Constantly getting A in my food analysis....

Hi everyone,

This question might seem weird, but i have been regularly loggin in all my meals, estimating approximately (over) the food contents, i try to get at least 5 servings of fruit and veggies a day, low on the carb (except muesli, wheat bread)..thus i feel im on the right track... but if im always getting As then why arent the pounds comming off?

I am not a big eater and do regularly exercise..

What am i doing wrong, or is it too soon to see results?

thanks for you help.

Don't estimate the quantities.   If you're already overweight it would be reasonable to assume you regularly eat too much even if you're not a 'big eater'.  If you estimate portions rather than weighing them you can easily repeat the mistake.  Even healthy food will make you gain weight if there's too much of it.  Invest in food scales, measuring spoons and measuring jugs.... then keep the food log again and see where you've been going wrong.

Second tip.... eat regularly.  If 'not a big eater' means you skip breakfast, for example, that's something you can fix.   Regular meals with snacks in between if you're hungry make weight-control easier.

Best of luck

I'd like to help, but I'm the same. My nutritional analysis is always A/A+ and my cals are always on target (I weigh everything!), and my ratios are always within range, I exercise for 40mins daily- yet I'm not losing anything either? I've been eating 'right' for months now with no results, and have added the exercise in the last few weeks to see if it made a difference- but nothing yet?

Any advice would be appreciated too!

Congratulations on receiving an A in food analysis.  That's a good place to be.  In order to answer your question we would need to know a few things.  What are your goals?  Lose weight? If so what are your stats?  How many calories are you on and have you properly calculated them on this site?  What do you do for exercise?  How long have you been tracking all this?

well eating right is always good. I like the way I eat because my nails are super strong now. What excersise are you doing? Are you also doing weights 3x a week? How much are you sweating? you may not be working hard enough so your not burning the calories you think your burning your body may also be bored with the same routine day in and day out. mix it up a little. Try the HIIT program for 1 day a week.

As GIJane said, it may be the portions.  Get the scales and measuring cups.

Even if you eat 10,000 calories or only 100, you could still get an A.  The grade tells more about the proportions of nutrients, vitamins, fats, salt, etc than about the number of calories.

I've lost about 8 pounds since the first of the year and I get an A- about a third of the time and a B or B+ the rest of the time. I ignore the overall grade--you have to find a food combination that works for you. I get tons of veggies and fruit, but I also eat eggs and cheese and meat, which CC generally hates and gives bad grades to. Also, random things like jello get a bad grade, and to me, that is fine to eat. So bottom line, I completely ignore the overall grade and look more at particulars like fiber, protein, fat, vitamins, minerals, etc.

The grade has nothing to do with weight loss, only the estimated nutritional value of the foods.  It's there to help you make informed decisions about what to eat.

When you look up an item, on the upper right you will see a ?.  This is the Help Key.  Click on it for a complete explanation about Grades.

In case you can't find it, here's a link to the Grade help page

http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/help.php?id= 66

Original Post by gem86:

How much are you sweating? you may not be working hard enough so your not burning the calories you think your burning your body may also be bored with the same routine day in and day out. mix it up a little. Try the HIIT program for 1 day a week.

It's key to know what your heart rate is for knowing whether you're doing cardio or fat burning. For myself (aged 25) my fat burning HR is roughly 127 and for cardio it's around 150. So if I want to burn calories, which I do, I make an effort to keep around 127. It's hard to keep it there, I sometimes trail off listening to my music and suddenly notice that my HR has shot to 140-145. Obv the HR monitors on the gym equipment I'm using won't be dead on but they're good guides.

There's also a useful way to calculate your own here, hth.

Thank you for all your replies.

Now to answer a few of your questions, I'm 25, weigh 139 pounds, 5 foot and 5 inches (had to look up the convertion on the net)

I know im in the healthy weight zone, but i am trying to go down to ... sorry have to go convert again... 121 pounds.

