3 weeks and I only lost 5 pounds!!!

3-4 weeks is a good start, but this is not something you start and end in such a short period of time. 5 pounds in 3-4 weeks is great. Now give it another 3-4...

Like already posted... 5lbs is a great start!

What's wrong with 5 pounds in 3 weeks? It's been a month and I've only lost 4 pounds. This isn't the Biggest Loser! lol We aren't going to be dropping 10-20 lbs a week. We gained our fat gradually and the only way to get rid of it forever is to lose it gradually.

Look at it this way - you haven't GAINED any weight, right? I was actively gaining weight until I started MFP, so I look at it as a success that I've stopped that gain, even if I haven't lost a lot of weight yet.

One pound per week is a good healthy rate to lose weight. If you are heavier it can sometimes drop a little faster but you don't want it to.

You don't want your body taxed.
You want to give your skin time to contract.
You need to relearn how to eat and not starve yourself.

Losing weight is not an ALL or nothing cram for exam... it is a constant journey where you have to relearn ways that work for you.

Your graph will be all over the place like mine



http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/jtrack3d

I agree with everyone else, that is great progess! But maybe try and focus less on strength training and work on some cardio. Whatever fat you lose is being replaced with muscle. Maybe try doing cardio 3 days out of the week and 2 days strength. If you don't go to the gym that much, just try adding in more cardio to your workouts. Good Luck! Keep up the good work!

That's a pretty good rate of loss. Also, remember that muscle weighs much more when compared to fat so it's possible that you are building muscle while losing fat at the same time. So while you might be gaining weight at times you will look skinnier. Often times people gain weight over a period of years and that takes a lot of time to get off so don't get discouraged! Just keep at it!

If you haven't already done it, take a picture of yourself now and then once a week/month so you can actually see that you are making progress.

Once you realize your goals are unrealistic, you'll find that 5 lbs in 3 weeks is a good thing and not something to be frustrated over.

Be happy about your progress so far, not unhappy about not attaining the fantasies you've had in your head.

5lbs in 3 weeks is good. also you're working out.. you're building muscle. so it may not read on a scale but you're losing fat and gaining muscle.

5lbs in 3 weeks is good. also you're working out.. you're building muscle. so it may not read on a scale but you're losing fat and gaining muscle.

No. You can't gain muscle while on a deficit. That's like building an addition to a house without any building materials and while people are stealing bricks from the original house during the night.

You can't build something (muscle) from less than nothing (a calorie deficit).

It's not from nothing. Your body has 3500 calories per pound of fat to use as something.

5lbs in 3 weeks is good. also you're working out.. you're building muscle. so it may not read on a scale but you're losing fat and gaining muscle.

No. You can't gain muscle while on a deficit. That's like building an addition to a house without any building materials and while people are stealing bricks from the original house during the night.

You can't build something (muscle) from less than nothing (a calorie deficit).

It's not from nothing. Your body has 3500 calories per pound of fat to use as something.

Only the very obese see gains in muscle mass because there's enough fat stores to release the needed energy to run the body at a deficit while the eaten food can be then used to build muscle. The average person, while eating in a deficit, will not gain mass. They can gain strength but those are two different things.

ok. thanks a lot guys! I guess my frustration came from when i logged my calories MFP was saying "if every day was like today you'd weight 149 pounds in 5 weeks!" and i was just thinking to myself.... "I'm not even close to that! d@mmit!" lol. Thanks again for the motivation

Whoa huge deficit there! Eat up...

5lbs in 3 weeks is good. also you're working out.. you're building muscle. so it may not read on a scale but you're losing fat and gaining muscle.

No. You can't gain muscle while on a deficit. That's like building an addition to a house without any building materials and while people are stealing bricks from the original house during the night.

You can't build something (muscle) from less than nothing (a calorie deficit).

It's not from nothing. Your body has 3500 calories per pound of fat to use as something.

Only the very obese see gains in muscle mass because there's enough fat stores to release the needed energy to run the body at a deficit while the eaten food can be then used to build muscle. The average person, while eating in a deficit, will not gain mass. They can gain strength but those are two different things.

So your earlier statement that it "can't" be done was overbroad and wrong.

