Exercising and Dieting over a month and the scale will not budge

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  • lilystars
    lilystars Posts: 36 Member
    999tigger wrote: »
    Have had a look. Did you start your diet on 14 Dec as that was the earliest entry I could find. Diannes post is a good one and covers the basis. Dont worry about starvation mode.

    Just a few observations.

    1. When people are not losing weight, which is the most common query, then it tends to be that they are at maintenance.
    2. I note there are 5 days not logged, which is quite a gap considering you have only been on the diet 26 days. No info what you ate or drank there.
    3. You need to start weighing your food to make sure you have an accurate deficit and that you really are eating at the level you think you are. Its quite common for people to understimate how much they are eating. At your level then you only have 590 calories to play with.
    4. Dont go below 1200 and if you need to increase then do it by using half your exercise calories or less. As you are doing only 4h gym then I assume 2 or 3 of those are cardio burns of say 450-700 calories an hour? You might feel its a lot, but if accurate it amounts to about 1/3- 1/2lb a week. Just keep in mind in terms of direct weight loss then it takes a lot of exercise alone.
    5. Give it another three weeks, but weigh your food, dont eat below 1200 and try to keep a bit consistent although from what I saw your diet looked ok.
    6. Report back. Your aim at the moment is just to check you are at an accurate sustained deficit and then it should kick in.

    ps what D said above about water retention, try to avoid salt and be sure to drink plenty of water.

    Hello!

    I actually started on Dec 6th , but discovered MFP only on dec 14th when looking for a calorie counter app.. So happy I found this here :)

    Thanks so much for your advice, as to everyone else as well. This really helps a lot.

    Tomorrow I will buy that scale, keep logging in as accurately as possible, and check in in 3 weeks as you say.. fingers crossed!

    Cheers!
  • MKEgal
    MKEgal Posts: 3,250 Member
    5"4 (163 cm) and weigh 158 pounds (72 kg).
    My ideal goal weight is to get back to what I weighed in college which was 110 pounds
    Here's a BMI chart.
    To be in the healthy range, you should be 110 - 140.
    So you're not far from a healthy weight, and 110 is really low.
    Because you're close to a healthy weight, you're going to lose weight slowly. Aim for 0.5 lb / week. That's a reduction of 250 cal/day from what you need to maintain your current weight (1580 - 250 = 1330).
    arsc02 wrote:
    If you don't enough calories your body goes into starvation mode and stores what calories you do eat.
    No.
    The body needs energy (calories) to run. It will not hold onto calories if it needs them to live.

    It will preferentially burn carbs (glucose, then glycogen), then fat, then as a distant third it turns to muscle. That's an inefficient conversion.

    Starvation mode is when the body burns muscle, hoping that you will find food before your heart & diaphragm stop working & you die. That takes a LONG time of VLCD.
    Are you eating the same thing every day? Consistency is the key.
    Again, no. Eat a varied diet of not less than 1200 cal/day so you're getting all the nutrition you need.
    (I do tend to have the same thing for breakfast pretty much every day, but that's just because I don't want to have to think in the morning. The rest of my diet is varied.)

  • 47Jacqueline
    47Jacqueline Posts: 6,993 Member
    If you're staying below 1200 calories, you're not eating enough and your body is saying Whoa! I better hold onto whatever fuel I've got so I don't run out. ;)

    Also, if you don't have a lot to lose, you just may not lose particularly fast. I lost my first 20 lb in about 6 months and the last 10 in another 6 months. I was eating about 1450 cal a day and working out about 6 days a week.

    Everyone is different.
  • Roxiegirl2008
    Roxiegirl2008 Posts: 756 Member
    lilystars wrote: »
    Roxiegirl2008 wrote: »
    JetlaggedExpat wrote: »
    Going in a different direction, I'd suggest measuring yourself (arm, thigh, waist, hips, bust) and keeping a record of the results. I work with a trainer who does this for me every few weeks and the last time I started to get weepy about not losing weight she pulled out my chart and said "well, the scale's the same but you've lost an inch and a half off your hips and an inch of your waist." Muscle really does weigh more than fat.

    Yes to this. I did the same thing with my trainer and she busted out the tape measure and showed my progress. That month I was down many inches it just took a little extra time for the scale to catch up. It usually always did.

    PS- I love Body Pump and Body Combat.

    Thanks girls, excellent tips!
    I have indeed been keeping track of measurements .. but, well I can't say that they have budged much .. The general aspect is less puffy, but no real inches lost yet...
    I've got to keep up the Body Pump & Body Combat I guess! ;)

    You bet and in Body Combat just act like you are punching away the puffiness. :D
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