No weight loss, losing faith!

Ginnugget

Hi. Advice please!
I’m a 40 yr old woman returning to training after a few years out having kids and looking after everyone else. I’ve been working out with a PT once a week for about 6 weeks now (cardio, weights, HIIT), I run twice a week (about 3miles each time), and I swim-train hard once a week for an hour. The scales have not shifted in a month and I am getting seriously concerned! My legs have toned and my clothes fit a little better but I still feel heavy & ‘lumpy’ around my abdomen and my back. I have hit a plateau.
My diet is good - really healthy 95% of the time. I eat the same meals as my husband, but smaller portions, and he has lost 5 stone in 6months! What am I doing wrong? Why am I not losing weight? I feel so much healthier and stronger (I’ll never be skinny at 5’10 and 13 stone), but I want to look more toned and slim down.
Any advice? I do have problems sleeping and I probably don’t drink enough water when I’m not training, but otherwise I’m stumped. I am annoyed that despite all my effort I have little to show for it! Thanks (typical Exercise day diary attached - calories from Garmin tracker)

quiksylver296

Your muscles are likely retaining water to repair themselves. This water weight will drop off as your body gets used to the new exercise. Read this article.

http://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations

Ginnugget

Thank you! Good advice in there.

Anabirgite

There is so much wonderful information in these threads and what repliers call stickies. I was definitely struggling at first and then discovered I was not eating enough protein and enough calories. I am not educated enough to make suggestions regarding you, but the knowledge I have ascertained led me to understand I was deficient in protein and calories. So when I upped my calories(still mind-blowing) to >1500 I started losing weight, and protein I began improving in my strength training too. Good Luck.

middlehaitch

At 182 lbs you are only just into the overweight caragory.
Change your goal to 0.5-1lbs a week, the 0.5 would be best, and eat more, including your exercise cals.

Eating so few cals could have suppressed your NEAT and this will inturn cancel out some or all of your exercise calories, and make workouts less effective.
(I’ve done this, it’s subtle, and I think it happens more than we realize)

If you are worried that your exercise cals are too high, start by consistently eating 75% for a full menstrual cycle (minimum) then adjust up or down depending on real word results.

And what quiksylver296 posted.

Your husband had a lot more to lose than you so could lose faster. For yourself look for a slow but consistent loss over time (not linear).

Cheers, h.

whmscll

Not sure what exercise you did on the day you posted but the exercise burn looks high to me.

Ginnugget

whmscll wrote: »

Not sure what exercise you did on the day you posted but the exercise burn looks high to me.

That was an hour with the PT (cardio & strength) and loads of walking during the day, but I don’t tend to count walks in calorie allowance.

Decided to chill, continue to eat well & ditch the scales for a while! Not much more I can do! Lol

hipari

Ginnugget wrote: »

My legs have toned and my clothes fit a little better but I still feel heavy & ‘lumpy’ around my abdomen and my back. I have hit a plateau.

I feel so much healthier and stronger (I’ll never be skinny at 5’10 and 13 stone), but I want to look more toned and slim down.

You said it yourself, you have toned and your clothes fit better. You said you want to look more toned, and that's what happened (to your legs at least). You can't choose where the fat comes off. Congratulations on your progress, keep up the good work and ditch the scale. I know it's really easy to look at the numbers on the scale for only confirmation of progress (I often fall into the same trap), but isn't how your clothes look and feel 12 hours a day more important than what number is on your scale for maybe 30 seconds in the morning?

Emmapatterson1729

Burning 750 plus calories, only eating 1100 calories....

Up calories. Weightloss stalls when consuming way too low of calories.

5'10" that's very dangerously low for your height and activity level.

1200 is goal calories for a 4'11" bedridden female to lose weight!

I'm 45, 5'8" and consume around 1600 at no where near your activity level.

Losing weight is not worth organs failing or dying for.

Emmapatterson1729

Woos, I had heart failure from dropping calories too low and exercising... Once one organ fails, it starts a chain reaction of health problems.

That is starvation calorie intake!!! The Jewish were starved in concentration camps at 1300 calories a day.

I wouldn't wish heart failure on my worst enemy. 100 lb water weight gain in two months and body deformities.

And no, I didn't think it could happen to me, I didn't feel hungry, I felt strong, athletic, and fit. My daily intake was usually around 1100.

nighthawk584

Emmapatterson1729 wrote: »

Woos, I had heart failure from dropping calories too low and exercising... Once one organ fails, it starts a chain reaction of health problems.

That is starvation calorie intake!!! The Jewish were starved in concentration camps at 1300 calories a day.

I wouldn't wish heart failure on my worst enemy. 100 lb water weight gain in two months and body deformities.

And no, I didn't think it could happen to me, I didn't feel hungry, I felt strong, athletic, and fit. My daily intake was usually around 1100.

Pay no mind to the woo clan.

Emmapatterson1729

nighthawk584 wrote: »

Emmapatterson1729 wrote: »

Woos, I had heart failure from dropping calories too low and exercising... Once one organ fails, it starts a chain reaction of health problems.

That is starvation calorie intake!!! The Jewish were starved in concentration camps at 1300 calories a day.

I wouldn't wish heart failure on my worst enemy. 100 lb water weight gain in two months and body deformities.

And no, I didn't think it could happen to me, I didn't feel hungry, I felt strong, athletic, and fit. My daily intake was usually around 1100.

Pay no mind to the woo clan.

Thanks!! Just crazy to me when people support starvation for weight loss. I'm surprised the mods haven't shut down this thread yet!

And the ones who have successfully lost at 1500 calories or higher get woos.

There's à difference between deficit and depravation. I wish someone had told me this was a possibility before my heart failed. I wouldn't have taken the risk.

Hannahwalksfar

People in concentration camps were on an average of 500 a day if they were lucky

BarbaraHelen2013

I think the woos are from people who only bothered to read your first sentence and are not reading it in context of the rest of the thread! 🙄

Read that first sentence and you’d woo it too, so don’t worry!

Redordeadhead

Emmapatterson1729 wrote: »

Woos, I had heart failure from dropping calories too low and exercising... Once one organ fails, it starts a chain reaction of health problems.

That is starvation calorie intake!!! The Jewish were starved in concentration camps at 1300 calories a day.

I wouldn't wish heart failure on my worst enemy. 100 lb water weight gain in two months and body deformities.

And no, I didn't think it could happen to me, I didn't feel hungry, I felt strong, athletic, and fit. My daily intake was usually around 1100.

I think it was perhaps "Weightloss stalls when consuming way too low of calories" that got you woo'd. Don't worry about it!

ceiswyn

Emmapatterson1729 wrote: »

Burning 750 plus calories, only eating 1100 calories....

Up calories. Weightloss stalls when consuming way too low of calories.

5'10" that's very dangerously low for your height and activity level.

1200 is goal calories for a 4'11" bedridden female to lose weight!

I'm 45, 5'8" and consume around 1600 at no where near your activity level.

Losing weight is not worth organs failing or dying for.

The bolded part is woo. Don't be surprised that people wooed it.

The fact that eating too little is dangerous is not woo. However, at this point we can't actually be certain whether the OP is eating too little. On the figures she's provided she definitely is, but I don't think she has said how she's calculating the calories she consumes - for example, whether she's using a food scale, including cooking oils, dressings, drinks and fruit/veg, etc...