@annmarkerls Great job on doing those push-ups! Very exciting to progress on that. I would say reduce caloric intake. If what you’re eating now isn’t causing weight to go down then the simple answer is you need to eat less.
I did my first push-ups after failing for months
- Thread starter annmarkerls
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countrygal65
New member
@annmarkerls it's really easy to be off about your calorie intake (everyone is wrong about theirs more or less, just watch the show secret eaters lol) but it feels like it is as low as you think when you're still hungry because of what you're eating not being satiating enough. i don't know for certain anything about you, but significant long-term weight gain cannot happen without a calorie surplus. weight does fluctuate significantly based on things like water retention & menstrual cycle though so if it hasn't been long i wouldn't worry too much. and it's not necessarily bad to be gaining weight if you're exercising and getting protein— as others have said, it's probably a significant amount of muscle!
also if you track calories burned from exercise, i highly recommend stopping that! just for example, if jake's BMR was 1200 then he would burn 50 cal/hour just by existing. you burn more by walking, moving, thinking, etc. of course. but if he were to burn 200 calories during an hour when he's exercising, only the extra 150 would be from the exercise as he's already burning 50/hr by existing & tracking 200 burned on top of his regular TDEE would be wrong. hopefully that made sense without sounding too math-teacher-y.
i think you should take a look at "non-scale victories" people have posted online, in my opinion they're more meaningful as they have more to do with fitness than weight. they also correlate to size more than weight does, a muscular 150 pound person will wear smaller clothes than a 150 pound person with a higher body fat % since, as lots of people here have said already, muscle is denser than fat.
it sounds like you're doing a lot for your fitness already & i encourage you to keep up your current routine for a while longer before you try to assess results & change things. don't be too discouraged, you're entirely on the right track. congrats on the push-ups
also if you track calories burned from exercise, i highly recommend stopping that! just for example, if jake's BMR was 1200 then he would burn 50 cal/hour just by existing. you burn more by walking, moving, thinking, etc. of course. but if he were to burn 200 calories during an hour when he's exercising, only the extra 150 would be from the exercise as he's already burning 50/hr by existing & tracking 200 burned on top of his regular TDEE would be wrong. hopefully that made sense without sounding too math-teacher-y.
i think you should take a look at "non-scale victories" people have posted online, in my opinion they're more meaningful as they have more to do with fitness than weight. they also correlate to size more than weight does, a muscular 150 pound person will wear smaller clothes than a 150 pound person with a higher body fat % since, as lots of people here have said already, muscle is denser than fat.
it sounds like you're doing a lot for your fitness already & i encourage you to keep up your current routine for a while longer before you try to assess results & change things. don't be too discouraged, you're entirely on the right track. congrats on the push-ups
@annmarkerls That calorie intake still seems high, I’d lower it more if u can
@annmarkerls I’m 180 lbs and without exercise my caloric intake is about 1200kcal and with “heavy” exercise (≈90 minutes in the gym, plus the 30 minutes of walking to and from) it’s closer to 1600 kcal. I’m not even really pushing to lose weight.
My point and tip is we don’t need to consume that many calories. Also, exercise doesn’t burn a lot of kcals. Running 6 miles burns about 600 kcal and that’s less than a single 8 oz cheeseburger. It’s unlikely you are doing 800+ kcal worth of exercise.
If you’re not losing weight, there could be a variety of reasons, but most of them revolve around dietary choices. My diet is basically a “raw” diet, only I cook things. But I use basic ingredients that are unprocessed, for the most part. Examples of foods I eat:
Vegetables (mostly raw or steamed/pan seared), fruits both fresh and dried, seafood (plenty of raw, I ate 1 lb of raw salmon and 0.8 lb of cooked this week), chicken (I bbq or pan-fry w/ avocado oil), cottage cheese, homemade milk kefir (milk that is fermented by a *SCOBY), homemade kombucha (sweet tea that is fermented by a *SCOBY), sugar-free beverages or water, nuts.
I also include occasional treats like dark chocolate, ice cream, or a smoothie-shop smoothie. But mostly I practice delayed gratification with these treats and if I pass by the smoothie shop or think of it and want a smoothie, I tell myself “next time”. I do this “next time” trick pretty often. For example there is a place that makes an espresso milkshake I love near my house. I have had 2 shakes in the last year.
A good tip is to add more fiber foods, as they are filling but don’t have a lot of calories. A bag of spinach or greens, or carrots are good examples. A 2lb bag of carrots is also pretty cheap. Another tip is to reduce toppings, things like salt, sugar, dressings, sauces. This is just added salt, sugar l, and fat. Stick to sugar free, and low sodium options. Salt is actually fine, but we usually get plenty as is in our diet without adding. Lately, I’ve taken to eliminating salad dressing entirely and it’s surprising how great salads taste without it!
