I was wondering if anyone had any advice. I am not losing any weight. Well actually I started out at 166 then dropped to 156 then gained back to 160 then went back to 156. Still, I weighed 156 two and a half weeks ago. I don't know if I have hit some sort of plateau but I am definitely doing something wrong.
I eat around 1000-1100 calories per day (no cheating at all and I have been doing this for a bit over a month); I go to the gym 4 days a week (70 minutes on the ellipse machine at what the machine says is 6 miles/900 calories) and play on a basketball team two times per week.
I don't know what else I could do. I see that people mention this 'starvation mode' that your body could go into if you don't eat enough, but I am so active that I thought that even if my metabolism slowed then I would still have to lose something.
Yes, you're not eating enough. Especially if you work out regularly. Your calorie intake is very low.
Try an online calorie calculator to see what your calorie needs are for your statistics. I can pretty much bet you can up your calories by a few hundred, at least.
I'm 5'9" and I know how much I eat because I count calories, almost obsessively maybe. I usually only eat certain things: low fat yogurt, oatmeal, cream of wheat, a lot of healthy choice or lean cuisine meals, 100 calorie snack packs and granola bars. Definitely some other things now and then but i always know how many calories are in them.
It seems that at your height and activity level, you should be eating more. Do you feel okay? Try a few different online calorie calculators and see what they say. I've read that it's not recommended to eat less than 500 calories below the daily amount recommended to maintain your current weight and activity level. Also, perhaps you could try eating a greater variety of foods and see what happens.
Going up and down by four pounds could be related to other factors in your body (water retention, for example). Or maybe due to all that exercise, you're losing fat but gaining muscle mass. Have your clothes been fitting differently?
Last edited by bobbidipity; 02-02-2006 at 12:59 AM.
Sorry I should have made myself clearer. I really wanted to know if you use fitday.com. Then you could give us a link and we could look at your foods for you.
There's and internist at the hospital where I work who swears by the 100 lbs for 5 feet and five pounds an inch after that. I'm not much good at math but I think that gives you 145 lbs.
The machines at gyms are notorious for giving screwgy numbers for calories burned. We'd all love to burn 8 or 900 calories an hour, but I just don't think so.
OMG Susan, I would have to get to 130??? Based on your internists calculations....WOW, I was 135 9 years ago and I looked seriously anorexic. I hope that he/she takes into account body frame size.
I think it's probably a 'rule of thumb' like all the others we read. I'm not going to get down to 115 lbs either. I just wanted to diplomatically say that I don't think Lauren is as overweight as she thinks she is. Do ya think Lauren?
I do belong to fitday but I just started and so it probably wouldn't tell you much...also I can't find some of the foods I eat (mainly snacks) on there. Fitday says that with my activity, lifestyle, weight, height, etc. that I burn over 3000 calories per day (3400 or something like that). I don't know if I could mentally take eating 2900 calories per day. I've never eaten that much on a day to day basis and I'd think I was in training for a body-builder competition or something.
I don't think that I'm that overweight. I also know that 145 wouldn't be a bad weight and if I get there and think that I look better then I'll definitely be happy with 145. I guess I am just competing with my sister (the skinny sister) who is 5'11" and 140 pounds.
On a kind of happy note (well this might be a bad note because i dont' know if i'm supposed to lose like this), I have lost inches. I measured myself one week ago and since then I have lost 1.25 inches in my thighs, .5" in my calves, 1 inch in my waist. and .5" in my arms. Is that too many inches for one week?
Oh yes! That's happy note. Slim is what we're after right?
You'll have to learn to 'customize foods' That's what I do with almost everything I eat. It stays in the drop down menu forever and I don't have to go hunting and calculating ever again.
Lots of us have a few problems with the exercise calculations on fitday. If you're really burning over 3000 cals per day and only eating 1000 ... you'd be melting away ... muscle and all!
Fiddle with it and ask more questions. We'll help you.
I'm fairly new to the calorie-counting scene, but just from the foods that you mentioned, it looks to me like you might be missing protein and veggies? I was keeping my calories around 1400 and I lost about 4 lbs easily at first, but then it staved off a bit (and I was feeling blah). When I checked my fitday closer, I realized that the majority of my intake was carbs, and very little protein or fat. So, now I've added more lean meats and fibrous veggies and the scale has started moving down again.
Just a thought, I'm sure more seasoned calorie-counters could be of better help!
I'm not sure how to let people look at my fitday entries for yesterday, but I ate 23% fat; 54% carbs and 23% protein. So about half carbs and half other stuff. It totalled 1143 calories.
And for today my fitday says that I will burn 3373 calories. There is no way I can eat 2800 calories!
What am I doing wrong?
