Losing motivation at lack of results

[Jorbit]

Hello,

I bought a fitbit blaze 2 weeks ago. I use My Fitness Pal to track my calories, and I track them very accurately. I even overestimate what I've eaten if I can't be accurate. I also bought an Aria scale 1 week ago, because I wanted to track my BF%. 

I'm a 5"11' and 273lbs male. I weighed 280 several months ago, but I lost weight by simply reducing my portion sizes. I plateaued around 270 and wanted to start working out more and eating even better to lose 2-3lbs a week. 

At first I was a little hesitant at how many calories Fitbit told me I could eat. I have been following the fitbit goals, including 10k steps a day, over 60 active minutes, 16 cups of water, plus I do about 30 minutes of cardio exercise per night (~80% of which is in the cardio HR zone or higher). I'm at the point where I feel good after I exercise.

In the last 2 weeks I've only had 1 on-target day, and the rest were under budget. Because of my size, Fibit tells me I burn about 500 calories doing 30 minutes on the Elliptical (which seems like a lot, but I'm trusting that it's close to accurate for now). On average I burn about 4.5k calories a day. My daily calorie burn goal from Fitbit is ~3.6k. I've never gone under that goal for these 2 weeks. 

So I'm discouraged, because I've not lost any weight. I weigh on the Aria every single morning at the same time (before I shower). The lowest I've measured is 271, but I bounce between that and 273 (which was my starting weight). My BF% seems to stay the same as well. Could I be doing something wrong? Could Fitbit be overestimating how many calories I can eat?

My BMR is 2518. If I assume I get moderate exercise, that comes out to about 3900 for maintaining weight. I don't eat anywhere near that. Even if I assumed sedentary, that's about 3000 which I'm still under (and I'm not sedentary anymore). Fitbit gives me 2750 calories a day for eating, so it's assuming that I'm going to burn 3750 right? Which is below the average I've been burning (according to fitbit). 

So I don't know what to say. I don't seem to be losing weight, and I don't know if Fitbit is accurate with my calories burned. 

[emili]

I see that you are tracking through fitness pal so I am assuming you weigh and measure everything you eat. Yes? because if you are estimating everything- you are probably wrong. I was shocked by how little an oz or gram of something actually is. The calories burned on your fitbit should align with your heart rate. I can tell you now its not 100% accurate, but it is enough to give you guardrails of how much energy you are expending. When you first start out- weight comes off easy. The fact that two week in you are not seeing progress, to me means your math is off. And I know you will see things about eat more, too few calories, etc- please do your own research about this topic and make up your own mind what's real and what's perceived. One other thing, you said you feel better post workout- huge win for your team- huge.

Good luck to you!

[JamieS_Wisco]

Hey @Jorbit

First off 2-3 weeks is just not enough time to see the weight loss trend.  Give it a little longer.  Keep on it  It may be a bit before you see the initial loss.  If you've recently upped your workouts.  Muscle is more dense, therefore weighs more than fat.  That could be a reason for stalling on the scale.

You state that you are tracking them very accurately and overestimate when you can't be accurate.  I am guessing you are weighing your food.  If you aren't you may want to for a while until you can accurately see what the portions are.  I was amazed at what food portions actually were at first. Took me a long time to be able to eyeball.

How many calories are you eating?  I only see where you state how much you burn and you are WAY under.  I actually think that you may not be consuming enough calories.  I know, weird right?!  Your body may be having a little bit of a fit thinking that you are going through a time with food shortage.  This way it's going to save as much of your reserves as possible to make it through. 

Fitbit is using your past activity to give a guess as to how many calories you should consume, given your activity level and deficit.  As the day goes on it gets more accurate with your actual activity level though the day.   My fitness pal has a nice calculator for BMR. I've added it here.  Check it out for your BMR.  I am going to guess at no less than 2300 cals.

I wish you luck on your journey.  Hope this helped and keep us updated 🙂

[Dominique]

@emili is right that estimating energy expenditure with a Fitness tracker is not an exact science (see this post). You will have to "calibrate" your Blaze by comparing the calories burned according to it to your intake (counting it also has its own problems, as explained here) and your weight.

I also agree with @JamieS_Wisco that 2 weeks is much to short a period to draw any meaningful conclusions. Find a level of eating that you’re comfortable with and that you believe should result in a deficit, keep it for a few weeks, see what happens on the scale and make adjustments if necessary. 

Losing 3 lbs a week requires a very large deficit. This may be possible in the beginning, as you have a lot to lose, but you probably wouldn’t be able to sustain it for very long. @JohnRi had about the same starting point as you and has achieved amazing results, hopefully he’ll chime in and provide useful hindsight.

[Jorbit]

Yesterday I had 3,000 calories and burned 5,135. 

Here's an image of my graph for the past 2 weeks. 

For calorie counting I've been referring to the MFP database when eating out. I use measuring cups and spoons when eating at home and measure each ingredient. I also refer to packaging if I used any packaged foods. I do not have a food scale, but I'm going to get one. Maybe you guys are right and I'm not as accurate with my calorie counting as I thought. 

