Oh My...IN excess of 4000.....

Oh My...IN excess of 4000.....		mammamoosh
		Jun 03 2008 13:00
So, today, or should I say yesterday I actually logged the majority of my movements throughout the day into my activity meter. At the end of the day, without adding everything it said that I burned in excess of 4000 calories yesterday- just doing my everyday mom of 3 routines, grocery shopping, driving the car, washing dishes, making dinner, and some work out time for myself on the elliptical and bike. You would think I should be a TWIG! The other day I wrote a post about all my docotors being bewildered as to why I am so heavy- and not losing my prego pounds. And this is why.... I logged all my foods and I hit my mark of 1650 (which I increased due to concern I was not eating enough by fellow Calorie Counters) within 12 calories- and I logged EVERTHING, even the ice cream :) - even the polenta with sun dried mushroom cream sauce, even the floretine lasagna bake (Thanks to Rachel Ray) I analyzed all of It, still got a grade B for the day, (I usually get A's) but look at me, I'm still packing the pounds! AHHH , well I gues I'll keep smiling and at least know that I really can say that I am not LAZY during the day. here we go, another week!

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#1	roj47	Jun 03 2008 13:08
I was in a similar situation in that I had a deficit of over 1000. It worked tremendously until I hit 31, and then the weight came crashing down from the 13 years it felt. At a burn of 4000 and a consumption of 1650 my best guess is that you are gaining weight very slowly or maintaining, but feeling exhausted come the end of the day. Also hard to rise in the morning. I am only able to play with numbers rather than your personal situation which would more than likely take precendence (sp?)
#2	mammamoosh	Jun 03 2008 13:46
Original Post by roj47: I was in a similar situation in that I had a deficit of over 1000. It worked tremendously until I hit 31, and then the weight came crashing down from the 13 years it felt. At a burn of 4000 and a consumption of 1650 my best guess is that you are gaining weight very slowly or maintaining, but feeling exhausted come the end of the day. Also hard to rise in the morning. I am only able to play with numbers rather than your personal situation which would more than likely take precendence (sp?) Ahh, well I am trying to LOSE weight not GAIN . Prego lbs need to go. As for feeling exhausted at the end of the day, I actually have a tremendous amount of energy, and I am up at 5 am with one of my twins, I live the life of a crazy mother of three with 9 month old twins- exhaustion is not "acceptable" :) hmmm....anymore suggestions?
#3	roj47	Jun 03 2008 13:52
I appreciate you are trying to lose weight, but interested to know if you are gaining/ maintaining whilst trying to lose... I put on weight with 6 days of deficit at 2000 or whatever and a single day of 8k over... i.e. my weekly deficit was 4k (so should lose 1 lb per week), but with the huge deficit I was actually gaining 1/4 lb a week on average....
#4	haley_2008	Jun 03 2008 14:30
Hi again :) I'm no expert but i'll just give you my 2 cents. the first thing that came to my mind was the types of foods you are eating. A Few questions: are you drinking enough water? are you eating tons of veggies? (either raw or steamed) are you avoiding regular pop? are you eating fruit? are you breastfeeding? It just seems from the example you gave, you are eating a lot of foods that may be higher in calories than what the recipe analyzer is telling..... we'll figure this out!!! ~H~
#5	mammamoosh	Jun 03 2008 14:42
Last night was a splurge night.. I usually eat oatmeal for breakfast, coffee, splenda, snack non-fat yougurt or grapes and toast or special k bar lunch, salads, soup, veggie burgers dinners usually are grilled chicken salad and a green veggie last night other than the cream in the sauce the polenta and lasagna were all low fat- the only time I have ever really lost weight was eating every 2 hours, about 200 calories, and running 3 miles per day, at night I would eat dinner and have a couple of beers and stay up until midnight doing homework, then at 5am I was up to go to work. My life has changed a little since then, but like then my platuau seems to be 218 after this preg and it was 213 with my first- it took sOooooo much to get past that number but once I did the weight melted off. I lost on average of 6 pounds per week!!! EATING!! I never gained anything back, and trust me didn't have the healthiest diet, I didn't start gaining until I got pregnant again. Do you think I may be just prone to bad luck after pregancy and maybe becuase I had a C-Section I am having a more difficult time? I am unable to breastfeed, I didn't produce enough milk for 2 babies!! I was VERY Unhappy because of that. Alright, I just finished 20 min on the bike, now time for elliptical then back to bike and stretching. I hope to hear from you soooon
#6	mammamoosh	Jun 03 2008 14:45
Original Post by roj47: I appreciate you are trying to lose weight, but interested to know if you are gaining/ maintaining whilst trying to lose... I put on weight with 6 days of deficit at 2000 or whatever and a single day of 8k over... i.e. my weekly deficit was 4k (so should lose 1 lb per week), but with the huge deficit I was actually gaining 1/4 lb a week on average.... I seem to be maintaining- I don't know what forum I posted it in, but I can eat excessively and NOT gain, and eat modestly and not LOSE. I have a Maintence problem........it wouldn't be a problem if I was 180 but at 200+ it is a problem. My goal is 199 by Sept 1.
