How much do you eat to lose? Not losing after 4 months

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JessLLoser
JessLLoser Posts: 235 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi all of you successful losers!

I am not having any luck at various calorie levels. don`t worry I`ve done all give it time stuff. I haven`t lost any weight since starting to watch my intake in March. So probably I am still eating too much despite lowering my calories 3 weeks ago.

So how much do you eat to lose?

Please give me some background , height, current weight( if you want) average hours of exercise a week. And please your calories.

I am 5'8", 37 yr old., C.W. 189, trying to eat at 2088 cal per day. Usual exercise 3-4 hr a week. Using, In Place of a Road Map 2.0 as a guide.
Fit bit says I burn 2800-2900 per day. 3 weeks an nothing. Maybe I didn`t hit it right and will try to be more correct this week.

But please tell me what you do to be successful. Feel free to look at my diary if you want.
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Replies

  • mrsRhughes
    mrsRhughes Posts: 122
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    Hey! Do you track your calories on your fitbit only when you "exercise"? I am currently maintaining (I'm 26 years old, 5'7") at between 120-123 pounds (varies daily!). I ONLY track actual exercise calories and use a New Balance Fit+ HRM to calculate calories burned. I eat approx. 1800-2200 cals a day (but about 1500-1700 net after exercise cals burned!) When I was losing weight I was netting between 1200-1400. Definitely recommend staying ABOVE 1200 net, even when you're trying to lose weight!! Good luck and hope to talk to you soon :)
  • KaidaKantri
    KaidaKantri Posts: 401
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    I'm at the same problem. I'm 22 years old 5'5" 167.6 lb trying to get down to 120. However, I think I'm not losing anything because I'm retaining water. How much cups of water do you drink a day?
  • mrsRhughes
    mrsRhughes Posts: 122
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    Also, I workout about 2 hours each day ... 6 days a week. I'm kind of obsessed ... working out is what I do when I get bored, lol!
  • Balance05
    Balance05 Posts: 53 Member
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    http://www.fat2fitradio.com/tools/bmr/

    This website has a lot of interesting calculators on it. Check it out! It might help. :)
  • chlorisaann
    chlorisaann Posts: 366 Member
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    I am 5' 5" 35yro and 320lbs... I eat 1500 cals and don't get a lot of exercise yet.... I am just starting that... When I do exercise I eat back 90% of those cals. Have lost 10 lbs in 4 weeks... but at my weight that could all be water weight....
  • cloud2011
    cloud2011 Posts: 898 Member
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    I would try a week of extremely careful logging. You might need more consistency with food, calories and quality, in order to lose.

    And, have a nutritionist look at your protein. Are you doing lots of lifting? The protein seems a little high, but maybe that's me.
  • Alexis14351
    Alexis14351 Posts: 23
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    I'm 5'7, 178 lbs and I net 1800 calories a day. I average it out over the week, so some days I have a little more, some days I have a little less. I manually put in this amount of calories because it is the just below the TDEE for my goal weight if I am sedentary so I am training myself to eat at my future maintenance. Because of this I always eat back most of my exercise calories. I average about 3-4 lbs a month (a lot more the first couple of months, of course). Since you are nowhere near "starving" levels, I would try lowering your daily intake by say 100 calories each week until you start seeing a change, then you will know what is right for YOUR body :) Good luck!
  • RumOne
    RumOne Posts: 266 Member
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    I eat 1800+/- cals a day. I used the Road Map and I make sure never to eat under my BMR. Depending if I do heavy exercise that day or am doing a lot of running around, I will increase to the next exercise level for my cals. Since I started I have been losing 1- 1 1/2 lbs a week.
  • jacqui1612
    jacqui1612 Posts: 128 Member
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    I had a quick look at your diary. To me, it seems like you may be eating too much. You should also track your salt intake as that can effect water retention. I know it will be difficult to lower your calories, try just doing 100 or so per week til you are lower. That will give your body time to adjust and you might see the weight coming off. Try to stay away from the fast food places, and try to avoid sauces (they tend to have lots of sugar and salt in them). Good luck with your journey. And feel free to add me if you like. I also just want to say I'm not an expert, just saying things that have worked for me. I am about half way through (lost 20 or so pounds or 10 kilos).
  • lyxus
    lyxus Posts: 85
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    Checked you diary ! You are eating too much bad food ! Keep it simple, Mc Donald breafast will not help.
    Get fresh veggies and stop the wine :)
    I lost over 40lbs just by eating and somewaht working out.
    You can do it ! Good luck
  • chocolateandvodka
    chocolateandvodka Posts: 1,856 Member
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    I took the opposite approach. Other posters are correct, it DOES suck, but it's necessary.

    I started at 1000 cals/day and no exercise and gradually increased both. For every 30 minutes or 300 cals burned in exercise, I ate 100 more calories. It wasn't an exact science, but it worked.

