Not Losing....can't figure out WHY!

fisherj1126 · March 2014

Looking for advice....

I have my final 5-10 pounds I would like to lose and I CAN'T LOSE IT!!!! I am 38 years old, 5 foot 6 inches. I weigh 140 pounds. My weight before having 3 children was 125. I am not unrealistic....I don't expect to weigh that again. However, about 135 is a weight I am comfortable at. That is my goal.

I am currently training for a half marathon. I am running 4 days a week. I also do a LITTLE strength training 3 days a week, mostly abs and arms. I use 8-10 pound weights when I do my arms.

I am eating 1200 calories a day on non-workout days, and about 1500 calories a day on days I do workout. I drink a TON of water and my meals are healthy (lean proteins and veggies). I have not cut out carbs completely or anything like that. At this point in my life, I have always felt that moderation is key. Also, I was afraid to cut carbs because of my training.

The scale has NOT budged. Yes, I have noticed my body changing in some other areas, although I have not kept close tabs on my measurements.

Any and all advice would be appreciated. This is the first time I have tried to lose weight while working out so intensely and I'm afraid I am either eating too many calories....or not enough and sending my body into starvation mode.

Help Please!

cgromp1 · March 2014

Hi! I'm a diet tech at a weight loss center so this I see a lot of people who've gotten to this frustrating point. It appears that for one thing you may have plateaued. This is where your weight is dropping at a nice pace and BAM nothing! One suggestion I might make, is try bringing in more calories. If you're training I'm thinking you're burning a lot. Try adding 200 calories to your diet. Usually, if you're losing weight and not taking in enough calories your body panics. It begins to say "HEY I NEED THIS!" and instead of expending those calories, it will hold on to everything it can, fearing you won't give much more. Also, which I think you were getting at with the measurements, you have to keep in mind that you're building muscle. Muscle weighs more than fat SO the scale can't always be the best judge of success.

Congrats on all of your progress thus far and good luck!!

Zomoniac · March 2014

If your 1,200-1,500 is accurate, it's certainly not too many. What are your training runs like? You could well be eating wayyy too little (I personally knock off around 800 just doing 10k, 1,700 or so for a half marathon). So if you're anywhere near that you'd be getting a net of close to 700 on your training days. I would be looking to go to more like 1,500 on non-training days to 2,000-2,500 on training days depending on how far/hard you're running. Besides, if I get stuck in a plateau from eating the same every day for too long I often find just eating a bit more for a while gets things moving again.

felippecorreia · March 2014

Have you tried incorporating refeeds? At such low calories your body will enter starvation mode and try to hold at everything it can to stop losing weight. Refeed at least once a week will help with your leptin levels and T3. For refeeds my personal choice is to bring calories up to maintenance level coming from carbs. So for exemple if I'm 400 cals under maintenance I will take one day of the week and eat 100g more carbs on that specific day. The next day I go back to the regular diet.

Look for Layne Norton on youtube, he has tons of videos explaining metabolic capacity and how to improve it.

kshadows · March 2014

Sounds like you're eating WAY too little to me.

Serah87 · March 2014

If you are not losing than you are not in a deficit. Do you weigh ALL your food? If not, get a digital food scale ASAP, more than likely you are eating more than you think. Good luck.

Holly_Roman_Empire · March 2014

Can you open your food diary?

How long have you been stalled?

If that's you in the picture, you are very pretty. :flowerforyou:

khkjkk · March 2014

Try adding 200 calories to your diet. Usually, if you're losing weight and not taking in enough calories your body panics. It begins to say "HEY I NEED THIS!" and instead of expending those calories, it will hold on to everything it can, fearing you won't give much more.

^ This worked to kick me off my plateau. I was originally eating 1400 on rest days, 1600 on days I worked out, and couldn't budge. Upped calories by 200, took four days off from workouts, and upped my strength training a little bit, and I started losing weight again.

fercar3000 · March 2014

I was in the same situation ... eating around 1200 calories and working out and my weight loss stopped ... then I took the risk of going up with my calories intake and started losing again

fisherj1126 · March 2014

I'm totally new to this whole forum thing so I hope I am responding correctly. As far as how long I've been stalled......I would say a few months, but it's just been in the last 12 weeks that I've been aggressively trying to lose the last 5-10. Here is what I typically eat (I am a creature of habit, so this is literally pretty much what goes in my mouth every day)...

