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Always burn more than I eat, still gain weight

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.

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Interesting comments along the lines of my concerns. I have only been using FitBit for 3+ weeks but have recorded my food as accurately as I can without weighing everything. If in doubt, I usually try to err on the high calorie side.

In any event, I just calculated my calorie deficit over the past 11 days and it was greater than 15,000. Yet according to my weight, I have only gone from 266 lbs. to 264.5 lbs. in that time. I am a 68 year old male, 6'4" and walk every day between 2 and 4 miles. According to the FitBit literature, a 3500 calorie deficit for a week should account for 1 lb weight loss. Not for me ! If it was, I would have lost 4-5 lbs.

Don't know if my calorie burn is inaccurate or the food calories are inaccurate, but something seems a bit off. I live in a hot climate and drink 6-10 cups of water daily during this heat. I also tend to sweat quite a bit if I'm outside playing golf which I do 2-3 times a week.

I know losing weight is a slow process, but I feel hungry much of the time and hate to feel like that.

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@kiceman wrote:

Interesting comments along the lines of my concerns. I have only been using FitBit for 3+ weeks but have recorded my food as accurately as I can without weighing everything. If in doubt, I usually try to err on the high calorie side.

In any event, I just calculated my calorie deficit over the past 11 days and it was greater than 15,000. Yet according to my weight, I have only gone from 266 lbs. to 264.5 lbs. in that time. I am a 68 year old male, 6'4" and walk every day between 2 and 4 miles. According to the FitBit literature, a 3500 calorie deficit for a week should account for 1 lb weight loss. Not for me ! If it was, I would have lost 4-5 lbs.

Don't know if my calorie burn is inaccurate or the food calories are inaccurate, but something seems a bit off. I live in a hot climate and drink 6-10 cups of water daily during this heat. I also tend to sweat quite a bit if I'm outside playing golf which I do 2-3 times a week.

I know losing weight is a slow process, but I feel hungry much of the time and hate to feel like that.


if you just started an exercise program, especially in the heat - you are getting all kinds of expected and valid water weight gains. Which will totally screw up that math for both directions actually, fast gain or fast loss, or no loss.

If anything, Fitbit is underestimating your daily burn, which should account for inaccurate logging within limits.

Only logging food and lying to yourself about quantity would get around that failsafe.

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For only 5 lbs to lose - sure hope you took the reasonable option for 1/2 lb weekly or daily 250 cal deficit.

 

Your comment on gaining, you are confusing water weight gain when you eat more than normal diet but still under your daily maintenance. You won't gain fat weight doing that.

 

Unless you mean when you eat over what you burn to gain weight. Did you know you'd have to eat 250 calories more than maintenance daily for 2 weeks to slowly gain 1 lb.

Reread that.

If you are talking about faster or more than that - it's just water weight then. The same fast water weight that comes off when anyone starts a diet.

 

Carbs don't make you fat - eating more than you burn makes you fat.

Eating more carbs but up to maintenance calories in total merely means you'll refill your depleted muscle carb stores. Carbs store with water as glycogen in muscles, it's natural and needed and increases metabolism. So good water weight.

 

Probably only need fat at 0.35 grams per lb of body-weight. You do need some for hormone regulation and vitamin absorption.

Protein at 0.82 grams per lb of body-weight.

Carbs gets whatever is left.

 

What deficit have you been attempting, were you already attempting a diet prior, and do you log your foods by weight eaten, except liquid is measured?

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Okay, here's the deal. My average intake over last 30 days is 1359
calories, I don't feel I can go much lower, walking 10K steps and doing some
yoga and swimming, and my average calorie burn has been 1735.



That leaves a deficit, on average of 376, which should translate into about
.6 pound weight loss per week.



This means I should be 2.4 pounds thinner than last month and I am not. In
same place, though have not gained.



I feel leaner and my butt is tighter but no change in weight or body
measurements.



Problem is with small weight loss is that it goes SLOWLY and not sure what
is water weight.
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@Psychobarb If you say you feel leaner & your but is tighter, you're probably developing muscle. Muscle is heavy than fat so you will weight the same (or more) but still become thinner.

 

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@Psychobarb wrote:
Okay, here's the deal. My average intake over last 30 days is 1359
calories, I don't feel I can go much lower, walking 10K steps and doing some
yoga and swimming, and my average calorie burn has been 1735.

