Working Out 3 Weeks and Haven't Lost Weight
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Kewllane
Posts: 5
Hey everyone,
I used to play a lot of sports but since I graduated college and got in the working world, I let my fitness slide. I started working out last summer again and was running about 4 miles/3 days a week. I was also lifting. I didn't see a difference in my body, but I hadn't really changed my eating habits, so I figured that was the culprit. Well, in September I stopped and took a few months off. But about 3 weeks ago I started working out again with a friend. Except this time, I started eating much more healthy and gave up the soft drinks. We're doing the 90 Day Warrior Workout on HasFit.com. We get up every morning at about 6:00 or 6:30 because I have work at 8:00. We usually do whatever the program tells us to do, then run a mile after. (We're getting ready to start doing more than a mile, that's just what we started at since we were already pretty tired and sore from the HasFit exercises.) But we're looking at about 45 minutes of exercise every morning, and getting ready to be more when we up our running.
My typical day of eating is a FiberOne bar in the morning after the I workout and before I go to work. At lunch, I usually have quite a bit of fruit, along with some sliced turkey and peanut butter crackers most days. For dinner I have quite a few calories left so I don't watch that as closely as I do the other meals, but I still keep track and am almost always under my calories for the day. I usually don't log my excercise either, so I know I'm under my calories. By not watching my dinner as closely, I mean it's not usually as healthy as my lunch. But like I said, I'm always under my calories. I constantly drink water throughout the day. I don't log that either because that's kind of a pain to log water each time I drink it. But I do drink it constantly throughout the day so I know I'm drinking enough water. I also ate almonds twice a day in between meals in order to try to keep my metabolism up the first two weeks. Since I didn't lose any weight, I stopped doing that this week to see if that would help. So far, no luck. Don't know what I should do when it comes to the almonds.
I'm 6'1" and weigh about 231.5 lbs on the scale at my gym. That sounds like I'm morbidly obese (everytime I type my BMI in a computer, it tends to tell me to get to a hospital ASAP lol) but I really don't appear to be that overweight. Just some excess fat around my belly and sides are all. Just wanted to get that across because I know a lot of you would picture me looking extremely overweight, but that's really not the case.
MFP says I should be eating/netting 2,460 calories a day to lose 1 lb a week, which as I said earlier, I'm almost always under by a few hundred. Now, I've read a lot on here about people not being able to lose weight because they aren't eating enough (usually under 1,200 calories a day) but I know that's not the case with me. I definitely eat more than that. And the reason why I don't really log my exercise in MFP is because A) I don't know how many calories I burn doing HasFit, and
I know I'm not anywhere close to going under 1,200. If I tried to lose 2lb a week it would be somewhere like 1,600 calories a day (just a guess off the top of my head because I don't want to look it up), so my thought with this is if I fall somewhere in between 1,600 and 2,460 I should be at least losing a lb a week. I'm not under the impression that it will just all come off in a month. I figured losing a lb a week is slow and steady enough for me.
So that brings me to my question: I've been doing this routine for 3 weeks and haven't lost or gained any weight, does anyone know why this could be? I mean I went from literally eating anything I wanted for a month and a half up until 3 weeks ago (During the holidays, gained most of this weight during that month and a half), so I feel like just changing my lifestyle in the way that I have should have helped me lose some. I mean it could be the gaining muscle argument that a lot of people use, but I don't really feel like I look different (some of that could be just because I'm not seeing the scale move at all, poor self image of my body). I just feel like after 3 weeks of this routine I should be seeing at least something when it comes to weight loss. My goal is to get down to 205 lbs, although I'm not sure I really have that much to lose, it's just a goal I set to work towards and keep me motivated.
Thanks in advance!
I used to play a lot of sports but since I graduated college and got in the working world, I let my fitness slide. I started working out last summer again and was running about 4 miles/3 days a week. I was also lifting. I didn't see a difference in my body, but I hadn't really changed my eating habits, so I figured that was the culprit. Well, in September I stopped and took a few months off. But about 3 weeks ago I started working out again with a friend. Except this time, I started eating much more healthy and gave up the soft drinks. We're doing the 90 Day Warrior Workout on HasFit.com. We get up every morning at about 6:00 or 6:30 because I have work at 8:00. We usually do whatever the program tells us to do, then run a mile after. (We're getting ready to start doing more than a mile, that's just what we started at since we were already pretty tired and sore from the HasFit exercises.) But we're looking at about 45 minutes of exercise every morning, and getting ready to be more when we up our running.