Breakfast: 1 piece of Eziekiel bread. If I workout I put peanut butter on top. If I don't, a little butter. OR sometimes I have a cup of old fashioned quaker oats.

Lunch: 2 small tortillas stuffed full of veggies (I eat an entire onion, an entire green pepper, 3-4 mushrooms, and about half a zucchini) that I saute in a little coconut oil. I will also have a few tortilla chips with it (about 12).

Snack: Ugh....my guilty indulgence I can't quite kick...a chai latte made with skim milk (it's about 120 calories and one of the highlights of my day!!!!) Haha!!!

Dinner: Usually a lean meat and veggies. I do occasionally add a little carb to the mix. Whatever I eat I try to make sure I'm within my caloric intake for the day.

I feel confused...some are telling me I'm not eating enough, others are telling me I'm eating too much. I HAVE tried to jump start it by eating more on a given day....no luck.

I appreciate all of you helping. I was about ready to punch the scale this morning!! Haha!!!

(hollydubs85, yes that is my picture...thank you, that made me feel better today). :-)

tinglecm16 · March 2014

When I ran a half-marathon a few years ago, I didn't lose a lb either, but I did drop an entire pant size. It's the size I want to get back to, but even at that size, I didn't have the physique I wanted, so I think weight training really is key.

I'm trying to lose my last 5-10 too and i've found these sites helpful:

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/drobson175.htm
http://www.nowloss.com/#/home

The second one has good tips on breaking through plateaus and I think the bodybuilding site just generally has good advice for those of us who don't have a ton too lose, but are trying to lose that last bit of vanity weight.

Good luck!

cgromp1 · March 2014

You could definitely use more protein in your diet. Try greek yogurt with berries in the morning and adding a hard boiled egg at lunch. Protein will help you feel fuller longer and help your body to focus on burning fat, not muscle.

fisherj1126 · March 2014

Do you suggest protein powders? I tend to be a fairly natural girl....I don't love a lot of chemicals in my diet and so often I feel like protein powders are full of them. However, I am not very knowledgeable about it so maybe that's not the case.

cgromp1 · March 2014

I wouldn't say I'm against them, but like you, if i can get it naturally I go that route. Whey protein, the most popular, is the isolated protein from milk. So if you're having dairy you're going to get it with additional nutrients. A lot of people having the powders are looking to have a large amount of protein FAST! The interesting thing to remember is that your body can only process 20-30 g of protein at a time, so when not used properly, a lot of those powders can actually go to waste. I think you'll be fine adding naturally. Also, having a low fat chocolate milk after your workout, within 30 minutes, has been proven to be effective in your recovery. Just a thought! Definitely try out a few different things and see what works for you!

QuietBloom · March 2014

I'm totally new to this whole forum thing so I hope I am responding correctly. As far as how long I've been stalled......I would say a few months, but it's just been in the last 12 weeks that I've been aggressively trying to lose the last 5-10. Here is what I typically eat (I am a creature of habit, so this is literally pretty much what goes in my mouth every day)...

Breakfast: 1 piece of Eziekiel bread. If I workout I put peanut butter on top. If I don't, a little butter. OR sometimes I have a cup of old fashioned quaker oats.

Lunch: 2 small tortillas stuffed full of veggies (I eat an entire onion, an entire green pepper, 3-4 mushrooms, and about half a zucchini) that I saute in a little coconut oil. I will also have a few tortilla chips with it (about 12).

Snack: Ugh....my guilty indulgence I can't quite kick...a chai latte made with skim milk (it's about 120 calories and one of the highlights of my day!!!!) Haha!!!

Dinner: Usually a lean meat and veggies. I do occasionally add a little carb to the mix. Whatever I eat I try to make sure I'm within my caloric intake for the day.

I feel confused...some are telling me I'm not eating enough, others are telling me I'm eating too much. I HAVE tried to jump start it by eating more on a given day....no luck.

I appreciate all of you helping. I was about ready to punch the scale this morning!! Haha!!!

(hollydubs85, yes that is my picture...thank you, that made me feel better today). :-)

The people who are telling you to eat more are confused.

If you are not weighing everything, you don't really know how many calories you are taking in. You may also be over estimating your exercise calories. Bottom line: If you are not losing weight, you are not in a deficit.

