Not losing inches

Nks2498

I have been on a calorie deficit since March and been doing 10k steps since. I went from being 10 stone 9 to 8 stone 13 (just a couple of lbs away from my pre covid target weight) but I haven’t lost any inches????
What could I possibly be doing wrong?
I eat 1500 calories, drink between 2-4 litres of water a day and I’ve cut down heavily on the junk I eat (crisps sweets coke ice cream.)

penguinmama87

Have you been taking measurements in multiple places on your body? Anecdotally, it seems there's quite a few of us that will lose from other places on our bodies before waist measurements budge.

How tall are you? One frustrating thing about weight loss is that you can't spot reduce. Depending on your height, something like recomp might be better for a narrower waist, because you might not actually want to lose more weight. This is a good thread to give you an idea of what that means: https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10177803/recomposition-maintaining-weight-while-losing-fat

AnnPT77

Also, one can lose weight in a thin layer all over one's body, which doesn't change any one measurement all that much; or lose fat that's inside the torso around vital organs ("visceral fat") which doesn't reduce inches, but - because it's an especially dangerous type of fat - has a very positive effect on health risks.

Ten pounds (if I did the math from stones right, tough for a USAian!) is a nice amount to lose, but bear with me for sort of a disgusting way of considering it. If you think of how thick a layer 10 pounds of butter or shortening would be, spread evenly over your skin area from head to foot, it probably isn't super thick. I'm sure that your fat was lost more unevenly than that, but it could still be smaller bits from lots of areas, affecting standard tape measurement points not all that much. I lost more than you did, but definitely lost from my face/head (smaller hat), hands (smaller rings), feet (smaller shoes), and more.

Usually the latter, the visceral fat, is more common in someone seriously obese, but it's possible in others who are not as overweight, IMU. It's a stronger possibility, I think, in someone who ate a lot of calorie dense, high-fat, high-sweet, not very nutrient-dense foods. No way to be sure.

futuresylph

I stopped measuring myself years ago, because I was never confident that I was measuring the same place with the same tension in the tape. Too easy to make myself crazy second-guessing myself. I concentrated instead on how my clothing fit. Perhaps that will work for you?