My sugar-free protein shake recipe: milk kefir, sugar free protein powder (60g of protein) , spirulina, moringa, turmeric, psyllium husk, creatine.
*Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast: removes sugars like lactose and sucrose from food and produces probiotics and acid (good for gut health)
A non-diet tip is get good sleep. You didn’t mention your age, but younger people need more sleep than older people (8-10 hours), and everyone needs solid, uninterrupted sleep. Sleep helps our metabolism, burns lots of calories, and is essential to health.
You’re doing great with the amount of water you’re drinking, anywhere from 100-128oz is really optimal, especially if you’re not intaking any other fluids.
There is a lot of conflicting info out there and also a lot of beliefs that don’t have scientific support. Continuing research, and reading or listening to audiobooks is a good practice to get various perspectives, but also I wouldn’t take any as gospel, but more as a piece of a puzzle to build a picture of what the truth might look like. “Burn” is a great book that exposes some interesting data about energy expenditure.
Back to diet: do what you can to promote good gut health. One example is to avoid unnecessary use of antibiotics. Another is to reduce (more or less attempt to eliminate) processed sugar from your diet.
Lastly, regarding your pushups: I think you will make better progress if you do exercises that you can at least do in sets of 10. That said, you can modify pushups to do them a little easier by finding a place where your hands are elevated, such as a stair, curb, or a bench.
Good luck and hmu if you want more detail or have questions!
My point and tip is we don’t need to consume that many calories. Also, exercise doesn’t burn a lot of kcals. Running 6 miles burns about 600 kcal and that’s less than a single 8 oz cheeseburger. It’s unlikely you are doing 800+ kcal worth of exercise.
If you’re not losing weight, there could be a variety of reasons, but most of them revolve around dietary choices. My diet is basically a “raw” diet, only I cook things. But I use basic ingredients that are unprocessed, for the most part. Examples of foods I eat:
Vegetables (mostly raw or steamed/pan seared), fruits both fresh and dried, seafood (plenty of raw, I ate 1 lb of raw salmon and 0.8 lb of cooked this week), chicken (I bbq or pan-fry w/ avocado oil), cottage cheese, homemade milk kefir (milk that is fermented by a *SCOBY), homemade kombucha (sweet tea that is fermented by a *SCOBY), sugar-free beverages or water, nuts.
I also include occasional treats like dark chocolate, ice cream, or a smoothie-shop smoothie. But mostly I practice delayed gratification with these treats and if I pass by the smoothie shop or think of it and want a smoothie, I tell myself “next time”. I do this “next time” trick pretty often. For example there is a place that makes an espresso milkshake I love near my house. I have had 2 shakes in the last year.
A good tip is to add more fiber foods, as they are filling but don’t have a lot of calories. A bag of spinach or greens, or carrots are good examples. A 2lb bag of carrots is also pretty cheap. Another tip is to reduce toppings, things like salt, sugar, dressings, sauces. This is just added salt, sugar l, and fat. Stick to sugar free, and low sodium options. Salt is actually fine, but we usually get plenty as is in our diet without adding. Lately, I’ve taken to eliminating salad dressing entirely and it’s surprising how great salads taste without it!
My sugar-free protein shake recipe: milk kefir, sugar free protein powder (60g of protein) , spirulina, moringa, turmeric, psyllium husk, creatine.
*Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast: removes sugars like lactose and sucrose from food and produces probiotics and acid (good for gut health)
A non-diet tip is get good sleep. You didn’t mention your age, but younger people need more sleep than older people (8-10 hours), and everyone needs solid, uninterrupted sleep. Sleep helps our metabolism, burns lots of calories, and is essential to health.
You’re doing great with the amount of water you’re drinking, anywhere from 100-128oz is really optimal, especially if you’re not intaking any other fluids.
There is a lot of conflicting info out there and also a lot of beliefs that don’t have scientific support. Continuing research, and reading or listening to audiobooks is a good practice to get various perspectives, but also I wouldn’t take any as gospel, but more as a piece of a puzzle to build a picture of what the truth might look like. “Burn” is a great book that exposes some interesting data about energy expenditure.
Back to diet: do what you can to promote good gut health. One example is to avoid unnecessary use of antibiotics. Another is to reduce (more or less attempt to eliminate) processed sugar from your diet.
