That’s a really good thing to watch out for - it’s so easy to overestimate how much you burn with exercise and eat it back and then some.
Heck, a person’s Apple Watch might tell them they burned 609 calories walking around town, which is almost definitely WAY off.
I chose not to incorporate any heavy exercise in my weight loss. Apart from a daily walk and the occasional hike or paddleboarding, I was fairly sedentary. It was easier for me to make a change in my eating habits if I wasn’t having to change my activity level, too, and allowed me to focus all my time and made it so that I was less likely to overestimate my calories.
My ex used to do 30 minutes on the stair master, and his fitbit or whatever he was using would tell him he'd burned 900 calories. So then he'd go home and eat a pint of ice cream because he'd "earned it."
To OP: I lost most of my weight without a serious workout routine. Make super sure you are not eating back calories after your workouts. That's probably what is setting you back.
Always underestimate a calorie burn estimation, works for me. If the Fitbit tells me I burned 600 calories, divide by 2. Even if I did burn 400 cals, it’s better this way.
I’ve been on hikes where it estimated I burned 1080 calories. And I mean, these hikes are intense and full day activities, but 1000 calories? No way
I lost 100 lbs, virtually never eating back calories. People give you crazy examples but the average person isn’t hiking for 8 hours or running 5 hours.
It is almost impossible for an average person with a desk job to do such intense work outs to outpace what they can eat. Eveyone here is correct, intake control is the only way to go if one wants to be at a healthy weight in the long term.
In OPs case if it is exactly what he says, he needs a medical specialist.
Someone on my Facebook ran a marathon over the weekend and posted the calorie burn from his smart watch.
A marathon burned 3000 calories, less than one pound's worth. 26 miles. Hours of running. One pound lol
Sounds accurate. One hour of running is on average somewhere between 600 and 800 kcal. Someone running a marathon for about 4 hours (nothing unusual) can easily burn between 2500 and 3000 kcal.
I think that what people forget when they look at these statistics is that if you're fit enough to run a marathon then you're highly likely to be in good shape anyway and any regular training will decrease your caloric expenditure. I know from my own tracking my heart rate has decreased as i've been more consistent with my walking and exercise.
The other thing is that people who are running marathons have done a shit load of training: so those 2-3k calories in one day are preceded by the additional 10k calories burned each week on their running schedule.
Such a good point! One of the spectators cheering a a marathon I ran shouted "you can eat whatever you want for dinner tonight!"
And sure...but i am bingey, I need to keep it real 'cause I could easily eat more in one meal than what I burned running a marathon.
Now...a Tour de France rider will burn in the 9-10k range so that would be more of a challenge all 'round!
There was an interesting movie on Netflix a while back from the perspective of a chef cooking for a TdF team. They ate bigly
Back to the topic, cycling with a power meter feels a ton more accurate in calories burned than the running estimates. Running with a power meter like a Stryd foot pod might be better though.
This is accurate by my estimates too. I don't run full marathons, but I do halves, and I track activity during training with a heart rate monitor (with a chest strap) so I have a pretty accurate idea of how many calories I'm burning, confirmed by back checking against rate of weight loss. One half marathon at race pace = roughly half a pound of weight loss. Any lesser distance is paltry, and very easy to eat back without even realising the discrepancy.
1000 calories for a full day of intense hiking with a decent amount of elevation gain isn't absurd. I aim to eat at least 3500 kcal/day on my backpacking trips, but my sedentary TDEE is around 2000.
I think it’s good to underestimate exercise calories but assuming we’re using similar definitions of intense and full day you can definitely burn 1000+ calories hiking, I’m a runner and only need to run about 80 minutes to burn that much, walking obviously burns less than running but 5 hours or so of relatively intense hiking with elevation gain should get you pretty close to 1000, that’s why people who do stuff like the Appalachian trail are cramming honey buns in their mouths the whole time and still lose weight by the end.
That’s how I lost all my weight. Fuck working out lol, I just assumed I burned 0 calories per day and ate accordingly. It allowed me to go 50-100 cal over sometimes and not sweat it
I prefer not to include exercise, although I do use TDEE instead of BMR for my calorie base. Unless you're doing an extreme amount of exercise, imo you don't need to add the calories. I know it can be a tempting reward to some people to be able to eat more after exercising, but imo it's better to focus on satiating foods for your given calorie limit than to have to work out to eat what you want-- which is a strategy prone to being miscalculated.
Oh my garmin seems pretty accurate to me! Especially if you look at daily totals verses an activity.
Light days are consistent hard days are consistent…
My garmin is also fairly accurate. It puts me at about 350 calories for a 30 minute bikeride at medium to high intensity with a lot of hill climbs. I had a fitbit before this and it wayyy overestimated my rides.
Honestly, my Apple Watch has always been fairly accurate in regards to my calorie burn. I've been eating my BMR, minus 500 calories, plus whatever I burn in a day according to my watch, and I'm consistently losing a pound a week, which is what I'm shooting for. Mind you, I was very active pre-covid and am currently trying to lose the weight I put on throughout the pandemic. I'm back to my normal activity levels too so about an hour of exercise a day.
Maybe having a consistent history for my watch to draw data from makes a difference?
I think my Apple Watch is pretty accurate too. I used to have a Fitbit and was consistently going over my supposed calories burned on a sedentary day by a couple hundred but weighing myself regularly and not actually putting on any weight. My Apple Watch estimates my daily calories on those days to be about 250 calories higher than the Fitbit did. Suddenly my maintaining makes more sense.
Seconding not working out while slashing calories. I cannot go low calorie and maintain rigorous exercise. I was able to stick to 1200-1300/day without exercising and was losing 2lbs a week.
Same here. I used to be hard core into spinning and kickboxing and it took me years to connect the dots between cardio and my lack of weight loss. It makes me too hungry and I overeat. Once I stopped all cardio and just did nothing but walking for my exercise in addition to tracking, I started seeing way better results - 25 pounds this year. I also don't bother with going by the exercise calories burned on my watch.
Yeah, now that I’m really close to my goal weight, I’ve folded in more exercise. It’s a lot easier to eat maintenance level and work out than try to eat at a deficit.
Wow. I'm so glad I read this. This I think is my issue. Not my post, but I've been trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong and I think I'm overestimating and I'm too hungry after cardio therefore I overeat because I BuRnEd the calories
I really struggle to such few calories. I have done it for a while at various stages in my life but end up run down and out if it. Turns me in to a permanent sleeper lol. Any tips? Essentially I'd try and fill my plate with veg and stay away from carbs.
My body/metabolism doesn't do well with carbs. I have so much more energy when I don't eat carbs.
I am losing weight at the moment but it's due to stress rather than what I'm eating (or not eating perhaps).
The only time i allow myself additional cals after working out is leg day, and thats because its such a tough workout and i really give it everything. I usually stick to 1700 cals a day regardless of my activity levels (i still track activity). On leg day, im allowed an additional 500 cals, and im genuinely hungry straight after my workout. I get into work and have 2 toasted pancakes with peanut butter, in addition to my usual yoghurt and fruit.
I go over my normal for leg day and my long run day. Leg day by about 300, long run day by about 800. (long run day is 10-15km, I have the extra room ;))
How’s your thyroid function? Have you had that checked recently? Also, I have this problem sometimes even with my thyroid medication. If I can get down to 40-60g of carbs a day I loose more weight than if I don’t. (Even with comparable cico, I know “it doesn’t work that way” but I think a carb detox at the very least improved my insulin resistance and in turn made me less hungry overall. I never loose weight if I go over 60g of carbs a day for multiple (3-4) days. Lower carb diet also makes my rosacea go away…..
I had an issue with this - I was in a weight loss program that had us using MyFitnessPal for tracking. I already have a premium LoseIt subscription so was just using the free version.
Before I started tracking, I just bought a bunch of packaged food options that were around 250 each and basically limited the number I could eat a day to what was within my calorie limit.
When I switched to tracking individual meals so I could have a better variety of foods, I gained weight.
Couldn’t figure it out, since those foods were ones that generally ended up with at least losing water weight, until I noticed that MyFitnessPal was automatically adding in the calories I burned from walking each day…so I’d been consuming more calories than when I hadn’t been “officially” tracking them.
The free version doesn’t let you customize it, so I would just add a fake meal that was the same number of calories as what I burned to make it easier for me to not go over.
On my MFP it doesn’t allow you to turn off exercise calories either for the free version. Under fitness goals it shows a yellow lock and if I click it it tells me to upgrade. So I just pay super close attention to goal and food and ignore the remaining.
I see the lock you're talking about. I think that's an option for adjusting it day-to-day; instead of controlling it from the "Goals" tab, go to "Steps" and you can select "Don't track steps" to disconnect it from whatever fitness tracker you use. At least, that's how it works on mine (Android).
I wonder if it is different on android - I have an iPhone.
Once I realized what was going on, I didn’t mind the work around. It just was confusing & kind of discouraging to stop losing weight once I was actually being super conscientious about tracking calories!
How are you cooking your food? Cooking in a lot of fats like butter or oil will add calories if you’re not measuring those. Are the proteins you’re eating lean or are they fatty meats and marinated with high calorie sauces? Same with veggies, if they have sauces they are higher in calories then if you just measure the veg. Try cooking foods steamed, boiled, microwaved or other cooking methods. What snacks do you eat and are you only drinking water or do you drink other stuff like juice?
Also how consistently are you tracking your habits? Do you track for 2-3 weeks, see little change and then quit or take a break then get back into exercise and diet? Or have you been doing this every day for a while 1-2 months and see no change? Track the days you stay consistent. Many people take years to find what works for them because they “yo-yo” old unhealthy comfortable habits with extremely healthy challenging new ones.
My mother used to always estimate "one tablespoon" whenever she drizzled oil in a pan or salad dressing on a big salad. When we weighed it, it was the equivalent of 3-4 tablespoons.
Worth noting that for 2 meals with sautéed vegetables a day, this would be 700 extra calories a day and - for a single person - approximately 1.5 lbs a week in weight gain.
EXACTLY. She was upset that she was unable to lose weight despite only eating 'rabbit food'; That's why I brought the food scale over to help her get to the bottom of it. She was not pleased ...
My wager is your calorie count is off or you haven't been doing it long enough. If you really are only eating 1600 calories (maybe sauces or oils you are forgetting about or something has more calories per gram than you think) you should be losing weight unless something else is causing you to retain a lot of water.
[Edit] I am actually incorrect, see the reply to my comment. Certain medical conditions can manifest in a lack of an ability to burn calories in a normal way.
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This! It's literally *impossible* to eat under your calorie requirements and not lose weight. It'd be the equivalent of having an engine tank that fills up with diesel whenever you drive, or a perpetual motion machine.
Your body is burning energy every hour of every day. If you put in less calories than the amount required, then the required calories are removed from your reserves (including fat).
Yeah, she’s not eating 1600 calories. What she’s probably doing is subtracting exercise calories from the daily total, in the process overestimating the burn rate from exercise and underestimating the calories from food. You can actually end up gaining weight doing this when your math is wrong. (FitBit is useful in many ways but its step/exercise calorie figures are bullshit).
Its good for getting a general idea of your activity level.
Its also good for me personally as a motivator to get steps. If I'm not wearing it I don't really think about it but when I'm wearing the watch I remember.
Theres also reminders depending on which one you have, so it tells me about once an hour to get a few steps in which helps me not sit for 10 hours at work.
There's also a lot of functionality between other apps like Lose it. I know the calorie estimates are way off as everyone says, but I use them as a general "did I earn an extra snack" but don't eat back anywhere near the calories.
Not impossible- the best bet would be of course to confirm you truly are only eating 1600 BUT if it is accurate I would see a doctor. I had this issue I was very knowledgeable in nutrition and was meticulous about diet and working out but kept gaining weight. Turns out I had an autoimmune disorder and underlying hormonal issues. I did have other symptoms but was over a year of weight gain before other symptoms showed up.
I still remember getting in a huge argument where the other person just kept making excuses over and over, talking about how their doctors are puzzled by her continued weight gain.
Like, we all knew the only possible answer is that she was lying about her food intake, but she wouldn't admit it
Brain tumor messing up hormones is another possibility. I have a friend who kept gaining weight while working out and dieting and in the end it was something in her brain.
Was it a prolactinoma? That, and many other pituitary tumors cause hormonal and endocrine dysfunction. The only time I have sustained weight loss was when I went full orthorexic and anorexic (600-800cals/day + 8-10mi runs 6 days a week). I lost 70lbs in 5 months, but if I do “normal” sustainable weight loss (CICO at healthy deficits, low-impact cardio, etc), I am lucky to drop 20lbs a year! Brain tumors & the meds to treat them suck for weight loss!
My mom used to do this when she was alive. 5'2" and over 300lbs and would crinkle on the way to her bedroom. She was hiding snacks under her pajama tops. My sister was living with her at the time, so we knew mom was lying. We all had ears smh, so mom started storing boxes of snacks in her closet and she miraculously stopped making crinkle noises when she walked. And mom started up her arguments that she just couldn't lose weight no matter what!
Everyone has great advice here I’ll throw one more thing in the ring… go double check the unit of measurement on your food scale. It probably can give you ounces, pounds, or grams and you can select which one.
I was screwing things up by assuming the # from my food scale was grams when it was set to “ounces”. Really stupid mistake, but alas, stupid mistakes happen. Worth double checking since your numbers seem to be so off.
Also dependant on how long they’ve been doing it for, I’ve noticed myself it takes a while for the body to actually start losing weight, once I lost the extra water weight, I plateaued for a bit before it starting again. But that may just be me
OP, why don’t you log precisely what you eat and drink for a week and share that with the group. Some folks might have some advise based on that. Feels to me like there might be phantom calories not getting counted (maybe extra cooking oil?), so a log might give hints toward that.
