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.

[Case13]

This time around, I've been tracking calories, steps, etc. since mid/end January without breaks. I eat at some level of deficit Monday through Friday and typically eat more on weekends but not usually more than a non deficit amount. I had one day in the last 3 weeks where I was 500 calories over. That was an odd day. I haven't had another day like that since I started tracking in January. All in all, with every Fit Bit weekly email - I may not reach my goal of 3,500 deficit for the week, but I'm still burning more than I am eating. Every. Single. Time. Even with that 500 calorie over day.

I walk 10,000+ steps a day, no problem.

I might try switching to 250 cal deficit but I'm not sure how much of a diff that will make since a lot of days, despite being at a goal of 500, I really hit about 250 under.

Although I have been accused of being a "bird eater" for years, I consistently eat more than anyone around me at dinner time. I can put away some major food! I just happen to put away some really great foods which is why I can typically eat more than anyone around me without going over on calories. I did have a period from August to December where I couldn't really eat any vegetables or breads because I had a dislocated jaw. Anything that took more grinding to chew apart than just a basic chew, was too much for me. During that same time I was on a medication that often manifests for people in extreme weight changes one way or the other. For me, my weight didn't go under what it has been a lot of times over recent years so I wasn't very worried. But I was consistently losing weight despite eating EVERYTHING I could chew without killing my jaw. I was eating a lot more calories than I am now just to try to maintain 113 pounds.

Long story short, what I am experiencing now is more 'normal' than that period. However, I haven't done much about it for the last 3 years because there was a 2 year period of time I thought everything I was experiencing in weight gain was due to a long LONG recovery from a broken ankle/leg that just changed the entire way I could move. But my capability is back to normal now. I'm no longer on the crazy medicine or with a dislocated jaw. I'm on a similar medical regimen that I've been on before and maintained my health, but ... gaining.

Sure, it could be that I'm older now. Perhaps it's just all the science of a slowing metabolism over time. But it seems like more than that. It FEELS like more than that.

I am pretty good at counting up all my food. I usually use the measurements of what's on a package of something like... meat, per se. I don't typically eat anything that's not all mixed together so I have to count out everything separately, add it all together in calories, add it all together as I cook, and then split it up into my own serving sizes and determine calories that way. I determine calories correctly and still I over estimate.

I actually don't typically even record extra exercising activity with FitBit as most of what I do is the walking and that's already accounted for.

I've been trusting FitBit's estimation as to what I should be eating. Is there something different I should do to determine that amount?

So first, do you manually correct Fitbit exercise for stuff it is bad at calorie counts on, all non-step based exercise, like rowing, biking, lifting, ect? I typically don't add it. When I do, I add something that I know is "around" the right calorie burn amount, but less. (i.e. hatha yoga vs. astanga yoga)


Second, what is the corrected Fitbit TDEE then?

Searching TDEE online and using a TDEE calculator, it says my TDEE is 1705. That's approximately what it is with FitBit as well. It generally suggests I eat 1200 to 1300 before I burn any calories for the day.

[Heybales]

So lets get crystal clear so you have honest assessment of where you are at.

If you were burning more than you eat, you would lose weight, outside of temporarily water fluctuations that could mask it. No other way around that fact.

Are you losing weight? No.

Therefore - you are NOT burning more than you eat.

Just so you are clear there - doesn't matter what your food logging and Fitbit says should be the numbers. Results trump estimates.

You are most obviously not burning more than you eat or you would lose weight.

Now, with only 2 sides of the equation, it's either a matter of intake is badly off, or ouput is badly off, or combo of both.

To your comments, and then the test to answer which side of equation is off.

There is no science of slowing metabolism - there are statistics on general population. The science behind the statistics is that most people move less as they get older, and they lose muscle mass. The combo is a slowed metabolism. But for those that retain their muscle mass by strength training and are active, no such slowdown until end of life where many of the body's systems just break down. Then fast sharp decline.

For those that have yo-yo dieted it's even worse, because they usually take such extreme deficits they lose muscle mass each time, but when they regain they only gain fat, not muscle. Then they do it again, and again. Those are the folks with slowing metabolism as they get older.

So to the food logging, not sure if in the states for your food packages.