My typical day of eating is a FiberOne bar in the morning after the I workout and before I go to work. At lunch, I usually have quite a bit of fruit, along with some sliced turkey and peanut butter crackers most days. For dinner I have quite a few calories left so I don't watch that as closely as I do the other meals, but I still keep track and am almost always under my calories for the day. I usually don't log my excercise either, so I know I'm under my calories. By not watching my dinner as closely, I mean it's not usually as healthy as my lunch. But like I said, I'm always under my calories. I constantly drink water throughout the day. I don't log that either because that's kind of a pain to log water each time I drink it. But I do drink it constantly throughout the day so I know I'm drinking enough water. I also ate almonds twice a day in between meals in order to try to keep my metabolism up the first two weeks. Since I didn't lose any weight, I stopped doing that this week to see if that would help. So far, no luck. Don't know what I should do when it comes to the almonds.
I'm 6'1" and weigh about 231.5 lbs on the scale at my gym. That sounds like I'm morbidly obese (everytime I type my BMI in a computer, it tends to tell me to get to a hospital ASAP lol) but I really don't appear to be that overweight. Just some excess fat around my belly and sides are all. Just wanted to get that across because I know a lot of you would picture me looking extremely overweight, but that's really not the case.
MFP says I should be eating/netting 2,460 calories a day to lose 1 lb a week, which as I said earlier, I'm almost always under by a few hundred. Now, I've read a lot on here about people not being able to lose weight because they aren't eating enough (usually under 1,200 calories a day) but I know that's not the case with me. I definitely eat more than that. And the reason why I don't really log my exercise in MFP is because A) I don't know how many calories I burn doing HasFit, and
I know I'm not anywhere close to going under 1,200. If I tried to lose 2lb a week it would be somewhere like 1,600 calories a day (just a guess off the top of my head because I don't want to look it up), so my thought with this is if I fall somewhere in between 1,600 and 2,460 I should be at least losing a lb a week. I'm not under the impression that it will just all come off in a month. I figured losing a lb a week is slow and steady enough for me.So that brings me to my question: I've been doing this routine for 3 weeks and haven't lost or gained any weight, does anyone know why this could be? I mean I went from literally eating anything I wanted for a month and a half up until 3 weeks ago (During the holidays, gained most of this weight during that month and a half), so I feel like just changing my lifestyle in the way that I have should have helped me lose some. I mean it could be the gaining muscle argument that a lot of people use, but I don't really feel like I look different (some of that could be just because I'm not seeing the scale move at all, poor self image of my body). I just feel like after 3 weeks of this routine I should be seeing at least something when it comes to weight loss. My goal is to get down to 205 lbs, although I'm not sure I really have that much to lose, it's just a goal I set to work towards and keep me motivated.
Thanks in advance!
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Replies
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My fisrt guess would be water retention, especially if you just started lifting. Your body needs to repair the muscles and uses plenty of water to do it :-) it will get used to all the new stress soon. It takes my body several weeks
Also are you weighing your food? Whats sodium intake like?! Crackers, premade foods, they all tend to be high sodium. Also at night you say you dont keep track but you do?! Do you weigh your food? Im not sure how you know your cals when you say you dont eatch your dinner closely.
I would log everything for several weeks so you can see protein, carbs, fats, fiber, sodium etc. You may be eating more than you realize at night that tends to be a big time formost people to overdo it
Good luck!0 -
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Would you be comfortable opening your diary for us to take a look?
3 weeks could just be water retention from the exercise. Our bodies flood sore muscles with fluid to help cushion and repair them, masking any fat loss that's going on. That should start to disappear as your body adjusts, though.
Another thing to double-check is the accuracy of your logging. Are you using a food scale, measuring cups, or eyeballing portion sizes? The less accurate the measurement the more likely it is that you're eating more than you think.0 -
Open your diary, please.0
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Did you take starting measurements along with your weight? I've found at times my weight doesn't change but my measurements do.0
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Yeah I'll open my diary. I did have pizza last Saturday that sent me way over one day but that shouldn't effect overall weight loss if I've done it once in 3 weeks. It was a cheat meal. And then last Sunday I had a not so good eating day but I still stayed under my calories. (I even got a milkshake just to get my calories up) Other than that 24 hours, I feel like I've done pretty good. Especially considering how I was eating before.
Also something to note, I didn't gain or lose any weight after that 24 hours when I stepped on the scale Tuesday.
I don't weigh my foods. But with the fruit and stuff, it's usually like one banana, orange, or apple, so it's kind of hard to measure those since I'm just eating a whole fruit. But the other things are certainly weighable.0 -
I especially like weighing fruit because I thought I was eating medium apples. Once I started weighing, I realized my apple had almost twice as many calories as I thought. If you eat a lot of fruit, that adds up in a day.Yeah I'll open my diary. I did have pizza last Saturday that sent me way over one day but that shouldn't effect overall weight loss if I've done it once in 3 weeks. It was a cheat meal. And then last Sunday I had a not so good eating day but I still stayed under my calories. (I even got a milkshake just to get my calories up) Other than that 24 hours, I feel like I've done pretty good. Especially considering how I was eating before.
