Need advice about my weight loss results!

lindsayrozynek

Hi!

This is my first time posting here in the forum. I hope to get some feedback on my post below

I want to lose some weight and get strong, so I set a 12 week time-frame for myself to get started and see what changes I can make to my body and how it responds.

Today I am 3 weeks in and have only lost about 1 kilo (2lbs). I currently weigh 77.4 kilos (170lbs). I thought I would lose about 1 kilo per week or at least get somewhere in the 76 kilo range (even if it's only 76.9 lol) by this 3rd week.

Maybe 1kilo per week is a little unrealistic, but I thought in the beginning maybe I would lose weight a little faster bc I'm not at my "normal" weight which is around 73 kilos (160 lbs). And then I thought I would lose weight slower once I get around 73kilos.

My goal is to be around 68-70 kilos (150-155lbs) or at least quite close to that goal at the end of my 12 weeks.

I feel frustrates bc I am working out really hard and eating clean and sticking to healthy portion sizes.

Here's what my exercise and food routine looks like.

Monday: boxing 1.5 hrs
Tuesday: either a rest day or "complete body workout class" it's like a mix of intense cardio + low weight, high rep weights. 1 hr.
Wednesday: ballet 1hr (sometimes with a 1hr trampoline cardio class after)
Thursday: ballet 1 hr
Friday: rest day
Saturday: ballet 1 hr
Sunday: trampoline cardio class 1 hr

My food routine is something like this:

Breakfast: protein shake (low sugar and carbs)
Lunch: some kind of lean protein + usually a small basic house sald with balsamic vinaigrette
Snack: Greek yogurt, grilled chicken (often it's from a package though) or tomatoes with a little humus
Dinner: Lean protein with a veggie or a homemade veggie soup.

I feel like I'm taking all the right steps but don't see on the scale much change.

Is fat changing to muscle ? Can that happen so soon?

Anyway, any feedback would be lovely!

Thanks so much

Lindsay

suzesvelte

Hi - I am not very good at maths but basically when you are not very over-weight you have to be pretty careful about your intake to be sure of losing it in a short time. It might be better to stop focussing on "how much a week" and try to think "these changes are for life" and over all you just need to reduce your total calorie intake to get results over a few months. The scales can vary slightly during the day/week anyway, so it's not sensible to get too hung up on it.

Careful monitoring and weighing of your food using MFP to get honest figures on the calories you are eating is the bottom line. When you do that you will lose weight at some rate or other. The accuracy of your logging is key. It's hard to know exactly what to log for exercise, but if you log too much and eat those calories back you will not lose weight, so try logging your exercise as LESS than you currently are.

Nony_Mouse

Hi Lindsay

First, congratulations on your weight loss thus far, and on setting a goal to be a healthier you!!

A kilo in three weeks is actually not far off what you want. With not much to lose, you should be aiming for 0.5 kg/1 lb per week.

I don't see any mention of calorie intake here, nor how you are measuring your food. Creating a calorie deficit is what matters for weight loss. You can eat 'clean' till the cows come home, but if you're not eating at a deficit, it won't make a scrap of difference. Conversely, you could live on twinkies, and so long as you're eating less than you burn, you will lose weight (I am in no way recommending this, and obviously for good health you want your food to be nutritious).

My recommendation - enter your stats here at MFP, set your weight loss goal to 1 lb per week, and eat the calories it gives you. You also want to be eating back at least some of your exercise calories, most people recommend 50-75% initially, then tweak if necessary based on your weight loss results. I also highly recommend getting a food scale, weighing all your solid foods, and measuring liquids. Also be careful of database entries - for whole foods search using 'usda' and whatever the food is and that should give you an accurate calorie value. Eating packaged foods is absolutely fine, but be aware that the weight the package says something is and the weight it actually is can vary by up to 20% by law, so it's best to still weigh these things.

lindsayrozynek

Hi Suzesvelte & Nony_Mouse

thanks a lot for the feedback and encouragement! its helpful to talk about it "out loud"

I feel like I left out a little info in my post:

-I do use the MFP app and log my food data and entry. I am an expat living in Germany right now, and sometimes feel that its not always 100% accurate b/c of the conversion from the metric system to pounds and ounces etc.
but I do try to over calculate what I enter to make sure im not "under calculating myself".
- I set my goal on MFP to 1kg per week
- my current calorie goal given by MFP is 1630 calories per day, but usually I eat around 1400 per day
- sometimes I feel like the MFP app over calculates my exercise, but I try to keep that in my mind or sometimes I write I worked out a little less than I actually did (for instance in MFP it says when I box for 90 minutes I burn over 1000 calories, which seems like a lot to me, so I write that I worked out for 75 minutes). do you ever feel that way?
- I forgot to mention I am 5'5ft and 27 yrs old

thanks everyone!

Nony_Mouse

Okay, I would weigh everything in metric, you should be able to find database entries in grams (as I said, use USDA listings where possible, they should give you multiple choices).

