Getting frustrated, help!

evakierk

Ok so I'm on my 3rd month of working out w/ a trainer 3x per week with weights/machines and lots of squats and crunches, etc. Also doing 40 minutes of cardio 3x a week. Not only have I not lost any weight, I've gained 1.5 lb.! I had my fitness re-evaluation last week. My trainer says it's muscle (according to his fancy device that supposedly tells your fat %, muscle%) as my muscle mass % has gone up and fat % went down a few points. And yes for sure I feel stronger (as evidenced by being able to do a lot more weight and squats than when I first started, and actually being able to see and feel muscles I never had before) and in fact, the most troublesome result of all my hard work has been my thighs and calves are actually BIGGER and now my pants (which I wanted to fit better as in not so tight) are now so tight in the thighs and calves as to be very uncomfortable! The problem is, my "spare tire" has not improved even a little bit.
This is my first time ever in my life exercising regularly. I only have about 15 lb. of fat to lose and my goal was to not only lose fat but develop some healthy habits and some core strength because my orthopedic doc told me I had a shocking lack of core strength and really needed to work on that.
Yes I'm logging and measuring everything I eat. I'm eating relatively low carb (between 60-95 g) most days and definitely never go over my calories for "maintaining current weight", but my deficit of calories is pretty small some day( some days only a 80 calorie deficit and most days around 200). Also, I don't deduct calories burned from exercise so that should increase my deficit, right? So I expected that the weight would come off slowly, but I definitely didn't expect to GAIN weight and not see any progress in my tummy/love handles. Now I'm asking myself WHY am I working so hard at the gym and paying all this money to a trainer to see no weight loss, only gain, and I'm finding it hard to motivate myself to keep going.

electric_dey

You gained muscle! And the tummy takes a while to go away , I know I gave up and gained it back. Maybe cut down carbs ?

roxymuller

Yes, muscle weighs more than fat. Maybe take a break from going to the gym or cut back on your weight training. there is such a thing as exercising too much. Mix up your days; maybe a couple of days go over your allotted calories but not by much and then on some days stay under your allotted calories. this will help your metabolism to not get into a plateau state. I have done no exercise (health issues) since I have been on the program for 20 days and I have lost 7 lbs. good luck.

Sued0nim

You are eating at maintenance sorry

You need to refocus on logging

Weigh all your food
Double check all the selections from MFP database, many are wrong ..check against pack, other databases online
Never use other people's recipes, homemade items

All calories are estimates, a margin of 80 is within the margin of error

You have physical proof spanning 3 months that you are maintenance ...cut your calories by 250 to lose 0.5lb per week on average

Sued0nim

electric_dey wrote: »

You gained muscle! And the tummy takes a while to go away , I know I gave up and gained it back. Maybe cut down carbs ?

Not going to help if her calorie intake is at maintenance

roxymuller wrote: »

Yes, muscle weighs more than fat. Maybe take a break from going to the gym or cut back on your weight training. there is such a thing as exercising too much. Mix up your days; maybe a couple of days go over your allotted calories but not by much and then on some days stay under your allotted calories. this will help your metabolism to not get into a plateau state. I have done no exercise (health issues) since I have been on the program for 20 days and I have lost 7 lbs. good luck.

She has at least one rest day that's adequate ...I personally choose to work out only 3x a week and walk the rest of the week

Mixing calorie amounts per day is fine if it suits you but you have to be clear that over the week you are hitting a defecit, and OP isn't ...it will not however do anything to your metabolism ...your metabolism is only affected by muscle mass and that is a marginal difference at best. Your TDEE is affected by how much you move and purposefully workout

You lose weight by monitoring food intake and eating less than you burn. Congratulations on your loss

Wheelhouse15

You need to lower your food intake as indicated above but perhaps you also need to take in the fact that you are trying to lose fat, which you are, and not just weight. Now, over three months you should have been able to lose quite a bit and maintained rather than gained muscle if you were in a decent deficit so the problem is not the exercise, that's actually the right thing to do, but rather the amount of food you eat. You won't have gained a lot of muscle sitting around your maintenance so start dropping your calories by a 250/day and give it a couples weeks then start dropping another 100/day each week or two until you see improvements.

Also, if you are experienced enough with a proper fitness routine, which you should be after three months, then there probably isn't a reason to keep paying for a trainer unless you really just want a workout partner. You should probably just ask for a routine and then do it on your own now.

brucealfred3

Okay....so apparently, thaws people, including your trainer, have no idea that they are talking about. You want to loose weight, and before weight training even comes into your mind, you NEED to loose weight. Cardio!! Cardio cardio and more cardio! One of the best things you can do is Spinning. You burn about 700 cals in one class and is assign for your body. But be warned, it's challenging.
Also...cutting back on eating wit help. It's what you're eating. You need to make sure all nutrients are balanced. Have one higher than it should be throws off your body and it's cycles.
So eat like you're going to loose weight, and workout like you're going to lose weight. Gaining mass comes later. It's only going to make things harder for now.

Sued0nim

brucealfred3 wrote: »

Okay....so apparently, thaws people, including your trainer, have no idea that they are talking about. You want to loose weight, and before weight training even comes into your mind, you NEED to loose weight. Cardio!! Cardio cardio and more cardio! One of the best things you can do is Spinning. You burn about 700 cals in one class and is assign for your body. But be warned, it's challenging.
Also...cutting back on eating wit help. It's what you're eating. You need to make sure all nutrients are balanced. Have one higher than it should be throws off your body and it's cycles.
So eat like you're going to loose weight, and workout like you're going to lose weight. Gaining mass comes later. It's only going to make things harder for now.

That's not exactly true - the concept comes from the fact that cardio gives a greater immediate burn than weight training which is true - but weight loss is from calorie control so cardio is not actually required at all

Cardio may well burn more calories but for cardiovascular health 2 x 30 min sessions per week suffices

Weight training, as in a progressive resistance progamme, is important to preserve as much LBM as possible in defecit - the key after all is not for the scale to drop but to maximise fat loss - in addition once at a low enough body fat % preserving those muscles gives you a tighter, taughter and although I shudder to use the word 'toned' look (muscles don't tone they get bigger or atrophy - toned means decent musculature / low enough bf)

Getting mass should not "come later" - preserving mass in defecit is vital to long term happiness with your end results and also helps ensure your eventual maintenance calories are at a decent level

also building muscle you've lost is a right PITA

in my considered opinion

Wheelhouse15

brucealfred3 wrote: »

Okay....so apparently, thaws people, including your trainer, have no idea that they are talking about. You want to loose weight, and before weight training even comes into your mind, you NEED to loose weight. Cardio!! Cardio cardio and more cardio! One of the best things you can do is Spinning. You burn about 700 cals in one class and is assign for your body. But be warned, it's challenging.
Also...cutting back on eating wit help. It's what you're eating. You need to make sure all nutrients are balanced. Have one higher than it should be throws off your body and it's cycles.
So eat like you're going to loose weight, and workout like you're going to lose weight. Gaining mass comes later. It's only going to make things harder for now.

Cardio is great but NOT required to lose weight and gaining mass is not what she wants, but you should try to preserve muscle not wait till later. Keeping hold of your muscle does not make losing fat harder, not sure where you get your information from but telling people they don't know anything about losing weight, when clearly you have little idea of even the basic mechanics of weight loss, isn't going to help you or anyone else.