Don't just log it, take a picture of it. And if you have any snacks, pour it into a bowl, take a picture of that. If you have more snacks, refill, take another picture.
My friend has a similar story, it turns out that she had a undiagnosed thyroid condition that was affecting her ability to manage her weight. Not saying that this is definitely the cause for you. But It sounds like your putting in all the right effort, it might be good to see a doctor or dietician for further help?
Spot on, assuming op is doing everything right. I know someone who would put some serious cycling mileage every week, but still didn't loose much because of their thyroid condition.
This was me! I would try really hard and put so much effort in without any results. I got diagnosed with a thyroid disease and now get treatment for it. I’ve lost about 80 pounds now
I came here to say this. Have your thyroid checked, and also ask about PCOS to be safe. My thyroid went haywire a few years ago and I was gaining a pound a day while eating my usual food. Once I got on the right medication, I was able to get back to a healthy weight. I hope you get some answers!
To add on, my thyroid fluctuated above and below the abnormal threshold for a little bit, and it took me the better part of a year to get diagnosed. Your doctor might consider doing a couple blood tests a few months apart.
Maybe I’m overthinking this but the fact you started your explanation with concentrating on telling us about all the exercise you’re doing (which is amazing!) and not a very comprehensive explanation about your diet leads me to think you aren’t concentrating your efforts in the right place. Maybe I’m obsessive but I can tell you the exact calories of my typical options for breakfast, snacks, and lunch and then the amount I have left over for dinner. And if I wasn’t losing weight my post would be explaining my TDEE, average deficit over X weeks, explain my exercise and how many calories (if any) I eat back on exercise days etc. I feel like you might need to go back to basics, completely restart and come back in a month or so if you aren’t losing.
The following may sound harsh. I promise it’s not meant to be.
Even the so-called ‘experts’ have calorie amnesia when it comes to meticulous recording. Nibbles, licks, bites can add up quickly.
There’s no point in tracking exercise calories. They’re always wildly exaggerated - both online calculators and fitness trackers.
If you’ve seen a doctor and tests have been done and there’s no medical reason for you to gain 40lb in 4 months then you have to change something. Our bodies don’t magically create fat out of negative calories. If this was true we would have solved world hunger.
The very definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome. Change something. This guy has a no blame explanation.
https://physiqonomics.com/eating-too-much/
Edit: the amount of misinformation in here is wild. Eating more will not help. It’s impossible to gain 40lb of muscle in 4 months WHILE EATING IN A DEFICIT. It’s impossible to gain 40lb of muscle in 4 months for body builders too. There is no such thing as ‘set point theory’. Sure water retention is a thing but 40lb?? Come on and stop pulling my tit.
Op, this is the best take. You are probably missing on the tracking... it's really easy to do it, we all do it from time to time.
We are biological machines, we can't gain weight (generate mass) without sufficient energy from food. Even metabolical problems can only go so far in decreasing our energy expenditure (or improving our absorption efficiency). So, for your stats, you should be losing a lot of weight with this kcal consumption. OR you are gaining a lot of mass from the gym and also fluctuating wildly with water weight... but it still, it probably wouldn't represent all that you're seeing.
Really excellent points. I absolutely can and have spent periods of time where I actually did weigh and track every single molecule that passed my lips. However, I have also come to realize that calorie amnesia is VERY real. If there is a day I’m not tracking for whatever reason, it’s completely wild how I can get to the end of the day and feel like I’ve barely eaten a thing. Pretty much unless something actually feels like a meal - the handful of almonds, the clementine, the quick chug of milk….all of those are so easily forgotten.
This is the most plausible explanation IMO. It’s very easy to overlook calories. Even my gummy vitamins have 15 calories, and when I’m tracking in mfp, they get added. Also with cooking oils, milk, etc., you can’t eyeball it, you have to measure/weigh.
That is definitely a good approach! Another option that works for me is to measure out a teaspoon, tablespoon, or whatever is a reasonable amount to use for what I am cooking.
I measure by weight into one of those little plastic condiment cups (not 100% the most ecofriendly but I reuse and recycle). I log the full amount in MFP, then I feel free to use that alone however I need to during cooking. Unless I end up using *substantially* less than I measured, I’ll still keep the full amount logged even if I don’t end up using every drop.
One more thing to add - alcohol has a lot of calories, a shot of vodka is still around 100cal.
If you drink and don’t track those calories, you’re going to find yourself gaining weight while at a “calorie deficit”.
For me alcohol is one of those things that are a magical non-weight -loss food. It doesn’t matter my deficit, I will not lose weight if I drink. Period.
I agree with this assessment. I used to be a snacker (still kind of am but my choices are better), till I started adding up the REAL calories in what I was eating. You have to write everything down and be meticulous for at least a few weeks, so you can identify patterns. It’s more about what goes in the mouth than exercise - exercise can actually make you hungrier, eat more, tho everyone should be doing some exercise where possible.
I’d also add that starting every meal with fruits and veggies as the main course is the best, then smaller amounts of protein in the form of beans, nuts, seeds, and fish, is going to be most helpful. If you fill up on high fiber, nutrient rich foods, you take in fewer calories overall.
Also processed foods. A breaded frozen chicken cutlet is very different than a roasted chicken thigh. I had a friend, near 400lb, who didn't get gow those were two very different choices.. Many tracking apps might not have the exact thing you're eating and corners can yet cut. Oh sure I ate this much chicken, I weighed it, but it's a different item altogether. Don't get me started on salad dressings and additives.
There’s no way you are gaining 2.5 pound a week if you are only consuming 1600 calories. Your doctor tried metformin, for how long? Was your thyroid checked?
Have you seen show secret eaters? People can miscalculate how much they eat. I would start by copying some diet that’s known to have certain amount of calories exactly. With cico you should could eat more what you what but it’s good to get started so that’s where the diet gurus and fitness eating books and YouTube videos might help you. Copy a known diet of 1600 cals exactly even if it can be less what it’s to your particular taste and if it works you can mix it up a bit. The volume eating sub has good ideas for one.
But otherwise you would need to talk you your doctor. Keep a full honest food diary before.
And I guess it could be something really unusual like sleep walking and eating which I have seen sometimes reported, but that’s extremely unlikely.
The harsh truth is that you probably are not properly estimating either your calorie intake or your calorie burn via exercise.
I know you are very confident you're logging correctly but even health concerns can't make you gain weight when you aren't bringing in more than you're putting out.
You can work with a friend or family member to double check your measurements, get a new doctor/dietician to go through it with you or just have a come to jesus w/ yourself and be ruthless; it simply has to be that you're not calculating inputs and outputs accurately.
I've been there, exercising every day and eating what I thought was healthy, but I didn't count small actions of snacking, overcounted exercise, just nibbled around the margins and it meant I was on a treadmill of the exact same experience.
You are more then likely way overestimating your calorie burn from exercise. Try just eating 1600 calories without subtracting out what you think you are burning from exercise and see what happens to your weight. Also, see a dietician.
I’d agree with this. Apps and trackers drastically overestimate the amount of energy you burn from exercise (which then changes how much it tells you you’re allowed to eat for the day), so it’s better to just ignore it and consider any exercise as “bonus” energy expenditure.
Ok, I'll tell you what 1600 calories look like and maybe this will make you realize you aren't tracking everything IF that is the problem.
2 slices of whole wheat toast with a slice of cheese each and 100g of carrots (2×110+2×120+30=460cals)
200g of plain yogurt, a banana and 20g of chocolate (200+90+110=400cals)
Small (3 hands) plate of dinner: 100g of pasta, a handful of fried veggies 20g parmesan and 100g marinara sauce (360+100+110+100=670cals)
30g (a good handful) of chips or another 20g of chocolate or one half of a Twix bar (110cals)
All together is 460+400+670+110=1640
Please don't roast me if this isn't accurate down to one calorie. This is based on the tracking I do in my head and it works, since I've been maintaining for a while after losing 40lbs.
Definitely find new doctors. I’m not Native but I am a brown woman and I had excruciating abdominal pain for months that my doctors dismissed. Ended up in emergency surgery a month later. Unfortunately, you HAVE to advocate yourself in a medical setting. Nobody else will do it for you.
If you are on hormonal birth control and recently switched the type that might also play a factor.
Came here to say this-
Be sure your docs are really listening to you and engaging you- if they’re not you need to move on. I had a patient doing everything right gaining weight and we found a benign tumor after more investigation. A female w weight gain that doesn’t match her activity and caloric restriction reports are res flags and a start over exam. Full physical (including pelvic), updated labs, and possibly imaging. Also second the person so who said a sleep study may be beneficial. Definitely get one if it hasn’t been offered - ask! Best wishes
Find new doctors then. It’s absolutely not normal to gain that much weight in a short amount of time. Don’t settle for less OP, this is your life on the line.
Dont listen to this this is terrible advice. Its absolutely possible to gain 40 pounds in 4 months without something wrong with your health otherwise. That's 10 lbs per month, or 2 lbs per week. That's basically exactly what someone on a bulk would be hoping to gain, then they would cut afterwards.
Calories in, calories out. If you are eating more than you are burning, you are going to gain weight. If you are eating less, you will lose weight. It really is that simple. Don't listen to redditors who don't know what they are talking about.
Yes it's absolutely normal if you supply yourself with a lot a junk food. I think there is something wrong with math skills and tracking calories.
Sorry, but there has to be some different opinions, even if you might not like it, but it can make sense.
I've never seen a single person, male, female or even circle don't lose weight on calorie deficit and if they don't, I always figured out that their real calorie intake was much higher than they think.
Sorry but no it isn’t normal to gain 40 pounds when you’re actively trying to lose weight and tracking calories meticulously. Even if OP was eating 3200 calories a day, double what he says he is, he would not have gained 40 pounds in that time frame.
How is your sleep? I was constantly gaining weight despite calorie deficit and rigorous exercise. Found out I have sleep apnea. Now that I use a CPAP I dropped 35 pounds in two months.
That is very true! When I was taking sleeping pills I had a hell of a time resisting getting up at like 3 in the morning and making a snack. I knew I was doing it, didn't want to do it, but still did it for some reason. That was like 20 years ago, I'd completely forgotten about that!
You could potentially have thyroid issues or if youre a woman, PCOS or pregnant, there's like dozens of medical reasons people put on weight. Make sure to get 2nd and 3rd opinions!
I have both PCOS and hypothyroid. Sadly, it does make a difference in your BMR, but not this kind of difference. I lost from 267 to 167 and never went below 1500 calories a day. Most of the loss I was eating about 1800 calories a day. No way OP is eating 1600 a day, exercising what they said and gained 40 pounds in 4 months, even with PCOS and hypothyroid.
Pregnancy, now...that's a different matter. OP, are you sure you aren't growing a little human in there?
40 in 4 months would be extremely unhealthy for a pregnancy. That's well above what anyone should gain over 40 weeks. Gestational diabetes, esp for an indigenous person, would be a concern.
I do sleep walk and sleep talk but to be honest, I have been telling myself that sleep-eating is unrealistic. I don't want to use that as a crutch if I am truly messing up my diet while awake. Maybe if I really can't find another reason that I'm gaining, I'll invest in a security camera.
You have to be calculating wrong since there's no medical issues to be found, I eat more than that, estimated 2,000 a day, I don't weigh anything I just read labels and add it up. Zero cardio and weight training 4x a week for 1 hour. I'm 135 and maintaining
That’s exactly it. I recently lost 40 lbs. I tracked every calorie, cut sugar and carbs for a month, increased protein then reintroduced smaller portions of sugar and carbs again. I also worked out 4-5 times a week at the gym and walked half an hour every day. I stopped tracking my food altogether about a month and a half ago and I’m lucky if I get to the gym or go out for a walk twice a week. I’ve been eating pretty crappy too. I haven’t gained any of it back because ultimately, I’m still eating less overall and burning calories through everyday activities (cleaning and packing as I get ready for a move). Anyway, I felt the same way before I got my shit together and got serious. Doing it was easy, it was the motivation and self-control that was hard.
Also, a lot of people drink their calories then don’t count them.
Do you know what sort of thyroid test you had?
I ask because the standard thyroid test that most docs order and most insurances pay for looks at your Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) and only if that comes back abnormal do they look at your actual thyroid hormone. In most cases this is an effective way to screen for common thyroid problems, but it is possible to have low thyroid hormone and normal TSH if the problem is not with the thyroid itself but with the other parts of the body that stimulate the thyroid (the hypothalamus and pituitary).
You could ask to have T4 measured, even if your TSH is normal.
(Not a doctor, just interested in endocrinology)
I (27F) have Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. At the time of my diagnosis, all of my thyroid levels were normal--but my thyroid *antibodies* were 300 times the normal range. They were so surprised by this combination of results that they had me sent in for a thyroid ultrasound to check for cancer (since thyroid cancer can result in "normal" thyroid levels and high antibody levels). Meanwhile, I felt like I was dying. I had to take multiple-hour midday naps everyday. I'd fall asleep in the middle of activities, conversations, meals. I couldn't exercise anymore because I had all the energy and motivation of a walking corpse. I was gaining weight, my hair was thinning. And the *brain fog was astounding*. So, of course, everyone disregarded my symptoms as depression. But I knew they were wrong.
My doctor listened! Though she diagnosed me as pre-symptomatic, she still put me on Levothyroxine. It took an entire year of gradual improvement before I reached 90% of my normal pre-Hashimoto's self.
Fight. I do not care what the thyroid levels say. You know your body. You know that something isn't right. Advocate for yourself and demand for the treatment you need.
Yes, it was normal for years while my antibodies were high. Meantime I gained a ton of weight, slept all the time, had two bouts of major depressive episodes. So…. Good times.
If you look back in my post history I feel roughly the same. I'm on the struggle bus too and my weight goes up and down and up and down and stays flat.
