Need answers, Not understanding, Please help

ok here is my problem. for the last few weeks my weight is going up.  the week of April 20th I was 190 My average burned for the week was 2660  and I ate about 1800 cals on average, and my  deficient was 6026 for that week. I should have lost about 1.5 pounds for that week. I gained 2 pounds

The week of April 27th, I was 192, My average burned was 2625 and average about 1577 cals with a total deficient of 7338, so I should have lost about 2 pounds. but I gained another pound.

Today I am 196.5. WHy am I gaining weight when I have a deficient everyday. What am I doing wrong. I'm using the gowearfit, so I know my burn is accurate and I measure my food. Im 5'11 female.

Anyone!!!

Logic dictates that you're either eating more than you think or you're exercising less than you think if you're gaining weight.  Leaving the gowearfit aside for a second, how much exercise are you actually doing in terms of minutes per day and days per week?   I ask that one because, being a Luddite at heart, I'm a little suspicious of devices that claim to measure energy output.  Also, vigorous but sporadic exercise is less effective for weight-loss than more gentle, daily exercise.

And when you talk about an average calorie intake do you stick to a regular 1800? (or 1600?)  or do you find it varies a lot from day to day?  Do you eat regularly?  Do you skip meals ever?  Skip breakfast?   I'm asking those because irregular eating patterns can sometimes lead to weight-gain.

More things to check... is your fluid intake high enough, are you getting at least 5-a-day fruit and veggies and are you hitting less than 2400mg/day of sodium?   I'm asking that one because it's quite easy to gain fluid if you're dehydrated or if your digestion is sluggish

Finally, have you seen a doctor recently?  Do you have a history of any medical problems (PCOS? thyroid?) that could make weight-loss difficult?

All I can think of for now.

 thanks for responding, I was hoping you would give me advice. I love reading your post

Here is what I did for the last week
Cals burn  Calories ate        Deficient

2779        ;   1695        ;          1084

2753        ;   1890        ;            863

2319        ;    1822        ;          497

2669           1226        ;           1443

2214        ;     1469        ;         745

2553           1463        ;          1090

3092        ;    1476                  1616

My burn is  around the same amount of calories as I was before I got the gowear fit and I was losing, so CC was pretty accurate.

 I can say that I don't eat that healthy, I love going out to eat like mcdonalds, applebees, etc but I thought it didnt matter as long as you have a deficient at the end of the day.

I go walking everyday at the track for 60 mins and if I dont walk I play basketball. Not only that, I'm walking alot at my job up and down steps.

When I do an analysis on CC, it says my average sodium for the week is around 3079mg. I think that may be high, but I drink alot of water.

Monday I had smothered pork chop, buttered corn, and broccoli casserole an for dinner I had a footlong sub from subway. 1593 cals and burned 2549 def of 956

Tuesday I had ribs, baked beans, french fries and bbq chicken for lunch and for dinners I ate 6 peanut butter cookies and some ice cream and a granola bar. 2003 cals and burned 2242 def of 239

Wednesday I for breakfast I ate a quaker peanut butter bar and a coffee and for lunch some neck bones, mac and cheese and collard greens, for dinner I had an reduced fat ice cream cone from mcdonalds and a large fry. 1436 Cals and burned 2566  def of 1130

How does my eating look? This is what I was always eating and I was losing before, so what happen??

I have a Gowear Fit.  It is not perfect.  There is a margin of error that is +/- 10%.  However, I have found it really does give me a much better idea of how I am doing in terms of burn.

However, I did not see any real improvements to my weight loss until I started weighing and logging EVERYTHING by the gram.  To the bite.  Doing this I saw my weight loss go from 1/2 lbs a week to almost 1.5 lbs a week.

Before I thought I was pretty accurate.  I weighed almost everything.  But there were somethings I was not accounting for.  It made a 300 calorie difference to my daily diet.  YIPES!

Never guess - never assume!

