Not Losing

swanny320
swanny320 Posts: 169 Member
edited November 16 in Health and Weight Loss
Okay...I guess I just need to know if I am being impatient or if I am doing something wrong.

I am KILLING it at the gym...lifting weights and a min of 30 min of HIIT cardio a day. I am also eating clean for the most part...trying to adhere to PALEO as much as possible. My calorie intake is about 150-200 less than my RMR but I am NOT losing.

Do I need to just be patient? I am not noticing a difference in the scale OR in my body composition. Granted, I am thin to begin with and really just want to lose about 5-6 pounds of fat and add some muscle in place of it.



Thoughts?

Replies

  • DemoraFairy
    DemoraFairy Posts: 1,806 Member
    edited April 2015
    How long have you been doing this for? If you've only been going a week then yes you need to be more patient, but if you've been doing it for months then something's going wrong somewhere!

    Do you weigh all your food with a food scale? Do you eat your exercise calories back? Can you open your diary?
  • DeguelloTex
    DeguelloTex Posts: 6,652 Member
    Presuming everything you say is accurate, you need to be patient. You can't not lose weight of some kind eating at that kind of deficit.
  • Allelito
    Allelito Posts: 179 Member
    How many calories are you consuming? And as has been asked: Do you weigh everything you eat on a food scale?
  • KylaDenay
    KylaDenay Posts: 1,585 Member
    How long has it been?
  • swanny320
    swanny320 Posts: 169 Member
    Yes, I weigh most things when I can and usually round up on my calories when I cannot weigh things. It's been about three weeks so I realize that perhaps I am being impatient. Am I? Also, lemme ask....should I have EVERY day where I am under my calorie requirement or should I be engaging in carb cycling? I am consuming between 1100-1200 calories and this is based on what my RMR was calculated to be.

    I will admit to sneaking in a iced mocha once a week but would that REALLY be the source of my lack of losing?

    Thanks for the advice! :)
  • Allelito
    Allelito Posts: 179 Member
    swanny320 wrote: »
    Yes, I weigh most things when I can and usually round up on my calories when I cannot weigh things. It's been about three weeks so I realize that perhaps I am being impatient. Am I? Also, lemme ask....should I have EVERY day where I am under my calorie requirement or should I be engaging in carb cycling? I am consuming between 1100-1200 calories and this is based on what my RMR was calculated to be.

    I will admit to sneaking in a iced mocha once a week but would that REALLY be the source of my lack of losing?

    Thanks for the advice! :)

    It doesn't matter at all what you eat as long as you don't go over your calorie goal. You can eat 1200 calories of chocolate or 1200 calories of veggies and you'll lose the same amount.
    Maybe you just need to wait and see, as you say, it's only been three weeks. Did you just recently start lifting weights? Your muscles can retain water if you start a new lifting routine and that's completely normal and may add some weight on the scale for a bit. :)
  • DemoraFairy
    DemoraFairy Posts: 1,806 Member
    swanny320 wrote: »
    Yes, I weigh most things when I can and usually round up on my calories when I cannot weigh things. It's been about three weeks so I realize that perhaps I am being impatient. Am I? Also, lemme ask....should I have EVERY day where I am under my calorie requirement or should I be engaging in carb cycling? I am consuming between 1100-1200 calories and this is based on what my RMR was calculated to be.

    I will admit to sneaking in a iced mocha once a week but would that REALLY be the source of my lack of losing?

    Thanks for the advice! :)

    Wow, I think I'd struggle to do an exercise regime like that on only 1100-1200 a day!

    You shouldn't be under everyday, you should hit your calories everyday. It's a goal, not a limit. Try to reach it, especially with the amount of exercise you're doing!

    As Allelito said, starting a new weight lifting regime can make you retain weight for a few weeks. And it doesn't matter what you eat or how you achieve your deficit, if you're in a deficit, you will lose weight.
  • juggernaut1974
    juggernaut1974 Posts: 6,212 Member
    How many pounds do you have to lose? If you're very close to goal, the progress is going to be much slower and you're going to need to be even more accurate in your measurements than if you have a lot to lose.
  • GlenQu
    GlenQu Posts: 4 Member
    30 mins of HIIT training day after lifting weights sounds brutal haha! What's your HIIT routine like?