Lastly, regarding your pushups: I think you will make better progress if you do exercises that you can at least do in sets of 10. That said, you can modify pushups to do them a little easier by finding a place where your hands are elevated, such as a stair, curb, or a bench.
Good luck and hmu if you want more detail or have questions!
sarangapani
New member
@action238
Those numbers sound way too low. I’m 66kg, eating about 2500kcal per day and not gaining weight. On off days I only do about 30 minutes of bicycle commute (~300kcal) and half an hour of walking. Every other day or so I go climbing (doesn’t burn much since you spend so much time belaying or standing around) or bicycling for a few hours.
Those numbers sound way too low. I’m 66kg, eating about 2500kcal per day and not gaining weight. On off days I only do about 30 minutes of bicycle commute (~300kcal) and half an hour of walking. Every other day or so I go climbing (doesn’t burn much since you spend so much time belaying or standing around) or bicycling for a few hours.
@sarangapani The numbers I gave were an average, and often my daily totals are less.
As explained in the book, “Burn”, there is an efficiency factor. They studied indigenous people who had even lower caloric intakes and even higher levels of energy expenditure. If you are eating 2500 kcal and maintaining weight, and OP is eating the less and not losing weight while being 10 kg heavier than you, while I’m getting by on close to half this intake, that’s just more evidence to me that there is more to the picture than simple calorie counting.
I often go more than 50% of my day without consuming anything other than water, and when I do eat, it’s not an extravagantly large meal or bolus of calories. Last night for example was 200 g of salmon, 150 g of mushrooms sautéed in 10 g of butter, and 150 g of black cherries. Total around 500-600 kcal. If I had been really gorging myself, I might have added up to 200 g of French beans for another 70 kcal. The only other caloric intake I had yesterday was my morning smoothie, and cup of soy milk, bringing my total to around 1,000 kcal. (And about 100 g of protein)
Edit: are you trying to gain/lose weight?
As explained in the book, “Burn”, there is an efficiency factor. They studied indigenous people who had even lower caloric intakes and even higher levels of energy expenditure. If you are eating 2500 kcal and maintaining weight, and OP is eating the less and not losing weight while being 10 kg heavier than you, while I’m getting by on close to half this intake, that’s just more evidence to me that there is more to the picture than simple calorie counting.
I often go more than 50% of my day without consuming anything other than water, and when I do eat, it’s not an extravagantly large meal or bolus of calories. Last night for example was 200 g of salmon, 150 g of mushrooms sautéed in 10 g of butter, and 150 g of black cherries. Total around 500-600 kcal. If I had been really gorging myself, I might have added up to 200 g of French beans for another 70 kcal. The only other caloric intake I had yesterday was my morning smoothie, and cup of soy milk, bringing my total to around 1,000 kcal. (And about 100 g of protein)
Edit: are you trying to gain/lose weight?
sarangapani
New member
@action238 There is no way a 82kg, fully grown man is surviving on ≤1600kcal/day while being physically active and generally moving around. You must be counting too few calories. Or you are actually on a deficit and losing weight. If you were lying in bed all day and had low muscle mass it might just be enough.
I’m kind of hesitantly trying to gain a bit of weight since I’m hoping it will help with recovery and overuse-injury prevention (I’m constantly getting a ton of frustrating overuse injuries in all body parts). The ~2500kcal/day don’t seem to do the trick, but I’m not really counting the calories right now and not really committed to the weight gain (I’m actually kind of scared by it).
I’m kind of hesitantly trying to gain a bit of weight since I’m hoping it will help with recovery and overuse-injury prevention (I’m constantly getting a ton of frustrating overuse injuries in all body parts). The ~2500kcal/day don’t seem to do the trick, but I’m not really counting the calories right now and not really committed to the weight gain (I’m actually kind of scared by it).
@sarangapani Maybe I’m miscounting, and tbh I don’t typically count. I was religious about calorie counting and macro tracking for about 6 months, but after that it was a bit boring because my diet is fairly consistent, at least in the general types of foods I eat. Veg portion might be lettuce, carrots, and French beans one day, and spinach, mushrooms, and squash the next, but the general caloric count and macros are similar. I just went over yesterday’s intake as an example. Today, it’s afternoon, and I’ve only had water so far. I have another piece of salmon to finish, and I may cook up a two egg omelette as well. I just know I don’t eat much compared to most people, and whenever I do bother to count calories for the day, it’s usually pretty low. I do splurge on holidays or other family/friend gatherings, but even then I’m treated like “you eat like a bird”.
I am also on a light duty, post-surgery schedule at the moment, but even on days I work out or am walking my typical 2-5 miles/day, my diet doesn’t change much.
