Weight loss plateau after starting exercise

jxspxr
jxspxr Posts: 150
in Fitness and Exercise
I just increased my exercise from once per week to 4 times per week - in total, from walking and running, I burned about 6000-7000 extra calories in a week, in addition to continuing a calorie deficit by reducing food intake. I haven't lost weight this, while I really should have if I look to the numbers. I looked it up (check link below) and apparently, after increasing exercise, muscles retain more water to make more energy available for your exercise. I was always wondering how it was possible that muscles adapt so quickly to exercise, but this explains it. So, if I may believe the article, I just have to forget about losing much weight for 4-6 weeks until my muscles stop hoarding water - but in the meantime I do burn fat, so everything is ok!

What do you think? Is this a good explanation? Do you have experience with this phenomenon?

http://www.sparkpeople.com/community/ask_the_experts.asp?q=68

Replies

  • Christina8585
    Christina8585 Posts: 73 Member
    I don't know exactly how much your eating or what exact exercise your doing daily, but it sounds to me like you ramped up your exercise for about a week?
    It takes anywhere from two to four weeks to really see results from ramped up exercise and I would also make sure to be careful to make sure your actually eating enough. If you restrict your calories too much while walking more your body will go into starvation mode.
    With me sometimes i'll be at the same spot for weeks on end with proper diet and exercise and then whoosh, 5 pounds down or a couple of inches off. Other times I'll get a weekly result. It's just like that.
  • jxspxr
    jxspxr Posts: 150
    O, forget to mention that: before this, I exercised only one time per week, burning about 1000 calories at max. And have eaten just a bit more then a normal week. Normally I lose about a kilogram every 10 days, or 100 grams per days. I did this for the last six months. I am used to having ups and downs and I can always trace it back to either eating too much for a day or a weekend or, most of the times, extra water retention.

    Thanks for the advice! I will make sure I eat a bit more then I did. I mean, on an exercise day I burn 700-1800 calories extra, and if I add this to my normal food deficit of 700 calories per day (100 grams), I see that the total deficit is a bit too much. Perhaps I should just maintain stick with a deficit of 700 calories per day at max and just eat much more on exercise days (though I am thinking about doing some exercise every day - light exercise (walking, jogging a bit, relaxed swimming, cycling) on rest days, good exercise on normal exercise days 4 days per week).

    I just realised that it's not important for me that exercise accelerates weight loss - I like exercising and the weight loss was going well enough before this. Will just keep enjoying it and the benefits that getting more fit has, while eating well enough to just keep my basic weight loss going - but nothing more.

    Are you also losing weight? How is that going for you? Good luck with your goals!
  • grimendale
    grimendale Posts: 2,153 Member
    Yeah, it's very common for weight loss to stall starting or significantly stepping up the intensity of a workout for the reason you mentioned. I'm almost done with week 2 of month 2 of insanity and have gained 2 lbs, but lost inches everywhere. Keep an eye on your measurements and body fat. The scale often lies to you, so don't trust it.
  • 3dogsrunning
    3dogsrunning Posts: 27,167 Member
    I just increased my exercise from once per week to 4 times per week - in total, from walking and running, I burned about 6000-7000 extra calories in a week, in addition to continuing a calorie deficit by reducing food intake. I haven't lost weight this, while I really should have if I look to the numbers. I looked it up (check link below) and apparently, after increasing exercise, muscles retain more water to make more energy available for your exercise. I was always wondering how it was possible that muscles adapt so quickly to exercise, but this explains it. So, if I may believe the article, I just have to forget about losing much weight for 4-6 weeks until my muscles stop hoarding water - but in the meantime I do burn fat, so everything is ok!

    What do you think? Is this a good explanation? Do you have experience with this phenomenon?

    http://www.sparkpeople.com/community/ask_the_experts.asp?q=68

    That link is exactly what is happening. Extra water weight due to glycogen stores. It happens when we add exercise or increase intensity.
  • jxspxr
    jxspxr Posts: 150
    I just increased my exercise from once per week to 4 times per week - in total, from walking and running, I burned about 6000-7000 extra calories in a week, in addition to continuing a calorie deficit by reducing food intake. I haven't lost weight this, while I really should have if I look to the numbers. I looked it up (check link below) and apparently, after increasing exercise, muscles retain more water to make more energy available for your exercise. I was always wondering how it was possible that muscles adapt so quickly to exercise, but this explains it. So, if I may believe the article, I just have to forget about losing much weight for 4-6 weeks until my muscles stop hoarding water - but in the meantime I do burn fat, so everything is ok!