Nope. Just as I don't automatically add a disclaimer of "certain medical conditions being exempt" when giving advice, I didn't add the "If you're obese, you could, under the proper circumstances, see miniscule gains in muscle mass while eating at a deficit."

It wasn't over broad or wrong. It was a fact that didn't include the tiny outlier. Why are you fighting this information so much? Your assertion that 3500 calories per pound of excess fat could be used to create muscle was over broad and wrong. Yours was misinformation that people who aren't losing could use to attribute non weight loss to muscle building in conjunction with fat loss when in reality, they are likely eating too much. Your information would stall a person and give them false hopes for a healthier body that they aren't actually attaining. Mine, on the other hand, is forcing a person to take a second look at their diet/exercise, make corrections and eventually attain their goals.

Good information is more useful to people than misinformation every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

5lbs in 3 weeks is good. also you're working out.. you're building muscle. so it may not read on a scale but you're losing fat and gaining muscle.

No. You can't gain muscle while on a deficit. That's like building an addition to a house without any building materials and while people are stealing bricks from the original house during the night.

You can't build something (muscle) from less than nothing (a calorie deficit).

It's not from nothing. Your body has 3500 calories per pound of fat to use as something.

Only the very obese see gains in muscle mass because there's enough fat stores to release the needed energy to run the body at a deficit while the eaten food can be then used to build muscle. The average person, while eating in a deficit, will not gain mass. They can gain strength but those are two different things.

So your earlier statement that it "can't" be done was overbroad and wrong.

Nope. Just as I don't automatically add a disclaimer of "certain medical conditions being exempt" when giving advice, I didn't add the "If you're obese, you could, under the proper circumstances, see miniscule gains in muscle mass while eating at a deficit."

It wasn't over broad or wrong. It was a fact that didn't include the tiny outlier. Why are you fighting this information so much? Your assertion that 3500 calories per pound of excess fat could be used to create muscle was over broad and wrong. Yours was misinformation that people who aren't losing could use to attribute non weight loss to muscle building in conjunction with fat loss when in reality, they are likely eating too much. Your information would stall a person and give them false hopes for a healthier body that they aren't actually attaining. Mine, on the other hand, is forcing a person to take a second look at their diet/exercise, make corrections and eventually attain their goals.

Good information is more useful to people than misinformation every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Look, you were wrong. Just deal with it. The guy said in his original post that he was 268 when he started. Per BMI, 268 is obese all the way up to 6'7". So, unless the guy is taller than 6'7", he was obese when he started. It's not a "tiny outlier," it's the specific guy in this specific thread.

Also, don't put words in my mouth. I never said he could attribute the lack of weight loss to muscle gain. It's borderline impossible for him to gain muscle mass quickly enough for that to be the case. Maybe he could do it with freaky genetics and steroids, but that's beside the point, because I never made that claim in the first place. All I claimed was that your bald assertion that gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time "can't" be done. It can. And, specifically, it can be done by the obese and the OP is obese (unless he's taller than 6'7") so he is exactly the kind of person who is potentially capable of doing what you said can't be done.

So, to recap: what you said was wrong, especially in this particular case and I didn't make the statements you claim I did.

It wasn't wrong. At most, it was trivially incomplete. Any muscle he gained due to being obese was insignificant and not worth mentioning outside of interesting trivial science facts because it's hardly measurable.

You never mentioned attributing weight loss to muscle gain but you quoted my correction of the woman that said, " you're building muscle. so it may not read on a scale but you're losing fat and gaining muscle." with, "It's not from nothing. Your body has 3500 calories per pound of fat to use as something." This was an indirect validation of the poster I corrected. If you didn't want to validate the incorrect statement, you shouldn't have included it in the quotes and only quoted my statement.

In the end, your 'correction' of, "It's not from nothing. Your body has 3500 calories per pound of fat to use as something." wasn't useful in the least. It was nonsensically out of context at its best, misleading at its worst. My original statement contradicting the poster at the start of this quote chain stands. Everything that has been argued after, has just been silly, nit picking nonsense.

Just to reiterate, this was the statement that I corrected before you came in and muddled it up:

you're building muscle. so it may not read on a scale but you're losing fat and gaining muscle

The OP didn't gain enough muscle to offset fat losses (despite being obese). My statement stands. .

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