Weight loss: getting it right...?

Over the last month I've joined the TE weight loss thread and started weighing in weekly. In 4 weeks of watching what I eat and exercising, my weight is basically the same (within 1lb). It's consistent through the day, too.

Now I've done some (very geeky, sorry, graph attached) number crunching on my calorie intake over the past month, and am beginning to wonder if I'm not eating enough... Seems ridiculous since I'm trying to lose weight, but looking at the last month's intake & output, my average calorie balance has only been 1200 per day. Looking online tonight, with my exercise level and base metabolic rate it seems like I should be eating closer to 1800-2000 calories per day.

Am worried that if I eat more I'll put on weight rather than staying the same, though, especially since my calorie balance seems to be pretty erratic. Anybody been in a similar situation? How did it work out? If I did start eating more, what type of food would be best: carbs/protein?

Thanks, woohoo :confused:

edit: should have said, I've been using the livestrong calorie tracker and aiming for 1629 calories per day.

I'm confused. Are you saying you haven't lost weight and you think you need to be eating more calories?

I think we'd need more information on the quality of those calories you're taking in and the amount of exercise you were doing before you started this weight loss effort. It may be that you need to up the exercise, or introduce interval training. (Trek recommended it to me and I've tried to do at least six intervals per hour-long workout, and it's helping me get stronger.)

Good luck in your efforts!

Roxy

If you don't eat enough, your body will slow your metabolism as a defense against starvation. Sometimes you do need to eat more in order to lose weight. Read Nancy Clark's Sports Nutrition Guidebook. It is an excellent resource.

I tell ya', I am finding this site to be about the best invention ever. For years I logged my food on Fitday.com, but it was a PITA to enter custom things and I still had to manually figure calories eaten vs. calories burned vs. my activity level the rest of the time vs. my current body weight, etc. I've been using My Fitness Pal for about 10 days and LOVE how well it does the work for me. I enter what I'm eating (and a TON of specific things are already in the system that have been entered by other users--including things like store-brand things, canned goods, etc.), enter my workout, and it tells me how many calories I have left to eat for the day. I can also specify breakdown of those calories...what %age of fats, carbs, protein, fiber.

Best part--at the end of the day it tells me what I would weigh in 5 days if every day were like the current day. It's very motivating when I hit everything right on and it tells me I'd be 5#s lighter than I currently am. It really makes me want to hit those goals daily.

Woohoo - I too am experiencing what you mention. I exercise consistently through the week. I'm doing cardio and strength but my weight doesn't seem to budge. I am not sure what's going on with my body but I think I'm gaining muscle right now so I'm backing away from the scales for a month or so. I've been using livestrong's website to track my calories to get a pretty good idea of what my daily intake is. I'm usually right around 15-1700 depending on the day and if I exercise hard. I know its frustrating, it is to me too. Guess I just wanted to say "I feel your pain." :rolleyes:

I sometimes use calories, but have been on WW for the last two years the online program was very successful for me- with exercise. So I will put in a plug for trying it.

I had over 35 lbs to lose. I weighed 150, but I'm only 5'1", past 50 years old and I think I have a slow metabolism anyway. Without adding in much exercise, I lost 13 pounds, but eventually reached a plateau. I did not eat all of my extra "weekly points" or "actviity points". I lost about 1 lb with 100 miles of cycling, following the online program. I am trying to maintain - have been as much as 4 lbs above my goal of 112 during the holidays and some leg issues that prevented me from riding, but am currently only 2 lbs up.

Not sure how many calories I was eating - but I could try to figure it out if that would be helpful

I looked at your chart. You are eating plenty of food to not be in 'starvation mode'. Is it possible you are overestimating the cals burned by exercise? Are you using the livestrong estimates, an exercise machine estimate, or a personal HRM estimate? While a personal HRM is the most accurate, its still only an equation that doesn't consider your personal metabolism. How old are you? I am 53 and will maintain but not lose on 1200 net cals so for me your numbers don't look surprising at all.

In addition to trying to eat less and burn more, I recommend increasing the ratio of protein to carbs in your diet. If you have any degree of impaired glucose tolerance that can make a huge difference. High protein/low carb foods are also more satisfying, so they let you feel satisfied with fewer calories, and also put you in a hormonal state that favors fat burning (glucagon>insulin).

For me, 1 month is just to short to see any change in my weight. If I eat sensible but not ridiculously little, so that i won't be hungry all the time, I can lose about 20 pounds in a year (and I do a quite considerable amount of exercise). Of course there are people that lose weight quicker, but maybe, if you are like me, you won't.

