Help! too many options which to do....nothing working

TourThePast · June 2012

Weigh your food. Measure liquids. Add EVERYTHING that passes your lips to your food diary. Take the "calories burned" figure on gym equipment with a very large pinch of salt unless at a minimum the machine asks for gender age and weight.

Seriously, if you're just starting out and you're eating 1200 a day and exercising and not losing weight or inches for over a month, you're not eating 1200 a day. Period.

Unless of course you've got a thyroid condition or similar, but it's far more likely you're eating too much.

Xamybrynx · June 2012

The reason I ask about how much exercise you do daily was because if you did it twice and only consumed 100 calls bk that could be the reason but you do it once on certain days so I dout that's it,maybe getting bk to basics with mfp might be an idea sorry I can't help more xcx

bettyzing · June 2012

Got ya, yep just went back in and changed my settings to what the site suggests, here goes!

The reason I ask about how much exercise you do daily was because if you did it twice and only consumed 100 calls bk that could be the reason but you do it once on certain days so I dout that's it,maybe getting bk to basics with mfp might be an idea sorry I can't help more xcx

Prahasaurus · June 2012

You are not in STARVATION MODE, for goodness sakes.

If you are actually *gaining* weight, I think I know the problem: you are just eating too many calories. Stop this. If you want to "eat more to lose weight," you had better exercise a heck of a lot more to get rid of those extra calories.

Set a reasonable calorie limit, based on MFP suggestions. LOG EVERYTHING ACCURATELY. EVERYTHING. Exercise doing whatever you like, but do it regularly. Stay at your recommended net calorie level each day as best you can. Ignore everything else. Do this for a month and see where you are. Oh, and don't forget, LOG EVERYTHING.

--P

bettyzing · June 2012

Agree, doing it from now.

You are not in STARVATION MODE, for goodness sakes.

If you are actually *gaining* weight, I think I know the problem: you are just eating too many calories. Stop this. If you want to "eat more to lose weight," you had better exercise a heck of a lot more to get rid of those extra calories.

Set a reasonable calorie limit, based on MFP suggestions. LOG EVERYTHING ACCURATELY. EVERYTHING. Exercise doing whatever you like, but do it regularly. Stay at your recommended net calorie level each day as best you can. Ignore everything else. Do this for a month and see where you are. Oh, and don't forget, LOG EVERYTHING.

--P

amy1612 · June 2012

Youre consistently going over your calories and DEFINITELY eating all of your exercise calories back. Maybe try sticking to maintaining a deficit and eating some healthier snacks such as nuts and fruit

brneydgrlie · June 2012

Looking at your diary, I see the following:

1) Your diet has been really high in sugars and starchy carbs.
2) You have been eating almost no vegetables.
3) You do not eat a substantial breakfast.
4) You are not drinking enough water.

Change these things, and you should see the scale begin moving in the right direction.

thebigcb · June 2012

Can I suggest maybe going to a dietian or something. Maybe ask them for qualified advice

MicaMurphy · June 2012

I would suggest very seriously logging your calories accurately. If you're not sure, overestimate how many calories you've had. Going to the gym is great, but it'll be quite hard to lose weight if you're diet stays as it it. As people have mentioned before, you're eating a lot of starchy carbs, etc. Try finding something to have as an alternative. If you like carbs so much, go for wholewheat ones, brown pasta, rice, bread, etc. Try and find substitutes for chocolate, sweets, etc. I personally have found I much prefer cherries to chocolate, so I've almost replaced chocolate entirely with fruit.

Fruit has natural sugars which are much better than the processed ones. Someone also mentioned breakfast. Eating a guideline portion of cereal with milk is a great way to kick start your metabolism every day. If you're finding it hard to eat fruit, put half a banana in your cereal. Tastes awesome and will keep you fuller for longer. Also, try and eat small meals more often. I tend to have breakfast at 8.30, a light snack (cherries, strawberries, etc) at 11.15, lunch at 12.30, another snack (toast, with olive spread or something) and then dinner at 7pm.

I hope some of these options seem viable for you to try. I know how down-heartening it can be when you don't see results.

Good luck! x

therealangd · June 2012

I agree with Berry 100%. Use MFP as designed. Set it to lose 1 lb per week. And be honest and as accurate as possible with your calorie counts.

As far as what has happened in the last couple of months, I'm going to make a lot of assumptions here based on what you have posted. I've looked at your diary for the last couple of weeks.

Based on what I have calculated as your BMR, you are just barely eating to lose .25 - .5 lb per week. That is only 250 calories per day. There is nothing wrong with that. That is good. Nice and slow wins the race. So based on that, for two months you are on track to have lost 4 lbs in the last two months. Give or take some of the days that you went over.

What makes it bad though, is that your sodium intake is way way high. I know myself that if I have a couple of bad high sodium days that I can gain 5 lbs over night. If this is the case with you, then you are masking the fat loss with water retention. The cure for that is to make sure you are drinking enough water to flush the sodium out.

