Doing everything right, but not seeing progress

PAV8888

So I would personally encourage the build muscle/train without allowing substantial weight gain vs the same in conjunction with losing weight

Why? Complex. More than one reason. But truly it boils down to because it's slower and has no end date and is less likely to push you quickly into too low of body fat percentage

Slow is your friend after substantial weight loss.

Regain is a bigger risk and problem than incremental benefits. Spinning your tires in a good place far from the edge is much better than driving quickly to the edge.

Not saying my perspective is THE correct one. It won't produce Olympic athletes. But I *feel* it may help some extra people achieve long term weight reduction after they've arrived at a fairly good place !🤷‍♂️

AnnPT77

echristensen010 wrote: »

@kshama2001 Activity level is set to moderate. I am 5'3 and weigh between 115.8 and 117.8 depending on the day.

Another insight I had after reflecting is that I did increase my calories from 1400/day to 1605/day about 10 weeks ago when I started training more diligently. So that is maybe impacting results too. Perhaps I need more time to let the results take place.

Slow fat loss (tiny deficit) can take a surprisingly long time to show up on the scale - I can say from personal experience. I've had it take more than a month to show up even in my weight trending app - let alone from simple observation of scale weight - and I'm long menopausal so I don't have hormonal water retention variability in the picture.

For muscle gain results, you absolutely need more than 10 weeks. I'm not saying you'd see no progress at all in that span . . . but it's unlikely to be dramatic. Fat loss can be kind of fast, but that's unlikely to be the right answer in your scenario IMO, partly because you're already slim and at a low-ish body fat (even if not max bodybuilder low), and partly because you have muscle-gaining goals.

If you do have goals to look like a bodybuilder, that's great, and you likely can (with extreme patience and discipline). But keep in mind that the way female bodybuilders look in competition and publicity photos is not how they look most of the time just walking around in daily life. For formal photos, they're fake-tanned, carefully lit, mega-posed, professionally photographed, and maybe even photoshopped. If internet influencers are a factor, the same will apply to what they share in public . . . and a fair fraction of them flat out lie about how long it took them to achieve the body they have now, and misrepresent that they got that look by some less daunting program that they're selling, rather than the slower and more challenging route they actually used.

You seem more level headed than to be influenced by that kind of nonsense, but I can't help but rant a little on account of seeing quite a few more naive and starry-eyed young women post things that tell me they have fallen for it (and I wonder what other threads they may be reading, like this one, so sometimes I rant).

@PAV8888 has a point about hormonal issues around low body fat, either appetite/hunger snapback at extreme leanness, or loss of menstrual cycles (which can happen at varying levels, but unlikely at your current stage, seems like).

Your calorie goal does seem oddly low to me, but I'm possibly biased by being a mysteriously good li'l ol' calorie burner, despite being much older than you, and only a little bigger. There's one thing you might consider, once your weight stabilizes, or as you have a couple of months in the bag where you're seeing the teensy tiny weight loss that would be the most you should go for with your size/goals. That would be inching your calorie goal upward a little, with a long-ish adjustment period between, to see if you can get the same weight trend at higher calories.

Eating very little (low calories) is not any kind of virtue, although I feel like some few women behave as if it were. (I hope that's died since the era of my youth, when eating like a tiny sparrow was absolutely seen as more feminine!)

In my view, the more calories you can eat while accomplishing your goals, the better. That's the path to thriving. More calories will fuel your muscular gains better, more calories will let you get more nutrients which also will fuel your gains better plus maximize your workout energy for better results. If you can train your body to accept a little more but still accomplish your body goals (look and performance), that's a big win, a virtuous cycle.

I'm not saying that for sure can work (eating more, same weight management outcome) . . . but our bodies tend to respond to what we train them to do. Calorie deficits tend to train our bodies to get along on less (adaptive thermogenesis). That is reversible, generally.

Think about it.

Best wishes!

AnnPT77

With apologies to OP for a digressive side trip into chatting amongst the audience . . .

PAV8888 wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

PAV8888 wrote: »

is 22% body fat for a female considered to be high these days?

No. But also not rock bottom crazy low, depending on build.

It is interesting that not only is it not always possible to easily estimate these percentages but sources don't always agree on their meaning and ranges/brackets.

Not my circus nor my monkeys and there exists only a tiny tiny picture of the OP on my screen, and screen pics can always be made to show what one wants to show... but as a neutral observer with few data-points other than a 60lb successful weight loss and a picture of what appears to be an individual as slim or slimmer than the pictures I've seen of our formidable Ann, I would encourage, strongly, a full examination of goals and their setting in order of importance and how to best achieve the most important first.

(snip)

@PAV8888 - Yes, and age is a relevant variable, although I posted a generic chart for simplicity. Bringing in SmartBMI was a good thought on your part, and there are age-related charts on the web.

OP is leaner than I am, by a few percentage points, if her 22% guess is accurate. The photo in my profile is from around the time I overshot my goal weight, so I was about what OP weighs now (maybe 2-5 pounds more than she, maybe 116-120ish), but at 5'5". My upper body doesn't look that different now, from recent photos.