I think your poblem lies somewhere in the fact that you eat different deficits every day, I found that if I keep a consistent deficit of about 600 I have way better results, this I do indeed to also nix out the 10% error of my GWF (yup I have one as well) so if I burn more than it says it is covered or less than it says is also covered.
I indeed think you do not eat very clean, you do tend to eat what I refer to as junkfood, it is also way harder to measure when you eat things you do not actually prepare yourself, I think this is not a huge problem when you do that occasionally, but as often as you do is not so good, food like that also tends to be very high on sodium.
I, like madamq, measure everything, I have a scale and a notebook next to my cutting board and everything I eat, first goes on the scale, even my slices of bread (so I don't count a slice, I count the grams they weigh)

I think that this could be the time to start changing what you eat rather than just counting how much you eat.  Calories alone can be effective initially but there does come a point where you need to be much more focused on the nutrition content of your meals if you're to carry on seeing progress.   I'd have no confidence whatsoever that the calorie count for a foot-long sub or a MacDonalds product, for example, is anything near what they claim....  And processed foods tend to be chock full of sugar, preservatives, salt and other hidden 'nasties' that (and I've no proof for this beyond personal experience) don't help weight.  Drinking water is great but it doesn't offset the salt.

Start with simple measures such as getting 5-a-day fruit and vegetables.  Vegetables simply steamed rather than casseroled or buttered.  Try to switch to wholegrain foods and away from refined starches like white pastas and french fries.  Choose grilled rather than fried foods.  And see if you can cut down your meat-based meals and replace some of them with a few vegetarian dishes.  The intrinsic fat in meat means it's often more calorific than you think.  Aim to eat regularly... minimum three meals a day with snacks of fruit in between.  Don't skip breakfasts any more.

Final suggestion... cook more at home rather than eating out.  Home-cooking tends to be healthier and you're 100% in charge of the ingredients as well.

Best of luck

In my opinion, I think that a weight loss plan should include healthier foods than what you are eating.  You should at least try to change your eating habits in terms of the foods that you eat.  It's hard to do, but once you start eating healthier foods, you'll stop wanting those fast food items.  I agree with gi-jane in that I wouldn't trust the calorie counts listed on restaurant websites.  Someone on here (I forget who it was) once went home and weighed the ice cream cone from McDonalds and it was like twice as much as the serving size.  Try to start preparing your own food at home, at least most of the time.  Otherwise, choose healthy items instead of items that include the word "smothered" in the title.  Eating out is risky when trying to lose weight, because they don't train their employees to use exactly X amount of oil or butter and it's never accurate. 

Thanks everyone for your advice. I'm gonna try to eat healthier. I do have a food scale and measure what I eat. Guess it's not about the calories in versus the calories out. even if I was overestimating my calories, I still shouldn't be gaining with the deficients I have. But I'll try to watch my calories and food choices more closely

Try using this as a food guide for you

http://www.focused-on-fitness.com/nutrition/m ichis-ladder.php

Eating the foods from the top three tiers and avoiding the foods from the bottom tiers will ensure your numbers start dropping. Also, you seem to consume most of your calories in one-two meals... which does not stimulate your metabolism. Try spacing you calories out throughout the day, say eating 300 calories per meal, 5-6 meals per day; but make your calories count: forget about fast food if you're truely trying to drop wait. Best of luck

I read a book a couple of months ago called the 'Don't Go Hungry Diet'... there was a lot of information in there about the Famine Reaction. Before I read this book I always thought that only happened when you go below 1200 calories, but apparently it can happen on calorie amounts when you have consistently large deficits or have been losing weight steadily for awhile. In response to the lack of food, your body slows down it's metabolism and weight loss can halt (often called the plateau). Do you notice feeling colder or a bit sluggish? These are signs your metabolism has slowed. The author suggests eating a bit more for a few days to fool your body into thinking the famine is over. Maybe you could eat your maintenance or just above for a couple days. She's not specific about how much to eat... her method is to follow your hunger and fullness cues.

Original Post by diva_n_da_making:

even if I was overestimating my calories, I still shouldn't be gaining with the deficients I have.

When you're larger your body uses up more energy so there's more margin for error.  As you get smaller your body needs less energy so there's less margin for error.

Do try to get a healthy breakfast from now on, 5-a-day fruit and vegetables and minimum 3 meals a day (6 is excessive).  Take it steady but try to keep improving your diet.

Hi! I think you may be underestimating your calorie intake. You're also probably taking in a lot of sodium so you are retaining water. I would suggest dialing back the sodium and drinking about litres of water a day. You would also benefit from more fiber. All Bran Buds will do the trick.

Maybe you can try buying pre-pacaged foods for a awhile to accurately judge you caloric intake.

Good luck!

Original Post by freakybunny:

Hi! I think you may be underestimating your calorie intake. You're also probably taking in a lot of sodium so you are retaining water. I would suggest dialing back the sodium and drinking about litres of water a day. You would also benefit from more fiber. All Bran Buds will do the trick.

