Can anyone or everyone help me out here. I have been using the lose it Application for my iphone. I have been logging and weighing everything. I have it set for 2 lbs a week so it gives me 1463 calories a day. THe first week I lost 4 lbs. Awesome right! Yea, that's what I thought too. The next week I stayed the exact same weight. I have picked up my excersize ALOT. I will work out till my HRM says I have expended 500 calories. So however long that takes me is how long I am on the bike, treadmill, ellliptical. Usually about an hour. I feel great. I am not hungry or cranky.
Should I up my calories this week? If so how much?
I should stay with it a bit longer, before you make any decisions - if you end up chopping and changing your calories too often, you could get thoroughly confused.
If you've set the system for 2lbs a week and you've lost 4lbs in 2 weeks, then it's doing what you asked - although I definitely understand the disappointment of a No Loss WeighIn.
well, its pretty much a given those first 4 pounds were water weight..... i would give it more time to see if you start losing FAT.....
Also, the 500 cals you burn exercising are NOTHING compared to the calories you burn throughout the rest of the day!
What really matters is diet. are you weighing your food? how are you tracking your calories? Do you use an online journal/log? Accounting for every bite, lick and tast?
For example, If you eat/enter an apple, do you guesstimate "1 medium sized apple?) at 80 cal? or do you weigh it, and know that it is actually 170 grams, and closer to 130 cals? etc etc.. my point is, when you are only eating 1400 cals you really need to try and be as accurate a possible, because if your counts are off a little, it adds up to ALOT by the end of the day, and that could equal no fat loss for you!
mkroyer...any recommendations for a food scale? I tend to guess at my calories and the one pound I thought I had lost last week magically reappeared this week. So bummed...pretty sure I am eatin more than I think I am. Ugh...my banana today seemed HUGE so I only ate half...but honestly I have no idea how many calories I really ate.
So...if you know a good brand for a food scale....
I am 5'2 and a little over 120 lbs. I have stopped exercising recently and have cut down to eating only 900 calories a day..is that not enough?
At that height and weight, it's hard to lose in a healthy fashion without exercising. You are trying to create a calorie deficit--a gap between how much you eat and how much you burn. When you are short and light, your body doesn't burn that much just sitting around. For you, at 120 lbs and no exercise, to have the same deficit I have at 170 pounds and 2 hours of exercise a day, you'd have to eat 200-300 calories a day. You can't do that, however--your body needs some food to even have the energy to burn fat. If you don't give it much at all, it is most likely just to slow you down, or make you go crazy with hunger until you eat.
This doesn't mean you can't lose weight without exercise. But it's going to be tough--you need to eat the bare minimum your body needs nutritionally and no more. To do this, you'll have to be smart and strict: I eat 1700 calories a day and it doesn't really matter that 70 of them are basically empty calories (3 Hershey Kisses). If you are trying to lose from 120 without exercise, there is no room for empty calories--every single one you eat needs to contribute towards your nutrition in two or three different ways--you have to eat efficiently.
People will disagree with me, but I don't think 900 very carefully chosen healthy calories is unreasonable for a woman of your size. That said, expect the weight loss to be slow: 0.5%-1% a week is a much better estimate than "1-2 lbs" and it makes a difference when someone is 120 lbs or less.
Lieber--
I agree with everything Schmead says.
At your starting weight, you are going to have to be dilligent dilligent dilligent. Look for ANY and every way to create a deficit. This doesnt mean OVERTRAINING, however. Taking in so few calories, you really need to make sur eyou keep any movement/exercise low intensity. Everyone loses at different calorie amounts though. Dont let people tell you you cant POSSIBLY eat less than 1200 a day, etc etc. Eating that low may not be ideal, it may not be fun, and it certainly isnt for most of us, but if its how low you have to go to lose, than its how low you have to go. I can only lose fat at under 1200 a day...... but im small anyway. Make sure you are getting enough protein, however, since eating that low will most likely drive your body into a catabolic state, where it starts to consume/breakdown muscle mass for energy. LIke Schmead says, make every bite count....ie; as nutritionally dense as possible. If, however you CAN lose by eating more, i would highly recommend it. Possibly start incorporating longish walks everyday, and bump up your cals to 1100 or something..... YOu dont want to stay so low for long either. Your body WILL adapt, metabolically speaking.
Good luck
Charmtime,
i use this digital scale i got at Target made by Taylor. it ROCKS. It comes with a built in database of like 5000 foods, all coded. SO what i do it, I set an apple on the scale, i punch in the 3 digit code for apple (comes with a book) and up pops ALL the nutrition info for that particular apple!
Weight, in grams or ounces or kilogams, calories, grams of carbs, fat protein, cholesterol, etc. It is AWESOME.
Of course, you dont need anything that fancy. If you can get the weight of the apple, you can just plug in "130 gram apple" into fitday, or sparkapeople or calorieking or whatever, and get the same info.
Be warned, it can get obsessive!
Oooohhhh....sounds like something to put on my wish list. I packed my food today to eat until around 3:00 and just guessed at around 1000 calories. I knew the cereal bar was 90 so I just rounded up to 1000. Beginning to see how this might not be the best idea.
Am I eating enough?
The next week I stayed the exact same weight. 
I have picked up my excersize ALOT. I will work out till my HRM says I have expended 500 calories. So however long that takes me is how long I am on the bike, treadmill, ellliptical. Usually about an hour. 
I feel great. I am not hungry or cranky. 
