Can anyone help - why am I not losing weight (using MFP)

[LindaBoughtAPeaShooter]

Trying to walk more (have an injury which means no running)
Eating my 1200 per day and not cheating! Only time I eat more is if I have done some exercise and recorded it (am using map my walk) and therefore have extra calories available iykwim.

Standard day:
Weetabix, handful of raspberries, skimmed milk

Cous cous (40g dry) with cooked chicken and salad, 1/2 tsp olive oil

Chilli, 40/50g rice, veg

Snacks: freddo frog (end of day treat), grapes, metcalfe sweet and skinny popcorn pack (74kcal)

What am I doing wrong?? I'm so disheartened, I've stuck to it so well but in 4 weeks I've only lost 3 lbs (didn't lose any this week)

Help!!

Well Auchan, I lost 8 stone over 15 months. I counted calories, walked and regarded 1 calorie of salad leaves as the same as 1 calorie of chocolate. I stuck to 1200 calories, and didn't rule out any food groups. I certainly continued to eat carbs and even pure sugar on occasion (e.g. boiled sweets), as well as having milk and fruit on a daily basis. I did try to keep most of my intake nutritious, to ensure I kept healthy, but also kept the range of what I ate broad. I had no other rules - I ate at whatever time of day suited me, snacks, included. Provided I stuck to the calorie limit (and didn't eat exercise calories) I lost steadily at an average of 1 to 2 pounds per week. I am now maintaining, exercising a reasonable amount and able to stay at goal on over 2000 calories a day, so your theory about how the body adjusts was certainly not true for me (and I'm over 40).

There is so much pseudoscience pretending to be real science when it comes to nutrition and weight loss that I find it impossible to work out what is myth and what is real - and from the conflicting reports which come out daily neither can the scientists. What is true I believe is that we are all different, and we need to find the weight loss strategy that works for us. What is less helpful is then deciding this is the only "scientific" way to do it, and insisting that everyone else do the same.

Well said April. Congratulations and well done on your weight loss!

Sorry but I don't understand this. You HAVE lost weight

You have lost 3lbs in 4 weeks. Give it another 4 and that will be almost half a stone, in 2 months. Pretty average.

YES April! Well done on your weight loss.

FWIW auchan, 1500 cals a day is not a high calorie diet

Aprillady so your theory about how the body adjusts was certainly not true for me MAJOR FACEPALM ... It's not MY THEORY. GAH

Sorry Auchan, I obviously wasn't clear. When I said, your theory, I meant the one you quoted, which I have seen many times before.

Thanks Lou and Bruffian.

Ummmmmm....

Not sure if I'm any the wiser as to why I'm not really shifting the weight.

I love that my current diet is assumed to be 'high sugar' - if you think that's high sugar you would die of shock at what I was eating before I was on a diet!

I think what I'm hearing is really - don't eat your exercise calories - so I won't do that. I was calculating them from 'map my walk' so hopefully that was accurate.

Thanks for the help everyone.

It is a perfect maintenance calorie intake for a woman

That depends on the woman A 4ft6 woman will have very different caloric needs than a 5ft10 one.

BTW - Aprillady, well done! That is an AWESOME loss and maintaining it is even better

Oh and I'm in my forties and v short!

Auchan, where do your get your facts?!

Broccoli is not 28 percent protein (it is 2.8 !)

Or 9 percent fat (broccoli?!)

Wtf?!

You should calculate your Tdee, which will tell you how many calories you need each day, scaled to weight/ height/ age etc to maintain your current weight, then eat less. Remember that you need a deficit of 3500 to lose 1lb, which is actually quite a lot, this is why losing 1lb a week is a good loss, though everyone always wants a lot more. Precision nutrition have a great online calculator which allows you to input how much you want to lose over your chosen time frame, and tells you how much you can eat daily. It works for me.

Thanks Linda. For what it is worth, I don't think your diet is very high sugar either. Also, weight on the scales fluctuates a lot due to random things like water retention, and often goes up just before TOTM, so don't be too disheartened by a week where you stayed the same. If you stick to 1200 calories a day, are logging everything and not underestimating portion sizes, then you will lose weight over time.

Quim if you have read my post properly you would see that I said that BETWEEN 1500 and 2000 was the perfect maintenance calories for a woman. It was a general statement that the range was about normal for the average woman.

I am well aware that the TDEE for a 4ft 10in woman at 40 years old and 100lbs is on 1400 calories and that the TDEE for a 5ft 10in woman at 40 years old and 200 lbs is going to be more like 2200 calories as I am not stupid, my point was the poster was within a suitable range and not eating an overly high calorie diet.

