less of my calories. This works for me.

    I came to this after months of healthy low calorie/high and increasing exercise with little to no weight loss. I was also becoming convinced that there was some medical issue... I now feel that I am in control, a very good feeling.

    It might be worth a try for you.
  • Ral263
    Ral263 Posts: 318 Member
    If you post what exactly you are doing in terms of exercise, as well as EXACTLY what you are eating, it'll be much easier to help you?

    I know that a lot of people think they "eat fairly healthy" or "are pretty active" but there can be really small things that are really holding you back from results. If you post that stuff I'd love to help!
  • MaximalLife
    MaximalLife Posts: 2,447 Member
    I'm having a little issue. I can't seem to lose weight. I am stuck in 145-150. I exercise 6 times a week, for about an hour. I consider myself very active My eating isn't to healthy but it is on the good side. I have cut out alot of the bad stuff. I was doing a little research and some of the reasons that stood out were no sleep and not eating enough calories. Which I am guilty of :/ I will try to get my 8 hours and eat more. If I see no change in a month or 2 I will probably make an appointment to see if it isn't a medical problem. Anyone ever had this problem? If so did you identify what you were doing wrong and when you fixed it did you see a change?
    Yes, stop starving yourself and eat back your exercise calories.

    Simply stated MFP has already figured out your total calories you need to eat per day to lose 1lb etc. a week. That's WITHOUT exercise. You'll notice that when you actually add exercise in, the calorie limit goes up. Why? Because it's telling you to eat your exercise calories. Large deficits aren't really good to do because while you will lose weight, what kind of weight will it be? In many cases you'll lose lean muscle tissue which LOWERS your metabolic rate even more. Then you have to eat even less to compensate for less of a calorie burn to continue to lose the same amount of weight each week.
    Be efficient. Exercise hard and eat back the calories. The hard exercise will RAISE your metabolic rate and burn more fat at rest.
  • Jconner30
    Jconner30 Posts: 311
    Try eating 6 small meals a day - like every 3 hours.
  • michis05
    michis05 Posts: 99 Member
    If you post what exactly you are doing in terms of exercise, as well as EXACTLY what you are eating, it'll be much easier to help you?

    I know that a lot of people think they "eat fairly healthy" or "are pretty active" but there can be really small things that are really holding you back from results. If you post that stuff I'd love to help!

    Im a long distance runner, train for marathons here and there mostly. So i run 4 times outta the week 4 miles-13 miles. I will be starting insanity.asylum hybrid. I go for 2 mile walks 5 times a week and hit the gym 3x a week. I dont do strength training at the gym, unless you count insanity/asylum as strength traning. My typical food day involves cereal and milk (skim), oatmeal, eggs... lunch i do the shakeology shakes, sometimes i add fruit with it. For dinner, mostly chicken and turkey meat, beans and rice.
  • soccermom004
    soccermom004 Posts: 444 Member
    Nobody can tell you to add calories or eat less without seeing your diary. I have found that weight loss is 80% what you eat and 20% exercise. It is completely possible to lose without exercise but you cannot lose without improving your diet. You need to eat less calories than you are burning and what you eat also matters. If you open your diary I'm sure you will get a lot of advice. Mine is simply consume less calories than you are burning, eat loss of veggies, fruit, lean protein, healthy carbs and a small amount of healthy fats. It needs to be a lifetime change not just a diet. DIET is a four letter word. Good luck!
  • michis05
    michis05 Posts: 99 Member
    I cant show you my diary because i stopped logging in my food since September. I started logging in my food since last night, so i dont know if you will be able to conclude anything with one day.
  • iKristine
    iKristine Posts: 288 Member
    I'm having a little issue. I can't seem to lose weight. I am stuck in 145-150. I exercise 6 times a week, for about an hour. I consider myself very active My eating isn't to healthy but it is on the good side. I have cut out alot of the bad stuff. I was doing a little research and some of the reasons that stood out were no sleep and not eating enough calories. Which I am guilty of :/ I will try to get my 8 hours and eat more. If I see no change in a month or 2 I will probably make an appointment to see if it isn't a medical problem. Anyone ever had this problem? If so did you identify what you were doing wrong and when you fixed it did you see a change?

    Yes and yes.

    To start, eating healthy is just as important if NOT MORE than working out. I cannot stress the importance of adding fruits and vegetables and eliminating the worst offenders. If your eating to live, rather than living to eat, you WILL notice improvements in all faucets of your physical feeling/workouts/moods. I will end the rant here but it's very important.

    sleep is as well. But assuming everything else is healthy sleep should naturally follow.

    Based on what you said, my first impression was 6x week, way too much. Before I get stoned, let me explain why. I'm not sure what constitutes workouts to you, so this might not be as bad as I read. Like if all you did was walk an hour for example. But when you workout (weights, hard cardio) your body NEEDS its recovery. It needs 8 hrs sleep, rest days, proper nutrition including protein and fruit/veggies for providing it the best it can be. When you deprive your body of these, it's like taking a butterknife to a brawl. Not very effective. But if you give your body these, you'll start taking guns and steel to a workout.

