angelonline
New member
@butterfly2222 I saw that, but it’s not really a calculation issue, so I feel it deserves separate 5th category.
The answer to all the “why am I not losing weight?” posts
- Thread starter butterfly2222
- Start date
-
- Tags
- petite fitness
butterfly2222
New member
@angelonline I put it in the TLDR, it’s definitely another possibility. I also put in a disclaimer about excessive restriction and nutrient deficiencies in the section about TDEE calculations.
@butterfly2222 Should there also be a disclaimer about one just having less muscle mass?
r/loseit folks with a lot to lose, in the obese category, naturally have muscle mass to schlep the excess weight around, so the CICO advice is appropriate.
But on this sub we have many "skinny fat" types who, their primary problem, is lack of muscle mass (from overly sedentary lifestyles and yo-yo dieting) which reduces their BMR. The better advice isn't to tell them to count calories; it's to tell them to pick up some heavy weights, ignore the scale for awhile, eat a lot of protein, measure progress in inches lost and weight they can move, not in calories consumed.
Especially!! For the younger women, who are still in that window of time for growing peak bone mass. Did they lose a lb of fat or did they gain a lb of bone, which they'll appreciate in their 70s?
r/loseit folks with a lot to lose, in the obese category, naturally have muscle mass to schlep the excess weight around, so the CICO advice is appropriate.
But on this sub we have many "skinny fat" types who, their primary problem, is lack of muscle mass (from overly sedentary lifestyles and yo-yo dieting) which reduces their BMR. The better advice isn't to tell them to count calories; it's to tell them to pick up some heavy weights, ignore the scale for awhile, eat a lot of protein, measure progress in inches lost and weight they can move, not in calories consumed.
Especially!! For the younger women, who are still in that window of time for growing peak bone mass. Did they lose a lb of fat or did they gain a lb of bone, which they'll appreciate in their 70s?
butterfly2222
New member
montana1056
New member
@angelonline This is covered by point #3, option 1. If I have a painfully low tdee, and I'm eating as though I have a more standard tdee, then I'm not eating in a deficit. I've miscalculated my own personal tdee.
angelonline
New member
@montana1056 TDEE calculators don’t do bad calculations, they assume the user has an average metabolism. If you gave it correct weight, age and height info the calculations weren’t the problem. The math was fine, the assumptions behind the numbers were the issue.
@montana1056 Somewhere on r/loseit there's a link to a google sheet someone created that allows you to figure out your own personal TDEE. It works by calculating your daily weight gain/loss against your calories consumed. Over time it'll give you an accurate calculation of your TDEE. I've got a copy I've used on and off for years.
@butterfly2222 Qq, if your TDEE is for example 1800cal but you burn 400cal on a workout so in total you eat 2200 that day, does that mean you exceeded your TDEE therefore no longer in a calorie deficit? Thank you, appreciate your help!
butterfly2222
New member
@arist007 How was your TDEE calculated? If using a TDEE calculator, did you log “sedentary” as your activity or did you log that you workout x amount of time per week? If you logged that you workout a certain amount of times, then it’s already accounted for so don’t eat those back. If your TDEE is 1800 and that’s your intake, you’d be in maintenance tho, therefore not losing weight.
If you logged yourself as sedentary, and then let’s say you want to lose 1 lbs/week, that would mean you have to subtract 500 calories to your daily intake, making it 1300. L
Now, to decide whether or how much to eat back from your workout calories. First, how did you calculate that you burnt 400 calories by working out? If it’s using a cardio machine that’s probably wildly inaccurate. If it’s using a smart watch, that’s probably still inaccurate but not as much as with the cardio machine. I’d personally be conservative about eating back calories from a workout, tho 400 is a big number. That’s the thing, it’s hard to know precisely how much you burnt from a workout.
From tracking my weight and my intake religiously I figured out my apple watch overestimates but not by a lot, about 100 calories/day, so if my apple watch told me I burnt 400 calories working out, I’d feel good about eating 300 of those.
You could also eat back 400 and the worst that could happen is you don’t lose weight.
Overall, to know how much you burn from workouts as accurately as possible, you gotta track your intake and your weight pretty religiously, write down exactly how much you think you burnt from a workout and make the best guess you can.
