Weight Lose+ Muscle Gain= scary scale?

jerseygirl81

I've noticed a lot of muscle developing in my legs, mostly due to the innumerable about of stairs I climb on a daily basis, not to mention I run 4-6 miles at least 3 days a week. So I'm building all of this muscle, and burning calories, and attempting to eat right, but the scale never really changes. Am I losing weight and gaining muscle? If this is the case, should I change my goal weight to something a little higher, to account for the muscle? I'm currently 5'4" at 147, with a goal weight of 135. Is that attainable?

sweetgal2301

Yes ...
1. Muscle is good than fat. So you are basically burning the fat and building muscle.Muscle weighs more so the scale does/will not change. But muscle is also easier to burn than fat ... so you are going the right direction. Let the fat burn away and then later you can work on the muscles. So the scale will not tell you the truth at this point ....
2. You might have come to a plataue. I am at this point where no matter what i do (exercise/diet) I am not losing any weight ... at least according to the scale.

For the 2nd point .....
I started off with a 1500 calorie diet with a 500 calorie deficit to lose weight. But since I have lost the weight, my daily caloric requirements have gone down and therefore I have to now readjust the caloric requirements and then maintain the 500 calorie deficit ... so maybe readjusting the caloric requirement might help

Also don't over do the caloric defiicit per day. If you are having a 1000 calorie deficit or more, your body starts to compensate and switches to a shut down mode lowering your basal metabolic rate. So try to not lose more than 500 calories a day so that your body does not shut down thinking "its a starvation period and the body needs to save everything and anything stored and should save everything and anything the person eats".