    I suggest alternating your workouts. If your doing 6x 1h now, it wouldnt hurt you to do 3x 2hrs. This gives you a little break to repair yourself. Your body is extremely good at balancing itself out in times as little as a few weeks. So your body WILL adapt to what your doing to where it's not as effective as it once was. So you need to occasionally switch it up. I do so monthly. Example, I walk 3 miles 3x week and I lift 3x week for 5 -12 exercises. Each on has 3 sets of 10. Even though, after time I tripled my lifts... The first yoga class I took I was SORE as hell. The first time I swam for an hour, I was SORE as hell. So I introduced Hapkido to keep me guessing since I never knew what I would get.

    I GPS my walks and times, I log all exercise and what I eat and I suggest you do the same. This has been extremely helpful to me to be able to find "what works" where I am stalling, where I see improvements etc. For example I use Endomondo on my phone for my walks. I walk to and from school daily 1.5 miles. I use to take 32 min. After a month, I got it down to 30 but I no longer felt it was "hard". I kept this for weeks. Then the holidays came and I took 5 days off. The next time I walked I was 28 min. Then I took another 4 days off and got it down to 25 min. Even though I didn't feel it was different, the time it took doesnt lie. I wouldn't have "seen" that had I not been vigilant about logging what I did. It keeps me motivated to push harder, but more importantly it gives me something to logically argue the necessity of rest. Without it, I would still be doing 30 minutes all the time and never improving. That is the importance of rest and breaks. Why bust your *kitten* 24/7 to not have improvements? If you could do more. with less effort, wouldn't you? Doing this allows you to approach health more logically, rather than haphazardly.

    I stalled over November/Dec, the entire month. Frustrated the hell out of me, so I bought a BodyBugg. Turned out I was eating to little, sometimes 1700 defecits. No wonder I wasn't losing. So with the BB I could adjust my cals daily to maintain a 1000cal defecit and lost 5 lbs in a week. A little science goes a long way.
  • michis05
    michis05 Posts: 99 Member
    I'm having a little issue. I can't seem to lose weight. I am stuck in 145-150. I exercise 6 times a week, for about an hour. I consider myself very active My eating isn't to healthy but it is on the good side. I have cut out alot of the bad stuff. I was doing a little research and some of the reasons that stood out were no sleep and not eating enough calories. Which I am guilty of :/ I will try to get my 8 hours and eat more. If I see no change in a month or 2 I will probably make an appointment to see if it isn't a medical problem. Anyone ever had this problem? If so did you identify what you were doing wrong and when you fixed it did you see a change?

    Yes and yes.

    To start, eating healthy is just as important if NOT MORE than working out. I cannot stress the importance of adding fruits and vegetables and eliminating the worst offenders. If your eating to live, rather than living to eat, you WILL notice improvements in all faucets of your physical feeling/workouts/moods. I will end the rant here but it's very important.

    sleep is as well. But assuming everything else is healthy sleep should naturally follow.

    Based on what you said, my first impression was 6x week, way too much. Before I get stoned, let me explain why. I'm not sure what constitutes workouts to you, so this might not be as bad as I read. Like if all you did was walk an hour for example. But when you workout (weights, hard cardio) your body NEEDS its recovery. It needs 8 hrs sleep, rest days, proper nutrition including protein and fruit/veggies for providing it the best it can be. When you deprive your body of these, it's like taking a butterknife to a brawl. Not very effective. But if you give your body these, you'll start taking guns and steel to a workout.

    I suggest alternating your workouts. If your doing 6x 1h now, it wouldnt hurt you to do 3x 2hrs. This gives you a little break to repair yourself. Your body is extremely good at balancing itself out in times as little as a few weeks. So your body WILL adapt to what your doing to where it's not as effective as it once was. So you need to occasionally switch it up. I do so monthly. Example, I walk 3 miles 3x week and I lift 3x week for 5 -12 exercises. Each on has 3 sets of 10. Even though, after time I tripled my lifts... The first yoga class I took I was SORE as hell. The first time I swam for an hour, I was SORE as hell. So I introduced Hapkido to keep me guessing since I never knew what I would get.

    I GPS my walks and times, I log all exercise and what I eat and I suggest you do the same. This has been extremely helpful to me to be able to find "what works" where I am stalling, where I see improvements etc. For example I use Endomondo on my phone for my walks. I walk to and from school daily 1.5 miles. I use to take 32 min. After a month, I got it down to 30 but I no longer felt it was "hard". I kept this for weeks. Then the holidays came and I took 5 days off. The next time I walked I was 28 min. Then I took another 4 days off and got it down to 25 min. Even though I didn't feel it was different, the time it took doesnt lie. I wouldn't have "seen" that had I not been vigilant about logging what I did. It keeps me motivated to push harder, but more importantly it gives me something to logically argue the necessity of rest. Without it, I would still be doing 30 minutes all the time and never improving. That is the importance of rest and breaks. Why bust your *kitten* 24/7 to not have improvements? If you could do more. with less effort, wouldn't you? Doing this allows you to approach health more logically, rather than haphazardly.

    I stalled over November/Dec, the entire month. Frustrated the hell out of me, so I bought a BodyBugg. Turned out I was eating to little, sometimes 1700 defecits. No wonder I wasn't losing. So with the BB I could adjust my cals daily to maintain a 1000cal defecit and lost 5 lbs in a week. A little science goes a long way.

    WOW!! Thanks for letting me know what you do! I will try to change some stuff an hopefully see some changes!
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