    What do you think? Is this a good explanation? Do you have experience with this phenomenon?

    http://www.sparkpeople.com/community/ask_the_experts.asp?q=68

    That link is exactly what is happening. Extra water weight due to glycogen stores. It happens when we add exercise or increase intensity.

    I've got no problem with my muscles doing that - more energy is a really good thing! :) Thanks for the confirmation!
  • RunnerElizabeth
    RunnerElizabeth Posts: 1,091 Member
    Basically weight loss is a lot of trial and error. I don't know what you are using to gauge your caorie burn, but mfp and other websites are notorious for overestimating calories burned from excercise. I run 20+ miles a week and have figured that to be only about 2000 calories. Granted I'm only between 120-125 lbs at this point, so my calorie burn is a little less than average. I count the running and strength training as excercise, other things are just built into my activity setting of lightly active. I don't own a car and use my feet and public transport to get around, bare minimum of 3 miles a day, often more. I don't count any of that. I am not currently losing weight. I did that work already now I'm just working on maintaining. When I was losing weight I was eating at a moderate deficit and eating back most of my excercise calories.

    Basically you just have to play around with your calories and excercise until you find the combo that works for you. Write down everything so you can look it over to spot the patterns. But when you do change the routine it does take the body a little time to catch up.
  • 257_Lag
    257_Lag Posts: 1,249 Member
    Here is a visual from a daily weigher. I think you can figure out when I started lifting weights.

    libra2.jpg

    Note: This chart is about two weeks old and since then I started dropping again but I definitely stalled for about 2 1/2 weeks. It happens.
  • jxspxr
    jxspxr Posts: 150
    I do agree that weight loss is not predictable, like the example I discuss above shows, but I don't see weight loss as trial and error, at least for the largest part. For me, it is quite simple - you have to create a calorie deficit large enough, and if you do this is should work. This has already worked for me for over 6 months.

    The seemingly unpredictable nature of weight loss is all because of different components that build up your mass that could increase or decrease - water, muscle, fat. But even this can mostly be explained logically.

    So in the basics weight loss is not trial and error for me. But of course there is the area of motivation - how can you create this calorie deficit in such a way that you can stick to it. That's pretty much trial and error.

    By the way, since I am 93.5 kg, I burn about 100 calories per kilometre (or 160 per mile), so that's what I use as a rule of thumb to calculate. I do include kilometres walked, but only the longer distances. Since my calorie deficit is quite enormous now, I don't worry that I do not lose fat.
  • jxspxr
    jxspxr Posts: 150
    Here is a visual from a daily weigher. I think you can figure out when I started lifting weights.

    libra2.jpg

    Note: This chart is about two weeks old and since then I started dropping again but I definitely stalled for about 2 1/2 weeks. It happens.

    Nice graph! It's clear that you started lifting weight at the end of June :). Interesting results!

    By the way, your weight loss is very regular. For me there's a lot more ups and downs, it's like a saw shape, though there's a clear trend going down. How is that possible?
  • 257_Lag
    257_Lag Posts: 1,249 Member
    Nice graph! It's clear that you started lifting weight at the end of June :). Interesting results!

    By the way, your weight loss is very regular. For me there's a lot more ups and downs, it's like a saw shape, though there's a clear trend going down. How is that possible?

    Thanks but when you zoom in it doesn't look so smooth. That's just the nature of the human body. Here is a my chart from May and early June zoomed in a bit:

    libra.jpg
  • jxspxr
    jxspxr Posts: 150
    Nice chart. My graph also looks something like that. What program do you use to make the graph?

    11 days ago since I started doing sports 4-5 times per week and walking a few kilometres on most other days. I must have burned close to 10.000 calories since that time - with no results yet. I'd say my muscles took 1 to 1.5 litres of water.

    Anyways, I guess that's good news (according to the link I posted in my OP) - my muscles will have more energy available in the form of glycogen so I can look forward to my workouts going better. Since my main goal of exercise is not to lose weight (this is only a temporary goal) but to get fit, it's going well.

    And I got the best NSV yesterday from a friend - after I came back from mountain biking with another friend, I took my shirt off (it's really hot here in the Netherlands) to cool down a bit and he was really shocked by my muscles! Ha I love those comments! And he also asked if I've done fitness - and I've never done that, it all just grows on me naturally. I guess I've been lucky in this part of the genetic lottery.

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