What am I doing wrong?!?!

teetsel4
teetsel4 Posts: 288 Member
edited September 18 in Motivation and Support
ok, so I have been at this for the past 4 months. I am a very healthy eater... I rarely go out to eat, I eat whole natural foods, low carb, low fat, well balanced. I excercise regularly, I've even up'd my excercise. I eat with in 100 of my 1200 daily calorie intake. If i exercise, I eat a bit more, but rarely even touch what I am supposed to eat. Drink my water, no sodas. I am NOT loosing weight! :explode:

What am I doing wrong? I even had my friend double check me and she even thought I was logging everything correctly.

I need a little help from my MFP friends!

Replies

  • teetsel4
    teetsel4 Posts: 288 Member
    ok, so I have been at this for the past 4 months. I am a very healthy eater... I rarely go out to eat, I eat whole natural foods, low carb, low fat, well balanced. I excercise regularly, I've even up'd my excercise. I eat with in 100 of my 1200 daily calorie intake. If i exercise, I eat a bit more, but rarely even touch what I am supposed to eat. Drink my water, no sodas. I am NOT loosing weight! :explode:

    What am I doing wrong? I even had my friend double check me and she even thought I was logging everything correctly.

    I need a little help from my MFP friends!
  • kerrilucko
    kerrilucko Posts: 3,852 Member
    You might actually need to eat more....
  • lotusfromthemud
    lotusfromthemud Posts: 5,335 Member
    "but rarely even touch what I am supposed to eat."

    It sounds so counterintuitive, but you must eat more to lose. Especially if you are close to your goals, your deficit cannot be too high, or your body shuts itself down in order to save you from what it perceives as a famine.

    For me, 1200 calories puts me into "zero weight loss" mode. I had to up my calories to what the site calls a maintenance level to lose more weight.

    Also, I just purchased a heart rate monitor to better judge what I'm burning in my workouts. So far, it's a lot more than what MFP has told me, nearly double, which was upping my deficit even more.

    It's hard without knowing all of your stats, but on the surface, it sounds like you may be undereating.:flowerforyou:
  • foxfire9372
    foxfire9372 Posts: 184 Member
    You may be losing inches and toning up more. Muscle weighs more than fat. I can't remember exactly how much, but that could be a reason. Also, hitting a plateau is a pain. I went through one that lasted about as long. If you haven't changed up your exercise plan, do it. I added 30 min. of swimming 3 x's per week and got over the hump
  • lcclane
    lcclane Posts: 11
    This happened to a friend of mine. She was getting ready to go to Hawaii, so she working very hard at a 1200 calorie diet w/ exercise. She leveled off after a while and stopped losing weight but was maintaining. One of the doctors that she works with is a body builder, and he told her she is not eating enough calories! Go figure. But she upped her calories to 1400 and lost the last five pounds in the two weeks before her trip. I still don't quite understand how that works, but maybe if you add a snack some where in your day, it has something to do with your metabolism(?). Your body has gotten used to surviving on 1200 cals with exercise so you need to surprise it to give it a boost or something. I don't know, but it worked and it came from a doctor!
  • Helawat
    Helawat Posts: 605 Member
    You may be losing inches and toning up more. Muscle weighs more than fat...........

    Muscle does not weigh more than fat.

    Fat is bulky and lumpy so if you carry an extra five pounds of fat, you'll be lumpier than with five pounds more muscle. A five pound pile of fat will take up more space (volume) than a five pound pile of muscle; but five pounds is still five pounds, so for those of you that don't "get" English, you cannot say one thing weighing a certain weight weighs more than another thing at that same weight. It's a common joke to play on an 8-year old. The correct way to state the muscle weighs more than fat scenario is, "Muscle is heavier by volume than fat."

    A woman weighing 150 pounds with 19% fat will look much smaller (and be much healthier) than a woman at 150 pounds with 35% fat. They weigh the same, yet the composition is different. Because muscle is more dense than fat the person with less fat and more muscle will look smaller.