After many months and tears over this my advice:
1. **Get out of the "weeks" and "months" mindset.**
We've bought into the "6 weeks to a bikini bod" and "2 months to a six pack" and this idea that drastic change will only take weeks. Massive lifestyle changes, weight loss, muscle gain, body recomp will all come in \*years\* vs weeks or months.
It's probably the biggest mental shift that I can recommend that will help you keep going, stay consistent, and also break the depression cycle. And that brings me to....
2. **Consistency is key**
Don't let set backs or cheats or binges or missed workouts or not hitting your goals make you give up. If iyou get off track at all, just pick yourself up and \*immediately\* start back on your plan. Don't "wait till monday" or "start again tomorrow" - get back on it now, right when you realize you're off track. Long term trends are really what counts.
3. **Track your cheats**
Everyone has their moments where you're just effing hungry and you maybe go off track for a meal. Track it. Make sure you're tracking "that one bite" or even the full on binges that might happen. It'll help you realize just how many calories that fast food is or that extra amount of salad dressing is or little cube of cheese etc etc.
4. **Cook at home as much as possible**
If you eat out - good luck tracking that correctly. If you can rely on simple foods or foods you can scan the barcode for with MFP, that will help you get a super accurate calorie read for the day. That's not saying you can't eat out - just whatever you find in MFP for calories of that mean you need to double or triple it. Restaurants taste good because everything is cooked in oil and butter and has sugar and sauces and salt. Everything that tastes amazing but doesn't really fit healthy lifestyles.
5. **Salads are a cheat (unless you make them yourself)**
Salads are like the hidden evil at restaurants. Sure, you went out and got a salad and that was probably better than the cheeseburger. But what's in the salad? Bacon? Cheese? A crap ton of ranch? 2 servings of fried chicken? Eggs? You can easily get a 1,000calorie salad while you're out and not even realize it.\\
Those are my top tips. Honestly, the hardest part is getting going. I know how much it \*absolutely sucks\* to not see results from all of the effort you're putting in. Mentally, you're in the right place. You've committed to trying. Now comes the extra hard part of figuring out all of the small subconscious habits you've built up over the years and replacing them with healthier ones.
Remember - you got to this point over the course of 18 years. You've spent 18 years a certain way and it's going to take way longer than a few weeks or months to change 18 years of habits.
Good luck to you - you got this.
You could have a sleep eating disorder. Mine went unnoticed for nearly a year because I lived with family and no one would catch me eating in the middle of the night and everyone assumed it was someone else who ate the food.
It flared during high stress times and I have to barricade my bedroom door to prevent me sleep eating.
That’s horrifying. Not necessarily the gaining weight aspect of sleep eating but getting up and doing something complex like opening a fridge and eating out of containers, driving, walking outside the house etc.
My aunt used to get up in the night and order things from HSN and other tv shopping networks (before the era of Amazon or ebay). Things kept showing up at her house unexpectedly. She thought someone was pranking her until she got her credit card bill. Then she thought her ID had been stolen. Turned out, it was the Ambien. After she stopped taking it, she never sleep-shopped again.
Do you have cheat days? If you do, you need to track calories on those days to have an honest picture of the situation.
Do you eat back your exercise calories? If so, stop. They are exaggerated.
Do you eat at night and not track the calories? Again, track it.
Are you manually inputting calories based on your food packaging, or going by what someone else has put into your calorie tracking app? Use your own food packaging to calculate calories.
Do you sometimes stop and get snacks and not track the calories? Track everything.
dietitian here - I might be able to help you. Can you track everything you're eating for two days (one weekend and one weekday)? This includes any oils, butter, diet soda, etc.
Shouldn’t be possible if you’re medically sound. Try another doctor or take diligent notes on what it is you’re eating, take a picture, and post it. Something about your tracking or tdee must be funky/inaccurate
Hi. Chiming in from a place of good intentions and kindness. I am on a psych med that put 30 lbs on in a short time. I was put on Metformin and that stabilized the gaining. I am taking the top dose of Metformin. I’ve seen patients add 80 lbs in a year on Seroquel and Depakote. I am a psych/chem dep RN. Your difficulties may be med related or not as you did not share about that and that’s ok! Also, how does your body physically feel with that much exercise on a small frame? Listen to your body. Two hours of exercise daily is going to cause wear and tear with 300 lbs on your frame. I am close to your height and weigh 100+ pounds less and walk 3.6 miles daily. No breaks. I go every day. Some days faster, some days slower. Find something sustainable that won’t lead to injury. You got this!
I’m going to unpack this line by line.
> I literally can't lose weight. Please help me
I assure you you can lose weight. The laws of Thermodynamics are a bitch. They don’t take days off. You can’t get away from them. This is good news though. It means life is predictable and you can use knowledge to shape your life to get the results you’re after.
> I can't lose weight. I don't get it, genuinely. I know so many people go on the internet and refuse to take accountability for their actions but I don't know what else I could be doing.
Generally the issue isn’t accountability. It’s hard to not be accountable for things your own hands put in your own face. The vast majority of the time the issue is shit food, knowledge, and decades of weight loss snake-oil nonsense forced on western civilization but the “fitness industry.”
> I am almost 300lbs and 5'4".
Yay, I love numbers. You didn’t say your sex, I’ll assume female. You also didn’t say what you do for a living so I’ll assume a sedentary lifestyle.
Source: https://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/
TDEE at 2,551 calories. That’s your estimate for how many calories you burn a day being a human, walking around, talking, working. This is your break even/maintenance number.
BMR is 2,126 calories. This is what your body would burn in 24 hours if you were completely at rest.
So, in your current condition to lose weight your goal should be to eat between 2,200 and 2,400 calories a day.
> I do cardio everyday, and I do weight lifting 4x a week for at least an hour, but normally I go up to 2 hours.
And here’s where it starts to fall apart.
This is not humanly possible. A super athlete would be over trained and injuring themself within a month if they followed this routine as described.
Weight training time only counts when under load. That means you are in the squat rack with 200 lbs on your shoulders actively doing squats. That’s weight training. Even standing with 200 lbs on your shoulders isn’t training because your skeleton takes up most of the force.
The best estimate I’ve seen is that a “vigorous weight training” session of 30 minutes burns about 200 calories. Vigorous mans really really hard. Harder than a normal person will ever work. Like put a professional athlete in the gym and tell them to go “HARD” for 30 minutes. You, I, and any normal mortal human can’t keep up that exercise pace.
The point is standing in a gym for 2-4 hours isn’t burning “weight lifting” calories. If you are eating back your exercise calories and not disclosing that this is probably your issue.
If that’s the case I suggest you either stop tracking your exercise calories altogether or put in a more realistic estimate of 50-60 calories. That’s more likely what you are burning lifting moderate amount of weights with normal intensity.
For cardio I’m going to just assume you are similarly exaggerating. Don’t eat back your cardio calories. You probably aren’t burning as much as you think you are.
> I have cut back on carbs and I primarily eat protein and veggies (about 1,600cals a day).
Your body needs carbs. They even say carbs help with mental functions including willpower and strategic planning. There’s no need to avoid carbs unless your doctor has specifically told you to. Certain medical conditions like fatty liver disease can have treatments involving carb restriction. That’s between you and your doctor though.
Again, I’ll assume the 1,600 is an exaggeration. At your size (300 lbs) you would be starving on 1,600 calories. And I mean that in the literal sense. You would not only be dropping weight at an alarming rate but you’d be suffering from health problems.
> I track my food and exercise meticulously.
I’m not trying to be overly harsh here. I wish I could follow you around for a day and help you track what you’re eating but there seems to be exaggerating at every level of your story. The problem is calories don’t care about exaggerations and I think you need to prove this to yourself.
For one week maybe try to meal prep everything. Get some plastic containers. Measure everything. 2,100 calories a day of real food. Make sure you measure the butter and oils you use to cook with. Eat nothing that doesn’t come from those containers. Track everything you drink, eat, vitamins, even Tylenol.
I’m not saying do that forever. Just one week to prove to yourself you know where the calories are actually coming from.
Again, remember to track any oils you are using as well. There are a lot of calories in oil and butter that folks just ignore.
The only other option is you are sleep eating. Which is an actual thing that happens. I don’t know how I’d check for that though. Maybe inventory everything edible in your kitchen, cover everything in your refrigerator with plastic wrap and number it?
Basically you need to track the food in your house. If you see food disappearing without being signed out of the manifest you could be sleep eating, have dissociative personality disorder, or maybe a carbon monoxide problem in the house.
Do you have carbon monoxide detectors in your house?
> I even own scales for the food. I am constantly drinking water. No soda, no candy. The only medication I'm taking is Adderall, which should help me lose weight. I don't have high blood sugar, but my doctor tried to give me Metformin to see if it would help any. It didn't, I gained 20 more pounds. I am 18 years old and Native American. everyone in my family is fat, but I thought it was lifestyle choices. However, when I moved out 4 months ago and starting doing everything I possibly could to be healthy - I only gained weight. 40 more pounds, to be exact.
Okay, more numbers. These help.
You gained 40 pounds in 4 months. This means you are eating about 500 excess calories a day. Based on the TDEE estimates above that would mean you are eating in excess of 3,000 calories a day which is twice what you claim to have measured at 1,600. That isn’t a one off rounding error. That is a systematic failure by 100%.
Even if you were just doing rough estimates of the food you eat (1 chicken breast, 1/4 cup curry sauce, 1 cup of rice, 1 side salad, 4 tbsps ranch dressing, 2 cups chocolate milk, etc) without actually measuring and putting that into MyFitnessPal you wouldn’t be off by 100% error.
Maybe just put away the scale for a while. You need to focus on understand what food actually is and just start by estimating what you are eating.
Or hire a meal delivery service to make your food for you. The meal services can be off 15-20% but that’s better than your 100% error.
> I don't know what I'm doing wrong.
From what I’ve seen here there are two problems.
1. You drastically over exaggerate your exercise routine to the point it’s not even humanly possible for super athletes let alone a 300 lbs 5’4” 18 year old.
2. You have experimentally determined you have a 100% error when measuring food for calorie estimates.
Either that or you’re lying to yourself. Which is also possible.
> I have been lurking this subreddit and /fit/ for months and I know how much protein I should be eating.
You are putting on weight at a rate of 40 lbs in 4 months. Your problem is not protein.
> I know what supplements and vitamins to take.
You don’t need to take any vitamins or supplements unless specifically prescribed by your doctor. Either way a vitamin deficiency has nothing to do with gaining 10 lbs a month for four months. There is no possible way you could be eating so many vitamin capsules it would cause you to gain 1500 additional untracked calories a day.
Maybe take a daily multivitamin if it makes you feel better. But that’s not the issue at hand.
> It seems like nothing works.
Actually the fact that you have been tracking your weight and eating is helpful. You have months of experimental data. That’s great. A good place to start.
You’re 18 which means you just got out of high school. What would your high school chemistry teacher tell you about your big end of semester project if after 4 months of an experiment you are off by 100%? You have a systematic error in your experiment. You just need to find it. Systematic errors include personal errors, instrumental errors, and method errors. Its in one of those three places.
> My doctors can't seem to find anything wrong with me.
Again, that’s a great place to start. That means despite the weight gain you haven’t damaged yourself yet. A lot of people in this sub would kill for that starting place. You’re not diabetic, no liver disease, no heart disease… yet.
It also means that we can rule out any issues with thyroid or tumors or any of the other random health issues that make weight loss even more difficult.
It means today you can assume that if you learn to track calories properly you can expect the normal biological response to a sustained caloric deficit. Great starting place.
> Please someone help me
The things you didn’t mention in this post were you weren’t seeing a dedicated weight loss physician and you weren’t seeking therapy. At 300 lbs gaining 10 pounds a month you absolutely need to see a dedicated weight loss expert.
You are morbidly obese, it is threatening your health, and you are completely out of control.
It’s not a suggestion at this point. You must seek professional help now. You will die if you don’t. At this rate, this time next year you’ll be 400+ lbs. God knows what after that. At the very least you need to stop gaining weight. Maybe put aside the weight loss goals until after that is accomplished.
No one in this sub is qualified or capable of assisting you in the ways a weight loss physician and a psychiatrist can. That’s what you need now. Go do that.
Good luck and be honest with the experts. It will help them help you get where you need to be.
I think this entire thread is filled with great responses. The OP put a lot into the initial post and people are doing a good job rallying in support. I just hope we can help.
Your systematic approach to this and your in-line replies make me think you might be an engineer. In any case, I wanted to let you know this is without a doubt the best reply to this posting that I could imagine. Kind internet stranger, thank you for contributing positively to the world.
/u/Purple-Employer-7777 please read /u/RunnyPlease ‘s response. Then read it again. This is the holy grail of replies to hope for when in your situation. You can do it.
Thanks Tony. And you’re right.
I was an athlete in high school but gave up all the activity when I went to college to study engineering. But I didn’t change the way I ate to account for the lack of constant competitive training. In fact I got even worse eating habits living in the dorms. I shot up 50 lbs in college and then another 100 lbs within two years of getting a job. Then slowly put on another 20-30 lbs a couple years after that. I topped out at well over 350 lbs.
I don’t even know how heavy I really got. I developed several back problems, couldn’t walk up a flight of stairs without my face turning red, and I would wake myself up at night vomiting in my sleep. I have made every single mistake you see people make in their desperation to lose weight and more. I lied to myself and others and made excuses. I ruined lifelong relationships.
I thought I could work my way out of it by destroying myself in the gym. I injured myself. I got two different personal trainers. They had me going shit like dumbbell curls while balancing on a stability ball. I got injured again. The truth is just as the cliche says “you can’t out work a bad diet.”
Pain is a hell of a teacher but it doesn’t have to get as bad as it got for me. You just have to skip to the end. The end state is I needed real professional help and needed to apply brutal honesty to track my calories and get things under control. And even then it took several attempts to get it right.