Maybe you can try buying pre-pacaged foods for a awhile to accurately judge you caloric intake.

Good luck!

LOL There's no way to cut back sodium AND buy pre-packaged food to keep track of calories. But even pre-packaged food isn't entirely accurate. For example, say you buy some sort of veggie patty like morning star or boca. The nutrition label will tell you one patty is so many grams and calories. I weigh mine, because they DO vary.. sometimes adding an extra 30-40 calories. Not a big difference, but it does start adding up if you eat them all the time. This is with ANY packaged food.

Hi, Diva.

Since you want answers, and not sympathy, here goes some unvarnished advice from a US Army Sergeant.

Your calories burned stats look waaaaay inflated.  I lift weights and do 30-40 minutes of cardio 6-days a week and my calories burned are not as high as yours.  Whatever you are using to measure calories burned is pretty inflated and I doubt you are getting an accurate count.  My advice is to set your activity log on CC to 'sedentary' and then log in your activities letting the CC tabulator measure your calories burned.  It looks to me like you are probably burning about 2000 cals a day.  You have one day on there burning 3092 calories.  That's just not very realistic.

Also, if you are serious about losing weight, stay out of the fast food joints - all of them.  Subway is great, but with cheese, dressing, chips and sodas you are piling all kinds of calories on top.  And a footlong is just going to hurt you because your stomach will not feel full eating weight-loss portions as long as you are putting that much food in it at a single sitting.  Its better to eat small meals and snacks throughout the day than to 'reward' yourself with a heavy 1000 cal meal which will fill you way up and make your diet portions feel like concentration camp rations. 

Get some Weight Watchers, South Beach or Healthy Choice frozen meals that go 250-400 calories.  Let your appetite adjust to these smaller portions (its OK to have yogurt or a light snack for dessert with them).  Then you will notice that footlong anythings just look too big on your plate.  Once you develop this mentality, it will be much easier to lose weight.  When you reach your target weight, you can relax a bit, but you can never go back to the BIG meal mentality if you want to stay small. 

Good luck Diva, and don't hate me.  Old Sarge just wants to see you reach your goals.  Let's GO!

Well I did have my activity set in as sedentary, but then someone said to change it to light activity since Im walking at the job all day long and just to log any extra activity that I do.The day I burned 3000 calories, I rode my motorcycle alllll day. So thats probably why it was high that day, like 4 or 5 hours in the hot sun. Can't agree with you on me only burning about 2000 a day when Im working out.Remember I am tall 5'11  and 196 pounds, I'm not a little chick...lol.  I know if Im sedentary I burn  about 2040 according to CC and my little gadget.

You are right about staying out the fast food joints.  I am going to stay out of them and cook more.

Yesterday I had 2 bananas for breakfast. COllard greens, broccoli and fried fish for lunch( I know stay away from fried foods..lol) and for dinner I had baked fish, broccoli and uncle ben's rice. I had an apple and a quaker bar for a snack. totaling about 1269 cals. Thats kind of low. I find that if I eat healthy, I dont meet my cals

THanks everyone for all the advice u giving me. I have started my new way of eating as of yesterday.

Original Post by sandyeggo15:

Try using this as a food guide for you

http://www.focused-on-fitness.com/nutrition/m ichis-ladder.php

Eating the foods from the top three tiers and avoiding the foods from the bottom tiers will ensure your numbers start dropping. Also, you seem to consume most of your calories in one-two meals... which does not stimulate your metabolism. Try spacing you calories out throughout the day, say eating 300 calories per meal, 5-6 meals per day; but make your calories count: forget about fast food if you're truely trying to drop wait. Best of luck

thank u for that site, I'm trying to stay on tier 1-3. Very good information!

Have you read this article from the CC Blogs?

A Simple Diet Plan

It helped me understand the importance of eating right.

OK Crystal - you got me.  You must lead a very active life especially riding a motorcycle, walking all day at your job, an hour on the track, basketball, etc... so maybe your calories burned are more realistic than what I first assessed.  I checked out your photo and you are a very attractive lady just the way you are. 

I can't really give any advice beyond what I have already said as I'm only a month into CC myself and have only lost about 6 pounds to show for it.  I wish you success and I believe you are the kind of lady who will definitely achieve all your goals.  Next time I will come around and ask you for advice, LOL! 

Blessings,

Johnny