Thanks for the great responses everyone - lots of good resources and things to consider! :)

Some info: I’m 28, large skeletal size from the chart suggested, and a bit more than 10-15lbs overweight :p Before I would have gone a 2-3mi walk once/week & maybe ridden my bike once or twice. Since the start of the year I have been trying to build my fitness up for an event in May. I've been managing (apart from one week I was ill) to increase that to include 3-4 sessions per week on the turbo trainer and either mtb or walking one day at the weekend.

A typical trainer session for me is 1-1.5 hrs of intervals on the trainer following either 'workouts in a binder' or sufferfest-type programmes. My average heart rate for the time will be approx 85% of lactic threshold, with peak intervals being just above, maybe 104%. I don’t work out the calorie burn myself, I’ve been using the livestrong app to put in the food I eat and the training I do. Maybe I’ll try an alternative calorie tracker, to see if it agrees/disagrees?

I think the point about not having such an on/off pattern in days of exercise is probably a good one. My metabolism might be better served by a more even calorie intake and making an effort to go for a 20min walk at lunch or something on my rest days. Same goes for increasing the protein, I eat a lot of rice, pasta & bread…

I should I add that although I’m not losing the lbs I’d hoped for, I am seeing muscle development. My legs are noticeably more muscular, and although I haven’t dropped a clothes size, I have noticed a shirt or two fits me a bit better, so can’t complain too much! I guess if I keep going and take all the advice above over what I’m eating, the weight loss should follow in time - I always have been an impatient so-and-so ;)

Thanks everyone for all the help & input – really appreciate it.

woohoo :D

p.s. WindingRoad – glad I’m not alone, we’ll get there eventually!

I just want to add from my own experience, that I have the most success in losing fat when I'm consistently eating good, nutritional food with approx. 1600-2000 calories a day. That's when I'm biking and running regularly. I usually do about 60 minutes a day (6 days a week) and try to do about 30 minutes of strength 4x a week.

I was seeing great success with that, so I tried cutting my calories to about 1100-1200 a day. Not so good. I saw much less weight loss, some weeks not any. And I didn't have the energy I used to have, so my workouts were flat.

If you're worried about gaining weight, just try adding calorie for two weeks and see how it goes. You can always scale back again.

I think you guys are reading her graph wrong. Yes, her net calories are ~>1200 (but hard to tell exactly from graph as displayed), that's when she subtracts her estimated exercise calories from her intake, but her intake is quite a bit higher than that. For intake look at the yellow bars, she is eating from ~1200-2300 calories a day. The variation is due to exercise which is fine. But her net calories are probably still too high if she isn't losing. This may be in part from an overestimating of exercise calories.

I really think this idea of advising folks that are already eating well to eat more to lose weight is just flat out wrong.

No worries Triskeliongirl, after reading the advice above I don't intend to add to what I'm eating. You're right about the numbers, the average of the yellow bars over the month (mean or median) was around 1700 calories/day. When I added in my exercise estimates, which I appreciate are approximate, the average dropped to around 1200. Whether that's the right value for weight loss seems to be personal. As I'm on the heavier side, don't feel lethargic and have the energy to train effectively, I agree with you it's likely that it's not too low (as per my original question), and from the posts above should a reasonable starting point. The big things I think will be keeping things going for a longer time, and keeping my net calories steadier in order to try and boost my metabolism rather than having it stop/start...

Thanks all, woohoo :)

I always use the Livestrong site to track, and I have found that the calories they estimate I've burned are higher than what my HRM monitor tells me. Therefore I go by my HRM (I recently bought the polar Fit7 womens, which is very easy to use). I just use the manual entry feature to input the cals burned that way. From what I have read, its hard to get anything to estimate it perfectly, since your personal metabolism is a big variable. I also agree that while you need to eat more on days you workout more intensely, you don't need to eat everything you burn (also remember these programs aren't subtracting out the cals you would have burned at rest), so I actually set my target cals lower than I really want them to be, which just works out better for me psychologically. I'll eat what they recommend on days I work out, but eat a little more than what they recommend on days I don't, but I don't feel pushed to eat more than I need like I did when I had the target set higher. But, then I do track my real net cals in a spreadsheet, and each week average them. I also average my weekly first morning weights, and use those numbers to see how I am doing. I also find it depends on the exercise. If I am going for a 4 hour bike ride, obviously my caloric needs are very different from a day I go to the gym and burn 400 cals on a machine in a 45 min. workout.