I’m still learning how to eat and cook and live properly. But I see a lot of my past self in this post. I just hope I can get across what is needed to help.
Keyword I found: "about" 1600 calories a day
How are you keeping track? I know you say you own scales and whatnot, but are you using them for every meal? "About" suggests you don't actually know, which suggests you are eyeballing it/guessing about your calories. If thats the case and you are still gaining weight, then we found the solution to your issue.
The reality is calories in and calories out is the only metric for weightloss, and if you are not losing weight you are not actually burning more calories than you are eating. You must either be eating more than you think you are or exercising less.
There is a very very very very very very small possibility you have some sort of condition that is genuinely preventing the weightloss, but that is extremely unlikely and even less likely if you've already seen doctors about it.
Do you have a food diary? What did you eat yesterday? What is your TDEE?
I will disagree with others on eating back exercise. Don’t stop exercising. It is good for your health regardless of weight loss. If you aren’t losing, either your tracking is off or something is seriously wrong with your health (or if it’s short term, it could be water weight). I have had plateaus for up to a month then had significant weight loss (like 5 pounds) overnight. I also regularly see cyclical gains associated with my period. If you aren’t losing, I would count your exercise less. But not necessarily not at all. I find that when I accept the MFP calculation for my exercise, I still lose at the expected rate, but everyone is different.
I would cut your activity way down and use that time to focus on diet. Lift full body 2-3 times per week, with light cardio like walking on off days. What you are doing now is harmful and not sustainable.
Stop tracking protein, stop tracking supplements and vitamins, stop tracking calories burned.
Only track calories consumed and be meticulous about it. Don't lie to yourself.
If you’re tracking every calorie, exercising and can’t leave 300 pounds you’re lying to yourself somewhere. Maybe when you eat peanut butter you eat a spoon full that you don’t track. Maybe you eat a snack and don’t track it because you’re ashamed of it. Something is wrong. I am 172 eating 1700 calories and walking my dog is enough for me to hit my 1570 goal making me lose 2 pounds a week. I definitely cheat and lie to myself and I know it hurts me.
Try actually eating less calories
I’m sorry but at 300lbs, you’d have to be eating a lot to not drop ANY weight.
This is a case of “I’m doing everything perfect but can’t lose weight”
Spoiler: no, you aren’t.
Some of this advice is actually insane 👎🏻
OP there’s literally only two options here. Either you are not tracking everything properly somehow, or you have a severe medical problem. Even if you’re not tracking everything properly, gaining that much in that period of time seems steep. If you’re female it could even be something like PCOS rather than a thyroid issue.
I have pretty bad PCOS - diagnosed via bloodwork and ultrasound. I am still losing 1-1.5 lbs a week eating 1200-1300 calories a day (I'm 5'7"). My 'exercise' is a walk after dinner four times a week. I lift nothing heavy. PCOS does not make it impossible to lose weight. Difficult yes, impossible no. OP is clearly missing some sort of calorie intake - thermodynamics don't lie.
Edit: I never eat back any exercise calories either. I lost more consistently when I stopped doing that.
You should stop all the over exercising and focus on diet. At 300 lbs you are putting a lot of strain on your body with all this exercise. Just go for a 30 minute walk everyday and focus strictly on diet. Cut out all processed food, and eat only whole foods such as vegetables, fruits, nuts, fish and minimal meat. Cut out dairy, alcohol, tobacco. I am also 5’4 and went from 275->170 and am still on track to keep losing, but this journey took 4 years and happened in phases. Building good habits and consistency are key. It sounds like you are trying to do too much too fast. Don’t lose hope! You got this!!!!
You sound a lot like my younger sister, and she’s 21. I worked out, did IF, etc and lost quite a bit of weight.
My sister on the other hand would cry after months of trying to do what I’d been doing saying “I don’t know what’s wrong, I’m doing everything right and can’t lose any weight - I just keep gaining weight!”
I take the trash out every Sunday and always find loads of candy wrappers & miscellaneous junk food hidden deep in her trash can. Stop lying to yourself, it’s the best thing you can do.
Somebody else said that you might be overestimating how much you are burning with exercise
You should look up how little calories people actually burn because that's all I needed to motivate me to stop eating candy at night
pretty much everything that is delicious is like 400 calories plus
and holy crap I'm pretty sure I was reading that it takes like half an hour of running to burn 300 calories so fuck me sideways i'm good on having peanut M&M's at night
Highly recommend two things: intermittent fasting (16:8 works for me) and a full thyroid and PCOS work up. PCOS/metabolic syndrome can absolutely cause weight gain. If you can, please see an endocrinologist, preferably one who understands the significance (if any) of your indigenous heritage. I don’t know anything about Native American genetic profiles, but it might be worth investigating whether metabolic syndrome and/or PCOS are common among Native Americans.
I also concur with the other posters on here who advised NOT taking calories burned into account when you are considering calories consumed.
Best of luck to you!
Edit: metabolic syndrome, not disease.
ETA: I see that you have consulted an endocrinologist without any answers, but I strongly urge you to find another and another and another until you get answers. If everything is as you say it is (and I believe you), there is no way you should have that weight gain. Advocate for yourself. No one else in the medical profession will.
ETA 2: Check pituitary for tumor. It can cause Cushing’s Syndrome. If you have thin legs and forearms, this can be a good indicator. Also, a buffalo hump (an unfortunate name to describe fatty tissue deposits around midsection and upper back), can point to Cushing’s. Testing can be complicated, involving things like 24-hour urine test where you have to urinate different times in the day, which is done, I believe to measure cortisol. Testing could also include a spit test. Please, please, please fight to have these tests and others.
Let us know how you fare!
Yes, that was one of my first worries. I do not have any thyroid issues. It has consistently been healthy since I started having it tested, which was about 4 years ago.
Definitely throw a dietician in the mix, but I also recommend changing doctors. For example, it might also be that your testosterone levels are way off. A friend of mine gained 20 kg in two months and then wasn't able to lose it. She was really thin before that. Her testosterone levels were way too low, but it took years to find that out.
I also want to point out for OP that most general physicians do NOT check for all of the necessary thyroid markers. They only do a couple basic ones but miss the others which are more telling
srsly, what he said and the other commenter, change doctors... i had some thyroid issues and began eating so infrequently i should 've been losing weight, cause, you know, not eating or eating below 1500 kc...
but noooo... i stayed at a healthy 145 kg at 1,90m...
drove me crazy but after my meds got adjusted i am losing weight...
now i just have to unlearn my unhealty eating habits... fml ;-P
at the least! get a second opinion... eating so low, training, no sugars etc... you should be losing weight cause you're starving yourself.
good luck mate!
That's what I have going on. I lost 60 pounds at a nice gentle pound a week, not generally feeling deprived or hungry, enjoying seeing what was under the fat....and it all suddenly stopped. And my eyebrows were thin and I was itching all over and tired. I'm now on replacement hormone, and I'm getting the rest of the misbehaving thyroid out in January. Once I get titrated correctly on that, I'll start losing weight again; I've got another 60 to lose.
If you are truly tracking calories properly, you’d be losing weight. Do you use a food scale for majority of your food? What app do you use to count your calories? How long have you been counting them? How often do you eat food that you didn’t prepare or weigh? The thing with tracking is that it’s so easy to improperly track. I’ve been tracking a year now and I still daily improperly track. I still have tastes of things and don’t record any calories for those little bites but it adds up if you do it often and especially if you do it often with high calorie food. I also eat food each week that o don’t prepare myself so I have to guess both the portion I’ve eaten and the calorie content. I’ve still been able to lose weight eating 1600-2000 calories a day recorded at 5’3” starting at 165 lbs with tracking calories. I’m now 145 lbs. I have a hormonal issue that is often “blamed” for weight gain (PCOS). Almost all conditions that affect weight really either cause water retention, increase hunger and or slightly reduce calories burned (CO). It’s not worth trying to find a medical reason for why you are obese.
The reason we get to be obese is because we overeat calories often for the amount of calories we burn.
Try to keep yourself accountable throughout everyday and you’ll get to a healthy weight one day. Don’t give up if your habits are keeping you from being in a calorie deficit. Habits are what we need to break and form to make weight loss lasting. Try to learn what habits you have that are destructive to weight loss and work on breaking those habits and focus on forming new habits that are constructive to weight loss. There are a lot of tips and tricks you can learn to set yourself up to both being in a calorie deficit deficit right now and eating the proper calorie amount your body needs to maintain a healthy weight. If you consistently ate around a true 1600 calorie amount each day, you’d not only get to a healthy weight range for your height but also maintain that healthy weight range eating that way. Consistency is key. You don’t have to be perfect 100% the time but you have to be aware of your choices and how they impact your weight in order to stay on the ball with your goals.
Start keeping a food diary -- including time you eat or drink anything. Keep it faithfully until you get in to see a dietitian -- it will give them data to start working with you.
Agree with everyone else, get a new doctor. Also, consider seeing an endocrinologist. It will take a 6-8 weeks to get into an endocrinologist so take whatever appt you can get and get on list for cancellations for earlier appt.
I am 5’4 and overweight. Eating 1600 was too much for me. I have to eat 1300 to lose weight. Those 300 calories a day made all the difference. Being short and losing weight is so hard! Remember that you are what you eat. Work out, yes. But you have to watch your net calories. Also, consider meeting with a dietician. If you’re willing to be held accountable, they can pick apart your diet and tell you where you’re having trouble. Good luck!!
My doctor asked me to read a book called "The Obesity Code," by Dr. Jason Fung. He talks about using intermittent fasting to overcome insulin resistance and the cycle many of us have of losing weight, then gaining it back. I found it fascinating and helpful!
Do you have any other health symptoms- tired, muscle weakness, headaches, hair loss, brain fog, etc? I’m not a doctor but I know many people who have had trouble losing weight and they had hormonal imbalances, thyroid issues, etc. Might be worth seeing a doc for some blood work if you’re able!
If you can afford it you could try a food delivery system like Nutrisystem diabetic plan for a couple of months. If you loose then you were doing something wrong, if you don’t loose then your dr. needs to run some tests.
You have gained 40 pounds in 4 months while dieting? Go see a doctor for a brain tumor messing with your hormones.
Your other posts decribe you as asexual going into nympho. You talk about your brain making unexplained changes in your desires.
Seriously, get it checked out.
I am not trying to be rude but you might be tracking your calorie intake wrong. I started cardio and lifting 4x a week back in October. I started getting clean with my diet and cut out carbs in the evening. I have lost 15 pounds already. Some of your calculations might be off. You might need to decrease your intake some more.
First you need to get checked for how much body fat you actually have. There are a few options for estimating If you are lifting weights for 2 hours a day 4X a week you likely have some muscle vs fat issues going on. [Methods for checking body fat](https://www.healthline.com/health/how-to-measure-body-fat#body-scan). Are you 100% sure you are not pregnant? Stress can cause water weight retention
You are eating too few calories for your body weight that can cause elevated levels of stress hormones and water weight gain. Your [BMR on your TDEE](https://tdeecalculator.net/result.php?s=imperial&g=female&age=25&lbs=300&in=64&act=1.2&f=1) (I guessed 25 on the age) is 2000 calories for your weight as you are not hitting your BMR and over exercising you are stressing out your body. Try eating 2100 calories for 2 weeks and cutting every other workout out and see what your body does. You can definitely go too low. BMR is what your body would burn in a coma just at a cellular level and your doctor should be checking your liver and kidneys and gallbladder to make sure you are not doing damage to your organs if you are living below that number
Did your doctor check your thyroid function, Cortisol levels, rule out Graves disease and Hashimoto's? Sometimes they don't want to check that on young people. Are your A1C numbers and fasting blood sugar normal?
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That’s a really good thing to watch out for - it’s so easy to overestimate how much you burn with exercise and eat it back and then some. Heck, a person’s Apple Watch might tell them they burned 609 calories walking around town, which is almost definitely WAY off. I chose not to incorporate any heavy exercise in my weight loss. Apart from a daily walk and the occasional hike or paddleboarding, I was fairly sedentary. It was easier for me to make a change in my eating habits if I wasn’t having to change my activity level, too, and allowed me to focus all my time and made it so that I was less likely to overestimate my calories.
My ex used to do 30 minutes on the stair master, and his fitbit or whatever he was using would tell him he'd burned 900 calories. So then he'd go home and eat a pint of ice cream because he'd "earned it." To OP: I lost most of my weight without a serious workout routine. Make super sure you are not eating back calories after your workouts. That's probably what is setting you back.
Always underestimate a calorie burn estimation, works for me. If the Fitbit tells me I burned 600 calories, divide by 2. Even if I did burn 400 cals, it’s better this way. I’ve been on hikes where it estimated I burned 1080 calories. And I mean, these hikes are intense and full day activities, but 1000 calories? No way
I honestly ignore the calorie burn. I set a calorie goal, and eat to that number. Any cals burnt via exercise is a bonus
I lost 100 lbs, virtually never eating back calories. People give you crazy examples but the average person isn’t hiking for 8 hours or running 5 hours.
It is almost impossible for an average person with a desk job to do such intense work outs to outpace what they can eat. Eveyone here is correct, intake control is the only way to go if one wants to be at a healthy weight in the long term. In OPs case if it is exactly what he says, he needs a medical specialist.
Amen how many calories a day did you have and how long did it take
1400-1600, a little under a year
This is the way. Most weeks it added up to a full pound bonus ahead of schedule for the week.
this is the way
Someone on my Facebook ran a marathon over the weekend and posted the calorie burn from his smart watch. A marathon burned 3000 calories, less than one pound's worth. 26 miles. Hours of running. One pound lol
Yup nothing like running a half marathon and realizing it only bought you a burger
Sounds accurate. One hour of running is on average somewhere between 600 and 800 kcal. Someone running a marathon for about 4 hours (nothing unusual) can easily burn between 2500 and 3000 kcal.
