calorie deficits and still not losing??

teachnc

I would love to lose 7-10 lbs but can't seem to lose even 1/2 lb!! I have been under my calorie goals every day and doing cardio and weights for about 20mins a day. It has been two weeks and I've gained 1lb. Really frustrated. Don't want to lower my BMR but really tempted to stop eating altogether for a few days since it worked in the past...very depressed.

Kristen81

Stop eating for a few days = unhealthy, lose weight, and then gain it all back plus some when you end up stuffing your face when you get back to the whole eating thing.
Eat healthy + exercise+ eating those calories burned back = lose weight ( may be slow to come off but atleast it will be healthy)

kazmor

Ok first of all you may have gained a little muscle weight. I did the first cpl weeks. Secondly how under your calorie limit are you? If your not eating enough calories your not going to lose the weight.

Hope this helps a little x

mish3131

One thing I have learned is you need to eat your calories especially when you are exercising. It was only when I ate those calories did I lose the most weight.

tlynnweb

According to Jillian Michaels, you are most likely not gaining muscle weight. She says that she works people out 8 hours a day and they burn mad mad amounts of calories and those people are the ones who will gain muscle weight but only like 11 pounds over the course of a year. She says that people who work out for 60 min a day or less 7 days a week will NOT gain muscle weight. You might gain fluid in your muscle but they aren't actually building up to where they weigh more. You will get rid of that fluid.

SHBoss1673

Ok first of all you may have gained a little muscle weight. I did the first cpl weeks. Secondly how under your calorie limit are you? If your not eating enough calories your not going to lose the weight.

Hope this helps a little x

no, no you haven't gained muscle. That's not how it works.

Nobody here knows why you haven't lost, because you haven't given us any information that would clue us in to why you haven't lost weight.

First thing you should do is read this:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/10589-for-those-confused-or-questioning-eating-your-exercise-calo

then read this:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/8977-your-body-s-thoughts-on-calories


after you're done, read this:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/9433-expectations

and when you're ready to figure out your goals for real, read this:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/69708-calorie-deficit-for-dummies-a-little-long

then if you still have any questions, and have searched the forums and found no answers, ask away, there are plenty of folks out there that can help, myself included.

hamiltonba

You stated that you work out cardio and weights for 20 minutes a day. So is that only 10 minutes for each? I hate to tell you, but you should be working out a lot more. Try doing cardio for 30-45 minutes. Also, I do lift weights and there is NO way you are doing anything if you are only doing this minimal amount of time. Also, you point out how you try to lose weight by not eating - of course you are not going to lose weight and keep it off if you are doing these harmful things to your body. You are going to have to push yourself and break out into a sweat.

chrissyh

I agree with the reading up that Boss posted...but I also agree with hamilton if you're only working 20 minutes a day and that's what you've been doing, it's time to up it....the closer you are to your goal the harder you have to work for it!

godblessourhome

it's not an exact science. have you gone to your doctor and had a blood panel done?
dawn

RedHotRunner

One thing to add. If you're that close to your goal weight, the weight is going to come off very slowly. Figure no more than 4 pounds a month.

snowflowr82

When you fast you arn't losing weight your losing water unless you fast for like 30 days which isn't really healthy. Ive fasted for 9 days before not to lose weight but for detox i did lose like 15lbs but gained it ALL back the first three days after starting to eat again. You shouldn't fast unless you are trying to cleanse your body of impurities and doing it correctly such as a juicing fast with fresh juices veggies and fruit.

Make sure after you exercise you try to at least eat some if not all of the calories youve unlocked otherwise your body will feel like its starving and freeze on the weight loss and some people it can take weeks then all of a sudden lose 5lbs at once everyone is different.. good luck

20in24

EAT more calories. If your body feels it isnt getting enough, it will start storing up whatever it can because it thinks its starving. Eat 1800 a day and work out 30 to 45 min. May help...

lose2cruise

Sound advice from everyone. Whatever you do, don't give up. Everyone has set backs. Goodness knows I've seen my share of them. But you cannot give up. It's about getting healthy and staying that way. When you start to see the scale go down, it will motivate you even more to stick with it.

sabinac

I sometimes think it's the fastest solution too.

There was a period in my life when I was depressed and ate very little.

What I experienced is that I lost a lot of weight, and no matter how little I ate I kept on shedding pounds. So my conclusions were ( and are) that it is not true that if you don't eat enough you don't lose weight. Plus I did not gain the weight back for 3 years. So, also the idea that you regain weight fast if you lose it fast did not apply to me.

Even now I still didn't gain it all back- just 6 pounds out of the 16 I lost.

On the other hand, I do agree that it is very unhealthy!

Now i am sure many people will get angry at what I just wrote!

SHBoss1673

I sometimes think it's the fastest solution too.

There was a period in my life when I was depressed and ate very little.

What I experienced is that I lost a lot of weight, and no matter how little I ate I kept on shedding pounds. So my conclusions were ( and are) that it is not true that if you don't eat enough you don't lose weight. Plus I did not gain the weight back for 3 years. So, also the idea that you regain weight fast if you lose it fast did not apply to me.

Even now I still didn't gain it all back- just 6 pounds out of the 16 I lost.

On the other hand, I do agree that it is very unhealthy!

Now i am sure many people will get angry at what I just wrote!

I can guarantee that more than half the weight you lost was muscle mass, bone mass, and other lean tissue.
I can also guarantee that your organ function decreased significantly, which is dangerous in and of itself, but in some cases, prolonged cases of fasting permenantly shuts down organs (like the liver, kidneys, and/or gallbladder) which can have disasterous consequences.
I can tell you with 100% certainty that you seriously increased your chances of having osteoporosis later in life.

Lastly I can tell you that your body was hoarding fat.

Nobody on here that knows anything at all about healthy weight loss EVER says that you can gain weight while in caloric deficit. You can't, it's physcially impossible.

What you CAN do is lower your metabolic rate to a point that when you THINK your eating in a caloric deficit, because you screwed up your metabolism, you actually aren't, and because your body is panicked every little extra bit of calories is being stored as body fat, which is bad on many levels.

Starvation is NEVER EVER EVER EVER a good thing. I don't care if you lose 30 lbs.

And don't talk to me about morbidly obese people on VLCDs (Very Low Calorie Diets), that's different, it's technically not starvation because their body has so much available fat mass that it never recognizes the shortage of ingested food, and besides, those are physician monitored and mineral, vitamin, and blood chemical levels are monitored on a regular basis to look for problems that may be starting.

teachnc

Thank you all for your advice! I was not aware that I should eat back lost calories. SHBoss, I did read all of your links and hopefully I can apply what I learned there. So basically it sounds like this is gonna take a lot of work and a lot of time. I am 5' 8", medium build and currently at 131. My current goal is 125.