I struggled a lot with my weight when I was younger, and for me the biggest thing was finding out I have impaired glucose tolerance and switching to a high protein/low carb diet, and also being treated for hypothyroidism. Since then, I have been able to lose my excess weight, and keep it off, and do find the livestrong site very helpful. So include some medical checks on your to do list. Also, when you say you are 10-15 lb overweight, according to who/what? If you have a high lean body mass, maybe you aren't that overweight, and that is why your body wants to maintain. Try to get your body fat measured, and use that info. to come up with a realistic but healthy weight for you. I find once I got my hormones in order and started eating foods my body could metabolize in the right amounts, my body weight pretty much normalized. I only gain weight if I break the rules, and start to eat foods I can't handle like carbs.

Thanks very much girls, I really appreciate how much time and thought that you've put into this! I have learned *loads* about what I need to be thinking about :D

Triskeliongirl - interesting point about the glucose. I had a glucose test about 3 years ago as I was drinking about 4 litres of water per day. I wasn't over the blood sugar limit for diabetes, but it was a bit higher than usual. Protein more than carbs is therefore probably the way to go...

Muirenn, thanks for shedding some interesting light on the numbers behind all this. Interesting that to require 120 cals/hr plus 350 calories of extra fuel you have to be riding that hard. Reinforces that I need to try and even out the swings in my calorie intake. At the moment I move about more than that much day to day. There seems to be a big difference between 1600 and 1800, and if I may be overestimating calories burned using livestrong, I need to be pretty certain about what I'm eating to stay in the right range.

Many thanks again, brilliant example of why this forum is so great :D

I second the thanks. I just read through this post and, while my needs are somewhat different (ideally I'd like to lose 40lbs), the advice and numbers have been really helpful. Currently I'm training for a very long ride and about to really ramp up my training regimen from where it's been floating all winter, so I need to start thinking harder -- or maybe just more carefully -- about my caloric intake. I eat a relatively healthy diet already, but too many calories and too much fat/sugar.

Now that I'm trying to really replace fat with muscle, increasing my protein is going to be crucial. I should eat more protein anyway, I think. Too many carbs in my life... but I do love bread and rice. ;)

So thanks everyone! This thread has been helpful for me, too!

Yup, the info I got from this thread has definitely helped me! I haven't lost a lot of weight yet, but by I have started to slowly lose weight steadily, so am headed in the right direction thanks to Muirenn, Triskeliongirl and the others above. :D

After this discussion I've been keeping a much stricter eye on my calories, not so much to reduce the amount, but to make sure that I eat the same amount every day except for long rides, which seems to have helped my metabolism. Result is that any day I train my net calories stay low, but healthily so, and I don't overeat on rest days. Have also taken to using this calorie counter. It may not be more accurate, but the assumptions behind it are stated, and I have found it to be more conservative than livestrong under some circumstances (although it agrees at the high heart rate end of the scale).

Just wanted to repeat the thanks and post the link in case anyone else could use it :D

I have noticed that there is wide variability in the calculators available for weight loss. As a very short and small framed person I often run into calculators that absolutely refuse to let me have less than 1200 a day. Some of the calculators then would miscalculate how much I would lose on that 1200 a day. (Even WebMD miscalculates and shows me losing the same amount of weight no matter how much I exercise). However, I can go safely lower than 1200 a day and actually try to keep my calories ranging from 900 to 1200 a day. I mix it up a bit, hoping to "fool" my metabolism out of any risk of starvation mode. I have been losing weight at roughly a pound a week for a while now and still have enough energy to exercise, though my exercise is far from strenuous. My diet is lower carb and higher fat than traditional recommendations (which are still a matter of dispute). No bread. No rice. No pasta. No ice cream or other sweet treats except for fruit with a touch of sugar. I eat plenty of fruit and veggies. And a fair amount of meat. Including. Gasp! Bacon. :) My lipid levels are fine even with a fattier diet than I used to eat. In fact, they are improved due to weight loss.

900 calories Goldfinch! Do you ride too?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by kacie tri-ing

900 calories Goldfinch! Do you ride too?

---

900 would be a rare day. I am only 4' 11". I am working on fitness after being out of shape for years. I ride most days, swim or walk. But what I do will not compare to what a fit person does in energy expenditure.

Yesterday I rode 10 miles and had about a 1200 calorie day. Today is cold and windy and I am not sure how much I will ride, beyond the one mile I did over to the grocery store and back. :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by goldfinch

900 would be a rare day. I am only 4' 11". I am working on fitness after being out of shape for years. I ride most days, swim or walk. But what I do will not compare to what a fit person does in energy expenditure.

