Working out 4-5x a day still no weight loss?

My guess is you are gaining heavy muscle and losing the fatty parts. I would starting measuring inches too. I bet you are making progress with toning but the scale doesnt say that.

Gaining muscle from RUNNING?

thats all you eat?!

This. Eat more, and change your cardio to strength.

Im confused. Surely cardio is what burns the fat (and weight) -- strength just tones and tightens....

Am i completely wrong?

Eating at a deficit burns fat, you don't need cardio to lose weight. Cardio is good for other reasons, so there's no reason to leave it out, but if you really want to lose weight, start lifting.

I looked it up online thank you!

What bothers me the most is that my BMI is in the overweight section. It's such a damper on my mood and it almost hurts emotionally even more knowing that I'm working out and nothing is changing. Well maybe measurements but that's it.

Girl, BMI is not the best indicator of health or fitness. It's a statistical measure, meaning it works well for those in the middle part of the curve, but starts failing for those on the outsides of the curve. I am 5'10, and at my fittest (and smallest) playing college soccer, I was still considered "overweight" on the BMI scale. I learned quickly not to set my goals by it.

Eating at a deficit burns fat, you don't need cardio to lose weight. Cardio is good for other reasons, so there's no reason to leave it out, but if you really want to lose weight, start lifting.

mmmmm i am really confused now - can you elaborate... this means my whole strategy is incorrect!!! HELP PLEASE!

i'll give that a shot in very broad terms...

a) eating at a deficit (i.e. less calories in than you use to live/breath/move/exercise) will cause you to lose weight because the extra calories the body needs, it'll find by converting either muscle or fat into energy. this is the heart of the MFP concept.

b) doing any exercise (strength or cardio) takes energy so if you exercise, you can affect your daily calorie balance.

c) what i think people above are saying is that you don't *have* to do the cardio exercise if your daily calorie intake is already in deficit, and cardio alone does not magically burn fat. it is all down to the fact that if calories in < calories out, the body will use its stored resources to make up the difference and you lose weight.
doing cardio is a reasonably way to increase your daily calorie expenditure so you can afford to eat more (and feel fuller/happier) while still using more energy than you eat.

c#2) on the negative, if you do *lots* of steady state cardio (most evident in long distance running but to a lesser extent stuff like 30mins 3-5xweek steady running on a treadmill will have the same effect) is actually training the body to become more efficient at doing that stead state activity and to an extent all similar activities like walking around. The body will train itself into needing *less* calories just to exist so you'll end up having to do more exercise to maintain the same calorie deficit.
(this also doesn't happen over night but it is a risk if all you do is cardio)

c#3) however, there are other great benefits to cardio like better heart and lung function so cardio is A GOOD THING, just not directly for pure weight loss

d) on the other hand, strength training is aiming to build more muscle mass and muscle is naturally a much more 'active' substance than fat and other body structures. This means that just by existing, it needs more calories to do it's job even when not exercising. the more muscle you have, the higher your daily calorie needs and the easier it is to maintain a calorie deficit.

does that make sense? There is lots and lots more info floating around these boards and many people who can better tell you the science behind these board statements. everything above is very much in layman's terms and thus probably subtly incorrect in places but the general idea i think is sound.

- no given exercise can "cause" you to lose weight
- losing weight is all about calories in v's calories out
- doing exercise effects what your body can do (run faster/longer/stay in breath longer etc) and what it looks like (muscles under a smaller layer of fat = smooth 'shapely' - western ideal - bodies)

look good in clothes = cardio
look good out of clothes = strength training

To expand on this... Resistance training is more effective at cutting fat as it raises your metabolic rate and forces your muscles to repair themselves. While cardio is good for the heart, it also burns a ton of calories and if you do a lot of cardio, you will burn through your fat stores and will start to pull energy from your muscles (also seen in those who have large calorie deficits). This is why people lose lean body mass during weight loss and even more so in those who do NOT weight train.


There is a difference between fat loss vs weight loss. A good read below.


http://www.metaboliceffect.com/topic/38-nutrition-lifestyle.aspx

The food you listed doesn't seem like it would equal 1500. Maybe your soup is really hearty? Six slices of thin cut turkey is 50 calories. So your post workout dinner is less than that? I would suggest eat more too... Up the protein to feed muscle growth. More muscle burns more calories.