I need help with redirection (long post sorry!)

SisepuedeLinda
SisepuedeLinda Posts: 132 Member
edited August 2023 in Health and Weight Loss
Hello! I’m in a mess of a situation and hoping someone can help me out! My story might be a little long so bear with me :) F. 5’5. 32. 202. 10k steps a day (3-5k of that comes from work where I stand and walk, pace, lift some heavy things, clean). Weight lifting 3x a week.

I started last June with just counting calories. I ate in a deficit and did some fasting with half of my days attempting to reach 10k steps and lost 45 pounds! However, my bf wanted to join me in October and we started the gym. This is where I fell apart. A few weeks in I was still losing weight. Not as much as before with the walking but I didn’t mind as I found I really enjoy lifting weights! But the more I learned and wanted to perfect my form, learn machines, learning how to eat while lifting… I felt (feel!) very stressed out about it all. I’m not sure if it was the lifting, trying to figure out how much to eat and my activity level for a proper tdee but my weightloss ultimately came to a halt and has been a bumpy ride. I’m not sure if I need to eat at sedentary like others say? Some days I’m ok to eat less other days I feel pretty hungry. I’m waiting my test results for hormone levels because I’ve been in a deficit, eating less and going to the gym yet my weightloss has stagnated for the past 8 months. I’m so confused idk what to even do anymore. I feel like I am obsessed with the whole idea of weightloss because I’m not getting it right! What throws me off the most is how much to eat. Walking and a deficit was a no brainier but adding in lifting just made a mess in my mind. I’ve even eaten little as 1000 calories while still being pretty active and I did lose some pounds but is this the only option I have? So currently, I’m walking 10k a day, I cut my lifting because I thought maybe I was stressing my body too much? So I do 2 lower body days, 1 upper body day (maybe a 2nd with light dumbbells). How much should I be eating to lose weight this kind of activity? At this point I don’t care if it’s a pound a week or a month I just want to see something move on the scale! I know the scale can be bad but the reality is I’m still 70+ pounds overweight with 46% body fat so I want to know why others have lost fat and can see that reflected in the scale but mine doesn’t change, not even measurements! Pictures I can see a slight change but that’s hard to tell as well. I’ve thought about not lifting weights and go back to only walking and a deficit but every time I try to research it it says it’s highly recommended for weight loss. I might have gained some muscle or maybe just got some definition but I don’t want to lose what progress I made either. I’ve also read I should take a break but since I’m so obese i should be ok to keep going. I also have slight insulin issues (slightly high glucose readings but normal a1c and possibly pcos). Please help and thank you so much if you made it this far! :)

Main Questions I have: how much should I be eating to lose weight? What is my activity level and what should I set it at? Any guesses on why I’m not losing weight but eating less and exercising more? Should I stop weight lifting? Shouldn’t I be seeing fat loss quicker than muscle gain? Should I increase/decrease anything? Would a diet “reset” help at this point and how can I do it? Any other advice/opinions?
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Replies

  • lucytalbot94
    lucytalbot94 Posts: 32 Member
    I don't have all of the answers, but in my experience, as soon as I start lifting weights I maintain my weight (and sometimes gain it!), this is because my muscles are getting bigger whilst I loose fat and therefore my weight it staying the same, but my fat percentage is dropping. It is so easy to get obsessed with the scales, but put them away from a few weeks and try taking measurements instead. Your body is most probably changing shape due to muscle building, but the scales won't account for this.

    Be kind to yourself, Linda, you're doing amazing 🥰
  • csplatt
    csplatt Posts: 1,205 Member
    Over the last 8 months, how many calories per day have you eaten (consistently) — or does it change all the time? How are you measuring that calorie count? Are you using a digital food scale?

    All signs point to you are not in a deficit. What are the rules for “how to eat while lifting” that you followed?
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 10,220 Member
    edited August 2023
    It's really pretty simple, if your in a calorie deficit, you'll lose weight. I would suggest to stop overthinking and not micromanaging your every move or thought. First of all your carrying a lot more fat than you should which by default will have put on extra lean mass over time, that's just how our bodies work and in that context please don't worry that you might be losing a little lean mass because you can afford to lose some for the sake of weight loss and considering your not losing much weight your probably not losing much lean mass at this point. I suspect it probably the simply fact that your eating more than you think and not burning as many calories as you believe you are. Weight training will burn more calories but it can also cause people to eat more. Try being more accurate with your calorie counting and don't worry about how many your burning, just find a deficit that facilitates weight loss. A diet and exercise regime that is repetitive and boringly consistent might be easier for counting purposes. Anyway don't give up just head down and give it another go.
  • briscogun
    briscogun Posts: 1,138 Member
    I would try to reset my setting on MFP to make sure my calorie goal is truly accurate and then go from there. I know when I start weight lifting or if I start a new weight routine my muscles will hurt and I'll retain water for a good 7-10 days, but then have a big "whoosh" on the scale. Definitely not 8 months of water retention though. Weight lifting shouldn't hurt or hinder your progress, unless it's creating a huge "calorie burn" and you are eating those back? I would recommend NOT eating your calories back from weight lifting if you can help it.