Yesterday I rode 10 miles and had about a 1200 calorie day. Today is cold and windy and I am not sure how much I will ride, beyond the one mile I did over to the grocery store and back. :)

---

All I know is that when I was starting my weight loss journey, I burned more calories in the same activities than I do now after having lost 55 pounds - at least according to my heart rate monitor. Glad to hear that 900 calorie days are rare, I've burned more than that in a single bike ride :eek:

I am barely 5' 1" and I don't think I could survive on 900 calories, either. I am not really strict about counting, but I would say I eat about 2,000 a day, maybe 1800 on days when I don't exercise. As I get older, it's definite balance of the kind of exercise I do, the intensity, and how many carbs I eat.
The only time in my life I had to lose weight (other than after my pregnancies) I lost 25 pounds by changing the way I ate (no junk food, not too much meat, lots of fruits and veggies) and starting to exercise. But, that exercise was mild compared to what I do now. I've never gone back to "bad" eating, but I go out a lot and I love to cook. For years, I controlled my weight by intense exercise, but that doesn't work so much now; I need to pay attention to the food part of the equation.

I am 5'3 in my stocking feet, and if my net calorie intake drops below 1200 calories, even when not exercising, I will either gain weight or just stop losing. With exercise I need to be careful to not allow my net calories to drop much below that - I know my HRM calorie calculation is an approximation so I assume that it runs 20% high on calorie use estimation and proceed accordingly.

Goldfinch, have you had a chance to discuss this with a dietitian? Obviously you are reaching your weight loss goals, but you want to make certain you aren't setting yourself up for any long-term issues with consuming too few calories for your activities. Everyone is different of course, but I would be starving if I only had 1,200 calories on a day when I had rode 10 miles, let along longer. Consuming too few calories can lead to your body burning muscle and you don't want that.

For me, after loosing 55 pounds in a little over a year, my weight loss has slowed to an agonizing speed - which means I have to focus even more on the content of my calories as well as the number of them.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Crankin

I am barely 5' 1" and I don't think I could survive on 900 calories, either.

---

I can't survive on it on long term, my metabolic rate is higher than that. But I can have a range of calories I consume over time and the average will be much higher.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Catrin

Goldfinch, have you had a chance to discuss this with a dietitian? Obviously you are reaching your weight loss goals, but you want to make certain you aren't setting yourself up for any long-term issues with consuming too few calories for your activities. Everyone is different of course, but I would be starving if I only had 1,200 calories on a day when I had rode 10 miles, let along longer. Consuming too few calories can lead to your body burning muscle and you don't want that.

For me, after loosing 55 pounds in a little over a year, my weight loss has slowed to an agonizing speed - which means I have to focus even more on the content of my calories as well as the number of them.

---

Because of my background I am fairly well educated on the issues and am fine with the 1200 calorie day and even with some 900 calorie days. I pay close attention to nutrition and stay away from filler foods. Keep in mind that I am small framed and very short. I am older. My energy outputs even at the same heart rate is not going to be close to the output of a young fit person.

Weight loss slows as you lose weight because you have less body mass to support.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Catrin

All I know is that when I was starting my weight loss journey, I burned more calories in the same activities than I do now after having lost 55 pounds - at least according to my heart rate monitor. Glad to hear that 900 calorie days are rare, I've burned more than that in a single bike ride :eek:

---

When figuring out how many calories you burn how much you weigh is a factor. The heart rate monitors that factor in weight, height, age and sex are likely the most accurate. But heart rate monitors have a reputation for overestimating calories burned. There are factors that vary for individuals that they have to estimate based on the information given. They you get estimates layered on estimates, with increasing inaccuracy.

I think monitors are more useful for determining relative effort. One day you burn "a lot" another day "not so much." :)

I don't use monitors at all. I just try to get in a half hour to an hour of exercise a day and stay off my rear for several hours. Given that my energy is fine and I am not losing weight too fast, I think that I am hitting targets close enough. Research shows that exercise is not a big factor in weight loss. Unfortunately, exercise makes people hungry so they tend to eat a bit more. But exercise should be done for its own fitness benefits and to maintain muscle mass.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by goldfinch

I don't use monitors at all. I just try to get in a half hour to an hour of exercise a day and stay off my rear for several hours. Given that my energy is fine and I am not losing weight too fast, I think that I am hitting targets close enough. Research shows that exercise is not a big factor in weight loss. Unfortunately, exercise makes people hungry so they tend to eat a bit more. But exercise should be done for its own fitness benefits.

---

Certainly, which is why I assume my HRM is about 20% high on short ride days (<20 miles) and 10-15% high on long ride days (currently rides >2.5 hours), but I also know my true metabolic rate. I have a very high activity level - and it true that exercise is good for other things that weight loss, but your body still needs the right kind/amount of fuel so that you can do what you need/want to do. Intense exercise and a strict diet is how I control my diabetes.

Obviously your approach is working for you, and that is what counts :) My jaw just dropped when I saw that 900 calorie estimation.