    Are you logging exercise calories and eating them back?
  • wkwebby
    wkwebby Posts: 807 Member
    5-6 lbs is not a lot in the grand scheme of things so your caloric allotment should only be at a small deficit. Your one chocolate mocha could have wiped out that entire deficit in one sitting. Be as accurate in your logging as possible and perhaps recalculate what your allotment should be to lose at a small deficit. If you really are at a weight where you are thin, then your weight might not change and your body composition will. Try taking other measurements instead of weight. With your weight, there may not be much weight to lose and you said you wanted to replace it with muscle. Guess what? Muscle weighs more and if your measurements are decreasing, you could still be "stalled" in the weight department.

    Just be healthy and start going to a body fat % measurement or some other goal and be realistic.
  • auddii
    auddii Posts: 15,357 Member
    swanny320 wrote: »
    Yes, I weigh most things when I can and usually round up on my calories when I cannot weigh things. It's been about three weeks so I realize that perhaps I am being impatient. Am I? Also, lemme ask....should I have EVERY day where I am under my calorie requirement or should I be engaging in carb cycling? I am consuming between 1100-1200 calories and this is based on what my RMR was calculated to be.

    I will admit to sneaking in a iced mocha once a week but would that REALLY be the source of my lack of losing?

    Thanks for the advice! :)

    You should not be eating under your RMR as a rule for how much to eat. You should be using your RMR to determine how many calories total you are burning throughout the day including exercise (which RMR does not include). Then eat 250 calories or so (given you have a very small weight loss goal) under THAT number. It's likely more than 1200.

    That said, be sure that you are accurately logging (there are bad entries, and weighing solid foods really help with being accurate).

    And if you recently started the exercise, you could be retaining water and masking some weight loss.
  • swanny320
    swanny320 Posts: 169 Member
    Thanks for all the input. Yeah, I agree that the calories seem low and that it sucks to work out on them but I've calculated and recalculated using a billion different algorithms and it always comes out to this.

    I didn't really consider, as one of you stated, that my weight may not actually move since I'm thin and small framed anyway though my body composition might. That's good perspective and I appreciate it.

    I will do as you all have instructed and try to be as accurate as possible...and I guess give up that weekly mocha (sniff sniff...noooo!). Thanks again people! :)
  • yopeeps025
    yopeeps025 Posts: 8,680 Member
    edited April 2015
    GlenQu wrote: »
    30 mins of HIIT training day after lifting weights sounds brutal haha! What's your HIIT routine like?

    Are you logging exercise calories and eating them back?

    For true HIIT 30 minutes would almost be impossible. I like to know work:rest ratio?
  • swanny320
    swanny320 Posts: 169 Member
    When I say HIIT, I don't mean I'm sprinting for 30 minutes. I mean I am sprinting at full speed for two minutes, then running a 8 minute mile pace for four minutes, then returning to the two minutes at a full sprint. I do this for a total of 30 minutes.
  • yopeeps025
    yopeeps025 Posts: 8,680 Member
    edited April 2015
    swanny320 wrote: »
    When I say HIIT, I don't mean I'm sprinting for 30 minutes. I mean I am sprinting at full speed for two minutes, then running a 8 minute mile pace for four minutes, then returning to the two minutes at a full sprint. I do this for a total of 30 minutes.

    SO your ratio is 1:4 then. OK now I understand. Also I don't know why you thought posters where thinking HIIT for 30 minutes is sprinting for 30 minutes. That would be high intensity training.
  • swanny320
    swanny320 Posts: 169 Member
    Yeah, if I was capable of sprinting for 30 minutes, I wouldn't be posting on here...I'd be training for the Olympics! :wink: I wish I could sprint for 30 minutes though...lol. I'm lucky I'm not dying of a heart attack by the time I get the two minutes finished :)
  • yopeeps025
    yopeeps025 Posts: 8,680 Member
    swanny320 wrote: »
    Yeah, if I was capable of sprinting for 30 minutes, I wouldn't be posting on here...I'd be training for the Olympics! :wink: I wish I could sprint for 30 minutes though...lol. I'm lucky I'm not dying of a heart attack by the time I get the two minutes finished :)

    You do this HIIT everyday?
  • kikichewie
    kikichewie Posts: 276 Member
    You probably always get 1200 calories in your calculations because you always set your goal to 2 pounds a week, right?

    If you are small to begin with and only have a couple pounds to lose, you can expect your real weight loss to be more like 1/4 to 1/2 pound per week, which you probably won't see for a while bc of the water retention. Plus any little bit of sodium will pop you right back up where you started.
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