That leaves a deficit, on average of 376, which should translate into about
.6 pound weight loss per week.

This means I should be 2.4 pounds thinner than last month and I am not. In
same place, though have not gained.

Problem is with small weight loss is that it goes SLOWLY and not sure what
is water weight.

 

Well, with prior dieting history and eating very low to calorie a potential in the past, you could have suppressed your daily burn by upwards of 20%.

Let's assume Fitbit for a healthy full-burning body is correct - 1735.

If in actuality you are suppressed 20%, really burning on average daily - 1388.

 

Now how much deficit do you have to what you eat?

 

So at this point I bet you could lose if max suppressed, just have to eat a whole lot less, or exercise a whole lot more.

 

Or perhaps your food logging is really awful, so you log 1359, but in reality you are eating upwards of 1700. Now, that would have to be some bad logging, but not unheard of.

 

So you just find 250 actual calories to leave out of your diet. You can keep doing the same level of logging accuracy, but you are taking out an actual 250 more.

 

Or, you could figure out a way to burn on average 250 more calories daily.

 

If you are absolutely sure your food logging is accurate and you weigh everything but liquids, and you stated you can't eat less than current, then you'd have to move more, find that 250 average daily more to burn.

 

Or go for a reset and stop the diet, see if you can get the body burning full speed again, and after it's healthy take that reasonable deficit again and hope it stays high.

If you do that route, only eat 100 more daily for about 1-2 weeks at a time.

Then the next week out, 100 more daily again. Until you reach what Fitbit says you are burning, doing that for couple weeks.

 

Then take that 250 cal deficit.

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@fitchakra wrote:

@Psychobarb If you say you feel leaner & your but is tighter, you're probably developing muscle. Muscle is heavy than fat so you will weight the same (or more) but still become thinner.

 


None of her workouts are going to develop muscle in a diet.

 

There are all kinds of valid reasons for gaining water weight fast when you workout, shoot, even when summer starts.

 

You will NOT gain 2 lbs of muscle in a month doing walking and swimming and yoga, even eating at maintenance or above. Lifting is the only thing.

 

That phrase sounds encouraging, but it's totally impossible.

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@Heybales that's not true, I gained a ton of muslce in yoga! 

 

Lifting is not "the only thing", you can absolutely gain muscle in body weight exercises such as yoga or swimming. 

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To actually gain muscle mass, as to be able to say you are losing fat but gaining muscle so the weight stays the same - you'd have to have to be progressively overloading your muscle so the body feels like building more of it.

 

You are not going to accomplish that with yoga at any rate approaching what a woman can gain when eating in surplus and lifting progressive heavy. Which is 1 lb about 6-8 weeks if all done correctly.

 

Body weight exercises quickly become endurance, not heavy, except for perhaps pullups.

 

If very weak when starting yoga or body weight, and having lots of fat to spare, you may get a lb of muscle built in that same 6-8 weeks because you tapped out existing muscle quickly, and doing heavy lifting rep ranges that actually build muscle.

 

Swimming is endurance, not even needing more muscle.

 

What most are doing that makes them think they are gaining muscle - gaining strength, and gaining endurance, and seeing the muscle as fat is lost.

 

None of those 3 need more muscle, just using what you've got.

Even for those lifting - it can take 3-6 months of improvement before ANY muscle needs to be made, as becoming better efficient with what you've got causes all the strength gains.

Lose fat during that time, you see your bigger looking muscle with stored water in it now.

 

You gained no actual new muscle mass - as the claim above stated.

Unless you've had a DEXA scan, you didn't actually gain muscle mass. You got stronger.

 

This is a good basic course in what must happen to actually have muscles grow, beyond just being stronger.

http://www.builtlean.com/2013/09/17/muscles-grow/

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@Heybales "In order to produce muscle growth, you have to apply a load of stress greater than what your body or muscles had previously adapted too."

 

It says what they've "previously adapted to", not your body weight. If someone has been sedentary and they start doing body weight exercises (like in yoga doing lunges, handstands, etc) they will see muscle growth because they haven't been adapted to doing those exercises. They'be been lazy, doing nothing to challenge their muscles. 

 

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You should eat smaller meals more frequently.  By only eating one meal a day with a few snacks your body is starving for energy and stores everything it possibly can.  This is the wrong way to diet.  Eat 4 small meals of about 400 calories.  By all means snack, but only do so with the amount calories you can consume after you exercise.  

