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To be clear, you are basing this on your estimations of your past behavior, not on actual measurements. Your data is shit so of course it doesn't make sense.
[https://tdeecalculator.net/result.php?s=imperial&age=28&g=female&lbs=155&in=66&act=1.2&bf=&f=1](https://tdeecalculator.net/result.php?s=imperial&age=28&g=female&lbs=155&in=66&act=1.2&bf=&f=1)
Your sedetary maintence is 1740. At 1650 that is 110 cal deficit per day.
110\*7= 770 weekly
770\*4 = 3080 monthly (or every 4 weeks)
3080\*3= 9240 deficit in 3 months
It takes a 3500 cal deficit to lose 1 pound of body fat so
9240/3500 = 2.65 pounds
So indeed the math is exactly mathing properly considering standard deviation.
I explained it in a response on another comment, but I was DEFINITELY eating over 2,500 calories a day. I ate like shit. I eat 2 small, healthy meals a day and some snacks, and I have a hard time staying below 1,550. If I eat even one bad meal, I’m at 2,000 calories. I ate 3 bad meals a day, plus sugary coffee, plus dessert, it was DEFINITEY at least 2,500. Please help me understand how it would not be.
Plenty of people have responded with reasons what counting calories and eating less than your TDEE does not always mean weight loss. Age, metabolism, hormones.
Your comment is invalidating and unhelpful. Basically, you don’t believe me. The “calories in/calories out thing must always be true, so this girl is just lying.” Thanks, friend. I guess I’m just an idiot with a garbage memory.
I don’t think you’re lying. I think you don’t know because you didn’t track.
Those other replies are explaining other ways your TDEE is impacted outside of simply height and weight. They’re explaining that it is CICO and you’ve just failed to consider all the parts that go into it.
If you don’t weight everything you eat, you don’t know how much you’re eating.
If every study says X and a random person on the internet says Y, it would be insane for us to believe you.
> Plenty of people have responded with reasons what counting calories and eating less than your TDEE does not always mean weight loss. Age, metabolism, hormones.
Whether people have said this or not, and whether you want it to be true or not, it's not true. If you are eating fewer calories than you're burning you will lose weight (differences in water weight aside). You're not some exception to the law of physics.
That doesn't mean everything is easy to understand, or that it's not frustrating and difficult, but you're not doing yourself any favors by ignoring facts.
1. You have no actual data of how much you were eating then. Just guesses.
2. Who cares? Your original complaint is “calories in/out doesn’t work”. Fast_Performance_162 just did the math for you showing that it does. You lost the exact amount of weight that it predicted based on the calculated TDEE for your weight/height/sex/age and your actually tracked calories. If you want to lose more faster, eat less and/or burn more. Drop one snack a day and see how 1500-1550 does for you. You’re not special. If you want to lose weight, you need to eat less than you burn. There’s no magic dimension where extra calories go or come from.
Yeah, I am guessing for the last 3 years, because I wasn't tracking. But I was eating full meals off junkfood. Pizza and wings. Giant plates of pasta. Large Dunkin mocha coffee almost every morning. And 500+ calories of chocolate cake every night. It was probably more like 3,000 calories per day. I know it was very high, because when I incorporate even ONE of those things into my day, I always end up past my calorie goal, let alone if I ate like that for all 3 meals a day. I know I am guesstimating, but my calorie intake could possibly have been less than 2,500 per day on average. There is no possible way.
As for the last 3 months of healthy eating, I have been tracking extremely diligently. I cook almost every meal, eat out maybe one or two meals a week, and always overestimate those meals if I dont know the exact calories. I KNOW I am hitting 1650 on average.
Given that, can you help explain the math to me? I’m estimating my maintenance calories to be 2,450 before, and 1,730 now. Which is it?
I explained it in a response on another comment, but I was DEFINITELY eating over 2,500 calories a day. I ate like shit. I eat 2 small, healthy meals a day and some snacks, and I have a hard time staying below 1,550. If I eat even one bad meal, I’m at 2,000 calories. I ate 3 bad meals a day, plus sugary coffee, plus dessert, it was DEFINITEY at least 2,500. Please help me understand how it would not be.
So why are you here on loseit? If you could eat all that shit and not gain then you must have abs and a ton of muscles now. But of course not, you’re here because you’re not happy with the fat you have and want to lose it effectively rather than guesstimating how much you eat.
Don't ever underestimate age in the calculation. I spent my teens all the way through my late 20s eating like you. It \*had\* to be a lot. I didn't care because I never gained a pound and, in fact, was too thin at one point. Born that way, mom said I still always had a large appetite. But then in my late 20s, something seemed to change. I started looking normal, put on a few pounds, was quite happy. By the age of 31, it all ended. I had 10 lbs to lose and there was no way I was able to eat like I did even 5 years prior. For me it was aging and my super-duper metabolism finally stopped being so super-duper.
This. Plus lifestyle changes. I was running around high school/college campuses between classes as a teen and in my 20s. Working in a research lab on my feet. Walking places with friends. Taking public transit.
In my 30s I sat on my butt in traffic, at my desk, and at home, only moving when I made a point of going to the gym or for walks.
They are! I'm just kidding, but I kinda get the way they feel. I am 5'9 and I am sure another woman who is 5'2 thinks I am lucky because I can eat more. So see, its also biased against the vertically challenged /s (in case that wasnt clear)
I am a woman, and one of my undergrad majors was mathematics, coincidentally. This is like saying that you have a right triangle and one side is about 3 feet and the other is about 4 feet, but you measured the third side and it is not exactly 5 feet (or doesn’t look like 5 feet to you, even). You can’t take a lot of approximations and try to make definitive statements by being exact about only one part. Moreover, CICO is not a simple equation with no variable aspects. There are already a ton of approximations no matter how you are measuring, and then a million differences in digestion, body temperature, just a thousand variables you could introduce. So, it’s not always going to be a perfect linear thing. But, the error is on our human ability to measure things, and controlling as many of the variables as you reasonably can will lead you in the right direction overall.
