Reasons why you are not losing weight?

briislovely

For the past 3 weeks I have went to the gym 6 days a week and I have been eating at my calorie goal everyday....
What are some factors or reasons I might not be losing weight?

TavistockToad

Retaining water

malibu927

Water retention or inaccurate logging

singingflutelady

Not weighing your food and/or inaccurate logging. Overestimation of calorie burn

sashayoung72

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kelseyframe91

Sounds like water retention. Don't give up, the scale will move. My weight usually goes up a little if I've weight lifted or even ran a few miles. All part of the process so don't worry. Your doing great btw, 6 days in the gym!

mightykaytor

I plateaued for about 3 weeks when I started strength training- it is apparently, not uncommon to do so. Also reexamine your logging, just to be sure.

Annahbananas

For me it was too much sodium which caused water retention which causes weight plateau.

Weightwatchers, lean cuisines, and other packaged foods are notorious for this

diannethegeek

1. If it's been less than 3 weeks or so, don't sweat it! Normal fluctuations happen and unfortunately sometimes we stall for a week or two even when we're doing everything right. Give your body some time to catch up with the changes you're making.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

beatyfamily1

Here's an article that explains what it could be: http://www.completehumanperformance.com/slow-fat-loss/

MissusMoon

beatyfamily1 wrote: »

Here's an article that explains what it could be: http://www.completehumanperformance.com/slow-fat-loss/

That's a great article. Loved the snowflake section.

JKI19

IMO and from personal experience there are two primary reasons as to why my weight loss halted.

1) Inaccurate Maintenance Calculation: Most of us tend to use a BMI/Maintenance calorie calculator to get our maintenance calorie level and then cut down from there, unfortunately in the beginning I overestimated certain aspects (activity level, lean weight, etc) and didn't cut down enough. Say the calculator says you need 2,100 calories a day to remain the same, and you decide to cut down to 1900 calories to lose weight slowly, chances are that if you don't experience change after three weeks on 1900 cals, your maintenance level is a bit lower. So just adjust.

2) Inaccurate Calorie Tracking: This is a BIGGIE, especially if you eat out frequently. As amazing as MFP is, it still only offers a "general" averaged calorie amount for most foods. If you were to go to Subway and get a footlong Philly and then check MFP to add it to your journal, you may or may not be off by a 100-300 cals depending on how much sauce, meat, etc is put in. So the key is to overcompensate by adding 100 -300 calories to the labeled calorie amount when you go out to eat or are unsure of the exact caloric amount.

Hope this helps!

Asher_Ethan

Are you using a food scale?

Also, how strict is your logging? Do you log your gum? Do you log your vegetables?