(Annoying personal rambling in spoiler, sorry.)

I'm up a little from my preferred weight (Winter + holidays), around 131-132 most days now, rather than more like 125 as I prefer. I'm lighter than many women my age would prefer to be aesthetically, but my reasoning has to do with both minimizing joint pain and reducing odds of my specific cancer type recurring metastatically (which can happen years, even decades after the fact with this type, and body weight is a statistical factor). At this weight, my best estimate would be about 25%-ish body fat (plus or minus a couple percent, more likely plus), which is OK health-wise for a li'l ol' lady of 67. I stay in communication with my doctors about that - always multiple doctors at this stage with my health history! - and they're all fine with it.

At 125ish, my doctors are still fine, and I'm happier. That's only a slightly lower BF%. From the standpoint of comparative photo evaluation, I have to say this: My fat distribution is maybe not average for all-ages women. Even now, my upper body, say lower rib cage up, looks more like teens BF%. (I've had bodybuilder dudes here argue with my rough estimate of mid to slightly lower 20% on the basis of that photo).

My lower body, from below rib cage to maybe mid-thigh, is where my body fat likes to hang out these days. That part of me looks more high 20s to maybe even 30% percent in spots. I'm not going to link it here because I think that would be tacky, but I did post a whole body thing elsewhere to give other women my age one set of honest loose-skin results. What I'm saying here seems pretty obvious there, to me.

I do hope you're not using my photos to evaluate OP's body fat percent, because bodies are weird. Sincerely, I'm not applying my goals to her, I'm trying to listen to what her goals are. If I thought they were dangerous, I'd say so. I understand your point about cementing in maintenance habits before pushing the envelope, but she seems to be doing a pretty good job of shifting mentally from the fat-loss push to the recomposition push. I applaud that!

In context of what she's said and looking at her profile photos, I'm disinclined to emphatically argue against her goals, because she seems like a level-headed woman, and for sure she has body autonomy. She looks great, but she doesn't look excessively slim at this point in her profile photos, just nicely slim. If I were her, I'd maybe want a little more muscle gain more than I'd want a little more fat loss, but I'm not sure even young me would've agreed, and it's not my body anyway.

While I do tend toward the "worried granny" mode here often, her goals don't seem crazy extreme to me. Unusual? More aggressive than average? Maybe. The way she looks in those photos would be what a lot of women dream of, I think. But each of us has individual dreams.

echristensen010

Such great insights, and I appreciate the candor from everyone.

I personally don't have social media aside from LinkedIn, however the photos and culture from Instagram, etc. is pretty inescapable. It's always good to have a reminder that those are curated at best and outright false at worse.

I did start my journey on a very low calorie count, it wan't until 8 months in that I decided I needed to change my methods so my results could be maintained long term. That is why I am focusing on building muscle and trying to find a good way to gradually increase calories so I can eat as much as possible while having muscle definition.

The biggest take away for me from this conversation is that change takes time. It took me 9 months of a dramatic calorie deficit to drop the 62lbs. It is helpful to hear (really, to be reminded) that building back up will take more than 10 weeks.

AnnPT77

echristensen010 wrote: »

Such great insights, and I appreciate the candor from everyone.

I personally don't have social media aside from LinkedIn, however the photos and culture from Instagram, etc. is pretty inescapable. It's always good to have a reminder that those are curated at best and outright false at worse.

I did start my journey on a very low calorie count, it wan't until 8 months in that I decided I needed to change my methods so my results could be maintained long term. That is why I am focusing on building muscle and trying to find a good way to gradually increase calories so I can eat as much as possible while having muscle definition.

The biggest take away for me from this conversation is that change takes time. It took me 9 months of a dramatic calorie deficit to drop the 62lbs. It is helpful to hear (really, to be reminded) that building back up will take more than 10 weeks.

Yup. Slower than fat loss. Sadly. Worth the time, though, I'd betcha.

PAV8888

Quick note to say that no I wasn't really comparing her to your pictures Ann and I'm aware that life-saving surgery may have changed them in your case.

I'm obviously operating at a bit of a disadvantage of only having seen a very small Avatar picture when I looked or tried to I did not see any pictures at the op profile probably operator error on my part!

Beyond that I will not hide that my bias is and remains 100% towards doing things that promote long-term maintenance and that includes both mindset activities methods of eating moving and exercising if I have two options and one potentially enhances the probability someone will maintain that is what I would suggest.

Athletic and physique goals that progress slowly and without time limits are a most excellent maintenance promoting activity!

The whole thing about potentially being able to increase calories (of course this depends on how one is recording them in the first place too, right?) anyway the potential at maintenance to slowly reverse adaptation that took place during weight loss definitely does exist.

And hormonally induced rebound hunger is definitely something that happens to people. and if we had a definitive guide as to when any of these things happens with 100% probability we would all be rich and happy