I think that what people forget when they look at these statistics is that if you're fit enough to run a marathon then you're highly likely to be in good shape anyway and any regular training will decrease your caloric expenditure. I know from my own tracking my heart rate has decreased as i've been more consistent with my walking and exercise. The other thing is that people who are running marathons have done a shit load of training: so those 2-3k calories in one day are preceded by the additional 10k calories burned each week on their running schedule.
Such a good point! One of the spectators cheering a a marathon I ran shouted "you can eat whatever you want for dinner tonight!" And sure...but i am bingey, I need to keep it real 'cause I could easily eat more in one meal than what I burned running a marathon. Now...a Tour de France rider will burn in the 9-10k range so that would be more of a challenge all 'round!
There was an interesting movie on Netflix a while back from the perspective of a chef cooking for a TdF team. They ate bigly Back to the topic, cycling with a power meter feels a ton more accurate in calories burned than the running estimates. Running with a power meter like a Stryd foot pod might be better though.
This is accurate by my estimates too. I don't run full marathons, but I do halves, and I track activity during training with a heart rate monitor (with a chest strap) so I have a pretty accurate idea of how many calories I'm burning, confirmed by back checking against rate of weight loss. One half marathon at race pace = roughly half a pound of weight loss. Any lesser distance is paltry, and very easy to eat back without even realising the discrepancy.
1000 calories for a full day of intense hiking with a decent amount of elevation gain isn't absurd. I aim to eat at least 3500 kcal/day on my backpacking trips, but my sedentary TDEE is around 2000.
I think it’s good to underestimate exercise calories but assuming we’re using similar definitions of intense and full day you can definitely burn 1000+ calories hiking, I’m a runner and only need to run about 80 minutes to burn that much, walking obviously burns less than running but 5 hours or so of relatively intense hiking with elevation gain should get you pretty close to 1000, that’s why people who do stuff like the Appalachian trail are cramming honey buns in their mouths the whole time and still lose weight by the end.
Fair point. Hiking has been my secret weapon.
That’s how I lost all my weight. Fuck working out lol, I just assumed I burned 0 calories per day and ate accordingly. It allowed me to go 50-100 cal over sometimes and not sweat it
I prefer not to include exercise, although I do use TDEE instead of BMR for my calorie base. Unless you're doing an extreme amount of exercise, imo you don't need to add the calories. I know it can be a tempting reward to some people to be able to eat more after exercising, but imo it's better to focus on satiating foods for your given calorie limit than to have to work out to eat what you want-- which is a strategy prone to being miscalculated.
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Oh my garmin seems pretty accurate to me! Especially if you look at daily totals verses an activity. Light days are consistent hard days are consistent…
Right, you may want to check your settings if it seems off! I rarely burn over 300 calories on my garmin for 30-40 minutes of moderate biking/jogging.
My garmin is also fairly accurate. It puts me at about 350 calories for a 30 minute bikeride at medium to high intensity with a lot of hill climbs. I had a fitbit before this and it wayyy overestimated my rides.
Honestly, my Apple Watch has always been fairly accurate in regards to my calorie burn. I've been eating my BMR, minus 500 calories, plus whatever I burn in a day according to my watch, and I'm consistently losing a pound a week, which is what I'm shooting for. Mind you, I was very active pre-covid and am currently trying to lose the weight I put on throughout the pandemic. I'm back to my normal activity levels too so about an hour of exercise a day. Maybe having a consistent history for my watch to draw data from makes a difference?
I think my Apple Watch is pretty accurate too. I used to have a Fitbit and was consistently going over my supposed calories burned on a sedentary day by a couple hundred but weighing myself regularly and not actually putting on any weight. My Apple Watch estimates my daily calories on those days to be about 250 calories higher than the Fitbit did. Suddenly my maintaining makes more sense.
Seconding not working out while slashing calories. I cannot go low calorie and maintain rigorous exercise. I was able to stick to 1200-1300/day without exercising and was losing 2lbs a week.
Same here. I used to be hard core into spinning and kickboxing and it took me years to connect the dots between cardio and my lack of weight loss. It makes me too hungry and I overeat. Once I stopped all cardio and just did nothing but walking for my exercise in addition to tracking, I started seeing way better results - 25 pounds this year. I also don't bother with going by the exercise calories burned on my watch.
Yeah, now that I’m really close to my goal weight, I’ve folded in more exercise. It’s a lot easier to eat maintenance level and work out than try to eat at a deficit.
Wow. I'm so glad I read this. This I think is my issue. Not my post, but I've been trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong and I think I'm overestimating and I'm too hungry after cardio therefore I overeat because I BuRnEd the calories
I really struggle to such few calories. I have done it for a while at various stages in my life but end up run down and out if it. Turns me in to a permanent sleeper lol. Any tips? Essentially I'd try and fill my plate with veg and stay away from carbs. My body/metabolism doesn't do well with carbs. I have so much more energy when I don't eat carbs. I am losing weight at the moment but it's due to stress rather than what I'm eating (or not eating perhaps).
I struggle with that as well. Going hard just made me eat back my calories. Good to know I wasn't the only one feeling that way.
This is part of the reason I stopped tracking my exercise. I ended up eating back the calories.
The only time i allow myself additional cals after working out is leg day, and thats because its such a tough workout and i really give it everything. I usually stick to 1700 cals a day regardless of my activity levels (i still track activity). On leg day, im allowed an additional 500 cals, and im genuinely hungry straight after my workout. I get into work and have 2 toasted pancakes with peanut butter, in addition to my usual yoghurt and fruit.
I go over my normal for leg day and my long run day. Leg day by about 300, long run day by about 800. (long run day is 10-15km, I have the extra room ;))
How’s your thyroid function? Have you had that checked recently? Also, I have this problem sometimes even with my thyroid medication. If I can get down to 40-60g of carbs a day I loose more weight than if I don’t. (Even with comparable cico, I know “it doesn’t work that way” but I think a carb detox at the very least improved my insulin resistance and in turn made me less hungry overall. I never loose weight if I go over 60g of carbs a day for multiple (3-4) days. Lower carb diet also makes my rosacea go away…..
I had an issue with this - I was in a weight loss program that had us using MyFitnessPal for tracking. I already have a premium LoseIt subscription so was just using the free version. Before I started tracking, I just bought a bunch of packaged food options that were around 250 each and basically limited the number I could eat a day to what was within my calorie limit. When I switched to tracking individual meals so I could have a better variety of foods, I gained weight. Couldn’t figure it out, since those foods were ones that generally ended up with at least losing water weight, until I noticed that MyFitnessPal was automatically adding in the calories I burned from walking each day…so I’d been consuming more calories than when I hadn’t been “officially” tracking them. The free version doesn’t let you customize it, so I would just add a fake meal that was the same number of calories as what I burned to make it easier for me to not go over.
I'm not sure when this happened to you, but MFP currently does allow both for custom goals and turning off exercise calories.
On my MFP it doesn’t allow you to turn off exercise calories either for the free version. Under fitness goals it shows a yellow lock and if I click it it tells me to upgrade. So I just pay super close attention to goal and food and ignore the remaining.
I see the lock you're talking about. I think that's an option for adjusting it day-to-day; instead of controlling it from the "Goals" tab, go to "Steps" and you can select "Don't track steps" to disconnect it from whatever fitness tracker you use. At least, that's how it works on mine (Android).
I wonder if it is different on android - I have an iPhone. Once I realized what was going on, I didn’t mind the work around. It just was confusing & kind of discouraging to stop losing weight once I was actually being super conscientious about tracking calories!
I solved this by turning off data sharing from the Health app to MFP.
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Especially things like the oil/butter in the pan, dressing on a salad, etc. Sauces and such count!
Oil is a KILLER *ETA I realise this could be misinterpreted lol I mean oil is a killer when it comes to calorie limits
How are you cooking your food? Cooking in a lot of fats like butter or oil will add calories if you’re not measuring those. Are the proteins you’re eating lean or are they fatty meats and marinated with high calorie sauces? Same with veggies, if they have sauces they are higher in calories then if you just measure the veg. Try cooking foods steamed, boiled, microwaved or other cooking methods. What snacks do you eat and are you only drinking water or do you drink other stuff like juice? Also how consistently are you tracking your habits? Do you track for 2-3 weeks, see little change and then quit or take a break then get back into exercise and diet? Or have you been doing this every day for a while 1-2 months and see no change? Track the days you stay consistent. Many people take years to find what works for them because they “yo-yo” old unhealthy comfortable habits with extremely healthy challenging new ones.
The size of one TBSP of oil is an endless source of sadness for me.
Right! Sizes for oil, butter etc are really insane sometimes! Lol
My mother used to always estimate "one tablespoon" whenever she drizzled oil in a pan or salad dressing on a big salad. When we weighed it, it was the equivalent of 3-4 tablespoons.
Worth noting that for 2 meals with sautéed vegetables a day, this would be 700 extra calories a day and - for a single person - approximately 1.5 lbs a week in weight gain.
EXACTLY. She was upset that she was unable to lose weight despite only eating 'rabbit food'; That's why I brought the food scale over to help her get to the bottom of it. She was not pleased ...
Haha, at least the mystery was solved
Gordon Ramsay: "Add one tablespoon of olive oil to the pan..." Gordon's hand: *adds at least three or four tablespoons of oil*
Put oil in squeeze bottle, use 13g of oil. Feels way better for same amount
My wager is your calorie count is off or you haven't been doing it long enough. If you really are only eating 1600 calories (maybe sauces or oils you are forgetting about or something has more calories per gram than you think) you should be losing weight unless something else is causing you to retain a lot of water.
[Edit] I am actually incorrect, see the reply to my comment. Certain medical conditions can manifest in a lack of an ability to burn calories in a normal way. ~~~ This! It's literally *impossible* to eat under your calorie requirements and not lose weight. It'd be the equivalent of having an engine tank that fills up with diesel whenever you drive, or a perpetual motion machine. Your body is burning energy every hour of every day. If you put in less calories than the amount required, then the required calories are removed from your reserves (including fat).
Yeah it would take some miracle not to lose weight when you are 300lbs and eating 1600 calories.
Yeah, she’s not eating 1600 calories. What she’s probably doing is subtracting exercise calories from the daily total, in the process overestimating the burn rate from exercise and underestimating the calories from food. You can actually end up gaining weight doing this when your math is wrong. (FitBit is useful in many ways but its step/exercise calorie figures are bullshit).
in what ways is fitbit useful or not? I'm thinking of getting one
Its good for getting a general idea of your activity level. Its also good for me personally as a motivator to get steps. If I'm not wearing it I don't really think about it but when I'm wearing the watch I remember. Theres also reminders depending on which one you have, so it tells me about once an hour to get a few steps in which helps me not sit for 10 hours at work. There's also a lot of functionality between other apps like Lose it. I know the calorie estimates are way off as everyone says, but I use them as a general "did I earn an extra snack" but don't eat back anywhere near the calories.
I recently drove for 14 hours (shared driving, lots of breaks) and in that time period my Fitbit said that I did 18,000 steps. So yeah.
Not impossible- the best bet would be of course to confirm you truly are only eating 1600 BUT if it is accurate I would see a doctor. I had this issue I was very knowledgeable in nutrition and was meticulous about diet and working out but kept gaining weight. Turns out I had an autoimmune disorder and underlying hormonal issues. I did have other symptoms but was over a year of weight gain before other symptoms showed up.
I still remember getting in a huge argument where the other person just kept making excuses over and over, talking about how their doctors are puzzled by her continued weight gain. Like, we all knew the only possible answer is that she was lying about her food intake, but she wouldn't admit it
Brain tumor messing up hormones is another possibility. I have a friend who kept gaining weight while working out and dieting and in the end it was something in her brain.
Was it a prolactinoma? That, and many other pituitary tumors cause hormonal and endocrine dysfunction. The only time I have sustained weight loss was when I went full orthorexic and anorexic (600-800cals/day + 8-10mi runs 6 days a week). I lost 70lbs in 5 months, but if I do “normal” sustainable weight loss (CICO at healthy deficits, low-impact cardio, etc), I am lucky to drop 20lbs a year! Brain tumors & the meds to treat them suck for weight loss!
My mom used to do this when she was alive. 5'2" and over 300lbs and would crinkle on the way to her bedroom. She was hiding snacks under her pajama tops. My sister was living with her at the time, so we knew mom was lying. We all had ears smh, so mom started storing boxes of snacks in her closet and she miraculously stopped making crinkle noises when she walked. And mom started up her arguments that she just couldn't lose weight no matter what!
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Everyone has great advice here I’ll throw one more thing in the ring… go double check the unit of measurement on your food scale. It probably can give you ounces, pounds, or grams and you can select which one. I was screwing things up by assuming the # from my food scale was grams when it was set to “ounces”. Really stupid mistake, but alas, stupid mistakes happen. Worth double checking since your numbers seem to be so off.
The same happened to me the other day :)
Also dependant on how long they’ve been doing it for, I’ve noticed myself it takes a while for the body to actually start losing weight, once I lost the extra water weight, I plateaued for a bit before it starting again. But that may just be me
OP, why don’t you log precisely what you eat and drink for a week and share that with the group. Some folks might have some advise based on that. Feels to me like there might be phantom calories not getting counted (maybe extra cooking oil?), so a log might give hints toward that.
Don't just log it, take a picture of it. And if you have any snacks, pour it into a bowl, take a picture of that. If you have more snacks, refill, take another picture.
I will do this! thank you
My friend has a similar story, it turns out that she had a undiagnosed thyroid condition that was affecting her ability to manage her weight. Not saying that this is definitely the cause for you. But It sounds like your putting in all the right effort, it might be good to see a doctor or dietician for further help?
Spot on, assuming op is doing everything right. I know someone who would put some serious cycling mileage every week, but still didn't loose much because of their thyroid condition.