Also something to note, I didn't gain or lose any weight after that 24 hours when I stepped on the scale Tuesday.
I don't weigh my foods. But with the fruit and stuff, it's usually like one banana, orange, or apple, so it's kind of hard to measure those since I'm just eating a whole fruit. But the other things are certainly weighable.
I like to weigh and use the USDA info for calories for as much of my food as possible:
http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search/list0 -
I especially like weighing fruit because I thought I was eating medium apples. Once I started weighing, I realized my apple had almost twice as many calories as I thought. If you eat a lot of fruit, that adds up in a day.Yeah I'll open my diary. I did have pizza last Saturday that sent me way over one day but that shouldn't effect overall weight loss if I've done it once in 3 weeks. It was a cheat meal. And then last Sunday I had a not so good eating day but I still stayed under my calories. (I even got a milkshake just to get my calories up) Other than that 24 hours, I feel like I've done pretty good. Especially considering how I was eating before.
Also something to note, I didn't gain or lose any weight after that 24 hours when I stepped on the scale Tuesday.
I don't weigh my foods. But with the fruit and stuff, it's usually like one banana, orange, or apple, so it's kind of hard to measure those since I'm just eating a whole fruit. But the other things are certainly weighable.
I like to weigh and use the USDA info for calories for as much of my food as possible:
http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search/list
Oh really? Alright, I'll have to start doing that.0 -
Sodium is a tricky thing. I can do everything else right, but if I eat a lot of sodium, my water retention goes through the roof and the scale ends up quite a bit higher for the next couple of days. Until I started monitoring my sodium and keeping it around 1500 daily, I didn't see the scale results I was hoping for.0
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Sodium is a tricky thing. I can do everything else right, but if I eat a lot of sodium, my water retention goes through the roof and the scale ends up quite a bit higher for the next couple of days. Until I started monitoring my sodium and keeping it around 1500 daily, I didn't see the scale results I was hoping for.
Ok, I'll have to start watching for that then.0 -
I have been on both sides of this problem. I have am not eating enough or I was not keeping track of EVERYTHING I ate and had calorie stack up due to not checking weight of food or how much along with not logging EVERYTHING>
Four steps that fixed this problem for me:
1. LOG EVERYTHING, WEIGHT of food, and How Much. Exercise and CORRECT calorie burn.
2. Work out. and use a HR monitor for accurate calorie burn. Gym exercise equipment calorie burn is most often way off on accurate calorie burn as well as most charts for looking up exercises. Know accurately what you are burning.
3. I bought a fitness tracker ( when not wearing my Heart Rate monitor ) to get as close to possible my correct calorie burn. I am using a FItbit tracker which syncs to My Fitness Pal.
4. Eat back my burned off exercise calories.
This fixed my issues with the problems you are seeing.
I found I was burning way more calories than I thought and was under eating and stalling out. And later not checking everthing...it slowed down my weight loss. I am back on track by doing these things.
Good luck0 -
I can tell you I was losing nicely right before Christmas.
I quit working out for about a week over holidays and enjoyed myself. Come the new year I was up 2 pounds. No biggie, figured I could lose it in two or so weeks.
HOWEVER I also started doing a compound lifting program. It took me from new years until now to start to lose those two pounds. I literally lost NOTHING (per the scale) for three weeks. But I kept at it and now my body is used to the new program and has started losing again.
In that time, I have enjoyed pizza, brownie sundaes and cookies at least once a week,
I would bet that it is your weight lifting that is causing a stall, stay with it, things will shift.0 -
I would check the suggested calories. search the forum for in place of a roadmap. I am 6 ft and about 260 and my cal intake suggestion is lower than what you mentioned. Couldn't hurt:)0
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Even though logging everything, such as each glass or cup of water, can be super annoying - I would highly recommend it anyway. If you are honest with your logging, you will have a more accurate idea of what exactly you are putting into your body. Without precise tracking, you can't really say you are doing everything you can to lose weight because there is a chance you are missing something.
Someone had mentioned prepared foods and sodium - thats a big one to look out for. Fruits should also be tracked because they contain sugar and (I know some may disagree with me on this) sugar is sugar no matter where it comes from.
I purchased a Jawbone Up and use that to determine my calorie loss when I work out, which also paints a clearer picture on my weight loss and my body's needs. If you prefer something you don't have to wear all day, Polar makes heart monitors you can wear during your workouts - although I'm not sure how well they work for lifting.
Whatever the reason, don't get discouraged. I'm sure its not easy getting up early and working out so hard - good for you! Keep up the hard work and track your food intake... I'm sure you will see results soon.0 -
I would check the suggested calories. search the forum for in place of a roadmap. I am 6 ft and about 260 and my cal intake suggestion is lower than what you mentioned. Couldn't hurt:)
Are you trying to lose more than 1lb a week? I'm only trying to lose 1 lb a week so I think that's why mine is high.0
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