A 12 oz package can easily contain 13.5 oz. The serving size by weight and package weight shows there are more than "about 2" or "about 3" servings per package. And if you go by volume measurements, even worse.

What was "about 2" turns in to 3.3 when everything is weighed - not measured. 200 calories logged from just using the label actually would be 330 calories eaten. That was my latest example with package of steamed vegetables, I've seen much worse though.

100-150 calories wrong on 3 packages through the day would just wipe out a deficit even if you had the true TDEE being used.

Your purposely logging less could take care of that issue - but how would you know if enough, or frankly if too much taking care of it? You may be going other extreme, and on items that are wrong the other way, like soup is. Haven't found a soup yet where "about 2" was more than 1.75 actual servings.

When you put together and cook recipes, and I ask because I've seen it done, are you weighing food items before being cooked, and using a food entry that is the same?

For instance, if nutrition info on a potato was for raw per 100 g, and you weighed out 100 g cooked, you almost doubled the calorie content of what you ate compared to what you logged.

Yoga, even if it makes you sweat more because it's hot, doesn't burn that much. Unless it's more pilates like.

But all non-step stuff should be logged as accurate as possible manually.

Notice I did NOT say logging all exercise, I said non-step based exercise that the Fitbit will be underestimating.

Corrected Fitbit TDEE, doing the above step for activities it will underestimate.

So online TDEE chart, the one where you guess from 5 levels? I guess you guessed close, except the Fitbit may be wrong for some exercise it sounds like. So maybe not close.

So, lets pretend we know for fact your food logging is dead on accurate.

With no weight loss, that level of eating is your TDEE right now.

Is it potential TDEE where body would like to be, or suppressed TDEE because of undereating? How to test?

In this study, the overweight folks on extreme deficit lost potential 500 cal deficit because their body's slowed down, or rather, became metabolically efficient. Even the non-extreme folks lost 370 cal below what could have been possible.

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0004377

So - how do you tell if you are eating at potential or suppressed TDEE right now?

If potential, it means the solution is as easy as - eat less. But if not really at potential and you do that - you'll force it slower.

If suppressed, it means eating more to unstress body and let it speed back up, becoming metabolically inefficient. That takes time depending on genetics and other body stresses.

But you seem sure you ate more during several periods of time and didn't gain weight - so promising.

Now, perhaps you'd rather just live life with suppressed TDEE, and you can stand to eat less not only to lose weight, but you'll maintain just fine on 300-500 calories less than you could have had otherwise. Still a negative effect to that option if you enjoy exercise and want improvement from it. Read parts 1 and 2.

http://skepchick.org/2014/02/the-female-athlete-triad-not-as-fun-as-it-sounds/

So the test to easily tell.

When you are eating at maintenance, your glycogen stores are topped off, as long as you weigh at valid time I've mentioned before, to minimize that fluctutation, and false weight gain.

So true with any dieter, you drop calories, you lose more weight fast than just fat, it's water weight from less carbs stored. Perhaps sodium retain water too if that was issue. When you go off diet you gain fast weight back from same thing.

With that fact the test is easy.

Eat 250 calories extra daily for 2 weeks. Valid weigh in day on both ends of that 2 weeks, and no change to exercise routine during that time.

If you had been eating at potential maintenance prior, you would gain one mere pound, 1 lb , slowly the whole time.

Reread that fact.

If you are NOT eating at potential maintenance, there will be carb stores to top off, which store with water.

So if you gain more or faster, then it is water weight, proving the prior level was NOT potential TDEE.

How many weeks have you had no weight loss?

Is it worth 2 more weeks to confirm what may be going on? At the expensive of 1 lb of true weight, or couple lbs of water weight (which actually increases metobalism in this case - intracellular water that must be managed by body).

If you really gain just 1 lb slowly the whole 2 weeks, then prior eating level really was potential TDEE. You now take 500 calories off that.

If you gained fast water weight in first few days, and then nothing - test another 2 weeks, higher again.

Body should respond fast enough to raise metabolism, beyond just the extra water it is managing.

So that's the simple test. 2 weeks. Confirm where you are at - potential TDEE right now, or suppressed TDEE right now?