    I saw a few doctors who specialized in treating high risk obese patients without surgery (I was only 200 lbs, but at 5'3", that's a hell of a lot.) Under their CLOSE supervision, I cut back to 1000-1100 cals/day and no more than 45 minutes per day of cardio. It works. And quickly.

    Now, if you're trying to do anything other than strictly lose weight and become fit as a result, none of this advice is relevant or helpful.
  • veganbaum
    veganbaum Posts: 1,865 Member
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    I'm 5'8" and currently at about 163. Around 180 I got stuck at a six month plateau. During that time I tried various methods to get things moving again but nothing worked (and I always allowed for several weeks, one or two weeks usually isn't enough to tell if it's working). The thing that finally worked for me was spiking. My daily calories vary - 3 at one amount, 3 at another, and a "spike" day - it's based on a weekly deficit. If you average out my week I would be around 1600/day which is near my BMR. Interestingly, when I ate around 1600/day I didn't lose anything. If you're interested there's a group on here called Spike 84 that has more information.

    Also, I lost the first few pounds fairly quickly when beginning spiking but it slowed down and is sporadic but consistent as long as I am (basically weight loss isn't linear and on a personal note I have been working out of town for the last month and the past two weeks have not been good). At our height even around 180 losses are going to start slowing down since we are getting closer to a healthy weight (disregarding body fat %) even though it's at the high end.
  • JessLLoser
    JessLLoser Posts: 235 Member
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    Thanks for all the good advice guys. Just for the record Mcdonalds isn`t my usual brekkie. More of a once an month thing.

    But the wine! I love it. Excuses, excuses. I will check out the Spike 84 group. It is the only thing I haven`t tried. Maybe that way I could get in the food I like and still lose.

    sounds fabulous!
  • michellekicks
    michellekicks Posts: 3,624 Member
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    Our stats are quite similar: I'm 5'7", 36 years old, 167 lbs (started at 194) and what I did was tell MFP I wanted to lose a half pound per week. That set me up with 1660 to net every day and I ate all my exercise calories. I actually was losing faster than that. That averaged just under 2100 calories/day.

    I also spent 2 weeks netting 2000 to prepare for a race. I didn't gain on that so my TDEE is definitely at or above 2550/day. (EDITED TO ADD: I didn't gain *permanently* on that... I gained about 4.5 lbs during the 2 weeks but took off 6 within 3 days when I went back to cutting)

    I'd aim for a smaller deficit maybe... what does MFP give you if you set it to lose half a pound per week? I was given some advice to keep my deficit to 400 cal/day or less... you could increase calories again. It may be slow going, but slow is better than none.

    What are your workouts like?
  • mcarter99
    mcarter99 Posts: 1,666 Member
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    That Fitbit estimate sounds high. How many steps do you average, or is that with manually logging activities? Mine is much lower, below 2000 on average.

    I eat around 1350 and lose about 1.5lbs/week. There is no reason you have to eat so close to maintenance level, despite what you read here. If I used the recs on some of these threads, I'd lose a pound a month. So 3 weeks of no loss would be expected.
  • susannamarie
    susannamarie Posts: 2,148 Member
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    I typed your data since 1 june into excel to check some stuff.

    Your average calories eaten, daily, since 1 june, is 2464.

    I was going to look at net calories but it looks like you didn't track exercise for a while.
    If I look only since 26 June (when you resumed) your average net is 1832.

    I would suspect that you're just plain eating a little bit too much. When I use the data you put in this thread, MFP's BMR calculator, and a sedentary multiplier of 1.25 (seems to be what MFP uses), I get maintenance calories of 1988 (net). If you're netting only 150 less than your maintenance calories, that's about a pound every 3.5 weeks.

    Quite honestly, I'd make it a lot easier on yourself and just tell MFP that you want to lose 1 lb/week, then eat what it tells you and the exercise calories it tells you. When you get close (like 10 lbs from goal), shift to half a pound/week and eat there.
  • baabaabetsy
    baabaabetsy Posts: 49
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    My recommendation is changing your macronutrient amounts. I think you're eating way too much fat and too little protein. I would up your protein intake to closer to 40% of your diet and lower your fat to around 20%. Just that should help kick your body into fat burning mode--but to really top it off I'd also reduce your caloric intake to 1800 per day. I think with those changes you should find that you'll get past that plateau!
  • Arexxx
    Arexxx Posts: 486 Member
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    You seem to be going over your goal a bit..
  • speediejane
    speediejane Posts: 496 Member
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    http://exercise.about.com/cs/weightloss/a/howtoloseweight.htm
    :happy:
  • poppy191
    poppy191 Posts: 10
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    If you are genuinely sticking to your MFP calorie goal and exercising, you might want to get your thyroid checked. If your doctor is reluctant, you can buy tests online. Also, measure yourself don't just rely on the scales. Its a better indicator that your body is changing.

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