Having trouble losing weight despite calorie deficit and exercise

[redlaca]

I've had my Fitbit Charge HR for about 2 months now and I'm currently about 2 pounds heavier than when I bought it. I purchased my Fitbit because I really wanted an accurate count of my calories burned. I have a very active job where I am literally on my feet all day long and some days are way more active then others. I also have an active home life as I am a single mother to 3 youngs kids who help to keep me on my feet even longer. I'm trying to lose the last 25 pounds to my goal weight.

I am not new to tracking calories consumed and have done this in the past to lose weight (30 pounds in about 3 months). I found that when I just stuck with a strict 1400-1600 calorie food intake it worked great for losing weight, but I frequently found myself lightheaded and irritable on days when I may have been more active. So I bought the Fitbit in order to keep track of calories consumed/burned and make sure I had a deficit but not too great of one that may have been doing more damage than good. 

When I first got my Fitbit I went with the 1000 calorie deficit as I was trying to lose a majority of this weight over the summer before I go back to school in the fall. I did this for about 3 weeks and only saw my weight fluctuate. I would go down 2 or 3 pounds and then spike up 4 pounds overnight. Then it would drop back down gradually and spike up again. It also seemed that on harder working days burning 2500 calories or more, it left me with the same lightheaded, grumpy feeling. 

After doing a little research on calorie deficit, I read that a 1000 calorie deficit may be too great so I bumped it down to 750. This was easy for me. I never felt hungry and on some days I even found it difficult to eat as many calories as I needed to get to the 750 calorie deficit. But I was having the same results. Gradual weight loss for a few days followed by a spike up, over and over again. 

For the past 2 weeks I've been just eating to leave any deficit, not a specific number, I just eat when I'm hungry and stop when I'm full. On any given day I have anywhere between and 500-1000 calorie deficit with still no results. My weekly progress reports show that I have an average weekly deficit of roughly 5000-5500 calories which should mean I should be losing at least a pound a week...yet nothing.

I am very diligent about my food tracking. I track every little thing that goes in my mouth from one single cracker to a piece of gum. I am one of those people that does bust out the scale and weigh everything so I know exactly what goes in. I eat balanced meals, not too many carbs but when I do they're whole grains, lean meats, a ton of fresh fruit/vegetables and I usually allow myself a small treat once a day. I only drink water (besides milk in my cereal) and I get a minimum of 64 ounces a day. On top of my crazy active job, I also run 3-4 times a week for 30 min and do strength training exercises 2-3 times a week. 

My body composition has changed slightly but not much, I still have plenty of squish and am still wearing the same size as when I started. As I mentioned earlier, I weigh 2 pounds more than when I started. 

Kinda frustrated. What gives?

[Karansue]

Hi, have you tried interval running instead of just running at one speed. I tried intervals of 30 second sprint 1 minute jog and have built it up to 1 min sprint 30 second jog or fast walk for 20 minutes. Your body might just need a different take on things rather than just running to shock it into losing weight again. I find this has worked for me. I only needed to lose a few pound but it was going nowhere but after doing this for a few weeks it has slowly started to move again.

[Heybales]

So did you start using your Fitbit after already having been eating in a diet for a while?

Because Fitbit is estimating calorie burns from average healthy body that matches yours.

But yours may not be healthy if already doing a potentially extreme diet. Body's will adapt if too little food is available - you no longer burn as much as average person would.

Basically, your body slows down daily burn through several mechanisms.

So 2 routes to go.

Body can only slow down so much - so you keep eating less and less and eventually you will start losing again. Then you must maintain the extreme level, getting less and less as you lose weight, and maintenance will be lower than possible.

Exercise won't have as positive a result on the body, body will be stressed in general, and if you get sick or injured or vacation and can't exercise that much - eating level will be really low.

Can you adhere to that route is the question.

Most don't, hence the failure to maintain goal weight during maintenance.

Or.

Get a healthy body back that is burning max what it could.

Now, what can mess with your numbers too.

Poor food logging. Must be everything by weight, not volume. Grams, not cups or spoons.

Calorie burn for exercise.

HR-based is NOT going to be accurate for anything except steady-state aerobic, same HR for 2-4 min.

So lifting and intervals should be manually logged, or they are inflated. The amount inflated depends on how good a workout it is for you. Better is bigger inflation. Poor workout isn't much.

Your daily activity is still step-based calorie burn - so have you even done treadmill test at about your daily purposeful pace (not exercise pace) and confirmed the distance between treadmill and Fitbit matches really close?

May have to adjust stride length.

So those are things that could mess with the numbers anyway - and too big a deficit won't help either. 1lb weekly is good for 25 lbs to go, until you get down to last 15 lb if cardio only, last 10 if lifting included - then switch to 250 cal deficit.

Also, you should gain expected water weight if going in to summer eat and starting cardio exercise again - both reasons to increase blood volume, and carbs stored with water in muscles. So easily a few pounds there.

But stress related water weight gain from elevated cortisol could be upwards of 20 lbs, usually around tummy for that.

[dadblaze]

You may find the following article interesting. I started my journey in January, and some 60+ pounds later, I can tell you, this is really closer to reality than the old rules for calculating weight loss:

You need to burn 7,000 calories to lose a pound (from Lifehacker)

[Heybales]

Well, I gotta say for all the people that have selected reasonable weight loss goals and amounts - and the math just about work outs right to 3500 cal per pound of fat expended - saying 7000 is asinine.

I notice the study relied on self-reported memory based non-measured calorie consumption.

Meaning as other studies have shown - that when left to memory and not measuring - people badly underestimate how much they eat.

Shoot - even going my measurements of volume rather than more accurate weight by gram - people underestimate how much they eat.

And then their ideas of exercise intensity are usually off, people think they are working harder then they really are.

So it doesn't surprise me at all that it could be found create a 7000 calorie deficit to bad logging and you'll actually get 1 lb weekly loss.

But - create a 3500 calorie deficit with good estimate of daily burn from Fitbit (corrected for exercise that needs it), and with accurate by weight food logging - and lose 1 lb weekly too.

I think that advice in that article is highly context related - and in the context of Fitbit's site with decent burn estimates, and for the most part decent food logging when you actually eat - it's way out of line.

[redlaca]

I actually just started the running about a month and a half ago and I'm doing this program that teaches you how to become a runner. It starts out with interval running and builds you up to straight running. I've been taking it slow but it started with running 1 min, walking 2 for 20 min. I'm on the week that is run 2 min, walk 1. I burn about 280 calories each time with the 5 min warm up and cool down.

http://www.runnersworld.com/getting-started/running-101

I figured any amount of running would end in weight loss, at least to start with. I'm puzzled. 

[redlaca]

I lost those initial 30 pounds about a year and a half ago. I had gained about 10 of it back as of 2 months ago. Before I got my Fitbit I was still eating healthy foods, I just wasn't keeping a food log or exercising beyond my job duties. I thought myself to be on a clean slate, so to speak.

I will definitely switch to weight only measurements as I have been using some volume measurements. I will also try to figure out my stride, as well.

How do I go about manually logging my interval running and strength training? I have found websites with calorie burn calculators in the past, but I'm not sure how reliable these sites are.

[thethinker]

It is a well known fact that running does little for weight loss. As someone with a 123 pound weight loss, brisk walking is more effective. I've dropped 52 pounds in the last year participating as a brisk walker in many 5k's.

Have you had your metabolism and thyroid tested for issues?