#7	haley_2008	Jun 03 2008 14:49
ok here's my suggestions for the next 7 days. (again i'm NO expert lol) Can you take some measurements?? No weighing for the next week. (NONE!!) Do you weigh your food??? I weigh EVERYTHING to get as close to exact calories as I can. I use a great digital scale that is actually my 'candle making' scale and it now sits on my kitchen countertop. I use it EVERY time I eat unless it's a special K bar or a packette of oatmeal. Yes I even weigh cucumber! Fill at least half your plate (at dinner and lunch) with salad or veggies. I eat so many steamed veggies it's unbelieveable!!! I think I own stock in green giant LOL I also find that filling up on great tasting veggies keeps me satisfied longer. I love inventing my own spice combinations for my steamed vegs. No salt of course. I NEVER add salt to ANYTHING! It's important to weigh those fruits too! I have fruit as my evening snacks. I am a HUGe orange fan. Did you know that 2 decent sized oranges are around 200 calories?? It's often misunderstood that veggies and fruits have 0 or very little calories which isnt the case. For myself, it's been easiest by cutting out bread, pasta, and rice period. If i have pasta, whole wheat or I use spaghetti squash. I can't tell you the last time I ate bread. AND i don't miss it! have fun on the elliptical. Do some for me! This is my week off from exercise! WOOT WOOT! ~H~
#8	mammamoosh	Jun 04 2008 13:52
Hey H! Sorry it took so long to get back to the thread, I have managed to lose 3 tape measures, so my next trip to walmart..hehe...which is amost 1 hour from my house will include a food scale and a new tape measure. Its funny, this weight thing. People keep saying I look great, and when I tell them the scale has only gone up, they look at me like I just said I eat fried worms with sausage for dinner.!!!! I have really been busting it out the last few days on my new equiptment. I like my bike becuase at night I can just sit and watch t.v. and pedal. In the am I am doing 20 min, 20 min, 10 min, then light resistance band, and stretching. It works good for my kids morning nap, so I get the older one to school, come back home, around 8:30, put the twins down for a nap (as we type) by 9 they are usually asleep and I can get an hour to hour and a half in for work out and a quick shower! I joined a forum that weighs in every tuesday and helps motivate each other throughout the week. My normal weigh in day is saturday, So Unless I am blessed with my visit from "aunt flo" this weekend, I will weigh in on Saturday for calorie count, then again on Tuesday for my thread post. Dinner last night! Thanks again to rachel ray! 15 min surf and turf Salad.mmmmmmmm 16 seared scallops 1/2 pound proscuito 6 cups greens 2 portablla mushroom caps cleaned out 1/4 red onion 1 lemon (just the juice) 2 celery stalks. EVOO- extra virgin olive oil Mix veggies with lemon and a good drizzle olive oil, put proscuito on bottom of plate, top with veggies (once mixed well) top veggies with a few seared scallops! We didn't use all the proscuito, it was a lot, and I made individual plates instead of a large platter, but OH MY...SO GOOD. and SOOO healthy too. I recommenmd her "figure friendly" recepies found at her website
#9	minerva_moon	Jun 04 2008 15:05
I'm wondering if you might be overlogging your activities--things like 'driving the car' would, in my opinion, fall under the sedentary heading and therefore shouldn't be logged AGAIN. Same for washing dishes, although grocery shopping may count as an activity. You have to figure, the sedentary heading already counts for normal, though minimal, activity. It isn't what you burn lying on your back all day--that's your BMR. Your sedentary burn is BMR x 1.2. 4000 calories just seems like an exceedingly large amount to burn, and I'm wondering if maybe there's not a calculation error. :-)
#10	mammamoosh	Jun 04 2008 16:31
Minerva- My BRM is 1800 my cal count is set at a burn of 2130- so the difference is only 300 calories. That it BMR versus SEDENTARY- the calculations are all correct. That was a day of working out, taking care of 3 kids, grocery shopping, driving for 2 hours to the store and picking up food, formula and others, pushing 2 kids in a shopping cart, and so on. I know, the excessive burn is incredibly- but that is why this tread exisits- I am not losing weight!