I work in a hotel in asia and have to go and cook my meals everyday for lunch and dinner (the local cooks here always put way too much butter and oil, so i take over my orders). I am trying to get a breakfast at 8 and one at 10 (breakfast consists mostly on pineapple / papaya, with either poached egg and whole wheat toast slice, or muesli with milk or yogurt), lunch (salad, veggies, protein (fish or chicken) and rarely carbs, snack (fruits), dinner same as lunch.

Food portions: i use a salad plate and not a dinner plate (smaller), when i say a cup i use a coffee cup (hope thats correct?).. tbsp and tsp.

Gym:I do 5 days a week at least, after 8pm (after work), i mix, some days i do speed walking and jogging for 45mn or 60 mn (taking it light at first due to knees) and some days i do 30 mn of aerobic or power yoga. And will soon put in a day or 2 of swimming once we get occupancy of the hotel into low season. Being in a hot country helps a lot for the sweating, i try to workout without air con in order to sweat more, I would say my sweating is between medium to high. When i speed walk / jog I try to do it in intervals, as for the aerobic they do have well strengh trainign moments and cardio..

Perhaps all of this is still to new for me to see results and perhaps as i am trying to get myself to eat more often as i was regularly putting my body before in starvation mode as i didnt know what to cook and most of the time just grabbed small bites here and there, now im actually preparing and sitting down and trying to eat in 15mn and not 5 min as i used to.

Thank you again for all your help and I guess i will have to start weighing all my food with the kitchen scale, my kitchen staff are gonna think im crasy ahaah...

Original Post by sintiachita:

I guess i will have to start weighing all my food with the kitchen scale, my kitchen staff are gonna think im crasy ahaah...

 

 If you weigh something one or two times you'll then have a better idea of what you're eating and you won't need to do it every time... you'll be able to judge by eye. 

Your stats kind of tell the tale of why you aren't losing.  You're already at an ideal weight and your body likes it.  Why not just exercise and get toned and forget about the scales? 

Hi Clairelaine,

perhaps your right, when i was in school iwas very fit, at least doing 3 hours of different sports every day and was around the same weight (maybe 2kg lower) and then university plus a ligament operation happened. At the end of university i weighed 160 pounds... i guess i managed to loose all this very slowly through bad diets or eating habits (mostly starvation mode,not on purpose).

I guess as you said my body has got used to it. I am getting back into a more physical mode, well getting back into sports and trying to diversify it in order not to get bored. Perhaps then after a few months i will see more results.

GI-jane

Thank you for the idea, normally i evaluate portion either in coffee cup or in palm of my hand, even eating out (my bar owner friends know me well and make me a kid portion, as anyways i cant finish a normal portion). However i think i will give it a go and take the time to actually measure in grams my food. Will let you know the results.

Again thank you all!

wow if ur already 121lbs you really don't have any extra weight to lose then, ur already thin. I bet u look great. No need to lose more.  :)

Hi -- I can relate to your post. I finally went to a nutritionist to get some help b/c I was limiting my calories and exercising for months without seeing results. I'm breastfeeding btw and still have to lose 15 lbs. What I learned when working with her is that my body got stuck and we needed to reboot it. I could either eat a ton or be very limited and nothing made a difference. what we ended up doing was having a week of eating about 2600 per day. I gained .5 lbs and it was heaven! Then the calories got cut to 1600 and I began to see small results. weight lifting seemed to really help too though for some reason losing weight this time is really hard.

I guess I'm trying to say congrats for eating so well and exercising daily. You must be in good health. Keep it up and get some advice if your results don't match your effort. I was careful and set my weekly loss at .75 lbs. Very conservative and even then I had trouble.

best to you!

Hi there,

Im 139 pounds at the moment.. my goal is 121 pounds..

Perhaps thats what i need to do, change the diet for a bit and then attack again.. i will give my current plan a go for one more week and see afterwards..

thanks again for the help