[mad_m]

the laws of thermodynamics state that that shouldn't be possible...so i'm guessing it's one of two things:

- the fitbit is overestimating your activity levels OR

- you are retaining fluid somehow

i wouldn't stress too much over a once off measurement... there's no way that your body can create mass out of nothing

[Case13]

You're absolutely right that a lot of food packaging is off. I measured out a curry-tomato sauce the other day where the bottle said 3.5 servings and an entire cup was missing. That's a lot to be missing out of a serving description! What I was weary of was whether the calories for the bottle were still the same as 3.5 servings or if the calories per serving were correct. There's no way to be sure.

I can certainly do more to measure my food. I do have a food scale for this very reason. As to have an accurate comparison of one week to the next, I'll start this food measuring process on Monday with a new FitBit week. I will do less guessing even if I'm guessing over. Like you said, it may actually be that I'm over guessing my food calories and not reporting enough of my non-walking movement, therefore I'm driving my metabolism down by not eating enough.

Thank you food making the point about measuring food before it is cooked. While this seems like common sense, it is a good reminder and I will do that. (That's how I've done it before as well). Today I measured out some meat I was going to make but it is frozen. It made me wonder how, if at all, being frozen would change the scale. What do you think?

You're right about yoga. I don't report any of the "easy yoga" and even if I take a 90 minutes power yoga class that makes me sweat every minute of it, I know that there's about a 5-10 minute warm up and a 15 minute cool down that don't truly count as movement. So I report 60 minutes in those cases and not the full 90. I also report it as the lower type of yoga that FitBit lists as I don't think I'm burning as much as some of those more intense asanas.

I tested my TDEE again. The first time with the first number I told you, I input very specifically how many minutes each day I spend doing five different levels of activity. The second time, I just did a basic "imagine I do nothing but sit down all day, what would my burn rate be" and that came out to about 1678. So with that, I should be eating 1178 to be at a 500 deficit, right? That's about 150 less than FitBit usually gives me. Even then, 150 shouldn't be packing on 2-8 pounds a week in fluctuation since that would still put me at a deficit at least 5 days out of the week and barely over the other two.

You posted some interesting studies and asked how I feel at a suppressed TDEE right now? Well, it is hard for me to answer the energy level of that question because I have narcolepsy so I'm always going to have extreme bouts of sluggishness and I also often have a daytime stimulant to help keep me so energized that I don't really recognize a lack of energy (it is this medication that I would assume to keep my metabolism rate fairly high, I don't see how it couldn't?). Other than that, how I feel is.. foreign. I feel tight. I feel like my skin doesn't fit me anymore and I get really, REALLY hot (not sure if this has anything to do with anything). So yea, something is causing extra stress on my body and being on a diet may be contributing to that. I jumped to an immediate diet plan at end of January simply because I gained 18 pounds over two weeks and would do anything to make that go away. From what you're teaching me, my dieting attempt could be a main reason why it hasn't gone away at all.

You also mention muscle loss. I'm pretty sure that over the years between broken leg recovery, medical discovery, and not being able to eat correctly with a dislocated jaw that I lost a huge portion of my muscle. I guess I can help revive my metabolism by eating more AND doing strength training outside of power yoga? Does that sound right? Do you have specific strength training suggestions to revive metabolism?

Starting Monday, I WILL eat at only a 250 deficiency for two weeks as you suggest. My doc has me weighing in every 2-4 days right now so I will likely continue to do that. I'll see if I gain one pound slowly in that time. What does it mean if I lose? What would it mean if I gain much more?

At this point, I gained 18 pounds in the last 12 days of January, went on a morning/lunch liquid diet and vegetable strong diet at dinner and was able to lose 10 of that in less than one week. But I don't want to live on a permanent diet of that caliber forever! So I ate more realistically and have steadily gained 1-4 pounds back week over week just to be back at my 18 pound gain again.

Could it be that this is where my body WANTS to weigh? It's not an unhealthy weight, it is just at the top and teetering over the suggested weight for my height/age and I try to stay on the low end of that because I know my body drastically fluctuates and I'd rather fluctuate within my realm. I feel better at that lower end too.

Could it be that even if I'm eating at a deficit, I need to eat differently? It seems like calories are calories. To SOME extent, whether you eat cookies all day or broccoli all day if you're eating at a deficit then you should lose weight?

Thank you for your input. I'll do these two week tests and let you know.