#11	shandykat	Jun 04 2008 17:14
Ok, you're not going to like hearing this, I know because you've heard it before and you already have a problem with hitting your target calories but...you're still not eating enough. Your BMR is 1800 and you're only eating 1650. You say you maintain with excessive amounts of food but gain at 1650, that tells me that you're undereating and that your weightloss calories will be somewhere between "excessive" and 1650". You need to get to at least 1800, if not slightly above that. Your comfortable range will probably be between 1800 and 2100, that gives you a good intake but still allows for daily activity deficits, which seem to be large. Sorry hun, I know you're trying, but there are still some areas I see where you can make a few tweaks. I see you're still eating non-fat yogurt, you can switch to full fat. Special K bars could be switched out for a heftier bar that has more protein and calories, fruit could be added to breakfast, eat a real burger instead of a veggie burger or add a slice of cheese, and have a steak instead of chicken for dinner sometimes! This is doable for you, we just need to change your mindset from the "diet" mindset a little :)
#12	mammamoosh	Jun 04 2008 23:43
Shandykat- thanks for the input, I actually just upped my calories from 1350 to 1650 in hopes that it will increaes my weight loss. I think my goal now is going to try to just look for a 1000 cal. deficit a day which would equal out to 2 pounds per week. I guess I'll keep everyone informed and updated! Thanks for all the input.
#13	boardjocky54	Jun 05 2008 02:23
Hi. I'm fairly new to this site but i felt that i should start to contribute something back to people trying to lose weight because i used to weigh 290 pounds and now am 195. It was a long road so PLEASE take the advice that i give on good faith because i have taken classes (in college currently) and done so much research it is not even funny. Yes you will lose weight if you restrict calories. BUT the type of calories and how restrictive is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. If you are burning 4000 calories a day (which you should double check on) you need to make sure that you eat for what you are going to be doing. If you burn 4000 and are only consuming 1800 your body thinks that it is starving. At this point ANY food you put into your body will be stored as fat because it believes that there is a food shortage and fat is burned as a better fuel source than anything else. So what you need to do is first is determine how many calories you require each day. Take this number and decrease it by 500 (4000-500=3500) and then PLAN OUT YOUR MEALS IN ADVANCE. If you plan out what you are going to eat the next day, if you are serious about wieght loss, you will stick to your plan and are less likely to binge. DO NOT CUT OUT CARBOHYDRATES. You should eat at least 50% of your calories from carbs. 1g carbs=4 calores 1g protein=4 calories 1g fat=9 calories. Hope this helps
#14	lydjoys	Jun 05 2008 07:39
I completely concur with the people who said that you need to eat more calories. I'm not an expert by any means, but my husband has studied nutrition for many years. Anyway, one thing you need to remember is that you need to make sure that you are taking what you are eating, minus what you are burning and THAT number should end up being your target calories. If you are only eating 1600 calories but are burning 4000, you are negative 2400 calories so you are actually doing too much if those numbers are indeed correct. Your body will not shed an ounce of weight if you are that negative for the day. If it were to let you lose weight, you would be losing almost a pound a day, which just isn't healthy. If you can't help doing that much activity, you need to seriously up your calories. But it is important how you are figuring out your calories. Since I don't know your numbers exactly, I will use mine. My BMR is 1886. I aim at getting 1230 calories a day which is a deficit of 656 or so a day. Today, I also burned an additional 447 cals through exercise. But, 1125 (what I ate by supper) minus 447 (exercise) is 678. Since you should never have cals under 1200, I had to eat an additional 552 cals today so that I would end up being over 1200 (678 + 552 = 1230, what I aim for), otherwise your body thinks you are starving and freaks. Not to sound redundant, but with your number, you aren't even ending up positive, let alone above 1200. If you are really burning 4000 cals a day, you could actually stand to eat 5200 cals a day and still lose weight. Think about that... Losing weight is all about the numbers. My advice would be to not log all the smaller exercises and focus on the larger ones. Make sure the numbers are accurate, and then just play with the equation. Making sure that after you subtract your exercise that you are never under 1200. Oh yeah, you need to figure out what your BMR is with your active activity level. I doubt it would be 1800. That just seems a bit low to me. God luck with your efforts!
