Dropping calories and exercising and not losing weight issues

topsnowboarder01

I excercise 5 times a week (cycling and peleton) i also practise 16 and 8 fasting and i have a calorie deficit of calories of around 500 cals per day but i`m not seeing any real weight loss...

I must admit i`m starting to thinks whats the point !!!

I have belly fat and thats it,i weigh 81 kgs so i`m not massively overweight but want to shift the belly fat.

Any advise welcome.

yirara

If you don't have a lot weight to lose it will be slow. So for how long are you trying to lose weight and how often (and when) do you use the bathroom scale? How tall are you? I assume you're male? Are you using a kitchen scale to track your food intake?

Retroguy2000

If you aren't losing any weight, you aren't in a 500 calorie deficit.

Your tracking may be faulty, or you may be over-estimating the exercise calories.

yirara

Could also still be water retention if they started exercising 2-3 weeks ago.

HillaryIsAJoy

I’m curious—you said you’re not seeing any real weight loss and you’re beginning to think what’s the point?

What is the point? I mean that in the most compassionate way—remind yourself why you started. Actually answer the question—what is the point of this weight loss endeavor for you?

Ernest_Nigma

What daily activity level did you specify when you were developing your calorie target? I had to adjust my estimation downward. Especially after starting to exercise more, I found that the time I wasn't exercising included more resting time. You could also try recalculating the calorie targets with a larger weekly weight loss aim and see if your weight starts coming down. The effect of either change is to reduce your daily calorie target to see if you can find one that starts working for you. It's probably better to reduce the target gradually until you're getting results.

Another alternative that I used was to buy a good kitchen scale and use it. A lot of my estimations were off, some by a fair margin. Also, where possible, read the food label and make sure the logging choice you're using matches the calorie count from the label. Some math may be needed to scale for serving sizes. The final bit of advice I'd offer is to have patience. When you make changes, give yourself some time to adjust before changing further. Stay with it, keep trying, and good luck.

tomcustombuilder

It can take a month to see results of fatloss on the scale. If no loss in that timeframe then you aren’t in a weekly calorie deficit.

williamsonmj1

The two main reasons why weight loss doesn't happen when you think you are doing everything right are (i) errors measuring calories, (ii) your metabolism 'slowing down' to compensate for reduced calorie input.

What number (ii) looks like is that subconsciously you will just find yourself moving less. Without realizing it you will spend more time resting. When you at a desk you will get up less often. You will put off chores. You may fidget less. This is actually a huge deal because for most people the energy spent in the day on non-exercise movement and activity is a lot more than the energy spent in the day on exercise. So, e.g. your daily energy requirement might be, say, 1000 calories basal metabolic rate, 600 calories non-exercise energy expenditure and 400 calories energy expenditure. Mechanisms like the one I described just now could easily cause your non-exercise energy expenditure to drop from, say, 600 to 300. Now your 500 calorie deficit is 200, which is much smaller.

One of the reasons why the '5,000 steps' or '10,000' steps thing is good is because it forces you to maintain a baseline of activity, and reduces the extent to which this may impact things. You should also look to do other things to make sure your non-energy exercise expenditure is not reducing- e.g. make a point of walking or cycling to work, make sure you aren't skipping chores etc.

Another point is that if you are dieting severely and only doing cardio you will certainly be losing muscle mass. And so your basal metabolic rate will also be reducing. When you are dieting you should be trying to maintain your protein levels and do strength work to avoid loss of muscle mass.