My body appears to be defying the laws of physics.

em9371

Thanks em9371, it helps to hear from someone at the same weight.

I'll definitely get my body fat checked next week! Maybe I'll be able to get a better estimate then.

Why are a lot of you are suggesting to stop doing the elliptical? I'm definitely willing to try not doing it for a while, but I'm interested in the reason why. I didn't think I would be in danger of overtraining by only half an hour, really.

My splits are about 50% carbs, 25% fat and 25% protein. I'm trying to get the carbs to go down a little more and the fat and/or protein to up a little, but most days it's about 50-25-25.

PS. congrats on your fat loss/muscle gain! I'll get there too one day

Its not necessarily that you should not do the elliptical, but as you already do a lot of cardio with the running and plan on increasing this, it would make more sense to concentrate on weight training on the days it won't affect your running.
Cardio burns calories while you are exercising, but building muscle will burn more calories 24/7 and help you lose inches :-)

2April

Thanks for all the suggestions, I really appreciate it!

I forgot to mention that I'm a runner and I run because I love to do it, not to lose weight (although if it happens you won't hear me complaining of course). So running three times a week is staying (and will be getting longer when the weather gets better) and I can't lift more often because it impacts my running too much.

I lift heavy, after some warm up sets I do three sets of eight reps and by the last one I'm cursing all over the place because I'm so close to muscle failure. I switch up the lifts I do every couple of weeks.

The zig-zag approach sounds interesting, but since I seem to be lost in finding my maintenance calories I'm not sure how to do that. Any help here would be appreciated!

As for whoever said formulas are only estimates, I know. But in my case that would mean a very often used formula is off by about 800 calories. Somehow that doesn't seem right? I'm not saying I should get the results the formula predicts, but if I'm eating an amount they say should be maintenance for something 20kg lighter than me, I shouldn't be gaining.

Also, while I appreciate the help, I know there are people on this board that (IN MY OPINION!) do very unhealthy things and have a very unhealthy relationship with food. If you just say 'eat less' without any help or explanation I'm going to assume you are one of the <1200 calories crowd and while I completely respect their decisions to do what they do, I'm not going to do that.

Eat less because creating a calorie deficit is how you lose weight. This isn't unhealthy, just a fact. If you aren't losing weight you aren't creating enough of a deficit. I am 5'2 and weigh 117 lbs. I can eat about 1500 cals a day and stay the same weight. If I drop it down to 1200 cals I will lose weight.
A good idea is to figure out what caloric intake makes your weight stable (this may take 2 or 3 weeks). Once you figure this out cut 20% of your calories to lose weight. Some people cut calories for a few weeks and eat at maintenance for a couple of weeks.