[Heybales]

The nutritional info matches the serving weight, not what is in the bottle or part thereof. And not the estimated measurement by volume which is also not required to be that accurate.

So did that sauce have weight too? And I'm betting that would have been closer to reality for size, hence the fact volume when weight based is bad.

The frozen meat has the same amount of water in it that it would have otherwise, and an entry for raw meat would apply.

The weighing when cooking was highlighted when someone complained about how little spaghetti was in a serving. Well, they weighed it cooked, full of water - of course they didn't get many noodles that way when the serving size was dry weight.

For others reading, I'm throwing out the proper way to get calorie counts from cooked meals.

1 - Weigh the serving container it will end up in.

2 - Weigh all the ingredients as they go in the mix by serving size, or by package and note total true weight not package weight actually used.

3 - Cook meal.

4 - While cooking log all those ingrediants with proper weight, find entries by weight not those by volume, come up with total calories that went in to dish. Decide how many servings to make it so you get your desired calorie count. Say 2000 calories went in, you want 4 servings of 500, or 5 of 400 calories?

5 - When meal is cooked, weigh the finished product in serving container. Subtract weight of pan.

6 - You have weight of product. Divide by decided servings to know how much to scoop out, by weight, for your serving.

Others can scoop out whatever they want. But you know how much your serving weighs to get the calories you came up with per serving.

If you were truly doing nothing but sitting all day, you'd definately not want a 500 cal deficit - but you got the idea right. Not sure why you are estimating (that's not testing BTW) TDEE when your Fitbit is doing that already with much better chance of accuracy.

You should be able to find some past example days with Fitbit where there was no activity and not much of anything to see what you actually do get. That's exactly what it does well.

For that site estimating TDEE, it had to start with BMR. Did you select Katch BMR and use bodyfat % stat?

It would be interesting to compare Katch BMR to what Fitbit is using.

Look at your night time calorie burn 5 min blocks. Take that calorie burn / 5 x 1440 = BMR they are using.

How does that compare to Katch BMR?

If you really have those kind of extreme fluctuations, you are for sure very depleted in your glycogen stores - and that is just evidence of how extreme your deficit is from potential.

You can exist with very depleted stores, just better not plan on doing any endurance cardio or they'll run out fast, causing muscle mass burn as the body must use something to burn along with fat.

From these false water weight gains and losses, your body is just totally adapting to your eating level and not allowing much fat to be burned, if any, because you are almost always eating at maintenance.

Strength training is for adding muscle mass, which causes very slight improvement to metabolism, but more importantly when actually used daily for average stuff burns much more.

Shoot, even the water stored with carbs requires energy from body to manage it, that's increased metobalism too.

With still having fat to lose, and if not doing strength training now, you would be in unique position to actually gain some muscle mass while in a diet. That won't happen later with less fat to lose, nor if you keep lifting.

Heavy for you Circuit training 3 x weekly using dumbbells. Yoga the inbetween days, or after the session.

You will have to manually log that as Circuit training, because again, Fitbit will be badly underestimating.

5-7 lifts, 4 circuits of 15 reps each, 1 min max rest between.

Squats, lat pulldown machine if available or lat pullover, straight-leg deadlifts, bench press, abs of some sort, shoulder press.

The 15th rep should be very difficult to maintain good form, you move to next lift after 1 min. Cycle through 4 times.

You'll likely have to hog the dumbbells to set them around you for fast access.

You might reread that 2 week 250 test - you got it backwards. And I explain fully what it means.

As to macros, protein grams should be 0.82 per lb of weight, fat should be 0.35 per lb of weight, carbs fall where they may to finish off the calories. If you can shove most of the calories in to 24 hrs post circuit training, body will know what to do with them.

There is very much a body set point when you lose fat, or more fat set point, which is pretty tied to weight obviously.

But you aren't losing and gaining fat that fast - reread what I said to reread in prior post. That is water weight. The bigger question is how and what?

Glycogen stores is only going to be maybe 2-4 lbs max. 500 calories of stored carbs with required water weighs 1 lb. Muscle can hold 1500-2000 total with good endurance training.

Sodium retained water is going to max out too, it doesn't keep going up and up either.

Sore muscles from workout retaining water for repair is max 2-4 lbs too.