If you logged yourself as sedentary, and then let’s say you want to lose 1 lbs/week, that would mean you have to subtract 500 calories to your daily intake, making it 1300. L
Now, to decide whether or how much to eat back from your workout calories. First, how did you calculate that you burnt 400 calories by working out? If it’s using a cardio machine that’s probably wildly inaccurate. If it’s using a smart watch, that’s probably still inaccurate but not as much as with the cardio machine. I’d personally be conservative about eating back calories from a workout, tho 400 is a big number. That’s the thing, it’s hard to know precisely how much you burnt from a workout.
From tracking my weight and my intake religiously I figured out my apple watch overestimates but not by a lot, about 100 calories/day, so if my apple watch told me I burnt 400 calories working out, I’d feel good about eating 300 of those.
You could also eat back 400 and the worst that could happen is you don’t lose weight.
Overall, to know how much you burn from workouts as accurately as possible, you gotta track your intake and your weight pretty religiously, write down exactly how much you think you burnt from a workout and make the best guess you can.
@butterfly2222 Thank you! Yeah I used my FitnessPal to track my TDEE as “active”. I do HIIT so every class I’m burning roughly around 500 calories or more so I guessed about 400 to be conservative. I’m tracking my calories burnt via smart watch. What made it confusing was my fitnesspal adds calories back to the daily amount depending on your exercise so I thought that if I burned X amount, I’d still be in a caloric deficit.
butterfly2222
New member
@arist007 I’m not sure how accurate is MFP for TDEE calculations but I think what you’d have to do is either put yourself as sedentary in MFP or not eat back the calories, I think that’s what they intended for it it to be used and it’s somewhat of a bug (or just bad app features). Personally I’d probably put myself as sedentary and go with how much you think you’re burning from your workout and see how that goes.
Tho, if you’ve been doing that and it works and you’re losing weight at a pace you’re happy with, then, like they say “don’t fix it if it’s not broken”.
Tho, if you’ve been doing that and it works and you’re losing weight at a pace you’re happy with, then, like they say “don’t fix it if it’s not broken”.
@butterfly2222 Thank you so much for your help, I really appreciate it!
marks1mpson
New member
@butterfly2222 Such a truth bomb post, thank you 
@butterfly2222 Only because you've asked for comments:
I feel this is very focused on calorie counting, almost as if the only way to lose weight is to count calories. There are various ways of creating a deficit without counting every calorie, and maybe trying something else might be a suggestion for somebody who was stalling on calorie counting and finding it difficult.
I don't think people are stalling because of a couple of one calorie cups of tea or even five calorie cups of coffee. And in reality, these tiny amounts of calories are likely to be overshadowed by the general inaccuracies in calorie counting. For some people weighing every lettuce leaf, counting every drop of tabasco sauce, etc. is going to feel onerous or obsessive.
As this is a "petite" sub, some of us are working with quite small deficits. It can be perfectly normal for weight to fluctuate and appear to wipe out a small deficit. For instance, for a 250 calorie deficit, you'd expect to lose about half a point a week on average; but weight can fluctuate a couple of pounds from day to day, so a 1.5 lb loss might not show at the end of the three weeks. I find it more helpful to track weight and look for trends.
I agree, but I thought I'd mention that I've heard a lot that it's dangerous to go under your BMR because it's what needed to maintain in a coma. That's kind of irrelevant: it's simply that if you're in a coma BMR and TDEE are much the same. As the calculator for activity is a multiplier and petite people are starting from a smaller baseline number, BMR and TDEE can be quite close, and a 500 (or less) calorie deficit will take people under the BMR.
I feel this is very focused on calorie counting, almost as if the only way to lose weight is to count calories. There are various ways of creating a deficit without counting every calorie, and maybe trying something else might be a suggestion for somebody who was stalling on calorie counting and finding it difficult.
I don't think people are stalling because of a couple of one calorie cups of tea or even five calorie cups of coffee. And in reality, these tiny amounts of calories are likely to be overshadowed by the general inaccuracies in calorie counting. For some people weighing every lettuce leaf, counting every drop of tabasco sauce, etc. is going to feel onerous or obsessive.
As this is a "petite" sub, some of us are working with quite small deficits. It can be perfectly normal for weight to fluctuate and appear to wipe out a small deficit. For instance, for a 250 calorie deficit, you'd expect to lose about half a point a week on average; but weight can fluctuate a couple of pounds from day to day, so a 1.5 lb loss might not show at the end of the three weeks. I find it more helpful to track weight and look for trends.