It's also possible that I'm replacing fat with muscle. All I know is I haven't had to tighten my belt at all yet and I haven't really felt or noticed any weight loss, but it might just be too early to tell.

I'm mainly wondering if I'm on the right track. Should I try setting my calories manually instead of using Fitbit's variable estimates? Or should I give this 2-3 more weeks before deciding?

[JohnRi]

Hello,

Well, 10 months ago, I started my journey.  And it took a while to really begin.  But for the first month, I was guessing how much I burned, and how much I ate.  I was walking every other day, but only like 1/2 a mile.  Maybe a mile at the end of October.  I had made major change to my diet via portion control, but I was still not eating very good.  I was 280 lbs, sound familar?, October 1st.  I'm 6'0" tall, 48 years old at the time. 

The first month I lost about 10 lbs.  I got my Fitbit Surge in November 8th.  I found out the 2000 calories I was eating, was in fact 2600-2800 calories.  So one of things I did was I started with a 250 deficit for about a week, then 500, then 750, and finally 1000 calorie deficit.  With the mostly sendentary status, and very occasional walking, due to sunsut being so early, I was only down to 257.6 January 1. 

At the time I was eating between 1700 and 2500 calories depending on if I exercised or not.  On Feb 7, I made a change.  I started eating 1800 calories every day regardless of exercise.  I was also now walking 4-6 miles every day.

By Feb 27th, I was down to 240 lbs.  I got my aria in February, and started to monitor fat% 

In June, I noticed that my fat % started to go up.  While my lean mass was going down.  So I increased my calories to 2000-2100 range.  And my fat % started to fall again.  I'm seeing similar issues now, so I'm increasing my diet again to 2300 calories a day.

When you obese like I was, you can eat a lot lower than your calorie deficit.  And you may have to, just to spur the weight loss.  I was eating a deficit around 1500-1800, and losing about 2 lbs a week.  Sometimes  a little more, sometimes less.  As you get closer to your goal, you need to eat a smaller and smaller deficit to maintain your lean muscle mass, and lose fat.  I've managed to lose about 9 lbs of lean mass since February, and lose over 50 lbs of fat. 

My suggestion is gradually reduce the calores you eat until you find your balance to losing 2-3 lbs.  You will also have to reduce this more as you lose weight.  As you lose weight, your body uses fewer and fewer calories. 

My BMR was 2400-2500, and it is now 1850. 

When you first start out, diet, portion control, and cutting calories fuel your weight loss. Exercise just enhances it.  When you get closer to goal, exercise fuels the weightloss.

Rough ideas on deficits.  1000 calories for those needing to lose 40 lbs or more.  750 calorie deficit for those needing to lose 20-39.  500 calorie deficit for those 10-20.  And 250 for those needing to lose 10 or less.

So my suggestiong is try to get your calories eaten to around 2200 or less.  But never less than 1800.  Eat a ton of veggies as they have few calories and make you feel full.  Get as much exercise as you can. 

Try to get your weight loss to 1 to 2 lbs a week.  If you get greater than 2 lbs you run a huge risk of having loose skin.  I have some, although I'm hiding it by doing weight training to bulk up my muscles.  So of my loose skin is slowly going away.  But everywhere I had stretch marks, those areas are never going to look good again.  My own fault I shouldn't have let myself get so big.

So try to keep it between 1 and 2 lbs and you'll have better results with loose skin.

But you are just going to have to experiment with your weight loss. 

You should check out a website trendweight.com.  Connect it to your fitbit account.

This is my 1 year chart....

As you can see, it's going to TAKE A LOT OF TIME to lose your weight.  And I probably did it a little too fast.

Good luck man!  You can do it, just keep at it.

[emili · Accepted solution]

In my opinion and what works for me...yes to the scale. Oz and grams is much more accurate than measuring spoons. Yes to calcing your own calories. Yes you are on the right track for sure.

[Jorbit]

Thanks for the excellent reply, John! Very helpful and encouraging.

I've signed up for trendweight. I'll follow my recommended calories on MFP with Fitbit's adjustments and see if I notice changes in another 2 weeks. If not, I'll adjust my calories lower until I do. 

Thanks everyone for your replies. I'm feeling better about my results now. 

[Ukase]

Ah, Jorbit! You're a numbers guy, I can tell! And that's awesome, even if I'm wrong about that. 

 Let us consider some numbers. 

14 days since you got your Blaze. 

"On average I burn about 4.5k calories a day."  

Quick math:  14* 4.5k=63k calories

One pound=3500 calories

63000/3500=18

So, if you didn't eat for those two weeks, you would have lost 18 pounds, roughly. 

Now, let's consider what you ate: 

"Fitbit gives me 2750 calories a day for eating"

Hmm.....I'm guessing that you're eating about 2750 or less. What we don't know is what diet plan Fitbit has you on. If you shared this, I missed it. 