That's why I think you still have something going on with extra water, and it's probably not good.

And extreme diet and whatever that reason is, is too much stress.

[francesco]

Suggest to read the book of Tony Venuto, Burn the fat lose the weight, where he explain that it is important

the type of food you eat and do not go under limit of intake Calories otherwise you reduce your methabolism and the body  go in starvation mode . the difference in vs out camcolories should be done with activity

[francesco]

Forgotten an important point : meal frequency and quantity by meal

you should eat your total intake calories in 5/6 meal a day to avoid to store fat, one/two big meal a day expecially in the evening is making fateven if you eat less calories

[Heybales]

---

@francesco wrote:

Forgotten an important point : meal frequency and quantity by meal

you should eat your total intake calories in 5/6 meal a day to avoid to store fat, one/two big meal a day expecially in the evening is making fateven if you eat less calories

---

While true on keeping reasonable deficit so body doesn't just adapt slower, the above has been shown in studies to be false.

It's purely personal preference to adhering to your plan. There is no advantage to more meals or meal timings or not eating after certain time, ect. Bunch of bunk and myth.

If more meals makes you more hungry because you are always cycling between high and low insulin levels and high and low blood sugar levels - then more meals is absolutely a stupid idea.

If less meals makes you really hungry and you overeat at the next meal, then more meals may help that.

If you eat a big meal, even just one big meal a day, it just takes longer to digest it. But studies have shown it takes the same amount of energy to process it.

First, if you did one big meal, your glycogen stores would be very depleted by then. So increased insulin is going to shuttle off those carbs for storage where they belong in the muscles and liver. Protein is sent off for use by anything that needs it, if truly unneeded the converted to glucose and used in whatever manner is still needed.

Glucose and fat is used for immediate energy needs while insulin is elevated.

And in a diet eating less than you burn, that whole process takes less time than eating at maintenance, and you are back to your normal fat burning mode you are usually in between meals. Unless you eat all the time and never allow the body to get back to that state.

[Treehug]

Have you had your thyroid levels checked by a physician?

Two years ago, my weight shot up and no matter what I did, I couldn't shed a pound..as a matter of fact, I gained. Turns out, my thyroid isn't functioning...I have Hashimoto's disease which is a very complex and frustrating condition.

I'm on levothyroxine and have my levels monitored frequently, but my weight doesn't shift very far down. It *is* frustrating...I am vegan; I walk every single day; I lift weights....I'm doing everything "right" so that compounds my frustration. 

Women are 5-10 times more likely to develop thyroid problems than men but men can, and do, develop thyroid issues. It can't hurt to talk to your primary care provider about it. 

[Case13]

I'm looking deeper into your other response and your previous response from yesterday. As far as meals go. I get what you're saying and I know why the other user said eat small meals. If not overly busy, I tend to eat vegetables as a snack during the day and a couple days of the week I'll actually have a sandwich. Weekends are a whole different animal where I eat more often. But either way, I do eat the majority of my calories 4-6 hours before bed. I'd say out of the 1300 given, I eat 800-1000 of them in dinner and an after dinner snack. My dinners aren't HUGE but they are meals whereas nothing else I eat is usually "meal" sized. I do get very hungry if I eat small meals all day long. I can bypass that by just constantly eating something that's not going to be high in calories but you said that constant eating never allows the body to go into a burn mode? Is there something I should adjust about HOW I eat?

[Case13]

I did just have my thyroid tested. However, my doctor did just a basic test and not a full thyroid panel. The test she did showed that my thyroid is normal and she left it at that. But I have all the signs of a thyroid problem - hair loss, brittle nails, dry skin, water retention, etc. etc. etc. I asked her about it and she said it can't be the thyroid because we already tested it. Honestly, I'm wondering if the thyroid test was skewed my medicines I'm on that she hasn't really said anything about. I've had a thyroid test as part of a basic blood panel over the last 4 years now and it has nearly doubled 3 times in that 4 year span. Even if it is "normal," I would think that should be alarming enough for the doctor to perhaps look into.

So even on your medication you're not losing much weight? That doesn't sound fun.

