Took one full year to START seeing results? What gives?

mengqiz86

So I put on 7 lb beginning of 2016 and have spent the entire year trying to lose that. Tracked calories (5'6"; 130lb; ~1,300cal per day), worked out (run 25miles/week, spin, weights). Nothing. Nada. I stayed on track anyway - just because it felt like the right thing to do.. Then this year - boom, the inches/weight started dropping. I did nothing different to my diet and exercise routines. Did it really take one FULL year for my body to start responding? Anybody else ever had a similar experience?

KateTii

Nope, sounds like you are now doing something differently to last year. Your body literally can't decide to not lose fat/muscle (aka, weight) if you are doing what needs to be done to lose fat/muscle (aka, weight). Are you logging what you are eating more accurately?

TavistockToad

how much are you trying to lose...?

Fuzzipeg

Sorry, I'm probably missing something. You are 5'6" tall and 130 lb. Looks to me as if you are in a good place, one I'd like to be in at 5' 3", I'm of the opinion your photo supports this, your looking good to me.

jenilla1

Something must have changed, otherwise I'd think you should still be getting the same results.

I find that the closer I am to my ideal weight, the harder it is to lose. (I'm 5'7 and 135. Those last 5 pounds took months!)

130 seems to be right around your ideal weight. Are you currently 130 and trying to go lower, or is your goal to get to 130?

annacole94

Either you've changed your diet or exercise, or you should see a doctor. Unexplained weight loss could be serious.

hong4

The below is an article about the biggest loser dieters who've almost all regained weight lost. Guess what?Your body has a set point it deems normal. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health/biggest-loser-weight-loss.html

So despite the mantra everything is CICO, sometimes it's not.

Thank you op, your post was extremely helpful. I've spent 2 years dieting, without losing a lb, but unlike you, I'd go for 10-11 months, and then give up for the last month or so. This year, I'll stick through with it.

My guess is your body liked being at 130lbs, and was fighting on for dear life to stick to it, especially with all the exercise you did, it felt like it needed to keep all the energy stores it could. Maybe it's finally gotten more efficient this year, and loosened its death grip. Yeah, I know it's all speculation...

cwolfman13

hong4 wrote: »

The below is an article about the biggest loser dieters who've almost all regained weight lost. Guess what?Your body has a set point it deems normal. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health/biggest-loser-weight-loss.html

So despite the mantra everything is CICO, sometimes it's not.

Thank you op, your post was extremely helpful. I've spent 2 years dieting, without losing a lb, but unlike you, I'd go for 10-11 months, and then give up for the last month or so. This year, I'll stick through with it.

My guess is your body liked being at 130lbs, and was fighting on for dear life to stick to it, especially with all the exercise you did, it felt like it needed to keep all the energy stores it could. Maybe it's finally gotten more efficient this year, and loosened its death grip. Yeah, I know it's all speculation...

Set point theory is a bunch of bull crap...people regain weight because they go back to old habits, pure and simple.

hong4

@cwolfman13 you're entitled to what you believe. I read the article yesterday, and found it eye opening. Just sharing the link in case any others out there were curious. NYTimes is a reputable source.

cerise_noir

OP. Have you been using a food scale?

Sounds like you were at maintenance last year and are now in a slight deficit from slight increased activity (more daily chores, standing more than sitting, more fidgeting), increased exercise effort or duration. If you have been using a food scale and your day to day activity and exercise is exactly the same, then seeing a doctor may be a good idea as mentioned above.

At your height, your weight is fine; I doubt you have any weight to lose. If you are unhappy with your appearance even though your weight is in the lower healthy to upper underweight range, I highly recommend that you look into body recomposition (eating at your maintenance calories and starting a progressive heavy lifting program) to improve your body aesthetics.

cwolfman13 wrote: »

hong4 wrote: »

The below is an article about the biggest loser dieters who've almost all regained weight lost. Guess what?Your body has a set point it deems normal. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health/biggest-loser-weight-loss.html

So despite the mantra everything is CICO, sometimes it's not.