I haven’t really lost or gained significant weight ever in my life, although I used to eat more. I’ve slowly gained about 10 kg over the last 25 years or so, I believe mostly in muscle mass, as I was a firefighter and very physically active, as well as being a fitness enthusiast. I was a bit lean in high school and early college before I started firefighting.
That’s a shame about the injuries, that’s odd since you didn’t mention running (which I think is impact heavy and injury prone), and the stuff you mentioned seem low impact. The one thing I think of is sugar or other inflammatory foods that might be the underlying cause?
I am also on a light duty, post-surgery schedule at the moment, but even on days I work out or am walking my typical 2-5 miles/day, my diet doesn’t change much.
I haven’t really lost or gained significant weight ever in my life, although I used to eat more. I’ve slowly gained about 10 kg over the last 25 years or so, I believe mostly in muscle mass, as I was a firefighter and very physically active, as well as being a fitness enthusiast. I was a bit lean in high school and early college before I started firefighting.
That’s a shame about the injuries, that’s odd since you didn’t mention running (which I think is impact heavy and injury prone), and the stuff you mentioned seem low impact. The one thing I think of is sugar or other inflammatory foods that might be the underlying cause?
randomcitizen
New member
@annmarkerls Hell yeah nice job.
@annmarkerls I tore my labrum. Couldn't do a push up. Did whatever I could on a chair 5 times a day. Slowly raised it every few days. By a month I was doing 5 actual pushups. 2 months and I did 20. I am a guy, but I feel like it was a great way to go from 0 to 20. May take longer for you. But starting with what I could rep a few times and increasing only when I stopped getting sore worked.
jazianna2006
New member
@annmarkerls Congratulations, you have finally achieved your goal of doing push-ups! Working towards a goal and not achieving it the first time can be difficult and frustrating, but it's important to remember that perseverance and determination are the keys to success. Learning to overcome life's obstacles and challenges is an important life skill, and it's great that you can do it. Keep up the good work!
@annmarkerls im confused as to why you need to consume 2300 calories to reach your protein goals. there are only 400 calories in 100 grams of protein so you must be eating a ton of fat, like 200 grams or more per day. is your protein consumed only in bacon form?
@annmarkerls 2300 calories while being a 5'3 woman will make you gain a fair bit. Stick to 1800-1700 every day while still trying to get your protein in.
@annmarkerls
- Ditch the scale
- Get a measuring tape or take regular photos
@annmarkerls How many hours are you exercising in a week? I’m surprised you’re gaining weight with that low of a calorie intake. If I were you I’d sustain your eating and increase the amount you’re working out a little. Give it more time and if after a few weeks you’re still gaining weight, lower your calorie intake slightly.
@annmarkerls Recheck your calorie intake. Measure everything.
@annmarkerls Sounds like muscle growth. I’d say ditch the scale and take pictures. Take pictures every week or every month to track your progress. Watch your clothes shrink. Don’t get so hung up on the number on the scale if you consistently workout and eat healthy. You’ve accomplished 6 push-ups that you couldn’t do before, so I’d say you’re already winning. Just keep going. And if that doesn’t work, go harder at the gym. Get more focused on the types of foods you’re intaking. Research. Just keep going.
@annmarkerls How long have you been trying to lose weight? It takes time (and it should!). Imagine all the time it has taken to gain it ^^
Just keep working out & eating that protein and much of the new weight you will gain is muscle which will increase your maintenance calories and slowly you will recomp/lose weight and become a beautiful muscle beast, good luck!
Just keep working out & eating that protein and much of the new weight you will gain is muscle which will increase your maintenance calories and slowly you will recomp/lose weight and become a beautiful muscle beast, good luck!
@annmarkerls I usually have to choose between putting on muscle or losing weight. A lot of people try to dial in their weight loss first, and then put muscle on once their weight is at the target they set. I think that tends to be the easier way to do things but if you want to keep working on both at the same time, you could try adding less calories for the exercise you do. Not sure how many you’re burning but for me, if I’m adding extra exercise calories to my diet I won’t lose much weight without extensive cardio.
chesterjohn
New member
@annmarkerls Push ups will build some strong core strength, arms back and food source of stamina build. It’s not easy. Especially if ur not used to doing push ups. Congratulations. I’m not too fond of the sciences of losing weight bcuz it’s gonna very from person to person. Ur doing a good job. However I’m not sure if ur doing cardio bcuz that can also help. Another thing is maybe try working out early n the morning. Supposed that time help build our metabolism. Other than that ur doing great