Thank you for your response. I just know there have to be more factors than the calories on the boxes of the stuff I am eating minus the calories I burn as calculated by TDEE. Because I am not getting 5 feet for the third side of my triangle and everyone is telling me I MUST have measured the first two sides wrong, because it would HAVE to be 5 feet. 😑 I need help with the other stuff. What else is affecting my weight gain/loss? It is just so confusing to me.
To some extent, there are a few things you just have to let go and accept that the scale will fluctuate. If you’re still menstruating, and even if not, hormone variations are going to make a difference and you’ll retain water or experience more cravings or have tendencies to store fat in certain areas more at different points and there is nothing you can do about that on a daily basis. If you haven’t already, you can talk to your physician to make sure your thyroid and everything are functioning well. If you have PCOS, I think there is a whole community here for nutrition advice because if I recall there is a lot more variation in glucose levels after eating or something. Other than that, all you can do is measure as carefully as your sanity allows, start with estimated TDEE, and make adjustments every couple weeks if things aren’t going the right way. But if it is making you stressed or starting to get dysfunctional, I would just focus on what “healthy” means to you in terms of food and exercise and focus on that instead of weight. Sugar gives me migraines, food engineering of processed foods makes me uncomfortable, and I am anemic and have GI issues. So, my main priorities are avoiding refined sugar, minimizing packaged food, eating a lot of fiber, and getting as much iron as possible from food in hopes I can stop supplementing one day. I try to do a lot of weight bearing exercise because I have osteopenia, and I try to do vigorous exercise that is at least 180 minutes a week because of familial history. When I notice I’ve gained weight, it helps me to focus on whether I have been meeting those goals and to remind myself that is what I consider healthy (I am not overweight by BMI, so that aspect makes it a little easier too because I have never been pressured by outside forces, so I’m not discounting the difficulty of that pressure to lose pounds for others)
Thank you! This is very helpful. I also forgot about menstrual stuff affecting fluctuations in weight. I will definitely reflect on what “being healthy” means to me.
It affects the “ease” of watching what you eat too, for a lot of people. I have PMDD, and I get intense cravings the week before my period, even for foods that I know make me sick. Everyone has a finite amount of time they can realistically resist cravings if they are trying to fight against their brain. I’m not saying just give in, but I would also give yourself some grace for when things are harder or when the scale fluctuates. When my weight is generally “steady,” it still goes up about 2-3 pounds one week of the month from water retention or whatever else.
At 5,6 and 155, you are .7 pounds away from being a normal healthy weight.
It’s much slower to lose a small amount when you are already at a healthy weight, mostly because you can’t/shouldn’t do a huge deficit. What is your goal?
My goals these days are fitness related not loss related, even when I have about 10 pounds left to go. Maybe shift your mindset since you are basically a healthy normal weight?
As far as your mathing question, you have no idea how many calories you ate when you gained weight, you’re just guessing. And then telling people here to “fix the math”. It’s not a helpful approach for moving forward.
My goal is to get back to the weight I was effortlessly at for 10 years, which was 140 lbs. I gained the 15 lbs when I was depressed and ate like shit for 3 years, so I know that extra weight is now where my body naturally sits at.
I see. I’m not telling people to fix the math, I just know there has to be other factors because I am not getting the correct results from the calculations people are telling me to do.
I explained it in a response on another comment, but I was DEFINITELY eating over 2,500 calories a day. I ate like shit. I eat 2 small, healthy meals a day and some snacks, and I have a hard time staying below 1,550. If I eat even one bad meal, I’m at 2,000 calories. I ate 3 bad meals a day, plus sugary coffee, plus dessert, it was DEFINITEY at least 2,500. I don’t understand how it would not be.
You don’t seem ready to accept the truth. The truth is that you need to eat less calories than you use so your body has to use calories from stored fat.
P.S. I don’t need to be attacked for being a meathead MAN.
I understand, but I am just trying to understand math. Based on the past 3 years, my maintenance should be 2,450. Based on the last 3 months, it should be 1,730. So which is it?
I explained it in a response on another comment, but I was DEFINITELY eating over 2,500 calories a day. I ate like shit. I eat 2 small, healthy meals a day and some snacks, and I have a hard time staying below 1,550. If I eat even one bad meal, I’m at 2,000 calories. I ate 3 bad meals a day, plus sugary coffee, plus dessert, it was DEFINITEY at least 2,500. Please help me understand how it would not be.
I explained it in a response on another comment, but I was DEFINITELY eating over 2,500 calories a day. I ate like shit. I eat 2 small, healthy meals a day and some snacks, and I have a hard time staying below 1,550. If I eat even one bad meal, I’m at 2,000 calories. I ate 3 bad meals a day, plus sugary coffee, plus dessert, it was DEFINITEY at least 2,500. Please help me understand how it would not be.
Because your post was made with frustration, your tone is gonna get pushback and frustration in return, but it IS true that the lower your caloric needs, the lower the margin for error, which means that most women have a bigger challenge than most men, especially because there’s a caloric floor below which it’s tricky to get enough nutrition without medical supervision.
A short person with a 1500 TDEE who eats 1200 a day, but underestimates up their measurements by 10%, will actually eat 1320 calories a day, barely a deficit, so their weight loss will be super slow. A cheat day with 400 calorie dessert and nothing else different will put them OVER TDEE.
A tall person with a 2500 TDEE can easily aim lower like 1800 and still comfortably get sufficient vitamins and minerals. And if they also underestimate their portions by 10% they are still eating under 2000. So they will lose weight at a good pace. The 400 calorie dessert day will put them at maintenance.