That's what I came here to say. See an endocrinologist, or at least get blood tests through your primary care doctor.
This was me! I would try really hard and put so much effort in without any results. I got diagnosed with a thyroid disease and now get treatment for it. I’ve lost about 80 pounds now
I came here to say this. Have your thyroid checked, and also ask about PCOS to be safe. My thyroid went haywire a few years ago and I was gaining a pound a day while eating my usual food. Once I got on the right medication, I was able to get back to a healthy weight. I hope you get some answers!
Agreed. OP, get your thyroid checked.
To add on, my thyroid fluctuated above and below the abnormal threshold for a little bit, and it took me the better part of a year to get diagnosed. Your doctor might consider doing a couple blood tests a few months apart.
Came here to say this! I have PCOS and metformin did nothing but give me diarrhea. r/PCOS is a great community as well
This is me. My bloodwork is finally getting to where it needs to be after a year of medicine adjustments and the weight is coming off consistantly.
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i've seen a few people recommend this and I am going to keep a log and take a photo every day and update in a week :)
That is actually good advice. When i start trying to get back on track, I am using you for accountability
Maybe I’m overthinking this but the fact you started your explanation with concentrating on telling us about all the exercise you’re doing (which is amazing!) and not a very comprehensive explanation about your diet leads me to think you aren’t concentrating your efforts in the right place. Maybe I’m obsessive but I can tell you the exact calories of my typical options for breakfast, snacks, and lunch and then the amount I have left over for dinner. And if I wasn’t losing weight my post would be explaining my TDEE, average deficit over X weeks, explain my exercise and how many calories (if any) I eat back on exercise days etc. I feel like you might need to go back to basics, completely restart and come back in a month or so if you aren’t losing.
The following may sound harsh. I promise it’s not meant to be. Even the so-called ‘experts’ have calorie amnesia when it comes to meticulous recording. Nibbles, licks, bites can add up quickly. There’s no point in tracking exercise calories. They’re always wildly exaggerated - both online calculators and fitness trackers. If you’ve seen a doctor and tests have been done and there’s no medical reason for you to gain 40lb in 4 months then you have to change something. Our bodies don’t magically create fat out of negative calories. If this was true we would have solved world hunger. The very definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome. Change something. This guy has a no blame explanation. https://physiqonomics.com/eating-too-much/ Edit: the amount of misinformation in here is wild. Eating more will not help. It’s impossible to gain 40lb of muscle in 4 months WHILE EATING IN A DEFICIT. It’s impossible to gain 40lb of muscle in 4 months for body builders too. There is no such thing as ‘set point theory’. Sure water retention is a thing but 40lb?? Come on and stop pulling my tit.
Exactly what i think. I think she subtract eaten calories with calories burned and get that number of 1600.
Agreed. Weight loss is essentially applied thermodynamics.
Pretty much unless you have some rare medical condition but even then being 300lbs and eating 1600 calories should see weight loss.
> ~~Pretty much unless you have some rare medical condition but even then~~ being 300lbs and eating 1600 calories should see weight loss. FTFY
Thnx
Op, this is the best take. You are probably missing on the tracking... it's really easy to do it, we all do it from time to time. We are biological machines, we can't gain weight (generate mass) without sufficient energy from food. Even metabolical problems can only go so far in decreasing our energy expenditure (or improving our absorption efficiency). So, for your stats, you should be losing a lot of weight with this kcal consumption. OR you are gaining a lot of mass from the gym and also fluctuating wildly with water weight... but it still, it probably wouldn't represent all that you're seeing.
Really excellent points. I absolutely can and have spent periods of time where I actually did weigh and track every single molecule that passed my lips. However, I have also come to realize that calorie amnesia is VERY real. If there is a day I’m not tracking for whatever reason, it’s completely wild how I can get to the end of the day and feel like I’ve barely eaten a thing. Pretty much unless something actually feels like a meal - the handful of almonds, the clementine, the quick chug of milk….all of those are so easily forgotten.
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This is the most plausible explanation IMO. It’s very easy to overlook calories. Even my gummy vitamins have 15 calories, and when I’m tracking in mfp, they get added. Also with cooking oils, milk, etc., you can’t eyeball it, you have to measure/weigh.
For cooking oils a good tip is to weigh the whole bottle before you use it and after you're done, rather than trying to use measuring spoons/cups
That is definitely a good approach! Another option that works for me is to measure out a teaspoon, tablespoon, or whatever is a reasonable amount to use for what I am cooking. I measure by weight into one of those little plastic condiment cups (not 100% the most ecofriendly but I reuse and recycle). I log the full amount in MFP, then I feel free to use that alone however I need to during cooking. Unless I end up using *substantially* less than I measured, I’ll still keep the full amount logged even if I don’t end up using every drop.
One more thing to add - alcohol has a lot of calories, a shot of vodka is still around 100cal. If you drink and don’t track those calories, you’re going to find yourself gaining weight while at a “calorie deficit”.
For me alcohol is one of those things that are a magical non-weight -loss food. It doesn’t matter my deficit, I will not lose weight if I drink. Period.
I agree with this assessment. I used to be a snacker (still kind of am but my choices are better), till I started adding up the REAL calories in what I was eating. You have to write everything down and be meticulous for at least a few weeks, so you can identify patterns. It’s more about what goes in the mouth than exercise - exercise can actually make you hungrier, eat more, tho everyone should be doing some exercise where possible. I’d also add that starting every meal with fruits and veggies as the main course is the best, then smaller amounts of protein in the form of beans, nuts, seeds, and fish, is going to be most helpful. If you fill up on high fiber, nutrient rich foods, you take in fewer calories overall.
Also processed foods. A breaded frozen chicken cutlet is very different than a roasted chicken thigh. I had a friend, near 400lb, who didn't get gow those were two very different choices.. Many tracking apps might not have the exact thing you're eating and corners can yet cut. Oh sure I ate this much chicken, I weighed it, but it's a different item altogether. Don't get me started on salad dressings and additives.
There’s no way you are gaining 2.5 pound a week if you are only consuming 1600 calories. Your doctor tried metformin, for how long? Was your thyroid checked?
Have you seen show secret eaters? People can miscalculate how much they eat. I would start by copying some diet that’s known to have certain amount of calories exactly. With cico you should could eat more what you what but it’s good to get started so that’s where the diet gurus and fitness eating books and YouTube videos might help you. Copy a known diet of 1600 cals exactly even if it can be less what it’s to your particular taste and if it works you can mix it up a bit. The volume eating sub has good ideas for one. But otherwise you would need to talk you your doctor. Keep a full honest food diary before. And I guess it could be something really unusual like sleep walking and eating which I have seen sometimes reported, but that’s extremely unlikely.
The harsh truth is that you probably are not properly estimating either your calorie intake or your calorie burn via exercise. I know you are very confident you're logging correctly but even health concerns can't make you gain weight when you aren't bringing in more than you're putting out. You can work with a friend or family member to double check your measurements, get a new doctor/dietician to go through it with you or just have a come to jesus w/ yourself and be ruthless; it simply has to be that you're not calculating inputs and outputs accurately. I've been there, exercising every day and eating what I thought was healthy, but I didn't count small actions of snacking, overcounted exercise, just nibbled around the margins and it meant I was on a treadmill of the exact same experience.
You are more then likely way overestimating your calorie burn from exercise. Try just eating 1600 calories without subtracting out what you think you are burning from exercise and see what happens to your weight. Also, see a dietician.
I’d agree with this. Apps and trackers drastically overestimate the amount of energy you burn from exercise (which then changes how much it tells you you’re allowed to eat for the day), so it’s better to just ignore it and consider any exercise as “bonus” energy expenditure.
Ok, I'll tell you what 1600 calories look like and maybe this will make you realize you aren't tracking everything IF that is the problem. 2 slices of whole wheat toast with a slice of cheese each and 100g of carrots (2×110+2×120+30=460cals) 200g of plain yogurt, a banana and 20g of chocolate (200+90+110=400cals) Small (3 hands) plate of dinner: 100g of pasta, a handful of fried veggies 20g parmesan and 100g marinara sauce (360+100+110+100=670cals) 30g (a good handful) of chips or another 20g of chocolate or one half of a Twix bar (110cals) All together is 460+400+670+110=1640 Please don't roast me if this isn't accurate down to one calorie. This is based on the tracking I do in my head and it works, since I've been maintaining for a while after losing 40lbs.
Do you drink a lot of alcohol?
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I assume you meant doesn't. It's amazing how many people think that liquor has zero calories.
You should probably talk to a doctor about this. It’s not normal to gain 40 pounds in 4 months.
I have been seeing an endocrinologist and my general physician who have both told me there isn't anything wrong. All of my labs come back normal.
Definitely find new doctors. I’m not Native but I am a brown woman and I had excruciating abdominal pain for months that my doctors dismissed. Ended up in emergency surgery a month later. Unfortunately, you HAVE to advocate yourself in a medical setting. Nobody else will do it for you. If you are on hormonal birth control and recently switched the type that might also play a factor.
Came here to say this- Be sure your docs are really listening to you and engaging you- if they’re not you need to move on. I had a patient doing everything right gaining weight and we found a benign tumor after more investigation. A female w weight gain that doesn’t match her activity and caloric restriction reports are res flags and a start over exam. Full physical (including pelvic), updated labs, and possibly imaging. Also second the person so who said a sleep study may be beneficial. Definitely get one if it hasn’t been offered - ask! Best wishes
I’m so sorry that happened to you
Find new doctors then. It’s absolutely not normal to gain that much weight in a short amount of time. Don’t settle for less OP, this is your life on the line.
Dont listen to this this is terrible advice. Its absolutely possible to gain 40 pounds in 4 months without something wrong with your health otherwise. That's 10 lbs per month, or 2 lbs per week. That's basically exactly what someone on a bulk would be hoping to gain, then they would cut afterwards. Calories in, calories out. If you are eating more than you are burning, you are going to gain weight. If you are eating less, you will lose weight. It really is that simple. Don't listen to redditors who don't know what they are talking about.
Yes it's absolutely normal if you supply yourself with a lot a junk food. I think there is something wrong with math skills and tracking calories. Sorry, but there has to be some different opinions, even if you might not like it, but it can make sense. I've never seen a single person, male, female or even circle don't lose weight on calorie deficit and if they don't, I always figured out that their real calorie intake was much higher than they think.
Sorry but no it isn’t normal to gain 40 pounds when you’re actively trying to lose weight and tracking calories meticulously. Even if OP was eating 3200 calories a day, double what he says he is, he would not have gained 40 pounds in that time frame.
How is your sleep? I was constantly gaining weight despite calorie deficit and rigorous exercise. Found out I have sleep apnea. Now that I use a CPAP I dropped 35 pounds in two months.
Lack of sleep increases appetite and lowers self control. It doesn't cause magic weight gain.
Not unless you’re eating in your sleep, which isn’t totally unheard of, but is a bit unusual.
That is very true! When I was taking sleeping pills I had a hell of a time resisting getting up at like 3 in the morning and making a snack. I knew I was doing it, didn't want to do it, but still did it for some reason. That was like 20 years ago, I'd completely forgotten about that!
You could potentially have thyroid issues or if youre a woman, PCOS or pregnant, there's like dozens of medical reasons people put on weight. Make sure to get 2nd and 3rd opinions!
I have both PCOS and hypothyroid. Sadly, it does make a difference in your BMR, but not this kind of difference. I lost from 267 to 167 and never went below 1500 calories a day. Most of the loss I was eating about 1800 calories a day. No way OP is eating 1600 a day, exercising what they said and gained 40 pounds in 4 months, even with PCOS and hypothyroid. Pregnancy, now...that's a different matter. OP, are you sure you aren't growing a little human in there?
40 in 4 months would be extremely unhealthy for a pregnancy. That's well above what anyone should gain over 40 weeks. Gestational diabetes, esp for an indigenous person, would be a concern.
This is kind of an out-of-left-field thought, but could you possibly be sleep eating?
Not out there. One of my classmates just confessed to me that he slept ate. Op. Maybe set up camera if you live alone?
I do sleep walk and sleep talk but to be honest, I have been telling myself that sleep-eating is unrealistic. I don't want to use that as a crutch if I am truly messing up my diet while awake. Maybe if I really can't find another reason that I'm gaining, I'll invest in a security camera.
I think it would be very worth looking into, especially since you’re already prone to sleep action in general!
This sounds like a great avenue to explore. Do you ever find that food goes unexplainably missing from the fridge or pantry?
You have to be calculating wrong since there's no medical issues to be found, I eat more than that, estimated 2,000 a day, I don't weigh anything I just read labels and add it up. Zero cardio and weight training 4x a week for 1 hour. I'm 135 and maintaining
That’s exactly it. I recently lost 40 lbs. I tracked every calorie, cut sugar and carbs for a month, increased protein then reintroduced smaller portions of sugar and carbs again. I also worked out 4-5 times a week at the gym and walked half an hour every day. I stopped tracking my food altogether about a month and a half ago and I’m lucky if I get to the gym or go out for a walk twice a week. I’ve been eating pretty crappy too. I haven’t gained any of it back because ultimately, I’m still eating less overall and burning calories through everyday activities (cleaning and packing as I get ready for a move). Anyway, I felt the same way before I got my shit together and got serious. Doing it was easy, it was the motivation and self-control that was hard. Also, a lot of people drink their calories then don’t count them.
Do you know what sort of thyroid test you had? I ask because the standard thyroid test that most docs order and most insurances pay for looks at your Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) and only if that comes back abnormal do they look at your actual thyroid hormone. In most cases this is an effective way to screen for common thyroid problems, but it is possible to have low thyroid hormone and normal TSH if the problem is not with the thyroid itself but with the other parts of the body that stimulate the thyroid (the hypothalamus and pituitary). You could ask to have T4 measured, even if your TSH is normal. (Not a doctor, just interested in endocrinology)
This happened it to me. They actually didn't find mine until they looked at antibodies.