I agree, but I thought I'd mention that I've heard a lot that it's dangerous to go under your BMR because it's what needed to maintain in a coma. That's kind of irrelevant: it's simply that if you're in a coma BMR and TDEE are much the same. As the calculator for activity is a multiplier and petite people are starting from a smaller baseline number, BMR and TDEE can be quite close, and a 500 (or less) calorie deficit will take people under the BMR.
butterfly2222
New member
@tverinus I understand your critique and I don’t completely disagree. The idea was that if you’re at a loss as to why you’re unable to lose weight, counting calories accurately is the only way that is 100% sure to work. If this was a post on ways to count calories without making it feel like a chore, then I could have provided different ways to do it, but this is a post on how to be absolutely sure you will lose weight. The advice is aimed at people who actually have not tried to be accurately track everything.
I have read numerous posts on r/loseit from people who were not counting properly and it was throwing off their progress, either “tasting” while they cooked, not knowing that the sauce they were tasting added 50 calories. That’s not much but if you do it on the daily, and in general you’re not very diligent with tracking, that could cancel a deficit, especially since we have so little margin, being short. I remember one guy in particular who was eating 500-something calories worth of “calorie-free” Tic Tacs on daily basis. The thing is the calorie-count on the box was 0, but that was for one mint, which is actually 2 calories, but when it’s less than 5, companies are allowed to write 0.
I also feel like people can use their own judgment when it comes to those things and that’s why I said it’s particularly important to be accurate when it comes to calorie-dense foods. So let’s say for lettuce, you add a cup of lettuce you log it, you add a tablespoon of tabasco, you log it. Do you have to weigh those items? Probably not because they’re not calorie-dense. Personally I still would weigh the lettuce just out of convenience and probably would just eye it for the tabasco. Should you just not log them altogether because of that? Probably not either. Some people will just not log fruits and vegetables because they’re “healthy”, or they won’t log beverages because “they’re not food”.
I’ll take your point and say: we could use a post on how to track calories, be accurate and keep your sanity. There are so many ways to make a change that’s sustainable and doesn’t feel like a chore, I just didn’t feel like getting into that for this post.
For your next point regarding no loss after 3 weeks, I’d bring you back to my point #1, which is that you should track your weight accurately and look for the overall trend. Ideally, you should weigh yourself everyday, so that you can account for daily fluctuations. If someone has been weighing themselves daily, for 3 weeks, and they haven’t lost not even 0.5 of a pound in 3 weeks, most likely they haven’t been on a deficit.
Lastly regarding your comment about BMR, most people’s BMR will be lower than 1200 calories, which I warned it wasn’t recommended to go under, as it could result in nutrient deficiencies. It’s also just not good or necessary for 99.9% of people. Also, just to reiterate, when in doubt, consult with a professional.
I have read numerous posts on r/loseit from people who were not counting properly and it was throwing off their progress, either “tasting” while they cooked, not knowing that the sauce they were tasting added 50 calories. That’s not much but if you do it on the daily, and in general you’re not very diligent with tracking, that could cancel a deficit, especially since we have so little margin, being short. I remember one guy in particular who was eating 500-something calories worth of “calorie-free” Tic Tacs on daily basis. The thing is the calorie-count on the box was 0, but that was for one mint, which is actually 2 calories, but when it’s less than 5, companies are allowed to write 0.
I also feel like people can use their own judgment when it comes to those things and that’s why I said it’s particularly important to be accurate when it comes to calorie-dense foods. So let’s say for lettuce, you add a cup of lettuce you log it, you add a tablespoon of tabasco, you log it. Do you have to weigh those items? Probably not because they’re not calorie-dense. Personally I still would weigh the lettuce just out of convenience and probably would just eye it for the tabasco. Should you just not log them altogether because of that? Probably not either. Some people will just not log fruits and vegetables because they’re “healthy”, or they won’t log beverages because “they’re not food”.
I’ll take your point and say: we could use a post on how to track calories, be accurate and keep your sanity. There are so many ways to make a change that’s sustainable and doesn’t feel like a chore, I just didn’t feel like getting into that for this post.