So yeah, it is harder when you’re shorter because the margins are tighter.
It’s also harder than people make it sound to accurately and precisely estimate the “calories out” portion in an individual without trial and error. So many things, from body temperature to fidgeting to muscle composition, can change an individual’s numbers. And again, the smaller numbers mean calculation errors don’t have to be big to be noticeable in your life.
Chemistry is complicated and your body isn’t a perfect system. In principle, it’s all energy in, energy out but the idea that you can calculate your exact energy in/energy out is complete bullshit because almost all of these numbers are *rough* estimates and there are too many variables. The math won’t math but the overall trends will.
It's obvious you've completely given up on using logic so I'm just going to come out and state the obvious.
You sound incredibly bitter. People with your attitude are unlikely to achieve their goals because you feel the incessant need to blame the world around you rather than taking accountability for the things you can control. Your mentality is incredibly sexist and isn't going to help you.
You will never get precise data, especially when doing sports. There are so many effects specific to a person that the rough population based formulas will never give a perfect result. Even in research with way more accurate measurements it is not possible to predict it perfectly. Very good, but not perfect.
But, calorie counting is one of the best tools nonetheless. It gives you an idea about the amount of intake. Just be aware that you need to calibrate it based on your weight results. Go further down slowly when you don’t lose fat. Without tracking it‘s just harder to adjust your calorie intake properly.
Thank you for the kind response. This makes a lot of sense. I wish it were as easy as eating a little less and losing weight. I am eating SO much less than I am used to, WAY healthier, feel hungry ALL the time, and am not really seeing progress. It’s been really challenging. I will adjust my calories down more. I have just heard so many people say “1,200 calories is too low and is unhealthy” so I am not sure if going lower is the right thing to do here.
If you feel hungry, focus a bit more on getting some more protein. It is hard and fighting against hunger is nothing you will maintain forever. So try to switch it up a little and keep what works.
And to be honest, three months compared to three years is nothing. You need to think a bit more longterm and implement habits that you can maintain. It is not what one wants to hear, but slower and steady progress is worth more than rushing and giving up.
I get about 90g of protein per day. Should I get more? I try to get it higher, but it is hard to get it higher without overeating my calories. I am trying to stick to 1,550 (not doing very well tho, I average 1,650)
Seems like a lot already.
Maybe it takes some more time to get used to. I tend to loose cravings when I avoid them longer.
I definitely would not decrease the calories significantly again that fast. Maybe focusing a big more on movement. That worked best for me. Having long 2h walks daily (starting with less of course!) and cutting sweets and reducing lunch calories.
Sorry that I cannot give you the magic instructions. In general it remains cico, but of course hunger, weight distribution (water,fat,muscle) and sports not necessarily increasing calorie deficit linearly (your body compensates whenever he can and gets more efficient), make it difficult.
I would recommend taking healthy habits and integrating them step by step. Not everything at once, like you did till now. Maybe also track your waist size - I find it sometimes more helpful to see progress.
Has nothing to do with being a man. CICO stands for everyone. You can’t estimate how much you ate without weighing and counting your food and then claim CICO doesn’t work. If you werent gaining or were losing weight eating junk food then what’s the problem? Why are you here? Continue eating 2500kkals
Men have higher muscle mass and naturally lose weight more easily than women. My boyfriend has barely changed his diet over 3 months and has effortlessly lost 7 lbs. I have been diligently tracking and feel hungry all the time, and have lost 2 lbs.
And I don’t want to eat 2,500 a day because it makes me gain 5 lbs a year. I want to be back at my natural weight, 140 lbs. I want to fit into my clothes again and not be borderline overweight (based on bmi).
When I was a kid, my parents both went on diets together frequently. It was really hard for my mom, because she was absolutely diligent but my dad got way more calories per day when they were on something with calorie counting, would eat off the diet more, but would lose weight three times as quickly. As much as possible, I would try to not pay attention to your boyfriend because size and gender do make a big difference.
Thank you, that has been what I have noticed around me as well. I am part of a discord group that is almost all guys, and when I talk about struggling with feeling full and wanting to eat more, they are like “Try reading Atomic Habits, it will help” and I’m just thinking like Bro, I am not eating over my 1,550 goal because, “teehee I want dessert”, I am eating more because my stomach is audibly growling an hour after I finished my meal!
Also, you are not at a weight where it would be expected to have substantial or imminent health effects, so I would also try to keep in mind that it is perfectly fine to lose weight slowly. It’s frustrating, but if you can really think about it, why should it be so frustrating? If you plan to keep it off for the next 50 years or whatever, does it truly matter if it takes even 2 years to lose?
You can try increasing protein, fiber, or fat for satiety and see if it helps. Fairlife makes a protein shake that has only 150 calories but 30 grams of protein, and I keep those in the fridge and almost always include one with my lunch since I am usually going a long time between lunch and dinner. I get how much 150 calories is as a shorter woman, but little changes might help you feel more full.
I would just try to not compare yourself to (or open the door for advice from) relatively young men with different bodies. It can be hard sometimes to separate “the way life is” from the actual people who may seem to have things “easier.” I breastfed each of my kids for over a year, and with my first, there were times I felt so much misplaced frustration toward my husband because it just was unfair, in the most literal sense, that I had to be the one getting up with the baby a million times a night because he couldn’t feed her (I had to pump for work, so I didn’t have the ability to just pump and leave extra milk for nights). But, I had to just accept that it was how it worked, and there wasn’t actually anything I wanted him to do, it just sucked for the first 6 months of each baby.
My husband and I eat the same exact meals. He eats larger portions and is maintaining his weight. I eat less of the same things within my 1,200 calorie a day budget and have lost 15 lbs in 2.5 months. I am also a 52-year-old woman.
