Losing Inches not weight for months

tonyaprewitt

I have been hiking and doing some running. I am 5 1 208 pounds. I am losing inches because I am dropping sizes, but I have not lost a single pound in about 3 months. The first 4 months I lost 37 pounds. I know that it is because I am turning fat into muscle, but how long will it be before I start losing weight? I exercise 5 x a week for 1 hour doing hiking or running.

diannethegeek

Setting your diary to public or giving us some more details might help get you more specific advice. Until then, these are my really general tips. Maybe something will help you out.

1. If you aren't already, be sure that you're logging everything. Sometimes people forget about things like veggies, drinks, cooking oils, and condiments. For some people these can add up to enough to halt your weight loss progress.

2. Consider buying a food scale if you don't already have one. They're about $10-$20 dollars in the US and easily found at places like Amazon, Target, and Walmart. Measuring cups and spoons are great, but they do come with some degree of inaccuracy. A food scale will be more accurate, and for some people it makes a big difference.

3. Logging accurately also means choosing accurate entries in the database. There are a lot of user-entered entries that are off. Double-check that you're using good entries and/or using the recipe builder instead of someone else's homemade entries.

4. Recalculate your goals if you haven't lately. As you lose weight your body requires fewer calories to run. Be sure you update your goals every ten pounds or so.

5. If you're eating back your exercise calories and you're relying on gym machine readouts or MFP's estimates, it might be best to eat back just 50-75% of those. Certain activities tend to be overestimated. If you're using an HRM or activity tracker, it might be a good idea to look into their accuracy and be sure that yours is calibrated properly.

6. If you're taking any cheat days that go over your calorie limits, it might be best to cut them out for a few weeks and see what happens. Some people go way over their calorie needs without realizing it when they don't track.

7. If you weigh yourself frequently, consider using a program like trendweight to even out the fluctuations. You could be losing weight but just don't see it because of the daily ups and downs.

8. Some people just burn fewer calories than the calculators predict. If you continue to have problems after 4-6 weeks, then it might be worth a trip to the doctor or a registered dietitian who can give you more specific advice.

Working2BLean

You may have a broke scale

If you have consistently lost inches for months....

hill8570

Why does it matter? Hell, I'd be rockin' happy to gain 10 pounds if my love handles disappeared and I added 50 pounds to my bench press. If your measurements are dropping and you're getting healthier, roll with it!

chocochip13

Just want to point something out. Fat can't be turned into muscle or vice versa. It's 2 different things... But yea your probably losing fat and gaining muscle at the same time and since muscle weighs more then fat it probably doesn't show up on the scale. But if your size is going down then do yourself a favor and don't obsess over the number.

haydita

I too am at a similar plateau with weight, but losing inches. At this time I am on a medifast diet plan to jump start the weight loss, but am also on a enzyme shot that slows my digestion for blood sugar regulation. I am thinking I may need to have my shot dosage lowered in adaption to the lowered calorie intake. Also my eating habits have gone from three big meals to five small meals and one lean and green meal of a low carb vegetable and 6 oz of lean protein. My goal is another 48 pounds with 17 down from August. It is so difficult not letting such slow progress kill my motivation. At this point I can say I feel much better and my sugar levels have improved. I am looking forward to my next A1C1 check.

gmallan

Ditch the scale for a while and just measure. Why does the number even matter that much. We don't walk around with our weight tatooed on our foreheads but people WILL notice if you're shrinking in size. Take it as a massive win.

LKArgh

tonyaprewitt wrote: »

I have been hiking and doing some running. I am 5 1 208 pounds. I am losing inches because I am dropping sizes, but I have not lost a single pound in about 3 months. The first 4 months I lost 37 pounds. I know that it is because I am turning fat into muscle, but how long will it be before I start losing weight? I exercise 5 x a week for 1 hour doing hiking or running.

Double check your logging (make sure you use a food scale for everything), double check your calories burned (maybe eat half of them if you are currently eat all of them back) or just lower your calorie goal, to compensate for errors in logging. With so many months without losing, you are currently eating at maintenance.

debrakgoogins

No one knows the number on the scale except for you so don't worry about the weight if you are losing inches. You're on the right track if you are dropping clothing sizes. Take some accurate measurements and start tracking those instead of your weight for a while.

ar9179

Losing inches, without scale movement, means that you are losing fat. A nice benefit from that is our calorie allotment doesn't lower because of the lower scale number. Win, win!

The same thing is happening to me. Yeah. I'd like to see that one metric change because I'm not in my healthy range, yet. I wasn't sticking to my calorie goal consistently. If you are weighing/measuring everything you eat/drink accurately, then you'll see a change. Just keep going, you're doing great!

Madux1818

I'd be happy to lose inches, seeing my formerly snug clothes fitting me again, I'll take it!

kuroshii

Losing inches is exactly what I'm trying to do. I don't even own a scale: I weigh myself maybe once a month when I'm at a friend's house. Seriously.