My Exercise is Not Helping me to Lose Weight

To lose weight you need to use more calories than you eat. Roughly 3500 calories equates to a lb of fat. An example: On the treadmill I burn roughly 200 calories for a 20 minute session, so that's nearly 18 of those treadmill sessions to lose a lb.

Most successful weight loss happens with exercise and changes in the kitchen together, the bulk usually comes from the food. Have you tried tracking your food intake and logging your exercise to see what your situation is?

Also, water weight (especially when exercise is involved) can affect your weight by something like 3lbs a day. Try weighing yourself once a week, first thing in the morning. It's not a fail proof but it's more consistent than the middle of the day.

Maya, you're at my goal weight! (We're the same height). It sounds to me like Kazik wasn't such a good friend after all.

Weight lifting is a good tool for toning up and helping lose the last few lbs (you really don't have much to lose). It will also be slow because your body is at a healthy weight and probably wants to stay there.

I'm marathon training, that time spent running will drop in 8 weeks.
5ft 3, 126lbs' is well within the healthy BMI range, going down to 100lbs puts you in the underweight category, I'm overweight (my current BMI was just inside the obese range the last time I had my measurements done, I weigh myself every week but get full body measurements done approx every 6 weeks) so I have a lot more weight to lose.

Personally I don't care what people think about me, I certainly wouldn't end a friendship because I felt that someone had gained weight (that's not really what a friend would do), if you want to lose a bit of weight that's fine, but do it for yourself not for anyone else.

It's difficult but you would need to log food to get an idea of how many calories you're consuming against how many you want to consume (also including exercise calories, once my marathon is done my calories will most likely drop)

Exercise isn't going to help you lose weight, your diet is what's going to do it. Though at your weight you definitely don't need to. I think you probably need to just develop more confidence in your body! If you weigh more than your friend who thinks you look the same it probably just means you have more muscle which is a good thing!

Anyway, I live in Korea and eat a ton of meals that are full of random vegetables and other ingredients and I'm able to count calories and figure it out, for the most part. It takes some time at the beginning but it becomes much easier especially if you're eating the same foods.

Good luck!

OP, with that slight fluctuation, I'd bet it's water weight.

Make sure you're drinking plenty of water, as it will help with water retention. You said you aren't counting calories because it's too hard; if you're not going track cals, at least write down what you eat and how much of it you eat. Weight loss happens in the kitchen and you can't out-exercise a bad diet; meaning, exercise helps create a deficit, but even if you're eating 'healthy', you can still eat too many calories to make weight loss successful.

Give it more than a week, track your food in *some* way, drink plenty of water and exercise to be healthy, not to lose weight.

ETA: if your body is constantly sore from working out, you need to rest. Rest is when your body repairs itself. You do yourself no favors not giving your body a chance to recover.

Feel free to FR me :flowerforyou:

It's all muscle!

For what it's worth, I would track what you eat, not so much to go on a diet but to give you a visual perspective/comparison of how many calories you're eating compared to how many calories you're burning (track that too). You may find that instead of eating too much as other posters have commented (especially if as you mentioned you're eating vegetarian) that you're not eating enough. Too large a deficit can actually have the opposite affect to weight loss, especially when you don't have that much to lose for your height. And if you set up MFP to already be at a calorie deficit, you may find you're making it worse. So track and see if what you need to do is eat more, or eat less - you don't have to change what you eat, just how much.

ETA: if you've only worked out since 25 March, then I would give it another 1-2 weeks to see weight loss, especially if you haven't worked out much before. Right now your muscles have broken themselves down and need to repair (water retention) and it will take some time for your body to get over the shock of working out before it starts letting go of the fat.

Good luck - remember, change isn't immediate and only you can dictate your own worth and beauty!

I have been exercising daily to lose weight since March 25.

That long you say?

April Fools much??:laugh:

Exercise is for health and fitness.

Calories in/out is what helps one lose weight. If you aren't counting calories correctly, you won't lose weight regardless of how much exercise you do.

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Your friend is an idiot.

I have been exercising daily to lose weight since March 25.

That long you say?

HAHAHA You stole my thunder!!!! So what I was thinking. I was like, "damn, I think I'd just throw in the towel by now!" Geez. Only been on this site for nearly a month but I think I found my first troll post! Fun times.