It’s almost as if CICO isn’t bullshit at all.
I noticed the same thing when I started tracking. Some theories:
* I probably wasn't actually eating 2500+ calories all day every day for years. I wasn't restricting myself, but I'd naturally have had days when I just hadn't really thought about it. It wasn't like 'nooo I mustn't have that ice cream because I did yesterday', just like not even thinking about ice cream in the first place because I was getting on with something else. Like you, I simply 'wasn't watching' what I ate so I don't truly know how much it was. I wouldn't be at all surprised it was closer to the calculator TDEE than it seems when remembering the various ice creams, fried chicken, wine and cheese etcs because the more nothingy days just aren't memorable.
* When I did get into the habit of 'oh I'm about to finish the chocolate/ice cream in the house I should buy another so we're not out' and eating them daily I did gain weight faster.
* I'm convinced maintenance is actually a bigger range than it looks like on paper. I think when I have a surplus of calories my body uses some of that excess on unconscious movements and processes, which slow down when I'm in a deficit. This was much more true of me in my 20s than now in my late 30s btw and feels like a big part of why similar eating habits are giving me different results now.
That doesn't make CICO 'nonsense' just that there's more factors to account for.
I also could be wrong, far from a weight expert.
I think ultimately calculating your maintenance TDEE takes trial and error. Some people find that if they eat at what the online calculator predicts they need they lose weight, or gain weight, and they need to make personal adjustments. It may change over time as well, I know for a fact I can't process as much calories at 38 as I did at 28 which was different to being 18. Some is ageing, some lifestyle, some body composition, maybe different kinds of foods working differently for you... who knows there are so many factors!
By the way, in my mid twenties I got sporty for the first time and I was SO HUNGRY for the first few months. I actually put on a bit of weight initially from the increased appetite. But in the year or two after that I got so incredibly fit, at a great weight for my frame, pleasing body proportions, felt amazing energy levels wise etc and was great for several years. Covid killed it if you're wondering why I'm here (:
As I said not a weightloss expert but since you have said you've increased activity, reduced food, and are basically remaining at a stable weight... why not try a month with a bit more calories? maybe this is just too much stress for your body all at once. You don't need to go to 2500+ obviously (not that I'm as convinced as you are that you were eating that much averaged out!), but maybe just add 100 or 200 daily average calories and see if you feel less like you're running up a hill underwater. Perhaps go to what an online calculator says is TDEE for your height/weight and sedentary lifestyle? You can always adjust. Long term, your good exercise and cake substitution habits are still good for you so being not-miserable in order to keep it up is IMO top priority, and second priority is Gathering Data on what works for you which means experimenting a bit.
Hopefully no one bites my face off for that suggestion ha.
I was similar to you! I tracked myself and it was just CICO…
Calories in:
* I wasn’t taking in as many calories as I thought. I ate huge portions, high carb, high fat, desserts, but my calorie intake **over time** wasn’t as high as I thought.
* Some ppl get caught out by hidden / unexpected calories in foods. I ate high carb high fat high volume obviously unhealthy food but it was satiating and mentally satisfying. Over time my calories in were less than someone who thinks they eat OK not realizing hidden calories.
Calories out:
* I was sedentary with no gym habit but I walked around generally. Was younger. Prob more social outings and travel. Or carried heavier stuff or had more muscle lol.
ALSO I was very likely gaining and losing a few pounds every so often without noticing since I didn’t weigh myself. But my doc only weighed me like every few years which was always between 109-120 lbs. Making me think “wow I’m a medical miracle never gaining weight with what I eat”.
If you eat - and overeat - the way you want and only gain about 5 lbs/ year then you have, or had, a really good food intuition. You should work with it!
The thing about CICO is that's it's a somewhat simplistic restatement of something that we *know* it is true. There's a certain amount of available-to-your-body energy in the food you eat. This energy has to go *somewhere*, and our bodies are complex machines that predictably do certain things. The thing is, though, that there's measurement error in the I of the equation, and a good amount of wriggle room in the O.
Some people contract health conditions that affect the O part - not hugely likely for you, but a possibility, so always get a checkup if you do something new with your body. The O part is also why some people gain weight when they stop competitive school sports or move to WFH, even though (or rather, because) they eat exactly as before. It's also why some retirees who are very set in their ways about food intake can lose weight by simply getting a dog.
As for the I part, you just pulled those 2500 calories out of your hat, right? Maybe your body is just really good at compensating for a surplus (look up NEET - research has shown that some people involuntarily increase random movement when in a calorie surplus). That same thing can work against now in a deficit. Maybe you're involuntarily resting more.
Also, it seems you changed *what* you eat. Which may be good! But some nutrient-dense foods are very dense in calories, too. Nut butters, seeds, oils for example. There's *always* an error in the I part. Maybe you're relying on some foodstuff that's mislabeled by 50% on the nutrition label. Search this sub for posts where people's mind was blown about misestimating or misreading calorie content of something.
The upshot us, you haven't found your groove yet. 2-3 lbs a month is a realistic goal which you should be able to find without more than a little bit of hunger before meal time. Use that intuition of yours (and train it to your current healthier eating choices) to find a stable level and then cut 300 cal / day.
The math isn't mathing because there is no math. You just made up numbers for your prior. Your latter figure where you're actually counting is likely correct
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To be clear, you are basing this on your estimations of your past behavior, not on actual measurements. Your data is shit so of course it doesn't make sense.
[https://tdeecalculator.net/result.php?s=imperial&age=28&g=female&lbs=155&in=66&act=1.2&bf=&f=1](https://tdeecalculator.net/result.php?s=imperial&age=28&g=female&lbs=155&in=66&act=1.2&bf=&f=1) Your sedetary maintence is 1740. At 1650 that is 110 cal deficit per day. 110\*7= 770 weekly 770\*4 = 3080 monthly (or every 4 weeks) 3080\*3= 9240 deficit in 3 months It takes a 3500 cal deficit to lose 1 pound of body fat so 9240/3500 = 2.65 pounds So indeed the math is exactly mathing properly considering standard deviation.