I really would only aim for 0.5kg per week, you don't have much to lose. And yes, the exercise burns MFP gives are often inflated, hence the recommendation to only eat back 50-75% of those calories

With all the exercise you're doing, is that a new thing? Starting or increasing exercise generally results in some fluid retention, which will even out, so it may be as simple as that. Could also be fluid retention from monthly hormonal fluctuations masking some weight loss.

I highly recommend using a weight trend app suck as Trendweight to log your weight, if you're up to weighing daily. That will give you a really good handle on understanding your natural fluctuations, and show you that your weight is going in the right direction, even if the scale sometimes says it's not!

suzesvelte

MFP certainly over-estimates exercise calories.
I use a different gadget to guess-timate my cycling calories and never "eat back" all the calories from exercise anyway. That bit of the MFP equation is always pretty vague.

Over time you will learn what seems to be the "right" count for thing you do every week that ends up with a calorie deficit and then your own weight loss.

In MFP on my phone I can click on the units thing and sometimes there are choice of unit - the US "cup" system is just nonsense for foods that really need to be weighed, so I try to find one in grams or ounces. I also look for the green tick that means MFP has verified the data, because some of the date is "wiki" style and could be wildly inaccurate too.

Nony_Mouse

suzesvelte wrote: »

MFP certainly over-estimates exercise calories.
I use a different gadget to guess-timate my cycling calories and never "eat back" all the calories from exercise anyway. That bit of the MFP equation is always pretty vague.

Over time you will learn what seems to be the "right" count for thing you do every week that ends up with a calorie deficit and then your own weight loss.

In MFP on my phone I can click on the units thing and sometimes there are choice of unit - the US "cup" system is just nonsense for foods that really need to be weighed, so I try to find one in grams or ounces. I also look for the green tick that means MFP has verified the data, because some of the date is "wiki" style and could be wildly inaccurate too.

Actually, most of them are user verified, so can still be wrong. If it's something out of a packet, it pays to check. Once you've used the entry once it will be in your frequent foods list and you can just select it from there in future.

Lindsay, you're really very close to on track for a good rate of loss, I would give it a few more weeks to see what's really happening, then reassess.

This is my Trendweight data for the past month, as you can see, my trend weight has gone down the whole time, but there have been some higher scale weights, that's TOM and ovulation masking things.

TavistockToad

what sort of changes are you after?

given your stats a pound a week is a good rate of loss, so 2lbs in 3 weeks is fine.

lindsayrozynek

@Nony_Mouse

I make sure not to go over my daily calorie goal of 1630. That part has been easy for me and I also try not to eat much after I exercise since I usually workout in the evening.

I will definitely download the weight app you recommended. Thanks for the tip.
Are you weighing and logging yourself daily? When I look at your log it's at least steadily going down while staying the same for a couple days. I lost the 1 kilo the end of my first week and have been stuck in the 77 kg range for 2 weeks. Though last week I didn't have the chance to attend cardio classes only ballet (but that was 5x in the week). This week I have been back at my cardio intense workouts , but now it's the end of the week and im still not really moving towards a flat 77.0kg or 76.9. I will keep monitoring the next couple weeks and I guess otherwise talk to a nutritionist (?) If nothing changes.

To answer your other question, yes this new exercise routine is new for my body. I was only working out maybe 2x on average per week. How long does muscle water retention (if that is occuring) take to level out?


By the way thanks for the encouragement! I was feeling a little disappointed the last couple days. I'm feeling remotivated with the positive support.

lindsayrozynek

@TavistockToad
The changes I am looking to make is to firstly lose body fat and secondly build/strengthen my muscles.

I actually lost the 1kg my first week and none last week so it doesn't feel like it's moving in a downward direction bc I have been the same weight for 2 weeks now

Nony_Mouse

lindsayrozynek wrote: »

@Nony_Mouse

I make sure not to go over my daily calorie goal of 1630. That part has been easy for me and I also try not to eat much after I exercise since I usually workout in the evening.

I will definitely download the weight app you recommended. Thanks for the tip.
Are you weighing and logging yourself daily? When I look at your log it's at least steadily going down while staying the same for a couple days. I lost the 1 kilo the end of my first week and have been stuck in the 77 kg range for 2 weeks. Though last week I didn't have the chance to attend cardio classes only ballet (but that was 5x in the week). This week I have been back at my cardio intense workouts , but now it's the end of the week and im still not really moving towards a flat 77.0kg or 76.9. I will keep monitoring the next couple weeks and I guess otherwise talk to a nutritionist (?) If nothing changes.

To answer your other question, yes this new exercise routine is new for my body. I was only working out maybe 2x on average per week. How long does muscle water retention (if that is occuring) take to level out?


By the way thanks for the encouragement! I was feeling a little disappointed the last couple days. I'm feeling remotivated with the positive support.

Okay, I think there's a good chance this is your body getting used to a new exercise routine. Give it time, it varies for everyone . I'd say a few weeks though.

And yes, I weigh daily and log that. Usually...(sometimes I won't log it if it's gone up a bit, trying to get better about that, I'll see if it's back down the next day, and log regardless). It can be hard at first if you have issues with seeing the scale go up, but it's an excellent tool for looking at the overall trend, and learning that weight loss is not linear. Example, I'm up 200g again today. I know I'm at a deficit with my calories and therefore can't be fat gain, it will drop again when it's ready (which is not the same as when I'm ready! I'm a whisker off goal weight, so it's mildly frustrating).

kpkitten

I'm not sure what you mean about conversion. If your food packaging lists things in grams, you should enter it in grams rather than converting.