[Treehug]

My General Practitioner (actually, it was a fill-in doctor...my original physician moved on and the new one hadn't started, so they assigned this guy to fill in) noticed the elevated TSH, but brushed it off...I contacted an endocrinologist who specialized in thyroid problems...they ran more tests and then started me on levothyroxine...my dosage has been changed at least a dozen times because I tend to flip-flop between hypo and hyper, so the dosage is never the same.

Yeah, I've lost all the hair on my arms...most of my eyebrows...my skin is as dry as an alligator on a rock, so I slather on the lotions...depression...slow metabolism (hence the difficulty in losing weight)....fatigue...sensitivity to cold....

Wait--your thyroid tests have doubled and no one is paying attention to that? That's why I contacted an endocrinologist that specializes in thyroid issues...their parameters for "normal" are often much much different than a GP's....

I can lose a few pounds, but then it comes right back...no, it isn't much fun, but I focus more on being healthy and not so much fitting into a smaller size (although that would be nice)....I'm not morbidly obese--but I do have about 40 pounds that I'd like to shed...I'm tall so I can "handle" it, but I don't like it...

The only thing that irritates me is the nurse at my GP's office....she's just a miserable bitch when I get weighed...always has some smart-assed comment. She and I have locked horns more than once.

[francesco]

We are here to help Case 13 and not to show off. you made some statment by speculation :

it is very understanding that if you eat a big quantity of calories and after you play a football match you will not store fat.... but in reality most of the people have sedentary job  for that small , frequent meal avoid storage fat because there is no so much to burn when you are sitting for hours , same for eating big meal late in the evening: most of people after it ,watch TV and go to sleep  than easy store fat  . I am speaking for direct experience , every time i eat big quantiy of meal in the evening and i do not make any activity after it, i gain weight 

[Heybales]

---

@Case13 wrote:
 I can bypass that by just constantly eating something that's not going to be high in calories but you said that constant eating never allows the body to go into a burn mode? Is there something I should adjust about HOW I eat?

---

When your insulin goes up after eating a meal with carbs or protein, your fat burning is turned off, which is what you burn a 90% majority of just sitting around and moving little.

However long it takes to store those carbs in the liver if low or the muscles if low (and during a diet they are also lower than possible - hence fast water weight loss when starting a diet, and faster water weight gaining when going to maintenance), and then insulin drops to maintain blood sugar levels where the body wants them.

If you are constantly eating and insulin is always up, you are always burning what you ate, not the fat stores. Now in a diet they don't stay up as long, because you aren't eating as long, so you do get back to fat-burning state sooner than at maintenance. Unless you keep snacking all day long.

It comes out in the wash though, because if eating at a deficit you are in fat burning mode more often then at maintenance mode.

How you eat is what allows you to comply to diet without issues, or as few as possible.

So the bunk about eating all day isn't useful if it makes you hungry.

Same as eating breakfast to "kickstart" your metabolism, as if it isn't going already. Many report getting hungry in the morning after eating breakfast, so it must mean increased metabolism.

Huh, no, it means your blood sugar dropped after processing your meal and now you are hungry when you don't need to be.

Your liver has enough carb stores to power your brain for 18-24 hrs. Your muscles have enough carb stores for their usage, legs for example, to power you to around mile 20 in a marathon, and that's if you go out too fast not using as much fat as you could have.

Whatever works and keeps you from starving and overdoing the next meal.

[Heybales]

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@francesco wrote:

We are here to help Case 13 and not to show off. you made some statment by speculation :

it is very understanding that if you eat a big quantity of calories and after you play a football match you will not store fat.... but in reality most of the people have sedentary job  for that small , frequent meal avoid storage fat because there is no so much to burn when you are sitting for hours , same for eating big meal late in the evening: most of people after it ,watch TV and go to sleep  than easy store fat  . I am speaking for direct experience , every time i eat big quantiy of meal in the evening and i do not make any activity after it, i gain weight 

---

Yes, trying to help.

Not throw out "facts" to improve things based on your experiment of 1 - yourself.

If you are eating in a deficit, you are NOT going to store anything extra as fat that wasn't already used up already.

If you ate all your calories in one meal, and didn't use much muscle carbs stores such that not much has to be refilled, then indeed, you may have extra carbs that have to be converted to fat which actually takes energy. Same with protein.

But guess what was going on for the other 20 hrs of the day outside of the 1 meal you ate - you were burning a lot of fat, more than you will be replacing.