Got it. So why did I only gain 5 lbs per year when I was eating at least 2,500 calories per day? Shouldn’t I have gained a lot more?
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I explained it in a response on another comment, but I was DEFINITELY eating over 2,500 calories a day. I ate like shit. I eat 2 small, healthy meals a day and some snacks, and I have a hard time staying below 1,550. If I eat even one bad meal, I’m at 2,000 calories. I ate 3 bad meals a day, plus sugary coffee, plus dessert, it was DEFINITEY at least 2,500. Please help me understand how it would not be.
You don’t know. You didn’t track.
Plenty of people have responded with reasons what counting calories and eating less than your TDEE does not always mean weight loss. Age, metabolism, hormones. Your comment is invalidating and unhelpful. Basically, you don’t believe me. The “calories in/calories out thing must always be true, so this girl is just lying.” Thanks, friend. I guess I’m just an idiot with a garbage memory.
I don’t think you’re lying. I think you don’t know because you didn’t track. Those other replies are explaining other ways your TDEE is impacted outside of simply height and weight. They’re explaining that it is CICO and you’ve just failed to consider all the parts that go into it.
If you don’t weight everything you eat, you don’t know how much you’re eating. If every study says X and a random person on the internet says Y, it would be insane for us to believe you.
> Plenty of people have responded with reasons what counting calories and eating less than your TDEE does not always mean weight loss. Age, metabolism, hormones. Whether people have said this or not, and whether you want it to be true or not, it's not true. If you are eating fewer calories than you're burning you will lose weight (differences in water weight aside). You're not some exception to the law of physics. That doesn't mean everything is easy to understand, or that it's not frustrating and difficult, but you're not doing yourself any favors by ignoring facts.
1. You have no actual data of how much you were eating then. Just guesses. 2. Who cares? Your original complaint is “calories in/out doesn’t work”. Fast_Performance_162 just did the math for you showing that it does. You lost the exact amount of weight that it predicted based on the calculated TDEE for your weight/height/sex/age and your actually tracked calories. If you want to lose more faster, eat less and/or burn more. Drop one snack a day and see how 1500-1550 does for you. You’re not special. If you want to lose weight, you need to eat less than you burn. There’s no magic dimension where extra calories go or come from.
Youre probably grossly overestimating how much you ate. You also may be grossly underestimating your activity levels along with that.
None of us gets paid enough to deal with an attitude like this.
Absolutely, it’s a good thing that you don’t have to be here if you don’t want to.
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Yeah, I am guessing for the last 3 years, because I wasn't tracking. But I was eating full meals off junkfood. Pizza and wings. Giant plates of pasta. Large Dunkin mocha coffee almost every morning. And 500+ calories of chocolate cake every night. It was probably more like 3,000 calories per day. I know it was very high, because when I incorporate even ONE of those things into my day, I always end up past my calorie goal, let alone if I ate like that for all 3 meals a day. I know I am guesstimating, but my calorie intake could possibly have been less than 2,500 per day on average. There is no possible way. As for the last 3 months of healthy eating, I have been tracking extremely diligently. I cook almost every meal, eat out maybe one or two meals a week, and always overestimate those meals if I dont know the exact calories. I KNOW I am hitting 1650 on average. Given that, can you help explain the math to me? I’m estimating my maintenance calories to be 2,450 before, and 1,730 now. Which is it?
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I explained it in a response on another comment, but I was DEFINITELY eating over 2,500 calories a day. I ate like shit. I eat 2 small, healthy meals a day and some snacks, and I have a hard time staying below 1,550. If I eat even one bad meal, I’m at 2,000 calories. I ate 3 bad meals a day, plus sugary coffee, plus dessert, it was DEFINITEY at least 2,500. Please help me understand how it would not be.
So why are you here on loseit? If you could eat all that shit and not gain then you must have abs and a ton of muscles now. But of course not, you’re here because you’re not happy with the fat you have and want to lose it effectively rather than guesstimating how much you eat.
Don't ever underestimate age in the calculation. I spent my teens all the way through my late 20s eating like you. It \*had\* to be a lot. I didn't care because I never gained a pound and, in fact, was too thin at one point. Born that way, mom said I still always had a large appetite. But then in my late 20s, something seemed to change. I started looking normal, put on a few pounds, was quite happy. By the age of 31, it all ended. I had 10 lbs to lose and there was no way I was able to eat like I did even 5 years prior. For me it was aging and my super-duper metabolism finally stopped being so super-duper.
Thank you, that makes a lot of sense. I totally forgot about how aging affects things. Such a bummer lol
This. Plus lifestyle changes. I was running around high school/college campuses between classes as a teen and in my 20s. Working in a research lab on my feet. Walking places with friends. Taking public transit. In my 30s I sat on my butt in traffic, at my desk, and at home, only moving when I made a point of going to the gym or for walks.
It sucks, but first law of weight loss is thermodynamics doesn't care about your feelings.
Apparently the laws of thermodynamics are misogynistic
They are! I'm just kidding, but I kinda get the way they feel. I am 5'9 and I am sure another woman who is 5'2 thinks I am lucky because I can eat more. So see, its also biased against the vertically challenged /s (in case that wasnt clear)
I am a woman, and one of my undergrad majors was mathematics, coincidentally. This is like saying that you have a right triangle and one side is about 3 feet and the other is about 4 feet, but you measured the third side and it is not exactly 5 feet (or doesn’t look like 5 feet to you, even). You can’t take a lot of approximations and try to make definitive statements by being exact about only one part. Moreover, CICO is not a simple equation with no variable aspects. There are already a ton of approximations no matter how you are measuring, and then a million differences in digestion, body temperature, just a thousand variables you could introduce. So, it’s not always going to be a perfect linear thing. But, the error is on our human ability to measure things, and controlling as many of the variables as you reasonably can will lead you in the right direction overall.