Lets look at your diet now. You really need to cut out the processed foods and take outs. You really need to sit down and get serious with yourself and your goals. You need to decide if weight loss is going to be a short term goal or a long term way of life. I prefer the latter because the former leads to yo yo dieting and morbid obesity. And it messes with your self esteem. Until you get to know how to lose weight and what your body is capable of and how it reacts, you need to cut out the KFC.

Eat lots of fruits and veggies and lean proteins. A great start would be to start cooking at home. At least then you are fully aware of what calories are going into your food, which is going into your body. Restaurant counts are just guesstimates at best. If you only have a few hundred calories to work with a day, you don't want to be messing up a good day with a take out.

And finally your exercise. How are you measuring your calorie burn? If you are using the MFP counts, they tend to be on the high side. If you are using an HRM, than awesome.

It's great that you have incorporated weight training into your exercise. Keep that up.

It really sounds like you have a good knowledge base to get the job done, you just need to refine your techniques a little.

amy1612 · June 2012

I agree with Berry 100%. Use MFP as designed. Set it to lose 1 lb per week. And be honest and as accurate as possible with your calorie counts.

As far as what has happened in the last couple of months, I'm going to make a lot of assumptions here based on what you have posted. I've looked at your diary for the last couple of weeks.

Based on what I have calculated as your BMR, you are just barely eating to lose .25 - .5 lb per week. That is only 250 calories per day. There is nothing wrong with that. That is good. Nice and slow wins the race. So based on that, for two months you are on track to have lost 4 lbs in the last two months. Give or take some of the days that you went over.

What makes it bad though, is that your sodium intake is way way high. I know myself that if I have a couple of bad high sodium days that I can gain 5 lbs over night. If this is the case with you, then you are masking the fat loss with water retention. The cure for that is to make sure you are drinking enough water to flush the sodium out.

Lets look at your diet now. You really need to cut out the processed foods and take outs. You really need to sit down and get serious with yourself and your goals. You need to decide if weight loss is going to be a short term goal or a long term way of life. I prefer the latter because the former leads to yo yo dieting and morbid obesity. And it messes with your self esteem. Until you get to know how to lose weight and what your body is capable of and how it reacts, you need to cut out the KFC.

Eat lots of fruits and veggies and lean proteins. A great start would be to start cooking at home. At least then you are fully aware of what calories are going into your food, which is going into your body. Restaurant counts are just guesstimates at best. If you only have a few hundred calories to work with a day, you don't want to be messing up a good day with a take out.

And finally your exercise. How are you measuring your calorie burn? If you are using the MFP counts, they tend to be on the high side. If you are using an HRM, than awesome.

It's great that you have incorporated weight training into your exercise. Keep that up.

It really sounds like you have a good knowledge base to get the job done, you just need to refine your techniques a little.

This post should have a 'like' button.

bettyzing · June 2012

Thanks for the input. I had a a couple of weeks there where I made some pretty bad food choices but I generally cook at home. I had tried the higher calorie thing to experiment with my body as eating 1200 cals before had not worked for me at all.

I have not been logging all of my veges whilst on the higher calorie kick but now that I have set everything back to MFP suggestion ( yesterday) I will log everything.
I drink around 1.5 litres of water a day, I have been going by the gym equipment for cals burned, if using MFP for them I tend to go under what it suggests.

Going to try this way now and see what happens, I never have had much luck with diets, too highly strung and stressed out all the time hence taking up the gym.

Anyway, thanks for the advice,

I agree with Berry 100%. Use MFP as designed. Set it to lose 1 lb per week. And be honest and as accurate as possible with your calorie counts.

As far as what has happened in the last couple of months, I'm going to make a lot of assumptions here based on what you have posted. I've looked at your diary for the last couple of weeks.

Based on what I have calculated as your BMR, you are just barely eating to lose .25 - .5 lb per week. That is only 250 calories per day. There is nothing wrong with that. That is good. Nice and slow wins the race. So based on that, for two months you are on track to have lost 4 lbs in the last two months. Give or take some of the days that you went over.

What makes it bad though, is that your sodium intake is way way high. I know myself that if I have a couple of bad high sodium days that I can gain 5 lbs over night. If this is the case with you, then you are masking the fat loss with water retention. The cure for that is to make sure you are drinking enough water to flush the sodium out.

Lets look at your diet now. You really need to cut out the processed foods and take outs. You really need to sit down and get serious with yourself and your goals. You need to decide if weight loss is going to be a short term goal or a long term way of life. I prefer the latter because the former leads to yo yo dieting and morbid obesity. And it messes with your self esteem. Until you get to know how to lose weight and what your body is capable of and how it reacts, you need to cut out the KFC.

Eat lots of fruits and veggies and lean proteins. A great start would be to start cooking at home. At least then you are fully aware of what calories are going into your food, which is going into your body. Restaurant counts are just guesstimates at best. If you only have a few hundred calories to work with a day, you don't want to be messing up a good day with a take out.

And finally your exercise. How are you measuring your calorie burn? If you are using the MFP counts, they tend to be on the high side. If you are using an HRM, than awesome.

It's great that you have incorporated weight training into your exercise. Keep that up.

It really sounds like you have a good knowledge base to get the job done, you just need to refine your techniques a little.

Help! too many options which to do....nothing working

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