That's why no studies showed that meal frequency or timing had any bearing on the abliity to lose equal amounts of weight as long as the deficit was the same.

If you had a personal issue with it we could probably look at whatever facts you were able to gather with your personal experience, and likely find what was happening.

Like if you gained weight and fat over time - you were eating more than you burned daily - end of story. Your logging for that evening food must have been bad.

If you gain quick weight because the scale said so the next morning - realize you can't gain fat that fast, it was water weight, likely from higher sodium, or consdering meat - you needed to take a big dump.

Do you know how much this typical sedentary person probably burns per hr during their sitting day?

Probably 100-120 cal max per hr. How big are these snacks you are thinking are going to be useful?

Nevermind, if you have a deficit in total it doesn't matter.

Find me a study outside a probably losely monitored 1 person experiment and I'll see what it looks like.

Now, if late meal keeps you up, or has you have one last snack, or something else, that's a personal preference. I'm just talking some automatic improvement in fat loss because of meal timing claims.

Here are several referenced studies in here.

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/research-review/meal-frequency-and-energy-balance-research-review.h...

[francesco]

i suppose this blog is made to share experience and that's what i am doing.  i don't beleive all what is write  in the newspaper  "Today you read an articles said one thing based on reserch is good and tomorrow another article said the opposite  "  for that i trust my experience:

just to be clear i had the same problem of Case 13 , eating low quantity of calories per day but not losing weight and sometime when i eat,in the evening , big quantity gaining weight. i was not eating breakfast, doing small lunch and big dinner , only two meal a day and the biggest in the evening . I changed the routine of meal remaining same calories intake : good breakfast, big lunch, afternoon snack, small meal in the evening and sometime late snack. Decreasing intake calories for meal  from morning to the evening the result is :losing 3.0 kg in 1.5 month.

This is my experience and i think can help to eat more frequent meal and more intake calories in the begin of day ( keeping the same total calories) to reduce your weight and body fat  and of course it will depend of the personal activity, job ,etc

[ChelseaMarti]

Hi there, one thing to consider is that as close as we can get to following the correct formulas on weigh loss and gain, and calories, at some point, genetics also come into play. As an example, I am among the most active of my friends. Some of my friends are completely inactive yet still thinner than me. Also, they don't seem to gain weight from food, however, despite being pretty active, I still gain weight. This runs in my family on my mom's side and in parts of my father's side. I think genetics play a big role in how you retain and gain and lose weight, I just don't know the science behind it. 

Good luck!

[slysam]

To the OP, Since you say you maintain when you "eat normally and follow your appetite", I was going to suggest that you eat "normally" for a week and carefully log your food. Don't limit it, do what feels normal. Whatever it averages at is probably about what you were burning.  And there is a tendency to eat better when logging. But that can be a way to figure out how much off the estimates seem to be for you. My weight is remarkably stable when I eat according to my appetite (stopping short of ever getting full), though I need to be at a certain weight at least a few weeks before it works this way. To lose, I usually need to log my food and eat less than I normally would. 

[Case13]

My weekday usually consists of waking up, having coffee with a small bit of creamer from about 10 or 11am to 2pm and then having some broccoli, celery, bell peppers and tomatoes as snack food perhaps with a little hummus. Then around 7 or 8pm I have a meat of some kind and half a plate of vegetables. 9 or 10pm I sometimes get starving again so I have some cereal. I like Cheerios. I'm not a sugar cereal person and I use less than half a serving of unsweetened almond milk. All in all it's 100 calories, if that. I go to bed between midnight and 2am.

My physical activity mostly consists of reaching 10,000 steps each day - walking to but groceries, walking for fun, etc. I do a power yoga class approximately once per week but injured my back last time so I haven't lately.

I am eating at a deficit. Even if I measured my food wrong, I can't even fathom that I am 3,500 calories off. So this week in particular I walked 10k-17k steps every day and have a 3,200 deficit for the entire week.

I gained a pound.

[Case13]

I can perhaps reduce how much I eat in the evening. I still eat dinner 4-6 hours before bed but I just don't have the time or the stomach for eating a lot during the day. It leaves me super super super tired as makes me over eat at night if I do more than have a snack for lunch.