Go to your Fitbit Dashboard, then click on Log (top of the site - you should see Dashboard, Log, Community, Premium, Store)

In the middle of the page you should see "Food Plan". In that blocked area, you'll see on both sides - a left arrow and a right arrow. Click on the left arrow. 

On this area - you have four choices. Easy, medium, kinda hard and hard. These are where you establish which caloric deficit plan you want to use. -250, -500, -750 and -1000 respectively. 

If you're set at -250, then it will take you a long time to lose weight! 10 days, you'd lose only 2500 calories, about 2/3 of a pound! 

If you're at -500, that would be 1 pound per week. 

If you're at -750, that would be just less than 2 pounds a week. 

At -1000, you'd lose 2 pounds a week. 

But - those are just numbers! Your body is a very mysterious thing! When you eat a protein smoothie with 45 grams of protein and 4 ounces of banana - that smoothie will have 320 calories, with 180 calories coming from protein. 

Suppose you had 8 ounces of banana and 10 grams of protein? It's still 320 total calories, but with only 40 grams of protein. 

Guess what - if all other things are the same - your body works harder with the smoothie with more protein and less banana. Why? Because fruits digest easily and quickly. Your body has to work harder with proteins. The net result is that the foods, though the calorie counts are the same, the macro nutrients are not - so if you're at a calorie deficit - the deficit is greater with the higher protein smoothie. 

This is only part of the reason why there is so much variability when it comes to weight loss! 

Also, consider that when you eat healthy foods - like vegetables with lots of fiber - our bodies can't digest fiber. So...what happens to it? It basically goes through our systems - and because we can't use it - it sits in our intestines until it "passes". 

Sort of like a smoothie through a straw. It goes in one end, out the other. Only not quite so fast. Maybe that's a bad analogy. Can you tell I want a smoothie? I have one - but it's Sunwarrior Plant based protein and it is awful! 

What I'm getting at is we eat foods and some take a while for us to leave. This can also vary your weight on the scale, as can water. 

Just keep going, don't give up and you will see progress. Heck, I've been at -1400 deficit for weeks - and the scale only moves once or twice a week. It moves the right amount when it moves. Sometimes 1.5 pounds, sometimes 2.2. (Downward, of course. I wouldn't share weight gains, now would I?) 

Even when your brain thinks you're 100% done, your body still has another 40% to give. Push through it! 

[JamieS_Wisco]

Here's the important part @Jorbit.  All of our journeys are different.  Because we are all different people.  We are going to agree on somethings and disagree on others.  What works for one person may not work for another. 

I definitely believe you need to give it more time.  You are on the right track. You'll find things you are going to tweek as you go.  We all do. 

When I started my journey it took roughly a month and a half before I noticed real differences, scale or otherwise. Remember, it took you a long time to get the way you are currently... It's going to take some time to get where you want to be.  The most important thing is "DON'T EVER GIVE UP!!"  You are going to have highs and lows.  Have huge triumphs and some pitfalls along the way.  Stay the course!  Learn what you can, appreciate how far you've come and keep looking forward.

One more good thing, in this forum, you've just found a wealth of support.  Let us know how it goes! 🙂

[shipo]

@Jorbit, I think @JamieS_Wisco summarized things quite nicely (nice job Jamie).

The only thing I have to add is when us humans get out of shape and chubby, it didn't happen overnight, it typically didn't even happen in a year or two, but over a period of many years.  Reversing that trend is both difficult and time consuming, and results do not come anywhere near as fast as we might like/wish.

Your only two options; give up and go back to your former lifestyle, or keep on plugging along in your new lifestyle.  I know it can be frustrating to work your butt off and not see a change on the scale; that's why I put my scale in a box and only dust it off every six months or so.  🙂

[Bobbinyc]

You've gotten some great advice here.  One more thought:  We are going through all this trouble (and expense) primarily to be healthier.  Yeah, I want to look great, but I am far more concerned about my energy, health, vitality - feeling great.  That said, if you are very active with aerobics, strength, balance, agility, flexibility, and you eat very healthy - lean protein, lots of fresh veggies - you will improve your health and that is the most important gift you can give yourself and those who love you.  You might also find that your shape changes, you can do more...get more out of life.  The weight will happen when your body is ready.  

[FitBeforeFifty]

Fitbits with HR monitors overestimate calorie burn significantly. I've been tracking food intake and exercise for years and have maintained my goal weight for 4+ years. I know through experience how many calories I burn. My fitbit charge HR (before the HR monitor broke this week) over estimates my calorie burn by almost 1000 calories per day.

So, take that calorie burn estimate with a grain of salt.

Having said that, weight loss isn't linear and it isn't immediate. I've observed a 1 - 2 week lag between starting to clean up my act and seeing results on the scale. In fact, when I got to my weight loss goal back in 2012 I immediately started eating more 500+ calorie more per day to maintain my goal weight. In my first 2 weeks of maintenance I lost another 2 lbs -- further evidence of the lag.

So, do the right thing and results will come ... eventually.