Thanks for pointing that out though.

I'd like you to know I am not 4ft 10 (sadly not 5ft 10 either)
And I don't know what TDEE is.

I wasn't talking to you Linda, I was talking to Quimreaper as she was picking apart a line in a post I made.

If you would like me to tell you what your TDEE is let me know how much you weigh, how tall you are and how old you are.

LOL! I know you weren't Thanks but think weight/height/age on public forum might be a step too far and not sure I can face eating less than 1200 kcal per day! Literally don't know what TDEE stands for. I will google!

I personally find i can eat about 10% of the exercise calories and still lose weight.

I'm not sure why knowing this will help but I've done a bit of googling and my TDEE is 1850 kcal per day (I am currently very fat ) so I would have thought eating 1200 per day would mean a pretty good weight loss. Bah humbug. I'm back to square one on the 'why aren't I losing weight' pity party. Will try the not eating exercise calories plan though and hopefully that will crack it.

Annandale - that's interesting, I hope I'm the same! I do feel a bit glum that I can't go for a meal out without blowing all my hard work for the preceding week. At least if I exercise that gave me a bit of flexibility on the odd day of going over 1200. I will stick to not using them at all and see if that has an effect or not first.

Can you handle eggs for breakfast? I know a lot of people can't stomach them early in the morning - but if you can, it's an excellent way to stop mid morning hunger. I'm always starving by mid morning if I have ceral for breakfast.

40/50g of rice sounds like quite a large portion to me. I agree that 'a calorie is a calorie' - but eating high carbs does make you hungrier for carbs. I find the more carbs I eat, the more I want tbh. I'm not suggesting cutting them out - just cut down. It's sooo much easier if you're not feeling hungry, or craving carbs.

Sorry Lou! Quite right too.

The general point I had in mind (but didn't make) is that maintenance calories go down as you lose weight. I've lost almost 10kg (or had before a very indulgent fortnight holiday ), and blasted through the first 6 in a much shorter time than the other 4 took; at that lower weight, the losses slowed right down. Very frustrating.

No problem quim and apologies too, I was being a bit touchy . Lets shake hands and move on

Linda, the TDEE you worked out...did you put in that you were sedentary into the calculator or that you did some exercise? If you put in the second could you go back and put it in as sedentary please.

TDEE is quite important to know and it's a useful tool but also the calculators are not perfect. I personally have a sedentary TDEE of 1750 a day currently (this will go down as I lose weight as Quim rightly points out!). This means that just living my life with no real additional exercise will mean I can consume 1,750 calories a day. This actually factors in quite a lot of movement though, for example I have just fast walked 8,000 steps (nearly 4 miles) and I have only gained an additional 150 exercise calories for the day, so my TDEE has already factored in some of that movement. (if I were to look at any exercise app it would tell me I burnt 400+ plus on a 4 mile walk but in reality you are not, because you have to take off the calories that you would burn just sitting on the couch for the hour that you actually did the walk...)

If your sedentary TDEE is 1850 and you are only eating 1200 then this gives you 650 calories a day being burnt on top of your food. It roughly takes 7,000 calories to burn/lose 2lbs of fat so you should be losing 2lbs about every 11 days or so. You said you did some exercise and then ate the calories you "burned" but you don't really know what you burned as you are only going by a guess on an app so you could have actually eaten a lot more hence reducing the 650 gap per day. And also if you have put into the TDEE calculator that you are exercising regularly, then it will already have given you additional calories to take that into consideration and then you have eaten the "extra" calories again, therefore lessening the gap. This is why I say just don't bother eating exercise calories and try to stick to 9,000 calories a week. Don't even bother with the 1,200 per day as if you stick to the 9,000 per week you can come down on the days you need to and have a little extra at the weekend or for a treat/meal out etc.

If you can say whether your TDEE was worked out as sedentary or not this will help guide you along the right track.

Also though, weight loss is not linear, it doesn't follow the guidelines all the time, sometimes you just don't lose the 2lb even though you have dropped by 7,000 calories over a week or so. Water/hormones play a massive part in women's weight more so than me. There are a lot of personal trainers/gyms that won't weigh women and will only measure them due to weight fluctuations over the month.

I put myself down as sedentary. This week I am doing some extra days work so don't have much opportunity for exercise, I didn't want to assume I was always managing to exercise.

My allowance has gone down to 1350 daily, I find it hard. The exercise calories are essential.