For your next point regarding no loss after 3 weeks, I’d bring you back to my point #1, which is that you should track your weight accurately and look for the overall trend. Ideally, you should weigh yourself everyday, so that you can account for daily fluctuations. If someone has been weighing themselves daily, for 3 weeks, and they haven’t lost not even 0.5 of a pound in 3 weeks, most likely they haven’t been on a deficit.
Lastly regarding your comment about BMR, most people’s BMR will be lower than 1200 calories, which I warned it wasn’t recommended to go under, as it could result in nutrient deficiencies. It’s also just not good or necessary for 99.9% of people. Also, just to reiterate, when in doubt, consult with a professional.
@butterfly2222 If somebody is eating 500 calories of tic tacs daily on a 1200 calorie a day diet, that's a healthy eating issue, and a better idea might be to replace them with something more nutritious rather than just weigh/count them. (Incidentally, I have a packet of tic tacs here and the calories are given by weight: there's no mention of zero calories. Might be a regional thing).
Tasting when cooking makes no difference if you've already counted these calories in the dish. You're going to be eating them anyway, whether it's during or after cooking. It's also very difficult to measure the calories if you don't know what proportions you've got of which foods in say, a soup. Calorie counting is a lot less accurate than people think it is.
Single calories are neither here nor there. Imagine how easy it is to measure one calorie over or under on something like oil, peanut butter, cheese, meat, egg, etc. The lettuce leaf, the cup of green tea, the worcester sauce, etc. are not what are stopping weight loss. But if you want to account for little bits of things like that, you can just add a rough estimate to your daily calorie count. Or accept very marginally slower weight loss.
It's also very difficult to be completely accurate on calorie output too. Are people really able to measure down to single calories with complete accuracy? I doubt it. I think you've got to accept that it's not going to be exact. (And there's some evidence that people unconsciously reduce their calorie output on days that they exercise, complicating things further).
I also disagree that calorie counting is the only weight loss method that works. It's just one method.
Tasting when cooking makes no difference if you've already counted these calories in the dish. You're going to be eating them anyway, whether it's during or after cooking. It's also very difficult to measure the calories if you don't know what proportions you've got of which foods in say, a soup. Calorie counting is a lot less accurate than people think it is.
Single calories are neither here nor there. Imagine how easy it is to measure one calorie over or under on something like oil, peanut butter, cheese, meat, egg, etc. The lettuce leaf, the cup of green tea, the worcester sauce, etc. are not what are stopping weight loss. But if you want to account for little bits of things like that, you can just add a rough estimate to your daily calorie count. Or accept very marginally slower weight loss.
It's also very difficult to be completely accurate on calorie output too. Are people really able to measure down to single calories with complete accuracy? I doubt it. I think you've got to accept that it's not going to be exact. (And there's some evidence that people unconsciously reduce their calorie output on days that they exercise, complicating things further).
I also disagree that calorie counting is the only weight loss method that works. It's just one method.
@butterfly2222 Lettuce, fruit, tabasco.... do you not know that the body burns as much calories consuming such things as to make such items basically less than calorie free?
I appreciate your posts but you have a long way to go, report back after you've maintained your weight loss for years, regained after a major health setback, lost it again.
I appreciate your posts but you have a long way to go, report back after you've maintained your weight loss for years, regained after a major health setback, lost it again.
butterfly2222
New member
@pandafan Lol that’s funny because that’s exactly what I did. Maintained my weight loss for years from mildly overweight to healthy, had a a major setback (pandemic gave me major depression, ate my feelings) gained 80-something lbs, lost it back.
Also, I’m sorry but there are no calorie-negative foods.
Also, I’m sorry but there are no calorie-negative foods.
@butterfly2222 There are multiple other options too:
You’re gaining muscle, which is more dense, while losing fat. This would result in a net gain
You have hormonal imbalances that accelerate gastric emptying, increase ghrelin (the hunger hormone)
Your muscle mass is low and your metabolism is low
You’re older and going through hormonal changes that exacerbate fat loss
PCOS
Etc
You’re gaining muscle, which is more dense, while losing fat. This would result in a net gain
You have hormonal imbalances that accelerate gastric emptying, increase ghrelin (the hunger hormone)
Your muscle mass is low and your metabolism is low
You’re older and going through hormonal changes that exacerbate fat loss
PCOS
Etc