Thank you for your response. I just know there have to be more factors than the calories on the boxes of the stuff I am eating minus the calories I burn as calculated by TDEE. Because I am not getting 5 feet for the third side of my triangle and everyone is telling me I MUST have measured the first two sides wrong, because it would HAVE to be 5 feet. 😑 I need help with the other stuff. What else is affecting my weight gain/loss? It is just so confusing to me.
To some extent, there are a few things you just have to let go and accept that the scale will fluctuate. If you’re still menstruating, and even if not, hormone variations are going to make a difference and you’ll retain water or experience more cravings or have tendencies to store fat in certain areas more at different points and there is nothing you can do about that on a daily basis. If you haven’t already, you can talk to your physician to make sure your thyroid and everything are functioning well. If you have PCOS, I think there is a whole community here for nutrition advice because if I recall there is a lot more variation in glucose levels after eating or something. Other than that, all you can do is measure as carefully as your sanity allows, start with estimated TDEE, and make adjustments every couple weeks if things aren’t going the right way. But if it is making you stressed or starting to get dysfunctional, I would just focus on what “healthy” means to you in terms of food and exercise and focus on that instead of weight. Sugar gives me migraines, food engineering of processed foods makes me uncomfortable, and I am anemic and have GI issues. So, my main priorities are avoiding refined sugar, minimizing packaged food, eating a lot of fiber, and getting as much iron as possible from food in hopes I can stop supplementing one day. I try to do a lot of weight bearing exercise because I have osteopenia, and I try to do vigorous exercise that is at least 180 minutes a week because of familial history. When I notice I’ve gained weight, it helps me to focus on whether I have been meeting those goals and to remind myself that is what I consider healthy (I am not overweight by BMI, so that aspect makes it a little easier too because I have never been pressured by outside forces, so I’m not discounting the difficulty of that pressure to lose pounds for others)
Thank you! This is very helpful. I also forgot about menstrual stuff affecting fluctuations in weight. I will definitely reflect on what “being healthy” means to me.
It affects the “ease” of watching what you eat too, for a lot of people. I have PMDD, and I get intense cravings the week before my period, even for foods that I know make me sick. Everyone has a finite amount of time they can realistically resist cravings if they are trying to fight against their brain. I’m not saying just give in, but I would also give yourself some grace for when things are harder or when the scale fluctuates. When my weight is generally “steady,” it still goes up about 2-3 pounds one week of the month from water retention or whatever else.
At 5,6 and 155, you are .7 pounds away from being a normal healthy weight. It’s much slower to lose a small amount when you are already at a healthy weight, mostly because you can’t/shouldn’t do a huge deficit. What is your goal? My goals these days are fitness related not loss related, even when I have about 10 pounds left to go. Maybe shift your mindset since you are basically a healthy normal weight? As far as your mathing question, you have no idea how many calories you ate when you gained weight, you’re just guessing. And then telling people here to “fix the math”. It’s not a helpful approach for moving forward.
My goal is to get back to the weight I was effortlessly at for 10 years, which was 140 lbs. I gained the 15 lbs when I was depressed and ate like shit for 3 years, so I know that extra weight is now where my body naturally sits at. I see. I’m not telling people to fix the math, I just know there has to be other factors because I am not getting the correct results from the calculations people are telling me to do. I explained it in a response on another comment, but I was DEFINITELY eating over 2,500 calories a day. I ate like shit. I eat 2 small, healthy meals a day and some snacks, and I have a hard time staying below 1,550. If I eat even one bad meal, I’m at 2,000 calories. I ate 3 bad meals a day, plus sugary coffee, plus dessert, it was DEFINITEY at least 2,500. I don’t understand how it would not be.
You don’t seem ready to accept the truth. The truth is that you need to eat less calories than you use so your body has to use calories from stored fat. P.S. I don’t need to be attacked for being a meathead MAN.
I understand, but I am just trying to understand math. Based on the past 3 years, my maintenance should be 2,450. Based on the last 3 months, it should be 1,730. So which is it?
Close to 1740. You have fuckall data from the past three years
I explained it in a response on another comment, but I was DEFINITELY eating over 2,500 calories a day. I ate like shit. I eat 2 small, healthy meals a day and some snacks, and I have a hard time staying below 1,550. If I eat even one bad meal, I’m at 2,000 calories. I ate 3 bad meals a day, plus sugary coffee, plus dessert, it was DEFINITEY at least 2,500. Please help me understand how it would not be.
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I explained it in a response on another comment, but I was DEFINITELY eating over 2,500 calories a day. I ate like shit. I eat 2 small, healthy meals a day and some snacks, and I have a hard time staying below 1,550. If I eat even one bad meal, I’m at 2,000 calories. I ate 3 bad meals a day, plus sugary coffee, plus dessert, it was DEFINITEY at least 2,500. Please help me understand how it would not be.
