Repost. Help please!!!!

I posted this before and didn’t get any responses, so I’m trying again. Here it is:

I have had an extremely frustrating year of battling my weight with no success. I’ve been told continually that I don’t eat enough. I usually don’t have much of an appetite, so I do find myself skipping meals a lot. Also, I thought that maybe I wasn’t burning enough calories, so I bought a heart rate monitor. It gave me some surprising info. Even on days that I don’t work out, I’ve burned around 5400 calories. One day last week (with exercise), I burned 4730 calories. I usually eat anywhere between 1200-2300 calories, but when i’m depressed, I know that I barely eat 1000 calories. When I work out, I burn about 1000 calories in an hour and 20 minutes.
My question: Am I not losing weight b/c my body is in starvation mode? I know that sometimes my diet is fattening (when I want a steak, I eat a steak), but I still thought that I would burn it if i’m very active.
Second: Are watch heart monitors very accurate? Am I really burning that much? I do make sure that I check my rate several times during the day (at least 6-10 times—basically whenever my activity level changes). Most BMR calculators tell me that I only burn around 2400 calories per day.
What am I doing wrong? I’m so frustrated and confused. Please help me figure out how to increase my appetite (if that is the prob). Thanks.
Weight: 170lbs :(
Body Fat: 40.5%
Height: 5’0"

What heart rate monitor are you using and have you entered the weight into it. I entered pounds into kilos and it was coming out at 2000 calories a workout. it may be worth checking.

i don’t have answers to all your questions, but lemme say this: skipping meals is not good..the range you provide (1200-2300) is quite a large range to fluctuate between, in my opinion. DailyBurn, or someone else on here, can tell you how many calories you need to eat, i don’t know that specifically…

but, you do need to up your calories above the 1000 calories you mentioned on some days…and spread these out over 4-6 meals per day…your metabolism isn’t at full speed…think of it this, your metabolism is used to being slow because you’re giving yourself 1000 calories in only a couple meals (assuming you don’t eat 5 200 calorie meals)…so on days you up the count, it’s still slow…if you get your body used to multiple meals a day, it starts working faster/harder and this is when the weight will start to come off…

these are just my opinions…i am not an expert, but this is what i’ve been able to glean from my readings…good luck, and hopefully others will chime in…

Hi, You need to start recording what you eat so we can give you advice. Also, it would be useful to know from where you’re starting, and where you want to be. A woman should be eating a minimum of 1200 cals daily, if you’re eating less, it’s too little and certainly won’t be anywhere near enough to fuel your workouts (if you work out, you probably need a little more). To lose weight safely, you need to create a calorie deficit of 500 cals per day to lose one pound of body weight. But if you’re not eating enough, your body will go into starvation mode, and you won’t lose an ounce :-(

I don’t see anything in your food or exercise logs on DB. I recommend using both, especially the food log.
Without knowing what kind of HR monitor you are using, also hard to speculate on its accuracy. I suspect it is not accurate based on the numbers it is giving you and the stats you did provide.
You must eat enough. Too little can be as bad as too much. I once heard someone compare your metabolism to a business. When times are tight and there isn’t much money coming in, a business wants to preserve its capital and doesn’t let go of money or resources. When there is adequate revenue coming in, they are more likely to spend. Your body is the same way. You need adequate food coming in (to support basic body functions) to let your body know its okay to let go of some fat.
My recommendations would be to start logging everything and working on getting adequate quality calories (spread through out the day). If you are only doing cardio, I would also recommend starting weight training.
Pamela

www.ThrivePersonalFitness.com

I’d like to be 130-140. My heart rate moniter doesn’t have a chest strap and is a Sportline S7. It has the on-demand feature, so I have to put my finger on the button several times throughout the day, so that the readings will be more accurate. My resting rate is usually 86-94. I’ve been testing it for a couple of weeks, and I think it’s accurate. It doesn’t show high numbers when i’m resting. For instance, i’ve been wearing it for 2 hours. I’ve already checked my rate at least 4 times, and it says that i’ve burned 309 calories.

I don’t know how accurate this watch is, but I had another heart rate monitor (w/ chest strap), and the amounts for the workouts were about the same. I wore it once when I cut the grass. It said that I had burned 1100 calories. I used to wear it during my workouts with Jillian Michaels (Biggest Loser), and I would burn roughly 600 calories in 40-45 minutes.

Is it just calories that influences your weight loss or is also the kind of calories? For instance, when I was logging on Calorie Burn, I noticed that my Fat was greater than 30g/day. Calorie Burn said that that was good, but I had always heard that if you’re trying to lose weight, you should keep your fats under 30g.

two things come to mind:
1) you’ve worn it for 2 hrs and burned 309 calories…what were you doing during those 2 hrs? moving around, sitting, etc?

2) kinds of calories definitely matter…400 calories from a dessert is not the same as 400 calories from lean meat….

@Totsylove, while I do believe that heart-rate monitors have their place, my recommendation to you for now is to put it away. As @PamelaH suggested, the most important number for you to focus on right now is your daily nutrition intake.

Start using the nutrition log ASAP. You need that data to arm yourself with the information you need to realize change. Any feedback provided at this time w/o that information is pure speculation as without weighing, measuring and journaling your food entries … how much you’re consuming (calories and macronutrients) is purely a guess.

As for your question pertaining to the “type” of calories we consume … as @thaKing pointed out, not all calories are created equal. Here’s a listing of preferred foods I’ve developed — http://www.scribd.com/doc/24706323/Susans-eBook…

Start using the nutrition log and we can give you much more concise feedback!

Susan
www.CatapultFitnessBlog.com