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@CoryMT wrote:

You should eat smaller meals more frequently.  By only eating one meal a day with a few snacks your body is starving for energy and stores everything it possibly can.  This is the wrong way to diet.  Eat 4 small meals of about 400 calories.  By all means snack, but only do so with the amount calories you can consume after you exercise.  


Sadly that advice is pure myth as it relates only to weight loss.

Takes over 72 hrs for your body to think there might be a starving problem, and during that time metabolism actually increases at first.

So missing a meal will hardly cause a real problem.

Even the "starvation mode" is a consistent under-eating to cause thermogenic adaptation - and that side effect isn't even what you state of storing everything it can as fat.

Normal starvation response like that doesn't kick in until many days of no food, hardly a problem on sites helping people to eat less.

No studies have shown an advantage to more frequent meals - and actually the 6 evenly spaced meals have shown a disadvantage because you are doing nothing but keeping your insulin elevated all day long and therefore your fat burn is disabled during all that longer time with fat storing being enabled for fat that isn't used as immediate energy.

 

For personal adherence, that may work better for you though, and that's ALL it is - what helps you to adhere. But no studies have shown an advantage to frequent meals for weight loss by itself.

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Hey @Heybales , keeping busy here!Smiley Happy

 

I love your posts by the way.

 

One comment regarding this extract from your last one: "But no studies have shown an advantage to frequent meals for weight loss by itself." I think the following link talks to that point quite clearly.

 

http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/6_meals_a_day

 

 

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Heybales:

I love your posts, so informative, keep them coming!

I may cut out half and half, easier said than done. This is something I can do without changing anything else.

Will keep walking 10-15 K steps and logging food. I did achieve a small weight loss this week, weight down to 123.8, something is working.

On vacation now and need to watch portions and not go overboard with dessert.

Wish me luck.
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@TandemWalker wrote:

Hey @Heybales , keeping busy here!Smiley Happy

 

I love your posts by the way.

 

One comment regarding this extract from your last one: "But no studies have shown an advantage to frequent meals for weight loss by itself." I think the following link talks to that point quite clearly.

 

http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/6_meals_a_day

 

 


Correct, I know there are studies that show no differences, but as that points out, no studies showing an advantage to many meals and weight loss.

 

I would disagree on their assertion though that you WILL get low blood sugar after 5 hrs. If healthy your liver has enough carb stores if you are not very active to go 24 hrs and keep blood sugar where the body wants it for the brain. So keeping your sleep fast going through a morning desk job until lunch really isn't hard for that many people - especially in a diet where it means you get to then eat more for dinner perhaps.

 

"A study from the University of Ottawa found that on a low-calorie diet, there was no weight loss advantage to splitting calories among six meals rather than three.

A second study found that switching from three daily meals to six did not boost calorie-burning or fat loss. In fact, the researchers concluded, eating six meals a day actually made people want to eat more.

Once you've crossed the 5-hour mark, your blood sugar begins to plummet, and you grab whatever you can to refuel."

 

A good primer on some benefits both directions for adherence, and references to other studies that show the benefit of IF as it relates to insulin sensitivity.

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

 

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http://www.today.com/health/my-fitbit-making-me-fat-users-complain-weight-gain-fitness-1D79911176

 

While I am fitter, I have gained since I started using my tracker.

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I'm actually quite surprised how many people believe walking is enough... I got the fitbit because it was fun and cool, but I understand for weightloss and fitness I have to do real activity that gets my heart rate up and challenges my muscles. The notion that you can walk enough to gorge on high calorie foods is crazy, so I'm not surprised many fitbit users see weight gain.

 

The Fitbit should be part of your fitness toolbox but not the only thing you use. 

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As a rule I don't eat high calorie foods.  Veggies, fruit, greek yogurt once a day and seafood are my main food.  I don't eat pork, beef, or chicken. I'm not big on bread either, just a english muffin with a slice of cheese melted on it in the morning.  My main sweet is ice cream and I don't eat that every day.  I fully understand how it works.  I think the calorie in vs out on the dashboard gives the wrong impression at times and doesn't take other things in consideration and some people are following it to closely to determine if they should eat something or not.   I worked for weight watchers for 7 years and I have been trying to adjust myself to calories vs points.  i'm considering going back to points.  

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I also practice yoga and use light weights.  The only form of activity I have increased is walking.

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