    Stop being so obsessed with body weight and start paying attention to body composition. How much body fat do you have compared to muscle? Simply seeing how much you weigh isn't very helpful.

    Source:
    http://www.onemorebite-weightloss.com/muscle-to-fat.html
  • teetsel4
    teetsel4 Posts: 288 Member
    Ahhhh, I knew I could count on the MFP! I do eat more on the days I exercise hard, but it is hard to eat that much!

    I haven't mesaured, but my clothes are not fitting different. So I know I am not going down in inches.

    Darn this plateau! I think I will go have a healthy snack, and contemplate this some more. You all gave me good things to think about!

    Oh, and FYI.... I am not absessed with the number, I realize how that sounded. But It is the over all look I am going for. I wouldn't care what I weigh as long as I am fit, eat healthy, oh and a size 6! :flowerforyou:
  • Omni2463
    Omni2463 Posts: 36
    i really don't think you're eating enough....try bringing your calorie intake to 1500 for a couple weeks and see what happens.:wink:
  • lotusfromthemud
    lotusfromthemud Posts: 5,335 Member
    Yes, it's all about size. When you get closer to your goals, (and. . .congrats so far). It gets harder and harder to lose. I was just telling a friend today: "it took as long to lose the last five as the first thirty".

    Unfair, but true. Break this diet rule to get extra calories: drink them! I have a produce market where I can buy fresh orange juice, which is one of the joys of my life! I don't do it everyday, but there's nothing like a two hundred calorie glass of it sometimes. Also, eat calorie dense foods like avocado or nuts. For a while, I had to go on the advice of my trainer: "eat like it's your job."

    :flowerforyou:
  • ToTheLove
    ToTheLove Posts: 357
    You may be losing inches and toning up more. Muscle weighs more than fat...........

    Muscle does not weigh more than fat.

    Fat is bulky and lumpy so if you carry an extra five pounds of fat, you'll be lumpier than with five pounds more muscle. A five pound pile of fat will take up more space (volume) than a five pound pile of muscle; but five pounds is still five pounds, so for those of you that don't "get" English, you cannot say one thing weighing a certain weight weighs more than another thing at that same weight. It's a common joke to play on an 8-year old. The correct way to state the muscle weighs more than fat scenario is, "Muscle is heavier by volume than fat."

    A woman weighing 150 pounds with 19% fat will look much smaller (and be much healthier) than a woman at 150 pounds with 35% fat. They weigh the same, yet the composition is different. Because muscle is more dense than fat the person with less fat and more muscle will look smaller.

    Stop being so obsessed with body weight and start paying attention to body composition. How much body fat do you have compared to muscle? Simply seeing how much you weigh isn't very helpful.

    Source:
    http://www.onemorebite-weightloss.com/muscle-to-fat.html

    Just so you know... THAT'S THE POINT. If you take a chunk of fat and a chunk of muscle that are the same size, the muscle is going to weigh more. That's what saying "muscle weighs more than fat" means. They're not saying "muscle makes you fatter than fat" they're saying that it WEIGHS more by volume.

    And yes, on a day to day, week to week basis, your body composition and your measurments are what are going to show improvement the most since weight is factored by so many things, but regardless, I could never lose 6 inches in my waist and still weigh what I do. In smaller people, it might be the case of body composition that matters, but in bigger people, weight still has merit.
  • teetsel4
    teetsel4 Posts: 288 Member
    Yes, it's all about size. When you get closer to your goals, (and. . .congrats so far). It gets harder and harder to lose. I was just telling a friend today: "it took as long to lose the last five as the first thirty".

    Unfair, but true. Break this diet rule to get extra calories: drink them! I have a produce market where I can buy fresh orange juice, which is one of the joys of my life! I don't do it everyday, but there's nothing like a two hundred calorie glass of it sometimes. Also, eat calorie dense foods like avocado or nuts. For a while, I had to go on the advice of my trainer: "eat like it's your job."

