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mattieballengee2

Hey just started going to the gym for maybe three weeks now I’ve barley seen any results and am still maintaining my weight (sometimes it goes up sometimes down). What’s the advice for loosing weight and getting toned? And what about a deficit (I’m struggling)

csplatt

Are you in a deficit? How much are you eating and how are you measuring it? 3 weeks is a very short time!

musicfan68

3 weeks is a short time to see any changes. However, just working out at the gym does not necessarily equal losing weight, unless you are eating in a calorie deficit. Before I really understood how things worked, I joined a gym thinking that would help me lose weight. 6 months later, I gained a lot of strength, but no weight loss. You have to be aware of how many calories you are eating and what calorie level you need to eat at for a healthy deficit.

springlering62

You registered a few minutes before posting this question.

So I’m going to hazard a guess you haven’t set up a profile, or a calorie goal and are winging it.

Do both, and spend a couple weeks recording calories.

It’s wasn’t til I recorded incoming, and got a handle on how hard it was to burn calories that the lightbulb clicked for me. An hour in the gym, a three mile walk, a 5k, they don’t burn nearly as much as you think. You might be lucky to burn a single serving of (two) Oreos. Not the whole pack like I (duh!) naïvely thought.

I was also shocked to realize I was eating 10,000+ calories a day (I had a sweet tooth that wouldn’t quit) when my starting goal was a fraction- literally, a fraction- of that number.

AnnPT77

For losing weight: Get a starting calorie estimate for weight loss from MFP or an outside TDEE calculator.

Don't aim to lose more than 0.5-1% of current weight per week, with a bias toward the lower end unless severely obese and under close medical supervision for deficiencies or health problems.

If you followed the MFP instructions (i.e. you based activity level on life before intentional exercise), estimate exercise calories carefully, log them, and eat those back, too. If you got your goal from a TDEE calculator, eat that number of calories daily.

On a weekly average basis, stick close to goal calories, like +/- 50 calories per day.

Do that for 4-6 weeks (whole menstrual periods if that applies), then look at your average weight change per week over the whole period. If the first week or two look wildly different from what followed, ignore those weeks and continue for a couple more weeks to accumulate enough experience data.

Based on your personal weight change results (<= super important!), adjust your calorie goal using the assumption that roughly 500 calories per day equals a pound a week of fat gain/loss.

If you want health and muscle gain, spend most of your calorie budget on overall good nutrition, especially but not exclusively ample protein, eating mostly less processed foods.

Weight loss (fat loss) is all about calorie balance: What you eat vs. the totality of activity in your life, not just exercise but job, home chores, non-exercise hobbies, etc

Toning? Get a good exercise routine, strength and cardio. Realistically, it's likely to take months and more. Toning is adding some muscle, and losing enough fat so that the muscle shows to the degree you personally like. It'll take patience.

All of it takes persistence and patience. Fat loss takes lots of that. Muscle gain takes even more.

You can do it. It's worth it. I'm cheering for you to succeed!