Why am I not loosing?

_aenyeweddien_

I know you've probably had enough "why am I not loosing" type of threads but I could really use some advice:(

So I started just over a month ago. I'm female, height: 178cm weight: 90kg (it's about 5 10" and 198lbs). My job is sedentary but I'm in the gym 3-4 times a week, doing kickboxing once a week and weight+cardio on the rest of the days. My kcal intake has been between 1300-1500, the most active days on the higher end, I don't eat the exercise kcal back just eat at 1500kcal on active days. I log absolutely everything, every lick, bite, cooking oil, even stock cubes, everything. I use kitchen scale for everything.

According to MFP, by doing all that, I should have lost about 4kg. I've only lost 1kg, which is just devastating and feels very inadequate to the work I've put in. What worries me even more, is that apparently 0.4kg out of that 1kg I've lost was muscle mass! Is it just me, or is that a lot for a month? My daily proteins are around 70-75g, that's as high as I'm able to go without going low carb which is not working for me (tried it in the past, it was the worst 6 weeks ever, I felt horrible).

I would greatly appreciate any info/advice. I don't know what to do, I don't want to lower my kcal further, I'm already hungry most of the time on 1300-1500....also what do I do to stop muscle loss?

TavistockToad

How have you measured that you've lost muscle?

Why aren't you eating back exercise calories?

You can easily eat more protein without going low carb, by eating a more reasonable number of calories.

Blythmag

You sound like you are doing most things right, maybe ease up on the gym and try nice walks it’s how I do it and stick to the calorie intake and then there’s no reason for it not to work.

_aenyeweddien_

TavistockToad wrote: »

How have you measured that you've lost muscle?

Why aren't you eating back exercise calories?

You can easily eat more protein without going low carb, by eating a more reasonable number of calories.

I know they're not perfect but I used the scale in the gym that analyses body composition and compares it to previous result, according to that I've lost 1kg of weight out of which 0.4kg was muscle mass. do you think my kcal are wrong? Cause when I first set the goals MFP gave me 1200, but that was just too low, I couldn't stick to it so i increased it to 1300.

As for eating back exercise kcal, I'm worried I'll overestimate the burn so I just add 200 extra so all together on active days it comes up to 1500.

Protein is a bit tricky, I forgot to mention I'm a vegeterian allergic to nuts and all protein powders I tried, whether it's whey or plant based, give me upset stomach

Lillymoo01

If you open your diary others might be able to spot some logging errors which could result in you eating more than you think you are. We all make them, and made a lot more of them when we first started out as it is a skill that takes practice.

ceiswyn

What exactly do you mean that ‘according to MFP [...] I should have lost about 4kg’?

Do you mean that you set your goal to lose 1kg a week? Because if so, your problem is that you can’t actually do that. Your calorie needs aren’t high enough to sustain the deficit required.

Here’s what’s happened.

A rate of loss of 1kg a week is equivalent to a 1000 kcal deficit every day.
Given your stats and activity, you likely maintain weight at about 2000 calories. So in order to lose 4kg in a month, you would have to eat under 1000 calories a day, every day.
MFP won’t give you a calorie goal of less than 1200, because it’s too hard to get adequate nutrition on that little. So straight away, eating the amount MFP gives you, you’re not going to lose 1kg a week.
And you’re eating more than that anyway. So your actual calorie deficit is more like 500 a day, which would give you more like a 2kg loss in a month.
Add in any logging errors, weight fluctuations etc and voila, 1kg per month. Which is a much more sensible rate of loss for you anyway.

_aenyeweddien_

@ceiswyn it makes sense...I guess I expected too much too quickly. What got my hopes up too was the estimate at the end of each day when the diary is completed which was around 86 most days.

Guess I need to learn to be patient and appreciate every little step in the right direction