#15	mammamoosh	Jun 05 2008 14:17
Original Post by lydjoys: I completely concur with the people who said that you need to eat more calories. I'm not an expert by any means, but my husband has studied nutrition for many years. Anyway, one thing you need to remember is that you need to make sure that you are taking what you are eating, minus what you are burning and THAT number should end up being your target calories. If you are only eating 1600 calories but are burning 4000, you are negative 2400 calories so you are actually doing too much if those numbers are indeed correct. Your body will not shed an ounce of weight if you are that negative for the day. If it were to let you lose weight, you would be losing almost a pound a day, which just isn't healthy. If you can't help doing that much activity, you need to seriously up your calories. But it is important how you are figuring out your calories. Since I don't know your numbers exactly, I will use mine. My BMR is 1886. I aim at getting 1230 calories a day which is a deficit of 656 or so a day. Today, I also burned an additional 447 cals through exercise. But, 1125 (what I ate by supper) minus 447 (exercise) is 678. Since you should never have cals under 1200, I had to eat an additional 552 cals today so that I would end up being over 1200 (678 + 552 = 1230, what I aim for), otherwise your body thinks you are starving and freaks. Not to sound redundant, but with your number, you aren't even ending up positive, let alone above 1200. If you are really burning 4000 cals a day, you could actually stand to eat 5200 cals a day and still lose weight. Think about that... Losing weight is all about the numbers. My advice would be to not log all the smaller exercises and focus on the larger ones. Make sure the numbers are accurate, and then just play with the equation. Making sure that after you subtract your exercise that you are never under 1200. Oh yeah, you need to figure out what your BMR is with your active activity level. I doubt it would be 1800. That just seems a bit low to me. God luck with your efforts! mammamoosh Jun 04 2008 11:31 Member posts mammamoosh #10 Quote \| Reply \| Edit Minerva- My BRM is 1800 my cal count is set at a burn of 2130- so the difference is only 300 calories. That it BMR versus SEDENTARY- the calculations are all correct. That was a day of working out, taking care of 3 kids, grocery shopping, driving for 2 hours to the store and picking up food, formula and others, pushing 2 kids in a shopping cart, and so on. I know, the excessive burn is incredibly- but that is why this tread exisits- I am not losing weight!
#16	mammamoosh	Jun 05 2008 14:34
ME- Mom of 3 Daily activities- Wake up at 5:00 take care of 3 kids. 6 year old, 9 month old twins- 7:45am bring oldest to school run errands 8:30 put kids down to bed 9:00-10:30 Morning work out- elliptical, bike, resistance band, shower 11:00 Feed little ones and snack for me 12:30-1 ish Lunch for me 2:15 leave to pick up oldest 2:45-7:00 Clean, laundry, cook dinner, feed little ones, clean up after dinner, baths, pj's teeth brushing. 7:00-7:45 put all kids down for bed 8:00pm Mom's time- On bike watching TV 11pm Bed Thats a rough day- however, at least 2-3 days a week I am going to the grocery store, driving more than 2 hours, lugging kids in and out of post office, bank, stores, and car And so on- there it lies
#17	skierdude	Jun 24 2008 03:36
Okay so I think I'm a little confused. You said that you burned 4,000 calories in a day, and you only ate 1,650? The least you should be eating is 3,000 calories if that's the case. You're going to put your body in starvation mode if you keep undereating. That's why you're not losing any weight. But I have to wonder, how in the world are you burning 2,000 extra calories in a day? That just seems like it's so much. My friend is on the cross country team and she burns less calories than you. You really shouldn't be logging in things like driving and taking kids places. Those are usually included in your sedentary activity (hence the reason why they added 300 extra calories).
#18	kelleigh	Jun 24 2008 04:39
Hey, I thought I would throw in my experience here and see if it helps you. I am a stay at home mommy of a two year old boy. He weighs 35 lbs, and I often carry him from the car, to the car, and I lift him frequently throughout the day. We play, dance, read, crawl, walk....basically move for the majority of the day, every day. I go shopping (not as much as you) and drive around, as well. I have my meter set at sedentary, and it tells me I burn 2050. The ONLY thing I add to this is my exercise. If we walk somewhere, when I swim, our bike rides. I don't add the shopping, driving, lifting, dancing, playing, or cleaning that I do. I have been losing weight since I started, and it only slowed when I wasn't counting my calories (due to sheer laziness, basically). You didn't post your stats, and I didn't look at your profile, but it may be that you are over estimating your calories burned every day. If that is the case, you might not be creating much of a deficit at all. I would suggest setting your meter at sedentary and logging the actual exercises that you do. Leave out all the mommy stuff (even though it is a mini-workout in itself) and see where you are at then. I have found that the majority of my success comes when I follow a 500-1000 calorie deficit per day. Some days a little more, some days a little less (by two hundred or so) but very close to that. I hope you figure out what is going on, I can imagine how frustrated you must be!
#19	helpless	Jun 24 2008 05:23
how is it possible to gain when you have such a big deficit? i just don't get it.
#20	skierdude	Jun 24 2008 05:39
Oh okay, I'm sorry. I guess that makes much more sense now when you go into detail of your activity. I'm actually not losing weight, I just joined so that I could start eating more healthy. I'm a hypocrite because I'm accusing you of overestimating how many calories you burn when I myself burn more than 2,000 calories. I'm 5'11 and weigh 133 pounds and maintain on 3,000 calories on a sedentary day (doctor says I might as well enjoy my metabolism while I can) so 4,000 calories burned in a day is completely possible from my viewpoint. I guess I just wasn't thinking. I'm very sorry and I congratulate you on your weightloss so far.
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