Help! ... I'm not losing anything!

Peta22

Just quickly checking in here because I'm at work so I'll read through, and respond, more thoroughly later but in response to it being unlikely that I am gaining muscle - I can assure you this is incorrect in my case. I gain muscle really easily and it's already apparent in my shoulders, arms and abs even only after two weeks of 30DS. High levels of testosterone apparently run in my family.

No your body is not different. What you are seeing is water retention in your muscles. It makes your muscles appear bigger but this is temporary.

If you had elevated testosterone you would have hair on your face, a very deep voice and a lot of masculine traits. My family does have this (both my mother and grandmother have shaved their faces since they were teenagers) I have the same issue (I wax fortnightly) AND have PCOS. Yet since commencing weightlifting my waist is smaller, I've lost a cm off both my thighs and arms. After five weeks. And that's lifting much heavier weights than 30DS.

For a man to put on a pound of muscle in one month would be considered brilliant. He would've eating 2500-3000 calories with tons of protein. Unless you are doing that you are NOT putting on muscle.

OP NRoLFW is New Rules of Lifting For Women. It's a great book with both a exercise plan and a food plan. Very good book.

Thanks Lozze... I hope your right because that would mean that if I can manage water retention then I can manage the muscle bulk I've struggled with all my life. Having a very muscular build runs in my family though. Thankfully we're Asian descent though and I think that has helped in keeping us relatively hairless - even the males.

I previously delved into weight lifting when I was in my early 20's because it was a challenge and my gym in structor said I couldn't. After about 4 or 5mths, I was a bit of a sideshow freak at the gym and the said gym instructor insinuated i'd been taking steroids or something before she just didn't talk to me again. My boyfriend also started voicing his disapproval of my new physique and I began having trouble finding clothes that fit both my top half and my hips... I wasn't doing it in a controlled way - just hell for leather to prove I could.

My Uncle was a competitive body builder and won a few titles in the 70's. My brother does part time work as 'G-String clad party host' and is VERY in demand because of his ripped physique (he has a semi-physical day time job and goes to the gym occasionally, he's 37 and he eats mainly junk food) and a few of my cousins have exceptionally muscular bodies from minimal work outside of their normal day to day activities and visits to the gym once or twice a week - one of them is female and similar size and shape to me.

A good friend of mine who's spent years studying nutrition and body building in his spare time said it's rare but a small percentage of the population do have the natural ability to build muscle even on a calorie deficit. Having seen me in all shapes over the years, he believes, as do I, that I am one of these small percentage of people.

It may not be testosterone but these is definitely something in my family's make up that lends us towards being muscular!

All this aside, I still want to lose the 10kg fat layer that I'm presently wearing like a coat!

persian_star

I would agree with those who've said to up your calories. There's a growing movement on MFP of people who have realised eating 1200 cals is below their BMR (what your body burns in a day regardless of activity, for example being in a coma!) and their bodies are rebelling as a result. If your body doesn't get enough to feed the vital organs, it will lower metabolism and start burning muscle first to make sure it doesn't starve. The deficit you need is from your TDEE (the calories you will burn in a normal day's activity, i.e. maintanance) - so long as that's there, you will lose, but slowly and surely, and more likely to burn fat instead of muscle.

MFP does a good job of estimating how many calories you need based on the maths of how much you want to lose, but if you want something a bit more tailored for you, message Helloitsdan (super friendly and well researched dude) and ask him to run your numbers. He'll need height, weight, gender and some measurements to determine body fat %, and he'll figure out how many calories you need to maintain that deficit but not make your body think you're starving yourself! (NB - this is all BEFORE exercise cals, MFP works by building in the deficit first and then any exercise you do should be eaten back).

A few more things I've read on this thread - it doesn't matter how often you eat. I'm doing something called Intermittent Fasting (I only eat in an 8 hour window between 12 noon and 8pm every day) which is both scientifically proven and working for me. The only thing that matters how many calories and what proportion are carbs/fats/protein (a 40%/30%/30% split is good) - when you eat them is entirely a matter of preference, especially as one way may help you from bingeing. The only thing is that your body will get used to your feeding routine and release ghrelin and leptin accordingly, so if you can keep it regular (whatever that is for you) your body will get used to it, expect food at those times and your hunger will follow that pattern too.

And the 30DS is great - a very good start. You'll find many of the exercises are versions of what you'd do in NROLFW. But if you want to work on building muscle (which in turn will burn more cals and therefore boost your metabolism) heavy weights are the way to go. EDIT - just read your last post. Obviously if building muscle comes more easily to you it might be better to go easy on this! However, the theory is still true ) The mix of cardio and strength in 30DS may be better if you're trying to avoid getting too muscly!

One last thing - upping calories can be scary and feel all wrong. Doing it gradually (50 cals a week til you get to where you want to be) can help. You may also find your body will take a while to get used to it, and may even 'put on' a little weight at first - everyone is different. But please do hang on in there, after a while (can be up to a month or two) your body will realise it's not starving any more and get its balance back.

Hope that helps :flowerforyou:

Peta22

Just touching back to put an end to this thread.... A few days later and I have increased my calories and changed my MFP loss rate to 1/2lb a week. The last few days have seen my weight in dropping by a few hundred gms per day. This morning I weighed in at 67.6kg and when I posted this thread originally, I couldn't break below about 68.2kg. Hopefully, this downward trend will continue for a while now. Thanks for everyone's input and advice. It's all been much appreciated.