Always burn more than I eat, still gain weight

[Case13]

I've read a lot of forums across more than just the FitBit site that all say "it's as simple as burning more than you eat."  Well, I do.  I probably eat excessively one to two days per week but even then, I usually eat what I burn where all the other days I maintain a 100-700 calorie deficiency.  

In December, I had some medical issues in play where I couldn't eat enough to not lose weight.  Then suddenly, in the last week of January (so not over holidays or anything), my weight shot up by 16 pounds and has been moving up and down in an 8 pound range since then but never back down to where I was consistently from August to January.

You might think it is a new medicine I am on, but I have had this problem for years whenever I'm not on a medication that causes weight loss.  You might think it is a thyroid issues, but apparently my standard thyroid test comes out perfect (although that doesn't mean the more in-depth test would).

Any ideas?  It's incredibly depressing.

[Bucsdg]

I understand completely.. The more I try, the more I gain but when I stop stressing over it and just eat when hungry, I maintain and have even lost..  It's a mental game.. 

I'm trying to count calories in vs calories out using Fitbit now and I was losing but stopped.. Someone else commented on my post saying that all Fitbit are off by 20% or more in calories burned. This means you may be burning 400 or more calories less than you think. 

[Heybales]

@------ 

Grueling exercise sounds like a stress.

Being stressed about not seeing weight loss sounds like a stress.

Attempting over a 2 lb weekly weight loss could easily be a stress - unless you have over say 100 lbs to lose.

Guess what can cause upwards of a slow 20 lb gain of water weight - elevated stress induced cortisol.

I doubt your logging of food could be off so much that you wipe out a 1500+ deficit.

Are you logging by weight everything but liquids, because calories is per gram, not spoons or cups.

Also, what type of workouts are grueling?

Because Fitbit can be decent estimate out of the gate (considering nutritional labels are allowed to be up to 20% off, anything under that is decent enough) if you are doing average things.

HR-based calorie burn for anything non-steady-state aerobic will be inflated calorie burn - intervals, strength training, ect.

HR-based calorie burn for anything at the bottom of the aerobic range will be inflated - like walking just fast enough HR goes up high enough to kick it on.

Sometimes step-based calorie burn would be much more accurate - but you can't force it accept turning off the HR reading.

But if you do a whole lot of steps daily, and your stride length is off - then the distance can be very wrong and that's used for daily calorie burn.

Besides the scale weight, which can easily fluctuate from water changes - I hope you are measuring in several spots to see if fat is still being lost.

Because even with cortisol increasing water weight, fat can be dropped.

Obviously a body so stressed out it has constantly elevated cortisol isn't good either - and that will sooner or later backfire with some real negatives - it should be seen.

[Heybales]

@Bucsdg 

Interesting enough - read enough posts and you'll also find plenty of people that find the Fitbit is under 5% difference from reported calorie burn to actual fat loss rate - and that would include food logging not being 100% accurate.

So very accurate.

So it depends on your model, your workouts, your tweaks (sensitivity for steps, stride-length, manually logging some workouts known inflated for HR calorie burn), and your daily routine, and if you've used it for the initial week or two break-in required.

But very true about the mental game - not getting stressed is so important to the body - especially if you have other stressors in life.

The line where your body starts having negative reactions to stress appears to be genetic.

But for most people what starts stacking up to that line as stress is many times under their control.

Except diseases or health problems like insomnia - then you just hope to control the other stresses enough to keep the total under that line of negative reaction.

[------]

Wow. I wasn't expecting to get a complete, unsolicited, diagnosis, having
given absolutely no medical background to base it on. You are barking up
the wrong tree, for sure.

My intent was simply to disagree with the crazy notion that the calories in
and out theory is set in stone. It is not.

[Heybales]

@------ 

Diagnosis?

I see a bunch of questions and potential reasons given to investigate if interested, hardly a diagnosis.

You post a complaint about no weight loss with some extremes mentioned in a public forum - were you just hoping for agreement?

Read around the forums a bit - you'll find mostly attempts at helping others unless someone is clear in their post their intent.

Because the CICO principle is set in stone for any research study you care to find.

Inaccuracy in logging either side of that equation doesn't negate the equation, nor does water weight changes.

If that was your intent, it wasn't mentioned.

[------]

Here's a little research for you....several people prior to me mentioned the same issues with wieght gain, contradicting the calorie intake vs. burn.  Sometimes fact blows theory out of the water.  I'm not interested in so-it-is-written.  Facts are my cup of tea.  Some of us find comfort in knowing that others are experiencing the same issues.  Bullying just crushes people and further disrupts their goals. 

I'm backing out of this forum to escape your comments.  Pity, because the other people were actually quite helpful.  I've learned one lesson, though.....always end a comment with - Please don't read anything into this that's not really there.-

Research studies hold very little credibility.  Coffee's good for you.  No, coffee's bad for you.  Now, it's good for you. And now it's bad for you, again.  Blah, Blah, Blah.  A know-it-all's encyclopedia of nonsense.

[Bruizerboy]

I have the same experience and I am almost OCD when it comes to registering all calories consumed. I record EVERYTHING I eat, and the right quantity.

Yesterday I walked 16klm & burned 1,358 calories in the process (excluding just normal burn by the body without exercise), drank 2.6 litres of water, consumed 1,488 calories with a higher % of protein than carbs, and with fat consumption right on the % target, and I gained 1.1kg!

I only seem to lose weight if I consume less than 1,200 cals a day with exercising at the gym for an hour (I do so 3 days a week on average).

I'm pretty fat anyway but had been losing weight progressively through the week. Their HAS to be an explanation (and yes, my scales are calibrated and working fine). 

I know you say it's not possible, but you're wrong. And I do not understand why because based only on math you should be right. Very deeply frustrating and here has to be some sort of reason but I don't know what it is....

