Why am I not losing? Low calorie and exercising...

fast_eddie_72

Oh, you can find that stuff all over the place. It'll probably be on Dr. Oz today too. lol That's kind of the problem - there's a TON of information about losing weight out there and most of it is misleading or flat out wrong. What many (hundres? thousands?) of people here have proven time and again, it really all comes down to calories in vs. calories out. Making it more complicated than that makes for good headlines to sell magazines or get google clicks, but little more.

Look at what you posted. No where does it say "you'll stop losing weight". It says "It is this variability in the metabolic rate with energy restriction that causes much of the variability in weight loss between people". So you may lose weight faster or slower than someone else. But you *won't* lose weight *faster* if you eat *more*.

Don't rely on one source. Click the link to the tread I posted above. It's a good starting point. More on the Minnesota Starvation Experiment here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Starvation_Experiment

A good article from Weight Watchers here (and some of you thought they were all bad!)

http://www.weightwatchers.com/util/art/index_art.aspx?tabnum=1&art_id=35501

At the end of the day, you need to maintain a calorie deficit to lose weight. Doing so WILL slow down your metabolism. But there is no other choice, and it's not as dramatic as some would have you believe. You have to have a calorie deficit to lose weight. That's why it's a good idea to up the exercise, which boosts metabolism to try to counter-act that a bit. There are all kinds of studies on how much the metabolism will slow down. Some say more, some say less. Probably does vary from one person to another. There are NO studies that I've seen that say it will slow the metabolism down to such an extent that you'll stop losing weight, even if you are starving. (Note: starving is a bad thing. Can't say that enough. I'm not advocating a super low calorie diet.)

If your weight loss is stuck, you're probably pretty close to "the sweet spot". If you were way under, you'd have all kinds of bad things happening. Starvation is a bad thing. But it is always accompanied by weight loss. If you're stuck and want to get things moving, I would advise kicking the exercise into high gear, or cutting the calories back for a couple of days to get things moving again.

(edit) I just found this one - really interesting read!

http://fitnessblackbook.com/main/starvation-mode-why-you-probably-never-need-to-worry-about-it/

wonderwoman234

I'm going by my own results.....

fast_eddie_72

I'm going by my own results.....

Okay

I'm really not trying to tell you what to do or even saying you're wrong. Just sharing what I've learned.