    :flowerforyou:

    Hey! If I'm going to drink my calories it's going to be in the form of fermented grape juice! LOL. Wine and beer certainly take up a lot of calories! :drinker:

    I will let you know how it goes with uping my calories for a week or so... until then, I gotta to get something to eat.:laugh:
  • lotusfromthemud
    lotusfromthemud Posts: 5,335 Member
    lol. . .red wine is the OTHER great joy of my life!

    Here's to meeting our goals!:drinker:
  • sr2000
    sr2000 Posts: 230 Member
    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/3047-700-calories-a-day-and-not-losing

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/6556-the-answers-to-the-questions

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/9433-expectations
  • Helawat
    Helawat Posts: 605 Member
    You may be losing inches and toning up more. Muscle weighs more than fat...........

    Muscle does not weigh more than fat.

    Fat is bulky and lumpy so if you carry an extra five pounds of fat, you'll be lumpier than with five pounds more muscle. A five pound pile of fat will take up more space (volume) than a five pound pile of muscle; but five pounds is still five pounds, so for those of you that don't "get" English, you cannot say one thing weighing a certain weight weighs more than another thing at that same weight. It's a common joke to play on an 8-year old. The correct way to state the muscle weighs more than fat scenario is, "Muscle is heavier by volume than fat."

    A woman weighing 150 pounds with 19% fat will look much smaller (and be much healthier) than a woman at 150 pounds with 35% fat. They weigh the same, yet the composition is different. Because muscle is more dense than fat the person with less fat and more muscle will look smaller.

    Stop being so obsessed with body weight and start paying attention to body composition. How much body fat do you have compared to muscle? Simply seeing how much you weigh isn't very helpful.

    Source:
    http://www.onemorebite-weightloss.com/muscle-to-fat.html

    Just so you know... THAT'S THE POINT. If you take a chunk of fat and a chunk of muscle that are the same size, the muscle is going to weigh more. That's what saying "muscle weighs more than fat" means. They're not saying "muscle makes you fatter than fat" they're saying that it WEIGHS more by volume.

    And yes, on a day to day, week to week basis, your body composition and your measurments are what are going to show improvement the most since weight is factored by so many things, but regardless, I could never lose 6 inches in my waist and still weigh what I do. In smaller people, it might be the case of body composition that matters, but in bigger people, weight still has merit.

    Well, I never said "muscle makes you fatter than fat." If you're going to quote, please do it verbatim. I said, "muscle does not weigh more than fat". In fact, if you reread my post you'll see that I clarified that "muscle weighs more by volume."

    I just wanted to point out that muscle does not weigh more than fat. If you place a pound of muscle and a pound of feathers on a scale, they will weigh the same; however, muscle has a higher mass density, just like what I said (and which you pointed out again) in my earlier post.

    That's all. :heart:
  • Jayberian
    Jayberian Posts: 60
    :glasses:

    yikes
  • rissa1322
    rissa1322 Posts: 107
    ok, so I have been at this for the past 4 months. I am a very healthy eater... I rarely go out to eat, I eat whole natural foods, low carb, low fat, well balanced. I excercise regularly, I've even up'd my excercise. I eat with in 100 of my 1200 daily calorie intake. If i exercise, I eat a bit more, but rarely even touch what I am supposed to eat. Drink my water, no sodas. I am NOT loosing weight! :explode:

    What am I doing wrong? I even had my friend double check me and she even thought I was logging everything correctly.

    I need a little help from my MFP friends!
    [/quote

    I am going through the same thing. I started in October and think i have lost 1pd.. but who knows.. it coulda been a good day.. either way.. its not what i have wanted. I originally was on the 1200 calorie plan, but upped my calories to lose 1 pds a week instead of two. its been about a week on that and i havent weighed.. so i will let u know if it works. this whole thing is hard. i also find myself working out less and then saying.. Well since i didnt work out.. ill just eat within my calories... which is SOPPOSED to work.. well see!

    how much do u want to lose?
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