Stalled 4th week in

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RomaFilipe
RomaFilipe Posts: 8 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hello there.

I've had a huge depression/panic attacks/anxiety for the last 2.5years and I gained a ton of weight (92.2kg at 1.71m or 203lbs at 5 feet 7). I decided I had enough of this *kitten* so I decided to take back control on my life starting by my health and self image.

Just for a little background story I used to be pretty fit at 73kg and I went to the gym for 1.5years consistently (3 times a week) with an almost psychotic calorie and macro tracking. I was the guy cooking chicken breasts and veggies at 8am for breakfast which I don't think I would ever do it again since it was so energy consuming and probably one of the reasons I dropped it altogether. It was just not pratical or convenient at all.

Anyway, I started "get life back on track" 3 weeks ago. I started by creating a fitday account first because that was the site I was more familiar with back then. I set as a starting point around 2400 cals and training 6x a week with a program made by my friend which is a long time gym rat who I know very well and one of my closest friends.

I quickly dropped 1kg (I think about 2.2lbs) by the end of first week. After the 2nd week I didn't lose any weight at all so I decided to cut a little bit on calories to 2200/day. At this point going into week 3 I decided I would still keep at 2200 cals because it could be just water retention or something like that and I don't want to create too big of a deficit unnecessarily. I'm now writing this on Day 1 of Week 4 and I still haven't lost any more weight which is kind of weird to me. I compared the photos I took yesterday to Day 1 photos and I THINK I can tell already some differences but I don't trust myself too much on this given it's such a small time span and I don't want to get discouraged or overexcited so I'm really not sure...

As far as eating I eat clean and I don't obsess all that much on the macros stuff because I want to keep this long term and sane for me even if it means going at a slower pace (also I don't buy the whole carbs are bad for you e.t.c). I also track 100% of what I eat and I hit the caloric goals 100% of the time.

Sorry for long post. Thinks to ever takes the time to read this wall of text. Thoughts and advice are welcomed. Thanks in advance. Filipe

Replies

  • elphie754
    elphie754 Posts: 7,574 Member
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    If you are not losing, you are not in a deficit.
  • RomaFilipe
    RomaFilipe Posts: 8 Member
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    Forgot to mention I have a kitchen scale with which I measure every single thing that I eat.
  • RomaFilipe
    RomaFilipe Posts: 8 Member
    edited May 2015
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    elphie754 wrote: »
    If you are not losing, you are not in a deficit.

    So I lost 1kg 1st week on 2400 cals and suddenly I'm not in deficit at 2200 cals? I don't know doesn't seem that simple but ok. I'll go for 2200 cals one more week and reduce again if I don't lose any weight by the end of this week.
  • ruggedshutter
    ruggedshutter Posts: 389 Member
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    Is your kitchen scale digital and accurate? I used to have a manual scale and I thought that it was good enough but it really was horrible. Do you eat back exercise calories? If so, what are you using to measure the calorie burn? Just trying to find things that could be causing your net calories to be too high.
  • RomaFilipe
    RomaFilipe Posts: 8 Member
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    ruggedshutter wrote: »
    Is your kitchen scale digital and accurate? I used to have a manual scale and I thought that it was good enough but it really was horrible. Do you eat back exercise calories? If so, what are you using to measure the calorie burn? Just trying to find things that could be causing your net calories to be too high.

    Yes, my scale is digital and it's pretty much brand new (like 1 month old) and the weights seem sound to me. I'm training 6 times a week so I just eat 2200 cals 7 days a week even though the rest day I should eat like 200-300 cals less but I just don't bother. I'm not tracking calories burned through exercise but I assume it would be around 200-300.

  • ncboiler89
    ncboiler89 Posts: 2,408 Member
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    RomaFilipe wrote: »
    elphie754 wrote: »
    If you are not losing, you are not in a deficit.

    So I lost 1kg 1st week on 2400 cals and suddenly I'm not in deficit at 2200 cals? I don't know doesn't seem that simple but ok. I'll go for 2200 cals one more week and reduce again if I don't lose any weight by the end of this week.

    If you eat fewer calories than you burn you will lose weight. If you don't you will either maintain or gain. It's really that simple. That being said there is not enough info in your post to know for sure if you are losing, maintaining, or gaining. You could actually be doing any of the three.
  • DemoraFairy
    DemoraFairy Posts: 1,806 Member
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    It's only been two weeks. Weight loss isn't linear, give it a bit more time!
  • RomaFilipe
    RomaFilipe Posts: 8 Member
    edited May 2015
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    ncboiler89 wrote: »
    RomaFilipe wrote: »
    elphie754 wrote: »
    If you are not losing, you are not in a deficit.