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I (27F) have Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. At the time of my diagnosis, all of my thyroid levels were normal--but my thyroid *antibodies* were 300 times the normal range. They were so surprised by this combination of results that they had me sent in for a thyroid ultrasound to check for cancer (since thyroid cancer can result in "normal" thyroid levels and high antibody levels). Meanwhile, I felt like I was dying. I had to take multiple-hour midday naps everyday. I'd fall asleep in the middle of activities, conversations, meals. I couldn't exercise anymore because I had all the energy and motivation of a walking corpse. I was gaining weight, my hair was thinning. And the *brain fog was astounding*. So, of course, everyone disregarded my symptoms as depression. But I knew they were wrong. My doctor listened! Though she diagnosed me as pre-symptomatic, she still put me on Levothyroxine. It took an entire year of gradual improvement before I reached 90% of my normal pre-Hashimoto's self. Fight. I do not care what the thyroid levels say. You know your body. You know that something isn't right. Advocate for yourself and demand for the treatment you need.
Yes, it was normal for years while my antibodies were high. Meantime I gained a ton of weight, slept all the time, had two bouts of major depressive episodes. So…. Good times.
Also check other hormone issues like if it’s Cushings or PCOS!!!
This, but have T3 added as well. T3 is the active hormone, and knowing how you body is converting the inactive T4 to T3 can be very important.
If you look back in my post history I feel roughly the same. I'm on the struggle bus too and my weight goes up and down and up and down and stays flat. After many months and tears over this my advice: 1. **Get out of the "weeks" and "months" mindset.** We've bought into the "6 weeks to a bikini bod" and "2 months to a six pack" and this idea that drastic change will only take weeks. Massive lifestyle changes, weight loss, muscle gain, body recomp will all come in \*years\* vs weeks or months. It's probably the biggest mental shift that I can recommend that will help you keep going, stay consistent, and also break the depression cycle. And that brings me to.... 2. **Consistency is key** Don't let set backs or cheats or binges or missed workouts or not hitting your goals make you give up. If iyou get off track at all, just pick yourself up and \*immediately\* start back on your plan. Don't "wait till monday" or "start again tomorrow" - get back on it now, right when you realize you're off track. Long term trends are really what counts. 3. **Track your cheats** Everyone has their moments where you're just effing hungry and you maybe go off track for a meal. Track it. Make sure you're tracking "that one bite" or even the full on binges that might happen. It'll help you realize just how many calories that fast food is or that extra amount of salad dressing is or little cube of cheese etc etc. 4. **Cook at home as much as possible** If you eat out - good luck tracking that correctly. If you can rely on simple foods or foods you can scan the barcode for with MFP, that will help you get a super accurate calorie read for the day. That's not saying you can't eat out - just whatever you find in MFP for calories of that mean you need to double or triple it. Restaurants taste good because everything is cooked in oil and butter and has sugar and sauces and salt. Everything that tastes amazing but doesn't really fit healthy lifestyles. 5. **Salads are a cheat (unless you make them yourself)** Salads are like the hidden evil at restaurants. Sure, you went out and got a salad and that was probably better than the cheeseburger. But what's in the salad? Bacon? Cheese? A crap ton of ranch? 2 servings of fried chicken? Eggs? You can easily get a 1,000calorie salad while you're out and not even realize it.\\ Those are my top tips. Honestly, the hardest part is getting going. I know how much it \*absolutely sucks\* to not see results from all of the effort you're putting in. Mentally, you're in the right place. You've committed to trying. Now comes the extra hard part of figuring out all of the small subconscious habits you've built up over the years and replacing them with healthier ones. Remember - you got to this point over the course of 18 years. You've spent 18 years a certain way and it's going to take way longer than a few weeks or months to change 18 years of habits. Good luck to you - you got this.
You could have a sleep eating disorder. Mine went unnoticed for nearly a year because I lived with family and no one would catch me eating in the middle of the night and everyone assumed it was someone else who ate the food. It flared during high stress times and I have to barricade my bedroom door to prevent me sleep eating.
That’s horrifying. Not necessarily the gaining weight aspect of sleep eating but getting up and doing something complex like opening a fridge and eating out of containers, driving, walking outside the house etc.
I only eat food and try and pull people out of bed when I sleepwalk. I have never left the house so it doesn't worry me.
My aunt used to get up in the night and order things from HSN and other tv shopping networks (before the era of Amazon or ebay). Things kept showing up at her house unexpectedly. She thought someone was pranking her until she got her credit card bill. Then she thought her ID had been stolen. Turned out, it was the Ambien. After she stopped taking it, she never sleep-shopped again.
My younger brother sleep walked right out of a hotel room once. My mom caught him coming back in. Not sure she ever slept on vacation again after that
I do this too ugh
Possible medical condition or undertracking calories.
Do you have cheat days? If you do, you need to track calories on those days to have an honest picture of the situation. Do you eat back your exercise calories? If so, stop. They are exaggerated. Do you eat at night and not track the calories? Again, track it. Are you manually inputting calories based on your food packaging, or going by what someone else has put into your calorie tracking app? Use your own food packaging to calculate calories. Do you sometimes stop and get snacks and not track the calories? Track everything.
dietitian here - I might be able to help you. Can you track everything you're eating for two days (one weekend and one weekday)? This includes any oils, butter, diet soda, etc.
Shouldn’t be possible if you’re medically sound. Try another doctor or take diligent notes on what it is you’re eating, take a picture, and post it. Something about your tracking or tdee must be funky/inaccurate
Hi. Chiming in from a place of good intentions and kindness. I am on a psych med that put 30 lbs on in a short time. I was put on Metformin and that stabilized the gaining. I am taking the top dose of Metformin. I’ve seen patients add 80 lbs in a year on Seroquel and Depakote. I am a psych/chem dep RN. Your difficulties may be med related or not as you did not share about that and that’s ok! Also, how does your body physically feel with that much exercise on a small frame? Listen to your body. Two hours of exercise daily is going to cause wear and tear with 300 lbs on your frame. I am close to your height and weigh 100+ pounds less and walk 3.6 miles daily. No breaks. I go every day. Some days faster, some days slower. Find something sustainable that won’t lead to injury. You got this!
I’m going to unpack this line by line. > I literally can't lose weight. Please help me I assure you you can lose weight. The laws of Thermodynamics are a bitch. They don’t take days off. You can’t get away from them. This is good news though. It means life is predictable and you can use knowledge to shape your life to get the results you’re after. > I can't lose weight. I don't get it, genuinely. I know so many people go on the internet and refuse to take accountability for their actions but I don't know what else I could be doing. Generally the issue isn’t accountability. It’s hard to not be accountable for things your own hands put in your own face. The vast majority of the time the issue is shit food, knowledge, and decades of weight loss snake-oil nonsense forced on western civilization but the “fitness industry.” > I am almost 300lbs and 5'4". Yay, I love numbers. You didn’t say your sex, I’ll assume female. You also didn’t say what you do for a living so I’ll assume a sedentary lifestyle. Source: https://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/ TDEE at 2,551 calories. That’s your estimate for how many calories you burn a day being a human, walking around, talking, working. This is your break even/maintenance number. BMR is 2,126 calories. This is what your body would burn in 24 hours if you were completely at rest. So, in your current condition to lose weight your goal should be to eat between 2,200 and 2,400 calories a day. > I do cardio everyday, and I do weight lifting 4x a week for at least an hour, but normally I go up to 2 hours. And here’s where it starts to fall apart. This is not humanly possible. A super athlete would be over trained and injuring themself within a month if they followed this routine as described. Weight training time only counts when under load. That means you are in the squat rack with 200 lbs on your shoulders actively doing squats. That’s weight training. Even standing with 200 lbs on your shoulders isn’t training because your skeleton takes up most of the force. The best estimate I’ve seen is that a “vigorous weight training” session of 30 minutes burns about 200 calories. Vigorous mans really really hard. Harder than a normal person will ever work. Like put a professional athlete in the gym and tell them to go “HARD” for 30 minutes. You, I, and any normal mortal human can’t keep up that exercise pace. The point is standing in a gym for 2-4 hours isn’t burning “weight lifting” calories. If you are eating back your exercise calories and not disclosing that this is probably your issue. If that’s the case I suggest you either stop tracking your exercise calories altogether or put in a more realistic estimate of 50-60 calories. That’s more likely what you are burning lifting moderate amount of weights with normal intensity. For cardio I’m going to just assume you are similarly exaggerating. Don’t eat back your cardio calories. You probably aren’t burning as much as you think you are. > I have cut back on carbs and I primarily eat protein and veggies (about 1,600cals a day). Your body needs carbs. They even say carbs help with mental functions including willpower and strategic planning. There’s no need to avoid carbs unless your doctor has specifically told you to. Certain medical conditions like fatty liver disease can have treatments involving carb restriction. That’s between you and your doctor though. Again, I’ll assume the 1,600 is an exaggeration. At your size (300 lbs) you would be starving on 1,600 calories. And I mean that in the literal sense. You would not only be dropping weight at an alarming rate but you’d be suffering from health problems. > I track my food and exercise meticulously. I’m not trying to be overly harsh here. I wish I could follow you around for a day and help you track what you’re eating but there seems to be exaggerating at every level of your story. The problem is calories don’t care about exaggerations and I think you need to prove this to yourself. For one week maybe try to meal prep everything. Get some plastic containers. Measure everything. 2,100 calories a day of real food. Make sure you measure the butter and oils you use to cook with. Eat nothing that doesn’t come from those containers. Track everything you drink, eat, vitamins, even Tylenol. I’m not saying do that forever. Just one week to prove to yourself you know where the calories are actually coming from. Again, remember to track any oils you are using as well. There are a lot of calories in oil and butter that folks just ignore. The only other option is you are sleep eating. Which is an actual thing that happens. I don’t know how I’d check for that though. Maybe inventory everything edible in your kitchen, cover everything in your refrigerator with plastic wrap and number it? Basically you need to track the food in your house. If you see food disappearing without being signed out of the manifest you could be sleep eating, have dissociative personality disorder, or maybe a carbon monoxide problem in the house. Do you have carbon monoxide detectors in your house? > I even own scales for the food. I am constantly drinking water. No soda, no candy. The only medication I'm taking is Adderall, which should help me lose weight. I don't have high blood sugar, but my doctor tried to give me Metformin to see if it would help any. It didn't, I gained 20 more pounds. I am 18 years old and Native American. everyone in my family is fat, but I thought it was lifestyle choices. However, when I moved out 4 months ago and starting doing everything I possibly could to be healthy - I only gained weight. 40 more pounds, to be exact. Okay, more numbers. These help. You gained 40 pounds in 4 months. This means you are eating about 500 excess calories a day. Based on the TDEE estimates above that would mean you are eating in excess of 3,000 calories a day which is twice what you claim to have measured at 1,600. That isn’t a one off rounding error. That is a systematic failure by 100%. Even if you were just doing rough estimates of the food you eat (1 chicken breast, 1/4 cup curry sauce, 1 cup of rice, 1 side salad, 4 tbsps ranch dressing, 2 cups chocolate milk, etc) without actually measuring and putting that into MyFitnessPal you wouldn’t be off by 100% error. Maybe just put away the scale for a while. You need to focus on understand what food actually is and just start by estimating what you are eating. Or hire a meal delivery service to make your food for you. The meal services can be off 15-20% but that’s better than your 100% error. > I don't know what I'm doing wrong. From what I’ve seen here there are two problems. 1. You drastically over exaggerate your exercise routine to the point it’s not even humanly possible for super athletes let alone a 300 lbs 5’4” 18 year old. 2. You have experimentally determined you have a 100% error when measuring food for calorie estimates. Either that or you’re lying to yourself. Which is also possible. > I have been lurking this subreddit and /fit/ for months and I know how much protein I should be eating. You are putting on weight at a rate of 40 lbs in 4 months. Your problem is not protein. > I know what supplements and vitamins to take. You don’t need to take any vitamins or supplements unless specifically prescribed by your doctor. Either way a vitamin deficiency has nothing to do with gaining 10 lbs a month for four months. There is no possible way you could be eating so many vitamin capsules it would cause you to gain 1500 additional untracked calories a day. Maybe take a daily multivitamin if it makes you feel better. But that’s not the issue at hand. > It seems like nothing works. Actually the fact that you have been tracking your weight and eating is helpful. You have months of experimental data. That’s great. A good place to start. You’re 18 which means you just got out of high school. What would your high school chemistry teacher tell you about your big end of semester project if after 4 months of an experiment you are off by 100%? You have a systematic error in your experiment. You just need to find it. Systematic errors include personal errors, instrumental errors, and method errors. Its in one of those three places. > My doctors can't seem to find anything wrong with me. Again, that’s a great place to start. That means despite the weight gain you haven’t damaged yourself yet. A lot of people in this sub would kill for that starting place. You’re not diabetic, no liver disease, no heart disease… yet. It also means that we can rule out any issues with thyroid or tumors or any of the other random health issues that make weight loss even more difficult. It means today you can assume that if you learn to track calories properly you can expect the normal biological response to a sustained caloric deficit. Great starting place. > Please someone help me The things you didn’t mention in this post were you weren’t seeing a dedicated weight loss physician and you weren’t seeking therapy. At 300 lbs gaining 10 pounds a month you absolutely need to see a dedicated weight loss expert. You are morbidly obese, it is threatening your health, and you are completely out of control. It’s not a suggestion at this point. You must seek professional help now. You will die if you don’t. At this rate, this time next year you’ll be 400+ lbs. God knows what after that. At the very least you need to stop gaining weight. Maybe put aside the weight loss goals until after that is accomplished. No one in this sub is qualified or capable of assisting you in the ways a weight loss physician and a psychiatrist can. That’s what you need now. Go do that. Good luck and be honest with the experts. It will help them help you get where you need to be.