Thank you op, your post was extremely helpful. I've spent 2 years dieting, without losing a lb, but unlike you, I'd go for 10-11 months, and then give up for the last month or so. This year, I'll stick through with it.

My guess is your body liked being at 130lbs, and was fighting on for dear life to stick to it, especially with all the exercise you did, it felt like it needed to keep all the energy stores it could. Maybe it's finally gotten more efficient this year, and loosened its death grip. Yeah, I know it's all speculation...

Set point theory is a bunch of bull crap...people regain weight because they go back to old habits, pure and simple.

Agreed with this. Set point IS bull.
CICO is energy balance.

-If one eats more calories than necessary to maintain current weight, there will be a gain.
-if one eats the exact amount of calories to maintain, then they will maintain.
-if one eats less calories than they need to maintain, they will lose.

This is CICO. All weight loss, recomp and weight gain diets fall under CICO.

hong4

I'm not here to get into a debate about whether CICO is the holy grail of weight loss or not. Everyone is entitled to their opinions. I personally believe in CICO 80% of the time, the other 20% could be in the minority and is dissenting.

Anyways, I did want to validate the op's experience. I got something positive from her post, yes, it takes a long time for some people to show a weight loss. Granted, including myself, its a sample of size 2 of women in their 30s, in the healthy BMI, who do moderate+ amount of exercise. Just drawing from my own experience and making a personal inference.

cwolfman13

hong4 wrote: »

@cwolfman13 you're entitled to what you believe. I read the article yesterday, and found it eye opening. Just sharing the link in case any others out there were curious. NYTimes is a reputable source.

I've maintained weight loss going on four years pretty easily...because I continue to eat the way I ate when losing weight, just a handful more calories...and I exercise regularly...I pay attention to my measurements and what's going on with the scale, etc. I do the things that lean, healthy, and fit people do...if people are regaining hundreds of Lbs, it has nothing to do with a set point...it has everything to do with the kind of lifestyle they are living.

There is a certain level of leanness after which it becomes increasingly difficult to continue to lean out...this really isn't "set point"...it has more to do with human evolution. The notion of being purposefully super lean is a new and rather novel concept in human evolution...the human body doesn't want to be super lean and have no body fat...body fat is an evolutionary protection against starvation and a lack of food.

This is where the OP is at...the OP isn't talking about having lost weight and then piling the pounds back on which is what that article is about...the OP is already very lean for her stats and trying to get leaner...her body is going to fight back against that by jacking around with various hormones and slowing down certain processes to become more efficient. When you're lean and trying to get even leaner, a whole mess of things come into play, the least of which is basically a religious approach to having a spot on diet...calorie cycling...carb cycling, etc. This is when those kinds of things really come into play because from an evolutionary standpoint, the human body doesn't want to be super lean.

You will find that body builders and physique competitors aren't super lean year around...they go to great lengths to lean out before competitions and then return to higher levels of body fat...this is because it is incredibly difficult, not to mention hard on the body to maintain that level of leanness long term.

There's a massive difference between being overweight or obese+ and dropping weight to a healthy BF% vs being at an already low BF% and dropping it more. I can very easily maintain around 12% BF...getting to 10% requires quite a bit more work...being sub 10% basically requires me to be a hermit who never touches alcohol and eats boiled chicken, rice, and broccoli for meals.

