Rookie exercise question

It shouldn't slow anything down, in fact since you're burning calories it should speed it up slightly. It should also increase the SIZE loss as well since muscle is more dense than fat. Are you still keeping close track of your calories?

Annie120484 wrote: »

steff274 wrote: »

Body pump is cardio but would burn less than the more running about sweaty activities at the gym.. I like body pump for toning but will usually do body attack then body pump afterwards.. If you have dropped the amount of high intensity classes in favour for body pump your weight loss has probably slowed because you are burning less, still do body pump for toning but mix it up abit..
My weekly classes..
Monday.. Attack then pump
Tuesday.. Pump
Wednesday.. Spin
Thursday.. Attack then pump
Friday.. Pump and spin

By attack do you mean intense cardio?

Body attack is another Les Mills workout but it does not involve weights, it's high energy cardio type.

When you say stalled, how much weight have you been losing per week? and how much do you want to lose? what are your stats

Well to answer your question, weight training does retain water especially at first during muscle repair and breakdown and the fact is is something new.
Honestly though, with that little to lose, it takes a while. It is completely normal to lose 0.5-1 lbs a week when you don't have much to lose.
Definitely take measurements, even if the scale moves slow, you'll see visual difference within 6 weeks usually

Annie120484 wrote: »

Why are smaller amounts of weight so difficult to lose??

Because you can't create as big of a deficit as a morbidly obese person.

Other than some newbie gains, you can't really build muscle on a deficit, btw, but you can keep as much as possible. And while the strength training and cardio aren't strictly separated, the exercise you mentioned seems to lean much more towards cardio than strength training. If you're looking to build muscle after losing the fat, you might wanna look into heavy lifting.

Annie120484 wrote: »

Lost three lbs first week and a half or so then bumped up exercise and weight loss stalled entirely... would like to lose ten more (ideally, fifteen more.)

Okay, so let's be realistic here. It sounds like you have just started recently with your weight loss and exercise goals.

You say that you lost 3 lbs the first week and then "things stalled". Be aware that you did not lose 3 pounds of fat from your body in a week - especially when you are only looking to lose 13 pounds total.

Your body, for starters, is comprised of about 65% water. So, scales go up and down, and especially with women's cycles, within a day, within a week, and within a month. These are completely normal weight fluctuations and are just changes in water.

So, if you happened to start your program and you were at "your heaviest weight of the month", and you don't weigh yourself regularly, normally, that 3 pound loss in the first week might have occurred even if you hadn't reduced calories, nor increased activity. It could just be a "normal weight fluctuation". Most women of normal weight will have about a 3-4 normal weight fluctuation over the course of a month when their weight is, in fact, perfectly stable.

It actually takes about 3 months of solid, daily data to determine what your personal and normal weight fluctuations are.

Secondly, if you have just recently started your exercise program, sore and inflamed muscles easily make scales go "up"! It is not uncommon for someone to start a program at a gym and find that six weeks later they weigh more than when they started.

So, long story short. Time and patience is required to genuinely change your body for the better, and most day to day upticks and downticks are actually just "noise".

If you are doing everything right - meaning that you are more active, watching your calories, staying on budget etc. etc. Take your physical measurements, stick with your program, note your weight but don't flip out if you see upticks and downticks, and then over a 3 month period of time, see if a "downward trend" is created.

Assess your progress after three months, then "tweak" your program a bit, if necessary.

The weight training and the cardio are both great for you!

Hope this helps.

Annie120484 wrote: »

Does strength training cause a slower weight loss?

Yes.

I've been doing quite a bit of Body Pump and light weight lifting in order to build some muscle, and much less cardio (although most of it feels like cardio) and I've noticed weight loss slow to a crawl. Is this normal when starting a strength routine?

Initially you might build a little strength in the beginning, but Body Pump is more a muscle endurance/cardio type program than a muscle building program. The "crawl" is due to more water and glycogen retention from just working out.

Do I just have to be patient until the muscle begins to develop and burn more calories in the process? Thanks in advance.

You'd have to be VERY patient if you're going to rely on Body Pump to build muscle.
Building actual lean tissue means adding mass. To add mass like this you need a couple of things: more calories (can't add mass out of nowhere) and progressive OVERLOAD training (which isn't done in Body Pump).
Now you can "reveal" more muscle by losing body fat, but that has more to do with your intake/expenditure than how you're actually exercising.

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