    I'm guessing that if you were losing before that your logging was tight and you were on track with that part, so I'll skip the whole "are you weighing your food and tracking everything" routine.

    Good luck with it! Let us know what you figure out and how it goes!
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,218 Member
    briscogun wrote: »
    I would try to reset my setting on MFP to make sure my calorie goal is truly accurate and then go from there. I know when I start weight lifting or if I start a new weight routine my muscles will hurt and I'll retain water for a good 7-10 days, but then have a big "whoosh" on the scale. Definitely not 8 months of water retention though. Weight lifting shouldn't hurt or hinder your progress, unless it's creating a huge "calorie burn" and you are eating those back? I would recommend NOT eating your calories back from weight lifting if you can help it.

    I'm guessing that if you were losing before that your logging was tight and you were on track with that part, so I'll skip the whole "are you weighing your food and tracking everything" routine.

    Good luck with it! Let us know what you figure out and how it goes!

    In my case, when I start progressive strength training, I gain a small number of pounds, and hang onto them until I stop regularly training progressively. That, too, will not hide ongoing fat loss - even slow fat loss - for months and months. In my case, it masks fat loss until I lose enough fat that it exceeds the temporary but fairly fixed-amount water retention gain. When fat loss is slow (half a pound a week or less), that can take up to 4-6 weeks. When I stop progressive strength training, the few pounds of water drops off - a scale loss not explained by calorie levels, but a pretty small thing.

    This is not a disagreement with the quoted post, rather just saying that there are potentially different patterns of water retention. Most of those patterns don't just keep increasing and increasing to hide many weeks to months of gradual consistent fat loss.

    I suspect that for women with statistically unusual patterns of hormonal water retention - those that may see a new low weight only once a month - the water retention could mask fat loss even longer than I've seen, depending on timing vs. the woman's menstrual cycle . . . but I'm not sure, because I'm menopausal.

    I can't think of a mechanism that would make a healthy body retain water in excess of ongoing fat loss for an entire 8 months.

  • westrich20940
    westrich20940 Posts: 920 Member
    If you are using MFP to set your daily calorie goal - I'd choose the activity level just above sedentary. And go from there. The estimate of your BMR is ~1600 though so you don't really want to be routinely eating less than that.

    Weight lifting will lead to water retention which is why you may have seen your weight loss slow/stop - even if you aren't soar or over-doing it, your muscles still need that water to heal/get stronger. Should even out after a bit.

    For you, I'd say that you maintenance level calories is somewhere between ~1900-2200 (this is a range from a TDEE calculator that is Sedentary - Light Exercise bc I think you are likely probably somewhere in between there) cal/day. I know that's a bit of a range, but it's all estimates and you just need to see where you are after some time. But you could start by setting your daily calorie goal at ~18/1900 and do that consistently and see after 4+ weeks what your weight does. Make any needed adjustments from there. Your steps from work though don't need to be logged as activity in MFP, that's included in the activity level you set (which for you I'd pick whichever one is right above sedentary if you are using MFP since you don't have a 'desk job'). Your actual daily calorie needs might be a bit higher or lower than those estimates but the only way to figure that out is to start somewhere - do it consistently and then use your weight to judge how to make any changes if you need to. But you certainly should not be eating as low as 1,000 cals/day.

  • ahoy_m8
    ahoy_m8 Posts: 3,053 Member
    It sounds to me like you know how to eat to lose weight. You have had a lot of success so far. And it's awesome you have discovered you love strength training! So, so good for you.

    I don't think you need to change your diet much or at all to support the addition of strength training (assuming you had decent nutrition before the addition of ST). It's challenging, but it involves relatively small movements involving few muscles for short bursts of time. So it doesn't burn a lot of calories for how challenging it feels. Your daily activity (walking and active job) burns vastly more calories, so if you are fueling properly for that, what you do at the gym won't throw you off. There's a lot of "bro science" out there that makes the nutrition component a lot more complicated than it really is.

    You want to get minimum grams of protein, fat and fiber for your size regardless of gym activity. Maybe a little more protein is helpful, but you already lift heavy things at work, so don't let anyone overcomplicate it for you.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    There are mistakes that people commonly make that cause them to not lose weight that we might be able to spot if you change your Diary Sharing settings to Public. In the app, go to Settings > Diary Setting > Diary Sharing > and check Public. Desktop: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings

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