As for the contestants on that ridiculous show...they do any number of very unhealthy things to drop weight for the show...they totally crash their diets and do incessant amounts of exercise...they learn nothing about how to actually eat appropriately and train appropriately...they have no clue how to maintain a healthy weight. Beyond that, with the methods used to drop weight, they totally jack their hormones up and crash their metabolisms...they are basically "ripe" to put on a bunch of fat once they resume "normal" eating...but that has nothing to do with some set point being hundreds of pounds more than they weighed when they finished.

cwolfman13

OP...you're already very lean for your stats...what you're likely seeing is more re-composition than anything. And yes, that takes a long time. Being already very lean, understand that from an evolutionary standpoint, the human body doesn't want to be super lean...it's a pretty new phenomena to purposefully try to be very lean. I'd recommend that instead of actually trying to lose weight, just focus on re-composition...which does take a long time, but really, a fitness body is derived from a fitness lifestyle long term.

hong4

@cwolfman13 thank you for that lovely and well thought out response. I used 'set point' very liberally and without too much thought, which I probably shouldn't have. I found the article fascinating, but was probably drawing parallels that doesn't concern the op

Fuzzipeg

I come down on the "set point" too, its being normal for so many of us, we all start from very different places and Op is fortunate, in my view, to have achieved what is the goal of others, for personal reason she wants to take it lower. I have learned and read it is possible to reset the set point as one looses, that is the point at which the body is happy, it just takes time. Because my weight issues are endocrine system issue driven, I have dropped and settled at the dropped to, point, if that makes sense, several times. I give my body time to readjust before starting another round of loss. My body has been off for twice as long as many of you in your 20's here have been around and that is a situation I would not wish on anyone. For me its about giving myself the best run at my 8th decade as I possibly can having lost so many years to poor health. This years goal has to be to build more muscle because muscle's demands up-regulate the metabolism.

There are so many reasons for wanting to be smaller than one is and for many at a good weight for the general population there are external pressures to conform to the person's societies preferences, it can be difficult to differentiate between what one really wants and what society says, you should want. There are health consequences which present in women who manage to achieve a lesser body weight and put themselves into an under weight state. Op is safe at the moment but could be at risk as time passes, all the very best wishes from me.

TimothyFish

hong4 wrote: »

The below is an article about the biggest loser dieters who've almost all regained weight lost. Guess what?Your body has a set point it deems normal. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health/biggest-loser-weight-loss.html

So despite the mantra everything is CICO, sometimes it's not.

Thank you op, your post was extremely helpful. I've spent 2 years dieting, without losing a lb, but unlike you, I'd go for 10-11 months, and then give up for the last month or so. This year, I'll stick through with it.

My guess is your body liked being at 130lbs, and was fighting on for dear life to stick to it, especially with all the exercise you did, it felt like it needed to keep all the energy stores it could. Maybe it's finally gotten more efficient this year, and loosened its death grip. Yeah, I know it's all speculation...

If anything, "The Biggest Loser" ought to be reason for us to ignore this idea of a "set point." People watched these people lose weight throughout the season and no one stopped to think that maybe the reason one of them didn't lose very much one week was because their body had a set point that it was fighting hard to get back to. No, it was because they ate too much or they exercised too little. Those who put the work in reached their goals. It is only after the show when they no longer have trainers hounding them and they don't have the prize money dangling like a carrot that people start talking about their bodies trying to reach a set point.

I think what you will find is that a lot of scientists are lazy. Instead of following the evidence to see where it leads, quite a few of them latch onto something that they think is true and then they start looking for something that will back up their beliefs.

deannalfisher

while I don't discount the findings of the researchers who studied the Biggest Loser contestants - a control study would be the focus on those who have lost the same amount of weight without the drastic measures that BL takes...my hypothesis is that its the process that BL uses that contributes to these metabolism issues that the simple idea of set-point weight

Fuzzipeg

Setting oneself to loose only one or two lb a week depending how close one is to goal, is the way to loose at a more healthy rate, if there are no other health condition obstacles putting spanners in works, the probability is one can maintain a "happy body" and avoid set points/plateaus. Extended periods in a calorific deficit will slow the metabolism and make weight loss more difficult.

VintageFeline

Just to add, NYTimes is not a reliable source for scientific findings. It's journalism, usually written by someone with no scientific background other than writing articles about "research".

OP, something changed, whether consciously or unconsciously. Maybe you got better at logging because of frustration, maybe you pushed a little harder and longer with your exercise. But something changed in the CICO equation.