    So I lost 1kg 1st week on 2400 cals and suddenly I'm not in deficit at 2200 cals? I don't know doesn't seem that simple but ok. I'll go for 2200 cals one more week and reduce again if I don't lose any weight by the end of this week.

    If you eat fewer calories than you burn you will lose weight. If you don't you will either maintain or gain. It's really that simple. That being said there is not enough info in your post to know for sure if you are losing, maintaining, or gaining. You could actually be doing any of the three.

    If I use BMR formula and multiply it by 1.55x (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/week) I'd be at 3000 cals/day. So there's apparently still an 800 cals difference here which should be enough to lose at least something.
  • RomaFilipe
    RomaFilipe Posts: 8 Member
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    DemoraFairy wrote: »
    It's only been two weeks. Weight loss isn't linear, give it a bit more time!

    That's kind of what I'm leaning towards at the moment. Although it's been actually 3 weeks, not 2 :P

  • TimothyFish
    TimothyFish Posts: 4,925 Member
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    You gained 203 lbs or you weigh 203 lbs? If you weigh 203 lbs, 2200 is right at the number of calories you would burn without exercise. I would suggest that you enter your information into MyFitnessPal and let it tell you the number of calories you would aim for.
  • ruggedshutter
    ruggedshutter Posts: 389 Member
    edited May 2015
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    RomaFilipe wrote: »
    If I use BMR formula and multiply it by 1.55x (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/week) I'd be at 3000 cals/day. So there's apparently still an 800 cals difference here which should be enough to lose at least something.

    I would give it a little more time since you are confident in your intake numbers. I lost a couple of pounds pretty quick when I started and then things seemed to stall for a couple of weeks. Those couple of weeks have been the showed the lowest loss that I have had in 4 months. It might help you mentally if you used a cloth tape measure to check your waist and chest measurements to see if you show a loss there first before it shows up on the scale. That might help ease your mind a little too.
  • RomaFilipe
    RomaFilipe Posts: 8 Member
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    TimothyFish wrote: »
    You gained 203 lbs or you weigh 203 lbs? If you weigh 203 lbs, 2200 is right at the number of calories you would burn without exercise. I would suggest that you enter your information into MyFitnessPal and let it tell you the number of calories you would aim for.

    Im 202lbs and MFP says I should eat 1480cals for me to lose 1.65lb a week and also says I should lose 4lbs by June 10th which sounds ridiculous to me and the math doesnt even add up.
  • MimiMayRR
    MimiMayRR Posts: 19 Member
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    From what I've read when you start a new exercise program, your body can respond with water retention and inflammation as it tries to repair the microtears in your muscle that are part of the process of building muscle. So, if you start a diet AND exercise regimen at the same time, it can look like you are "stuck" or even gaining a pound or two, even if you actually are losing fat.

    This happened to me, too. I started running and strength training at the same time that I started tracking calories, and I was pissed off to see I hadn't lost anything for a couple of weeks. But then the next week I dropped several pounds all at once and now I seem to be slowly and steadily losing. So, just stick with it and give it a few more weeks. If you don't see changes soon, though, you might want to adjust your daily calorie targets down a little and see if that does the trick. Good luck!
  • RomaFilipe
    RomaFilipe Posts: 8 Member
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    mistydring wrote: »
    From what I've read when you start a new exercise program, your body can respond with water retention and inflammation as it tries to repair the microtears in your muscle that are part of the process of building muscle. So, if you start a diet AND exercise regimen at the same time, it can look like you are "stuck" or even gaining a pound or two, even if you actually are losing fat.

    This happened to me, too. I started running and strength training at the same time that I started tracking calories, and I was pissed off to see I hadn't lost anything for a couple of weeks. But then the next week I dropped several pounds all at once and now I seem to be slowly and steadily losing. So, just stick with it and give it a few more weeks. If you don't see changes soon, though, you might want to adjust your daily calorie targets down a little and see if that does the trick. Good luck!

    Yes that's kind of along the lines of what I was thinking it might be happening at this point. Since I already had some amount of experience in weight training I figured my muscle memory was kicking in and I could be having lean mass gains and losing some fat at the same time in this initial phase. Whatever the case might be I will keep my calorie intake for another week and see what happens.

    This is not a race for me. I initially set a time frame for 6 months but if it takes longer I don't really care I just want my pre-depression life back :P Good luck to everyone out there trying to be a better version of yourselves.



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