Newbie here - feeling a bit discouraged....

[Mangorocky]

Hi all,  I'm new to fitbit, but not new to weight loss.  Sadly I was a fat kid, a slimmer teenager (due to slimming pills being widely available), and am now a fat 48 year old mother of two grown up boys. 

I'm quite active, Fitbit actually called me an 'overachiever' yesterday, lol, but am feeling a bit discouraged by my fitbit dashboard.  I have been using it for 5 days now, and every day have been well under my calorie allowance.  I have also exceeded 10k steps, usually by 5K, and my active minutes are good, today was 48 active minutes.  (I'm a pub landlady, my job requires me to move a bit). 

The problem is, I have put on a pound since wearing my fitbit, what's that all about?  I've cut out bread totally, it bloats me out, and my food diary (linked to myfitnesspal for the British foods), is all well under my daily limits, and I am fastidiously honest with logging my food.  What's going wrong?  I am probably 2 stone overweight if you go by the charts, but one and a half stone over what I feel comfortable at. 

What am I doing wrong?

[SunsetRunner]

I would say that one pound after 5 days is not something out of the ordinary in my experience- it is also too small of a time frame to really start seeing some results. It could be that you are drinking more water than you are used to since you are moving more. It could also be that your muscles require more nutrients and storing more water. I am not a doctor or a nutritionist, but I can speak from experience that I have seen this before.

Don't get discouraged, you are just starting this road towards a healthy lifestyle. The changes will come if you stick with it and keep logging your intake. My sister also had a rough start a few years ago, but she dropped 7 stone over 15 months by focusing on moving more and eating less. You can do it too 🙂

[smhermione]

Do you weigh your food? I know that when I started using a digital food scale for my food logging that my calorie count improved drastically! I always under estimate what I eat unless I weigh/measure, even after having lost quite a bit of weight I still measure everything.

Good luck and I hope you'll start seeing the results you want soon!

[ponydoc]

As much as we wish it were, weight loss progress is not always linear.  Some weeks despite doing everything right and controlling portions, I still don't lose weight.  Remember that you may be decreasing your body fat % or improving your overall fitness in ways not reflected by the scale.  Keep at it, as other posters have said, 5 days is too short a time to really see any difference and weight fluctuates by hour and day.  Good luck and don't give up!

[trainer]

Rather than focus on the scale, use your measurements. Get a tape measure and write down your chest, waist, hips, bicep and thigh measurements. Make sure you date the paper. Now, every month or so do the same thing. Regardless of what the scale says, if you are more active and eating healthy, you should see some change in how your clothes fit and what your measurements are.

[Crunch70]

I agree, use your measurements rather than rely on scales. Also a good thing I find is HIIT training so if you walk alot try walking fast for a minute and recover at a slower pace for say 90 seconds. Your body gets used to excercise so if you mix it up abit your body will work for you.

[myriam4psi]

Maybe your metabolism is slower than it should. Maybe you could try these suggestions, which are supposed to help your metabolism go faster and burn more calories:

- Drinking lots of green tea or Yerba Mate tea

- Doing HIIT trainings

- Eating lots of healthy fats: coconut oil, olive oil, salmon, avocados, chia / flax seeds...
- Sleeping at least 7 hours every night (and ideally 8, but I know it can be hard with kids)

I hope it helps!

[kikbxr0903]

I started with new diet 1/12/15 and I went thru the same thing. I changed all my eating habits the first week and started walking and the scale barely moved. The next week it started to go down and has steadily since then. I think my body was in shock with all the changes and wouldnt give up the weight at first. Keep it up, keep the way you want to feel in mind and just keep going. It will happen for you!

[TBC]

Hi

Follow my journey, i am huge and plan to lose the equivelant of 1 whole healthy person, some of my blog may help you with your journey...

Here is my first post the others are also there to read. 

The Baggy Cantona

Good luck, you can do it!

[LisaBo]

Welcome to the fitbit club!

I started this past Christmas,,,was doing everything "right",,, and initially gained 4 pounds.  Was getting discouraged, but then the pounds started coming off.  I;m guessing that the added weight was due to all the extra water I was drinking.  In January, I lost 16 pounds, but in February (despite doing everything right) I lost NOTHING.  Was getting discouraged again, but I began losing steadily again this month.

So far, (despite only averaging about 6000 steps per day)  I've lost 20 pounds!

Hang in there, and good luck!

[Maxit]

Five days is not enough to determine anything, really.  Your body will vary 3-5 pounds daily - having to do with water weight (which in turn is affected by sodium intake, exercise, hormones, carb intake) among other things.   Continue a reasonable deficit for a month and see what your results are.  

[James_R]

As Maxit above said, 5 days is really too short of a timespan to be worried about scales or measurement. 

The quality of your diet will impact upon the rate at which you lose fat weight, but likewise will increase muscle gains in the short term (leading to incremental gains and an eventual plateaux at some point in the future). 

However, the human body does retain water (amongst other things). In my own experience, my body weight can fluctuate by as much as 3-5lbs in a 24 hour period, and I know I'm retaining an additional 3lbs of water weight as I'm currently creatine cycling. 

To avoid discouragement, try logging your measurements on your FitBit log as you'll see incremental change there a bit quicker. However, the best thing you can do is look at your body every week and try to see those changes (they start off miniscule but I promise you they are there). Our minds have a bit of a nasty habit when we look in the mirror, those little flaws seem so enhanced in our own minds that we don't necessarily see the improvements we've made - but keep doing it and eventually that negative body image gives way to a true view of yourr successes. 

The best advice I can give is not to get too hung up on what the scales say. As your fitness increases and you get used to a healthy diet you'll find yourself feeling much better in general. If you're working hard, eating right and feeling good, you're already succeeding. 

[yuuki]

im no expert at this however a while ago ive red something quite similar. if u really are being honest with doing 15K steps a day and ur diet, theres a probably that u may b eating too less. i remember that in the situation was that the individual used another measuring device and it mentioned that he was burning more calories than fitbit was recording. so the individual increased his calorie intake and started losing weight. u can probably try eating a bit extra, like lean meat or vegies,etc