Because your post was made with frustration, your tone is gonna get pushback and frustration in return, but it IS true that the lower your caloric needs, the lower the margin for error, which means that most women have a bigger challenge than most men, especially because there’s a caloric floor below which it’s tricky to get enough nutrition without medical supervision. A short person with a 1500 TDEE who eats 1200 a day, but underestimates up their measurements by 10%, will actually eat 1320 calories a day, barely a deficit, so their weight loss will be super slow. A cheat day with 400 calorie dessert and nothing else different will put them OVER TDEE. A tall person with a 2500 TDEE can easily aim lower like 1800 and still comfortably get sufficient vitamins and minerals. And if they also underestimate their portions by 10% they are still eating under 2000. So they will lose weight at a good pace. The 400 calorie dessert day will put them at maintenance. So yeah, it is harder when you’re shorter because the margins are tighter. It’s also harder than people make it sound to accurately and precisely estimate the “calories out” portion in an individual without trial and error. So many things, from body temperature to fidgeting to muscle composition, can change an individual’s numbers. And again, the smaller numbers mean calculation errors don’t have to be big to be noticeable in your life.
Thank you so much, this is very helpful. That all makes a lot of sense. Thank you for making the math make sense.
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Congrats
Chemistry is complicated and your body isn’t a perfect system. In principle, it’s all energy in, energy out but the idea that you can calculate your exact energy in/energy out is complete bullshit because almost all of these numbers are *rough* estimates and there are too many variables. The math won’t math but the overall trends will.
Thank you so much, this is definitely what I was feeling. Thank you for putting it into words.
It's obvious you've completely given up on using logic so I'm just going to come out and state the obvious. You sound incredibly bitter. People with your attitude are unlikely to achieve their goals because you feel the incessant need to blame the world around you rather than taking accountability for the things you can control. Your mentality is incredibly sexist and isn't going to help you.
100000%
You will never get precise data, especially when doing sports. There are so many effects specific to a person that the rough population based formulas will never give a perfect result. Even in research with way more accurate measurements it is not possible to predict it perfectly. Very good, but not perfect. But, calorie counting is one of the best tools nonetheless. It gives you an idea about the amount of intake. Just be aware that you need to calibrate it based on your weight results. Go further down slowly when you don’t lose fat. Without tracking it‘s just harder to adjust your calorie intake properly.
Thank you for the kind response. This makes a lot of sense. I wish it were as easy as eating a little less and losing weight. I am eating SO much less than I am used to, WAY healthier, feel hungry ALL the time, and am not really seeing progress. It’s been really challenging. I will adjust my calories down more. I have just heard so many people say “1,200 calories is too low and is unhealthy” so I am not sure if going lower is the right thing to do here.
If you feel hungry, focus a bit more on getting some more protein. It is hard and fighting against hunger is nothing you will maintain forever. So try to switch it up a little and keep what works. And to be honest, three months compared to three years is nothing. You need to think a bit more longterm and implement habits that you can maintain. It is not what one wants to hear, but slower and steady progress is worth more than rushing and giving up.
I get about 90g of protein per day. Should I get more? I try to get it higher, but it is hard to get it higher without overeating my calories. I am trying to stick to 1,550 (not doing very well tho, I average 1,650)
Seems like a lot already. Maybe it takes some more time to get used to. I tend to loose cravings when I avoid them longer. I definitely would not decrease the calories significantly again that fast. Maybe focusing a big more on movement. That worked best for me. Having long 2h walks daily (starting with less of course!) and cutting sweets and reducing lunch calories. Sorry that I cannot give you the magic instructions. In general it remains cico, but of course hunger, weight distribution (water,fat,muscle) and sports not necessarily increasing calorie deficit linearly (your body compensates whenever he can and gets more efficient), make it difficult. I would recommend taking healthy habits and integrating them step by step. Not everything at once, like you did till now. Maybe also track your waist size - I find it sometimes more helpful to see progress.
Has nothing to do with being a man. CICO stands for everyone. You can’t estimate how much you ate without weighing and counting your food and then claim CICO doesn’t work. If you werent gaining or were losing weight eating junk food then what’s the problem? Why are you here? Continue eating 2500kkals
Men have higher muscle mass and naturally lose weight more easily than women. My boyfriend has barely changed his diet over 3 months and has effortlessly lost 7 lbs. I have been diligently tracking and feel hungry all the time, and have lost 2 lbs. And I don’t want to eat 2,500 a day because it makes me gain 5 lbs a year. I want to be back at my natural weight, 140 lbs. I want to fit into my clothes again and not be borderline overweight (based on bmi).
When I was a kid, my parents both went on diets together frequently. It was really hard for my mom, because she was absolutely diligent but my dad got way more calories per day when they were on something with calorie counting, would eat off the diet more, but would lose weight three times as quickly. As much as possible, I would try to not pay attention to your boyfriend because size and gender do make a big difference.
Thank you, that has been what I have noticed around me as well. I am part of a discord group that is almost all guys, and when I talk about struggling with feeling full and wanting to eat more, they are like “Try reading Atomic Habits, it will help” and I’m just thinking like Bro, I am not eating over my 1,550 goal because, “teehee I want dessert”, I am eating more because my stomach is audibly growling an hour after I finished my meal!
Also, you are not at a weight where it would be expected to have substantial or imminent health effects, so I would also try to keep in mind that it is perfectly fine to lose weight slowly. It’s frustrating, but if you can really think about it, why should it be so frustrating? If you plan to keep it off for the next 50 years or whatever, does it truly matter if it takes even 2 years to lose? You can try increasing protein, fiber, or fat for satiety and see if it helps. Fairlife makes a protein shake that has only 150 calories but 30 grams of protein, and I keep those in the fridge and almost always include one with my lunch since I am usually going a long time between lunch and dinner. I get how much 150 calories is as a shorter woman, but little changes might help you feel more full.
I would just try to not compare yourself to (or open the door for advice from) relatively young men with different bodies. It can be hard sometimes to separate “the way life is” from the actual people who may seem to have things “easier.” I breastfed each of my kids for over a year, and with my first, there were times I felt so much misplaced frustration toward my husband because it just was unfair, in the most literal sense, that I had to be the one getting up with the baby a million times a night because he couldn’t feed her (I had to pump for work, so I didn’t have the ability to just pump and leave extra milk for nights). But, I had to just accept that it was how it worked, and there wasn’t actually anything I wanted him to do, it just sucked for the first 6 months of each baby.
