NO weight loss!

If you need to lose weight for health reasons, I would ditch the strength training, cos that won't shift the scales for awhile, if at all, you will be replacing the fat with muscle. Also if you opened your diary we could help you with food advice. But I suggest looking at the IIFYM.com and use their calculator. Keep your water intake high 8-12 glasses. Also watch your sodium, you might be sodium sensitive, some people hold extra water with sodium.

measure you food and DRINK LOTS OF WATER!! slow down on the weight training - muscle weighs more.

Unfortunately this isn't an exact science. My take your body a little longer to respond... OR you might be building muscle (which by volume weighs more then fat). Don't get discouraged though!! I DO hope you eat back those exercising calories...

I'd also like to add...don't stop with the weight training. One, it doesn't sound like you're eating at a surplus, since you aren't gaining weight, so you are not gaining muscle. Two, if you have to lose "weight" for a medical reason, it's likely that you have to lose FAT for a medical reason, not just scale weight. Keeping as much lean mass as possible while losing weight will be beneficial for you in the long run, for both health and vanity purposes.

This, thank you. I'm pretty sure if you told your doctors, "ok I am going to go ahead and lose 15 pounds of muscle only, and keep all my body fat," they would not be enthusiastic.

I don't really know about muscle weight but I know unless I measure and count my calories exactly with measuring spoons and a food scale I don't lose. It is time consuming and annoying but it is the only thing that works. Drinking water helps me a lot also. I wish you good luck. I know it is not easy. I have to lose for health reasons also because I have bad arthritis and the weight on my joints is very bad. Try to picture yourself healthier and how happy you will be from that and hopefully it will motivate you. Again good luck.
Fran

If you aren't losing weight you're not in a caloric deficit. Start logging properly.

To the other posters:
Don't stop weight training. That makes no sense.
She is not gaining muscle in a deficit.
Muscle does not weigh more than fat. A pound is a pound. Muscle is more dense.

When they say muscle weighs more than fat they don't mean 1 lb of muscle weighs more than 1 lb of fat, they mean 1 square inch of muscle weighs more than 1 square inch of fat.

I am in same boat as original post. I am tracking accurately. But I am 10 days in and have lost nothing.
I am keeping it up because the tracking keeps me aware and eating better.
I am just curious about what is happening in my own body…

greenskpr wrote: »

As mentioned above - it's a misnomer that you can gain muscle in caloric deficit. You just can't. If you're truly in a deficit, you're body is trying to come up with ways to feed itself. Muscle production and repair is minimal, if any. Fat stores, as well as muscle tissue are broken down for their energy producing potential. You may start looking more 'cut' or 'diced' but that's more from muscle tone improving and fat layers becoming less thick.
When you're in a deficit, your body is functioning in a catabolic state - it's consuming itself.
Nobody is getting big (or staying the same) when those conditions exist.
.

One can most certainly lose fat and gain muscle at the same time. Google recomposition. Your body can use excess fat to fuel building the muscle with an appropriate training program.

@smatthews9045 each person’s body loses weight at its own rate. People who lose a large amount of weight the first week are mostly losing water weight. In fact water weight may be hiding your weight loss. This is especially true if you have started an exercise program, eat a high sodium diet for example. There is a thread on the causes if water weight gain. You might find it in the stickied threads at the top if the forum or maybe some kind poster will direct you to it.

Just to illustrate Ann’s point about water weight for menstruating people, here’s about a month of data—that flat(ish) span is between periods (though different people have different patterns). It pays to keep the long game in mind.

KarmaKamen wrote: »

I_Will_End_You wrote: »

If you aren't losing weight, you'll probably not actually eating 1200-1300 calories a day. It's likely logging errors. (eyeballing and guessing portion sizes)

This. It can be tricky to measure calories accurately. It's why I purchased a digital scale recently, because I hear weighing is a lot more accurate. You could also try setting macro goals (carbs, protein, fat). I noticed when I have a lot of carbs (bread, pasta, etc.) It's harder for me to lose weight. I do much better when I have more lean proteins and veggies. (Whole foods instead of processed.) Also, I figured out when to eat is important. Spreading out meals during the day in small chunks and setting a cut-off point where I don't eat from 11PM to 11AM seems to be helping. If I eat big meals, especially late at night, I will tend to gain weight. What you should do depends on your body type, but considering macros, what you're eating and when you're eating, might be worth a try.

If you are strength training, as others said, you might be replacing fat with muscle. This is not a bad thing at all. Take photos of yourself. Maybe you're having results but can't really see them?

Sadly, the bolded is very unlikely. People sometimes believe it's happening because they get stronger fast when new to training, but early strength gains are more about better recruiting and utilizing the muscle fibers we already have (that's sometimes called neuromuscular adaptation, or NMA). Sometimes, people can also look more "toned" from the effects of training, before gaining actual new muscle mass.

Those things are great, very worthwhile, but they can deceive folks into thinking they've gained meaningful muscle mass, when they mostly haven't.

Growing new muscle fibers is a much slower thing, and - oversimplifying somewhat here - the body isn't really triggered to do that very much until it's achieved what it can strength-wise from better activating the pre-existing muscle fibers.

Realistically, a good rate of gain for muscle mass would be perhaps one to two pounds per month under ideal conditions. Ideal conditions include a good progressive strength training program faithfully performed, favorable genetics, relative youth, relative male-ness, good nutrition (especially but not exclusively adequate protein), and a calorie surplus (i.e. gaining weight, not losing it).

It's not that no one can ever gain new muscle mass alongside restricting calories. Some can do that. It's that muscle mass gain will almost certainly be quite a bit slower than that 1-2 pounds a month that's a realistic high expectation under ideal conditions. (Some will argue that gains can be faster in some conditions; the main point here is that even fast gains are pretty slow, and require a lot of factors to be in place or they won't happen the fastest. For sure one of those factors is calorie surplus vs. calorie deficit.)

On the flip side, half a pound a week of fat loss is about the slowest rate anyone is going to be able to observe clearly, and even that can take a month or more to sort itself out from the background noise of daily weight fluctuations. For most people, scale weight meanders up and down in a range of a few pounts (1-2 pounds if not more). Those fluctuations within a day or few are mostly caused by normal, healthy changes in water retention and digestive contents on their way to becoming waste.

So: 2 pounds a month of muscle mass gain in a month is quite fast, unrealistic for most, especially when losing weight. 2 pounds a month of fat loss is pretty slow, and would not satisfy many people who are trying to lose a meaningful amount of weight - plus it might not even show clearly on the scale amongst shifts that aren't about fat gain/loss.

Bottom line, and TL;DR: Any realistic rate of muscle mass gain is unlikely to outpace any satisfying rate of fat loss on the body weight scale, over short periods of time.

I wish it were otherwise.

Certain exercise programs will cause you to gain bc you are gaining muscle but also need to eat more some of those you don’t lose in numbers on the scale but in sizes. Also you may either need to exercise less or stop completely or adjust your calories to 1400-1500. I lost weight with diet only no excercise for health reasons. I had to find my magic calories number to lose. Also make sure you log accurately ( some things on the log here are not accurate) that your portions are correct not double portions on the container and weigh your food. Prelog is a good idea and also meal prep for the week.