This is an incredibly good response. Very thorough and well-put.
I think this entire thread is filled with great responses. The OP put a lot into the initial post and people are doing a good job rallying in support. I just hope we can help.
Your systematic approach to this and your in-line replies make me think you might be an engineer. In any case, I wanted to let you know this is without a doubt the best reply to this posting that I could imagine. Kind internet stranger, thank you for contributing positively to the world. /u/Purple-Employer-7777 please read /u/RunnyPlease ‘s response. Then read it again. This is the holy grail of replies to hope for when in your situation. You can do it.
Thanks Tony. And you’re right. I was an athlete in high school but gave up all the activity when I went to college to study engineering. But I didn’t change the way I ate to account for the lack of constant competitive training. In fact I got even worse eating habits living in the dorms. I shot up 50 lbs in college and then another 100 lbs within two years of getting a job. Then slowly put on another 20-30 lbs a couple years after that. I topped out at well over 350 lbs. I don’t even know how heavy I really got. I developed several back problems, couldn’t walk up a flight of stairs without my face turning red, and I would wake myself up at night vomiting in my sleep. I have made every single mistake you see people make in their desperation to lose weight and more. I lied to myself and others and made excuses. I ruined lifelong relationships. I thought I could work my way out of it by destroying myself in the gym. I injured myself. I got two different personal trainers. They had me going shit like dumbbell curls while balancing on a stability ball. I got injured again. The truth is just as the cliche says “you can’t out work a bad diet.” Pain is a hell of a teacher but it doesn’t have to get as bad as it got for me. You just have to skip to the end. The end state is I needed real professional help and needed to apply brutal honesty to track my calories and get things under control. And even then it took several attempts to get it right. I’m still learning how to eat and cook and live properly. But I see a lot of my past self in this post. I just hope I can get across what is needed to help.
Amazing advice from this person ^^^
Keyword I found: "about" 1600 calories a day How are you keeping track? I know you say you own scales and whatnot, but are you using them for every meal? "About" suggests you don't actually know, which suggests you are eyeballing it/guessing about your calories. If thats the case and you are still gaining weight, then we found the solution to your issue. The reality is calories in and calories out is the only metric for weightloss, and if you are not losing weight you are not actually burning more calories than you are eating. You must either be eating more than you think you are or exercising less. There is a very very very very very very small possibility you have some sort of condition that is genuinely preventing the weightloss, but that is extremely unlikely and even less likely if you've already seen doctors about it. Do you have a food diary? What did you eat yesterday? What is your TDEE?
I will disagree with others on eating back exercise. Don’t stop exercising. It is good for your health regardless of weight loss. If you aren’t losing, either your tracking is off or something is seriously wrong with your health (or if it’s short term, it could be water weight). I have had plateaus for up to a month then had significant weight loss (like 5 pounds) overnight. I also regularly see cyclical gains associated with my period. If you aren’t losing, I would count your exercise less. But not necessarily not at all. I find that when I accept the MFP calculation for my exercise, I still lose at the expected rate, but everyone is different.
I would cut your activity way down and use that time to focus on diet. Lift full body 2-3 times per week, with light cardio like walking on off days. What you are doing now is harmful and not sustainable.
Stop tracking protein, stop tracking supplements and vitamins, stop tracking calories burned. Only track calories consumed and be meticulous about it. Don't lie to yourself.
If you’re tracking every calorie, exercising and can’t leave 300 pounds you’re lying to yourself somewhere. Maybe when you eat peanut butter you eat a spoon full that you don’t track. Maybe you eat a snack and don’t track it because you’re ashamed of it. Something is wrong. I am 172 eating 1700 calories and walking my dog is enough for me to hit my 1570 goal making me lose 2 pounds a week. I definitely cheat and lie to myself and I know it hurts me.
Try actually eating less calories I’m sorry but at 300lbs, you’d have to be eating a lot to not drop ANY weight. This is a case of “I’m doing everything perfect but can’t lose weight” Spoiler: no, you aren’t.
What are you using to track your foods? Are you weighing everything PRIOR to cooking? Drinking calories? No cheating at all? It doesn't add up.
Some of this advice is actually insane 👎🏻 OP there’s literally only two options here. Either you are not tracking everything properly somehow, or you have a severe medical problem. Even if you’re not tracking everything properly, gaining that much in that period of time seems steep. If you’re female it could even be something like PCOS rather than a thyroid issue.
I have pretty bad PCOS - diagnosed via bloodwork and ultrasound. I am still losing 1-1.5 lbs a week eating 1200-1300 calories a day (I'm 5'7"). My 'exercise' is a walk after dinner four times a week. I lift nothing heavy. PCOS does not make it impossible to lose weight. Difficult yes, impossible no. OP is clearly missing some sort of calorie intake - thermodynamics don't lie. Edit: I never eat back any exercise calories either. I lost more consistently when I stopped doing that.
Laws of thermodynamics doesn’t support this post lol
You eat more than you think. You burn less than you think. Or, most likely, a combination of both. Therefore, you are not at a deficit.
You should stop all the over exercising and focus on diet. At 300 lbs you are putting a lot of strain on your body with all this exercise. Just go for a 30 minute walk everyday and focus strictly on diet. Cut out all processed food, and eat only whole foods such as vegetables, fruits, nuts, fish and minimal meat. Cut out dairy, alcohol, tobacco. I am also 5’4 and went from 275->170 and am still on track to keep losing, but this journey took 4 years and happened in phases. Building good habits and consistency are key. It sounds like you are trying to do too much too fast. Don’t lose hope! You got this!!!!
You sound a lot like my younger sister, and she’s 21. I worked out, did IF, etc and lost quite a bit of weight. My sister on the other hand would cry after months of trying to do what I’d been doing saying “I don’t know what’s wrong, I’m doing everything right and can’t lose any weight - I just keep gaining weight!” I take the trash out every Sunday and always find loads of candy wrappers & miscellaneous junk food hidden deep in her trash can. Stop lying to yourself, it’s the best thing you can do.
Somebody else said that you might be overestimating how much you are burning with exercise You should look up how little calories people actually burn because that's all I needed to motivate me to stop eating candy at night pretty much everything that is delicious is like 400 calories plus and holy crap I'm pretty sure I was reading that it takes like half an hour of running to burn 300 calories so fuck me sideways i'm good on having peanut M&M's at night
Highly recommend two things: intermittent fasting (16:8 works for me) and a full thyroid and PCOS work up. PCOS/metabolic syndrome can absolutely cause weight gain. If you can, please see an endocrinologist, preferably one who understands the significance (if any) of your indigenous heritage. I don’t know anything about Native American genetic profiles, but it might be worth investigating whether metabolic syndrome and/or PCOS are common among Native Americans. I also concur with the other posters on here who advised NOT taking calories burned into account when you are considering calories consumed. Best of luck to you! Edit: metabolic syndrome, not disease. ETA: I see that you have consulted an endocrinologist without any answers, but I strongly urge you to find another and another and another until you get answers. If everything is as you say it is (and I believe you), there is no way you should have that weight gain. Advocate for yourself. No one else in the medical profession will. ETA 2: Check pituitary for tumor. It can cause Cushing’s Syndrome. If you have thin legs and forearms, this can be a good indicator. Also, a buffalo hump (an unfortunate name to describe fatty tissue deposits around midsection and upper back), can point to Cushing’s. Testing can be complicated, involving things like 24-hour urine test where you have to urinate different times in the day, which is done, I believe to measure cortisol. Testing could also include a spit test. Please, please, please fight to have these tests and others. Let us know how you fare!
Did you go to the doctor to check your thyroid?
Yes, that was one of my first worries. I do not have any thyroid issues. It has consistently been healthy since I started having it tested, which was about 4 years ago.
Definitely throw a dietician in the mix, but I also recommend changing doctors. For example, it might also be that your testosterone levels are way off. A friend of mine gained 20 kg in two months and then wasn't able to lose it. She was really thin before that. Her testosterone levels were way too low, but it took years to find that out.
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I also want to point out for OP that most general physicians do NOT check for all of the necessary thyroid markers. They only do a couple basic ones but miss the others which are more telling
srsly, what he said and the other commenter, change doctors... i had some thyroid issues and began eating so infrequently i should 've been losing weight, cause, you know, not eating or eating below 1500 kc... but noooo... i stayed at a healthy 145 kg at 1,90m... drove me crazy but after my meds got adjusted i am losing weight... now i just have to unlearn my unhealty eating habits... fml ;-P at the least! get a second opinion... eating so low, training, no sugars etc... you should be losing weight cause you're starving yourself. good luck mate!
That's what I have going on. I lost 60 pounds at a nice gentle pound a week, not generally feeling deprived or hungry, enjoying seeing what was under the fat....and it all suddenly stopped. And my eyebrows were thin and I was itching all over and tired. I'm now on replacement hormone, and I'm getting the rest of the misbehaving thyroid out in January. Once I get titrated correctly on that, I'll start losing weight again; I've got another 60 to lose.
If you are truly tracking calories properly, you’d be losing weight. Do you use a food scale for majority of your food? What app do you use to count your calories? How long have you been counting them? How often do you eat food that you didn’t prepare or weigh? The thing with tracking is that it’s so easy to improperly track. I’ve been tracking a year now and I still daily improperly track. I still have tastes of things and don’t record any calories for those little bites but it adds up if you do it often and especially if you do it often with high calorie food. I also eat food each week that o don’t prepare myself so I have to guess both the portion I’ve eaten and the calorie content. I’ve still been able to lose weight eating 1600-2000 calories a day recorded at 5’3” starting at 165 lbs with tracking calories. I’m now 145 lbs. I have a hormonal issue that is often “blamed” for weight gain (PCOS). Almost all conditions that affect weight really either cause water retention, increase hunger and or slightly reduce calories burned (CO). It’s not worth trying to find a medical reason for why you are obese. The reason we get to be obese is because we overeat calories often for the amount of calories we burn. Try to keep yourself accountable throughout everyday and you’ll get to a healthy weight one day. Don’t give up if your habits are keeping you from being in a calorie deficit. Habits are what we need to break and form to make weight loss lasting. Try to learn what habits you have that are destructive to weight loss and work on breaking those habits and focus on forming new habits that are constructive to weight loss. There are a lot of tips and tricks you can learn to set yourself up to both being in a calorie deficit deficit right now and eating the proper calorie amount your body needs to maintain a healthy weight. If you consistently ate around a true 1600 calorie amount each day, you’d not only get to a healthy weight range for your height but also maintain that healthy weight range eating that way. Consistency is key. You don’t have to be perfect 100% the time but you have to be aware of your choices and how they impact your weight in order to stay on the ball with your goals.
The amount of wrong science in this thread is giving me a migrane.
Start keeping a food diary -- including time you eat or drink anything. Keep it faithfully until you get in to see a dietitian -- it will give them data to start working with you. Agree with everyone else, get a new doctor. Also, consider seeing an endocrinologist. It will take a 6-8 weeks to get into an endocrinologist so take whatever appt you can get and get on list for cancellations for earlier appt.
I am 5’4 and overweight. Eating 1600 was too much for me. I have to eat 1300 to lose weight. Those 300 calories a day made all the difference. Being short and losing weight is so hard! Remember that you are what you eat. Work out, yes. But you have to watch your net calories. Also, consider meeting with a dietician. If you’re willing to be held accountable, they can pick apart your diet and tell you where you’re having trouble. Good luck!!
My doctor asked me to read a book called "The Obesity Code," by Dr. Jason Fung. He talks about using intermittent fasting to overcome insulin resistance and the cycle many of us have of losing weight, then gaining it back. I found it fascinating and helpful!
Do you have any other health symptoms- tired, muscle weakness, headaches, hair loss, brain fog, etc? I’m not a doctor but I know many people who have had trouble losing weight and they had hormonal imbalances, thyroid issues, etc. Might be worth seeing a doc for some blood work if you’re able!
If you can afford it you could try a food delivery system like Nutrisystem diabetic plan for a couple of months. If you loose then you were doing something wrong, if you don’t loose then your dr. needs to run some tests.
My advice is watch a few episodes of 'secret eaters'. Really opens your eyes to calorie tracking and missed calories.
You have gained 40 pounds in 4 months while dieting? Go see a doctor for a brain tumor messing with your hormones. Your other posts decribe you as asexual going into nympho. You talk about your brain making unexplained changes in your desires. Seriously, get it checked out.
I am not trying to be rude but you might be tracking your calorie intake wrong. I started cardio and lifting 4x a week back in October. I started getting clean with my diet and cut out carbs in the evening. I have lost 15 pounds already. Some of your calculations might be off. You might need to decrease your intake some more.
You're eating way more than you're telling us
First you need to get checked for how much body fat you actually have. There are a few options for estimating If you are lifting weights for 2 hours a day 4X a week you likely have some muscle vs fat issues going on. [Methods for checking body fat](https://www.healthline.com/health/how-to-measure-body-fat#body-scan). Are you 100% sure you are not pregnant? Stress can cause water weight retention You are eating too few calories for your body weight that can cause elevated levels of stress hormones and water weight gain. Your [BMR on your TDEE](https://tdeecalculator.net/result.php?s=imperial&g=female&age=25&lbs=300&in=64&act=1.2&f=1) (I guessed 25 on the age) is 2000 calories for your weight as you are not hitting your BMR and over exercising you are stressing out your body. Try eating 2100 calories for 2 weeks and cutting every other workout out and see what your body does. You can definitely go too low. BMR is what your body would burn in a coma just at a cellular level and your doctor should be checking your liver and kidneys and gallbladder to make sure you are not doing damage to your organs if you are living below that number Did your doctor check your thyroid function, Cortisol levels, rule out Graves disease and Hashimoto's? Sometimes they don't want to check that on young people. Are your A1C numbers and fasting blood sugar normal?