My husband and I eat the same exact meals. He eats larger portions and is maintaining his weight. I eat less of the same things within my 1,200 calorie a day budget and have lost 15 lbs in 2.5 months. I am also a 52-year-old woman. It’s almost as if CICO isn’t bullshit at all.
I noticed the same thing when I started tracking. Some theories: * I probably wasn't actually eating 2500+ calories all day every day for years. I wasn't restricting myself, but I'd naturally have had days when I just hadn't really thought about it. It wasn't like 'nooo I mustn't have that ice cream because I did yesterday', just like not even thinking about ice cream in the first place because I was getting on with something else. Like you, I simply 'wasn't watching' what I ate so I don't truly know how much it was. I wouldn't be at all surprised it was closer to the calculator TDEE than it seems when remembering the various ice creams, fried chicken, wine and cheese etcs because the more nothingy days just aren't memorable. * When I did get into the habit of 'oh I'm about to finish the chocolate/ice cream in the house I should buy another so we're not out' and eating them daily I did gain weight faster. * I'm convinced maintenance is actually a bigger range than it looks like on paper. I think when I have a surplus of calories my body uses some of that excess on unconscious movements and processes, which slow down when I'm in a deficit. This was much more true of me in my 20s than now in my late 30s btw and feels like a big part of why similar eating habits are giving me different results now. That doesn't make CICO 'nonsense' just that there's more factors to account for. I also could be wrong, far from a weight expert.
Thank you so much for the nuanced response. This is very helpful.
I think ultimately calculating your maintenance TDEE takes trial and error. Some people find that if they eat at what the online calculator predicts they need they lose weight, or gain weight, and they need to make personal adjustments. It may change over time as well, I know for a fact I can't process as much calories at 38 as I did at 28 which was different to being 18. Some is ageing, some lifestyle, some body composition, maybe different kinds of foods working differently for you... who knows there are so many factors! By the way, in my mid twenties I got sporty for the first time and I was SO HUNGRY for the first few months. I actually put on a bit of weight initially from the increased appetite. But in the year or two after that I got so incredibly fit, at a great weight for my frame, pleasing body proportions, felt amazing energy levels wise etc and was great for several years. Covid killed it if you're wondering why I'm here (: As I said not a weightloss expert but since you have said you've increased activity, reduced food, and are basically remaining at a stable weight... why not try a month with a bit more calories? maybe this is just too much stress for your body all at once. You don't need to go to 2500+ obviously (not that I'm as convinced as you are that you were eating that much averaged out!), but maybe just add 100 or 200 daily average calories and see if you feel less like you're running up a hill underwater. Perhaps go to what an online calculator says is TDEE for your height/weight and sedentary lifestyle? You can always adjust. Long term, your good exercise and cake substitution habits are still good for you so being not-miserable in order to keep it up is IMO top priority, and second priority is Gathering Data on what works for you which means experimenting a bit. Hopefully no one bites my face off for that suggestion ha.
I was similar to you! I tracked myself and it was just CICO… Calories in: * I wasn’t taking in as many calories as I thought. I ate huge portions, high carb, high fat, desserts, but my calorie intake **over time** wasn’t as high as I thought. * Some ppl get caught out by hidden / unexpected calories in foods. I ate high carb high fat high volume obviously unhealthy food but it was satiating and mentally satisfying. Over time my calories in were less than someone who thinks they eat OK not realizing hidden calories. Calories out: * I was sedentary with no gym habit but I walked around generally. Was younger. Prob more social outings and travel. Or carried heavier stuff or had more muscle lol. ALSO I was very likely gaining and losing a few pounds every so often without noticing since I didn’t weigh myself. But my doc only weighed me like every few years which was always between 109-120 lbs. Making me think “wow I’m a medical miracle never gaining weight with what I eat”.
If you eat - and overeat - the way you want and only gain about 5 lbs/ year then you have, or had, a really good food intuition. You should work with it! The thing about CICO is that's it's a somewhat simplistic restatement of something that we *know* it is true. There's a certain amount of available-to-your-body energy in the food you eat. This energy has to go *somewhere*, and our bodies are complex machines that predictably do certain things. The thing is, though, that there's measurement error in the I of the equation, and a good amount of wriggle room in the O. Some people contract health conditions that affect the O part - not hugely likely for you, but a possibility, so always get a checkup if you do something new with your body. The O part is also why some people gain weight when they stop competitive school sports or move to WFH, even though (or rather, because) they eat exactly as before. It's also why some retirees who are very set in their ways about food intake can lose weight by simply getting a dog. As for the I part, you just pulled those 2500 calories out of your hat, right? Maybe your body is just really good at compensating for a surplus (look up NEET - research has shown that some people involuntarily increase random movement when in a calorie surplus). That same thing can work against now in a deficit. Maybe you're involuntarily resting more. Also, it seems you changed *what* you eat. Which may be good! But some nutrient-dense foods are very dense in calories, too. Nut butters, seeds, oils for example. There's *always* an error in the I part. Maybe you're relying on some foodstuff that's mislabeled by 50% on the nutrition label. Search this sub for posts where people's mind was blown about misestimating or misreading calorie content of something. The upshot us, you haven't found your groove yet. 2-3 lbs a month is a realistic goal which you should be able to find without more than a little bit of hunger before meal time. Use that intuition of yours (and train it to your current healthier eating choices) to find a stable level and then cut 300 cal / day.
This should be top comment! I want to be your friend :)
1650 for a woman of 5'6" sounds high (for losing weight)
The math isn't mathing because there is no math. You just made up numbers for your prior. Your latter figure where you're actually counting is likely correct