[Bruizerboy]

I have the same problem and have no clue why. I put in a pretty heavy day of exercise, recorded all food consumed and correct quantities, burned way more than I ate, and gained 1.1kg. It is indeed really frustrating and I also feel depressed. I had a goal weight I wanted to achieve by Xmas and I have no hope in the world of getting there at this rate. Hope someone has an answer because it definitely does not make sense to me. The only way I lose weight is by fasting after lunch time until the next morning, and having less than 1,200 calories. I'm a 6'2" guy. Would have thought I could lose weight easier than this.

[Bruizerboy]

I totally get all the recording requirements and religiously adhere to them. It's in my nature to do so and I am completely honest in what I record. I still GAIN weight even after I burned more cals than I put in. My scales are fine too. But I gained over 1kg yesterday after walking over 16klm and eating light. I do not understand this - my bmr must be extraordinarily low to get this kind of outcome.

[Heybales]

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@Bruizerboy wrote:

I have the same experience and I am almost OCD when it comes to registering all calories consumed. I record EVERYTHING I eat, and the right quantity.

Yesterday I walked 16klm & burned 1,358 calories in the process (excluding just normal burn by the body without exercise), drank 2.6 litres of water, consumed 1,488 calories with a higher % of protein than carbs, and with fat consumption right on the % target, and I gained 1.1kg!

I only seem to lose weight if I consume less than 1,200 cals a day with exercising at the gym for an hour (I do so 3 days a week on average).

I'm pretty fat anyway but had been losing weight progressively through the week. Their HAS to be an explanation (and yes, my scales are calibrated and working fine). 

I know you say it's not possible, but you're wrong. And I do not understand why because based only on math you should be right. Very deeply frustrating and here has to be some sort of reason but I don't know what it is....

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1st thing I noticed in all 3 of your comments about accurate recording of food, and I almost always see this.

You never referenced weighing your food, merely you are accurate about logging everything correctly.

Most people that know weighing is ONLY accurate method usually mention doing so.

Because calories is per gram, not per ml or spoon volume sizes. That is only on the label for convenience sake, the nutrition label gram serving size and calories is most accurate, and even that is allowed to be up to 20% off per FDA for US items.

You can search youtube for all kinds of examples of how easy it is to add 300-600 cal's to your day while you think you are being accurate. Good job on getting on the food logged, but is it by weight (except liquid is per volume)?

2nd thing I notice is you seem to thing the calorie burn of exercise is some sort of exact figure.

That is an estimate, and depending on how it was obtained - could be a very poor estimate, sadly on the inflated side usually.

Fitbit HR devices for running or walking would frankly be more accurate if they used the distance and mass formulas which have been tweaked and confirmed on treadmill studies for over 70 years.

Now, if this was daily activity walking and your HR never stayed up in the aerobic zone for extended period of time, then distance formula should have been used. (unless genetics or med's give you an inflated HR over what would normally be needed)

So to that end of accuracy from Fitbit (how do you know calorie burn less BMR for that 1358? Shown to you or just calculated it for interest sake?) on daily activity - you ever walked a known 1 km distance and confirmed that's what Fitbit reports for the distance?

And that should be at average daily pace, not grocery store shuffle, not exercise level pace - right in the middle - 3.2 kph, which will seem mighty slow.

And then stride length is changed to correct anything.

(you can create an Activity Record of the walk if start on a whole minute time, and end time, and be told the steps taken, and calculate from there)

3rd problem is thinking your math on one day, even if dead on accurate which it can't be, would cause that exact required change on the scale the next day. You'll drive yourself nuts now and in maintenance if you think that is possible.

For instance that water you drank has no calories but very obviously some mass.

Differences in sodium levels between days changes water retained.

Differences in cortisol levels due to stress changes water weight.

Body inflamed from a workout causes water weight retained.

Differences in non-digestible amount of food eaten and still in the gut is different.

Only thing you don't have is the extra fun a woman has of her metabolism literally changing through the month, and water retained levels. She'd have to use like Trendweight for over 45 days for weight on scale to be useful to look at.

But you still can't hope for day to day accuracy. A guy can hope for at best 2 week on Trendweight to have meaningful figures.

I'll tell you one thing, if you literally did burn as much as you think, and ate as much as you think - your body would be hugely stressed over a huge deficit and cortisol would increase and so would body water. Can gain upwards of 20 lbs slowly that way. How many weeks of fat loss would that hide on the scale? And cause further stress.

Obviously if the body is that stressed - there are other negatives going on besides a number on a scale.

Hugely doubtful your metabolism is more than 5% off calculated value - even those with no thyroid prior to med correction usually max at out that. (thyroid issues for calorie burn are being tired all day and moving less, not metabolism usually).

You have 2 options if not weighing your food.

Start weighing your food, tweak your stride length for more accurate daily activity stuff, see what of your workouts is terrible calorie burn estimate from HR-based formula (like lifting or interval anything), and see where the math is.

Or recognize the fact you can't be 100% accurate on either side of the CICO formula and skip the accuracy improvements, and realize that facts say you can't be eating less than you burn and therefore eat less, per whatever inaccuracy is built in there.

I'd suggest the 2nd has some bad issues to it. If your body is stressed and already adapting by slowing down your calorie burn on things and increasing water weight per cortisol - stressing it more by eating less is bad news. While it's true you can keep eating less and less and body can only adapt so much and you'll eventually start losing - it's a bad state for the body to be in. Plus some of the weight lost will be muscle in that case - mighty hard to get that back.

What deficit are you attempting to get between total daily burn (TDEE) and eating level?

More is not better, there are common reasonable levels that keep the body from negatively adapting.

And even there, body under stress from disease or genetic issue means less than average should be done.