I lived in Germany for a year and logged here​ a few months of that, and I found most of what I bought was already in the database with correct information. If it wasn't, I added it myself. Make sure you're using the correct food entries for what you're actually eating - if it's branded, enter the brand in the food search, if not enter the store name. It's worth the extra time adding a new food entry yourself to get accurate data, and you only need to manually enter any food once, then you can just reuse it.

Also, if you've added any exercise recently, or changed your diet rater than just reducing the volume you eat, you might be retaining water which will mask weight loss for A while. Give it a bit longer and you'll continue to see results.

lindsayrozynek

@Nony_Mouse
I hope to have some good news to report back in a couple weeks. I'll post again in the thread.

Keep up the good work and great job getting so close to where you want to be

Chadxx

My weight fluctuates more than 2 pounds from day to day. Introducing exercise will also cause water retention. You are early in the process and it is way to soon to worry. That said, be sure to weigh all solids, measure all liquids, use accurate data, and count absolutely everything.

lindsayrozynek

@Chadxx thanks for the tips!

Nony_Mouse

lindsayrozynek wrote: »

@Nony_Mouse
I hope to have some good news to report back in a couple weeks. I'll post again in the thread.

Keep up the good work and great job getting so close to where you want to be

Cool . Just stay the course. If the scale still isn't going down in a couple of weeks we can take a closer look and see where you can make some changes.

Verity1111

lindsayrozynek wrote: »

Hi!

This is my first time posting here in the forum. I hope to get some feedback on my post below

I want to lose some weight and get strong, so I set a 12 week time-frame for myself to get started and see what changes I can make to my body and how it responds.

Today I am 3 weeks in and have only lost about 1 kilo (2lbs). I currently weigh 77.4 kilos (170lbs). I thought I would lose about 1 kilo per week or at least get somewhere in the 76 kilo range (even if it's only 76.9 lol) by this 3rd week.

Maybe 1kilo per week is a little unrealistic, but I thought in the beginning maybe I would lose weight a little faster bc I'm not at my "normal" weight which is around 73 kilos (160 lbs). And then I thought I would lose weight slower once I get around 73kilos.

My goal is to be around 68-70 kilos (150-155lbs) or at least quite close to that goal at the end of my 12 weeks.

I feel frustrates bc I am working out really hard and eating clean and sticking to healthy portion sizes.

Here's what my exercise and food routine looks like.

Monday: boxing 1.5 hrs
Tuesday: either a rest day or "complete body workout class" it's like a mix of intense cardio + low weight, high rep weights. 1 hr.
Wednesday: ballet 1hr (sometimes with a 1hr trampoline cardio class after)
Thursday: ballet 1 hr
Friday: rest day
Saturday: ballet 1 hr
Sunday: trampoline cardio class 1 hr

My food routine is something like this:

Breakfast: protein shake (low sugar and carbs)
Lunch: some kind of lean protein + usually a small basic house sald with balsamic vinaigrette
Snack: Greek yogurt, grilled chicken (often it's from a package though) or tomatoes with a little humus
Dinner: Lean protein with a veggie or a homemade veggie soup.

I feel like I'm taking all the right steps but don't see on the scale much change.

Is fat changing to muscle ? Can that happen so soon?

Anyway, any feedback would be lovely!

Thanks so much

Lindsay

It doesn't matter what type of food or how clean you eat, it only matters how many calories you eat. Count calories and if you are, maybe you need to lower your average net intake per day.

lindsayrozynek

@Nony_Mouse today I was approx. 0.5 kilos lighter than my post last week! I can't believe I'm so proud of only about 1.5 kilos, but it took longer than I thought it would. Just shortly over 3 weeks. Today I weigh 76.8 kilos

trigden1991

If you're not losing weight at the rate you'd like then eat less or move more to increase your calorie deficit.

If you're in the ideal weighty/bodyfat range then it'll be harder to lose the fat and you'll need to readjust your expectations.

Nony_Mouse

trigden1991 wrote: »

If you're not losing weight at the rate you'd like then eat less or move more to increase your calorie deficit.

If you're in the ideal weighty/bodyfat range then it'll be harder to lose the fat and you'll need to readjust your expectations.

Lindsay's recently upped exercise quite considerably, so possible that fluid retention from that is masking fat loss.

lindsayrozynek wrote: »

@Nony_Mouse today I was approx. 0.5 kilos lighter than my post last week! I can't believe I'm so proud of only about 1.5 kilos, but it took longer than I thought it would. Just shortly over 3 weeks. Today I weigh 76.8 kilos

You should definitely be proud of that!! An average of half a kilo a week is perfect

Rusty740

I'm not sure if I saw whether or not you weight yourself daily. If not, I'd encourage it. You will get a much better understanding of what your weight is doing.

I think you're right on track, btw. Some weeks are more, some are less.