We just had a post here yesterday where someone upped their calories because everyone told them they weren't eating enough (without really knowing how much the poster was eating in the first place, because they weren't weighing). Guess what happened? She gained weight. :ohwell:

mreeves261 · March 2014

I would suggest getting a scale and weighing all of your food. From your eating description you aren't currently doing that. If your maintenance level is 2000 calories and you eat 2000 calories it doesn't matters if it's lean meats and veg or pizza and ice cream, you are not going to lose. The KEY factor to losing weight is being in an energy (calorie) deficit.

goldthistime · March 2014

Assuming your desire to be 5 lbs lighter is really a desire to look a little bit better, I would suggest increasing your strength training.

pettychia · March 2014

If you notice your body changing, you're doing the right thing. I started weight training 6 months ago and even though I only "lost" 4 lbs total, my body composition totally changed -- lost tons of fat, gained tons of muscle. My body is a lot smaller and leaner, even though the scale barely moved. It was a big shift in thinking to not gauge health by weight; taking body measurements once a month is a much better indicator.

Edmond_Dantes · March 2014

I agree with what "ebhruby" said: If you notice your body changing, you're doing the right thing.
You may be gaining some muscle mass while losing fat and increasing your lean body weight. Can you lift more weight or run farther or faster than you did at the beginning of your training? If so, then you increased muscle.
The number on the scale is not the most important factor. Any changes to body measurement (waist/hips/etc.), that you can see?

Best of luck!

fast_eddie_72 · March 2014

Hi! I'm a diet tech at a weight loss center so this I see a lot of people who've gotten to this frustrating point. It appears that for one thing you may have plateaued. This is where your weight is dropping at a nice pace and BAM nothing! One suggestion I might make, is try bringing in more calories.

I'm not a diet tech at anything. But this is wrong. Eating more won't make you lose weight. Doesn't work that way. Calories in, calories out. It's that simple.

OP, it's possible you're eating more than you realize. Do you use a food scale? I know my estimates were way off before I started using mine.

Holly_Roman_Empire · March 2014

I'm totally new to this whole forum thing so I hope I am responding correctly. As far as how long I've been stalled......I would say a few months, but it's just been in the last 12 weeks that I've been aggressively trying to lose the last 5-10. Here is what I typically eat (I am a creature of habit, so this is literally pretty much what goes in my mouth every day)...

Breakfast: 1 piece of Eziekiel bread. If I workout I put peanut butter on top. If I don't, a little butter. OR sometimes I have a cup of old fashioned quaker oats.

Lunch: 2 small tortillas stuffed full of veggies (I eat an entire onion, an entire green pepper, 3-4 mushrooms, and about half a zucchini) that I saute in a little coconut oil. I will also have a few tortilla chips with it (about 12).

Snack: Ugh....my guilty indulgence I can't quite kick...a chai latte made with skim milk (it's about 120 calories and one of the highlights of my day!!!!) Haha!!!

Dinner: Usually a lean meat and veggies. I do occasionally add a little carb to the mix. Whatever I eat I try to make sure I'm within my caloric intake for the day.

I feel confused...some are telling me I'm not eating enough, others are telling me I'm eating too much. I HAVE tried to jump start it by eating more on a given day....no luck.

I appreciate all of you helping. I was about ready to punch the scale this morning!! Haha!!!

(hollydubs85, yes that is my picture...thank you, that made me feel better today). :-)

The people who are telling you to eat more are confused. If you are not weighing everything, you don't really know how many calories you are taking in. You may also be over estimating your exercise calories. Bottom line: If you are not losing weight, you are not in a deficit.

We just had a post here yesterday where someone upped their calories because everyone told them they weren't eating enough (without really knowing how much the poster was eating in the first place, because they weren't weighing). Guess what happened? She gained weight. :ohwell:

Everything QuietBloom says.

You may be a creature of habit and eat relatively the same things every day, but it boils down to this. If you are not logging everything that goes in your mouth, and weighing all of those things, you do not accurately know how many calories you are taking in.

The people that are saying "Eat more" are only saying that because you could likely lose weight eating more than 1200 calories. The only problem is that unless you are logging and know FOR A FACT that is how many calories you are eating, there's no way to know for sure.

At this point, I would agree with this:

Assuming your desire to be 5 lbs lighter is really a desire to look a little bit better, I would suggest increasing your strength training.

If the half-marathon is truly your goal for now, I would focus completely on that and not necessarily on the scale. Assuming that the 5 pounds is for aesthetics, begin some strength training now or when the half-marathon is behind you.

ETA: And you're welcome. Glad I could make you smile. :happy:

Not Losing....can't figure out WHY!

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