super-douper

For about 2 weeks I've been using fitday to log my calories and activity. I use it more as a rough gauge of caloric intake and expenditure (me got dem fancy werds!). While I noticed that just recording the foods I ate altered my food decisions, I still found that I was running a large deficit. I've been eating more and more often. I've also been trying to stay more active. Walking for 30-45 mins a day, ride the trainer for at least 30mins a day, or ride outside for an hour every day. I'm usually at about a 1000 calorie deficit and that's with my increased eating! Although it's been only a couple weeks, i'm not losing any weight.

My question is, to lose weight (maybe 3lbs per week) what should I be doing differently? Eat more? exercise less? wait it out? eat less? exercise more?

I've heard that for weight loss 600-800 calorie deficit is ideal, is my 1000 calorie deficit too much? Remember that the deficit was probably worse before I started logging calories. I wonder if my body has been in "survival mode" and my metabolism is very low as a result. If this is the case, how can i kick-start it?

GuitarWizard

You could be gaining muscle from cycling to offset the fat lost....but that should subside shortly, and then you should notice a drop.

How many meals per day do you eat? Should eat 4-6 times per day. When fat people starve themselves and can't figure out why they're not losing weight, it's because in the 1-2 meals they eat per day, the body is storing it as fat because it doesn't know when it's next meal is coming.

AnthonyG

Well I haven't got a link to the science behind it but I lose weight, admitedly slowly on a high fat diet. The benifit of a high fat diet is that I don't feel hungry or deprived although one thing to watch is that I don't eat a lot of food volume wise so you need to be careful of your eating habits here. Overal my calorie consumption isn't high but when I tried to cut the fat and eat carbs I was just cranky and hungry all the time and I didn't realy lose much weight.

Regards, Anthony

53-11_alltheway

The deficit between calorie intake and expenditure will be responsible for bodyweight loss (that means both fat and muscle loss)

But the activities you do will be responsible for your fitness and ultimately your physique in the end.

I don't know what you mean by eat more, but burning 7000 calories (training hard) and eating 6000 will get you the same bodyweight loss as burning 3000 (sitting on your ass) and eating 2000.

But which 1000 calorie deficit do you think will result in the better physique?

Jarery

Fitday is great at tracking the calories you eat, but isnt great at trackign the calories your burning.
Did you add 8 hours sleep in activities? If not its calculating your burn as you being awake and moving 24 hours a day.

Its quite possible your not really running the calorie deficit you think you are. Try overestimating your caloies in, and underestimating your calories out and see if it starts to match your real life results.

mrfreddy

It may be that you just need to be patient. You're real goal should be to keep up the exercise, eventually the weight will take care of itself...

I know in my case I certainly didnt get immediate results. I started six day a week workouts about 3 months ago, for the first two months, my weight hardly budged. Only now is it starting to drop, and very very slowly (down from 202 to about 196). I suspect this is due to several factors, such as how much I eat and drink, the fact that I only need to drop 15 - 20 pounds, the last to go are the hardest, I probably added some muscle weight, etc. etc... . but anyway, I'm not really worried, I'm more focused on my workouts, on how long I can go and at what level of effort, etc. etc...

mrfreddy

...and of course, a high fat diet is the only way to go!

super-douper

thanks for all the replies, here's some responses to some of your questions:

I eat about 6 meals per day, I am logging my sleep time in fitday, and I'm not ever hungry. When I get hungry I eat, I just choose something that will not be overloaded with calories to snack on. I suppose I could be gaining muscle to offset the fat loss. I have a scale that does body-fat calculation through electric impedance, but a friend of mine has the same scale and said that it wasn't accurate. He said that while he was losing weight the scale didn't reflect much body fat % loss while his calculations using calipers did.

I'm trying to eat a balanced diet, something that I can maintain for a lifetime. I've only tried one "diet" in my lifetime and it was a low carb diet. I did lose some weight and I did feel pretty good. But for me the problems started when I increased my cycling trips from 1.5miles to work to 30 miles after work. Since I was new to cycling I thought the feelings of complete exhaustion were from lack of fitness. Until one day when I had a hockey game after eating a bunch of carbs. I had crazy energy, was skating fast and felt much better afterwards. That's when I decided that a low carb diet wasn't right for me. I don't really want to get into a discussion about diets though. I don't think this forum needs another "dietX vs. dietY" thread.

Maybe I do just need to be patient. It's only been a couple of weeks, but I want to make sure I'm doing the right thing from the start.

thanks again for the responses, I'm going to keep at it and hopefully will see some results soon. Time to ride!

SSP

If fitday is telling you that you're running a 1000 calorie per day deficit, but you've not lost any weight in 2 weeks, then the numbers are wrong. At that rate, you should be losing about 2 lbs per week.

Fortunately, weight loss is pretty simple...all you need to do is achieve a consistent 500 calorie per day deficit. This will result in weight loss of about 1 lb per week (a safe, and reasonable rate).

To achieve a deficit and lose weight, you can:

1) Eat a bit less

2) Exercise a bit more

or, 3) Do a bit of both.

If your exercise program is in place, try eating a bit less each day. Look for opportunities to reduce your calorie intake...for instance, if you drink sugared sodas or fruit drinks...stop right now. Likewise, if you snack a lot, or have "problem foods".

Finally, be careful not to "reward" yourself when you exercise. I can't tell you how many times I've heard guys say "I ride my bike 150 miles per week, but can't lose a pound". That just illustrates how easy it is to subvert a good exercise program with a few poor food choices...it's really easy to overeat, even if you exercise a lot.

Best of luck...and, in answer to the topic subject...NO - you should not eat more to lose weight.