Relatively light people trying to get leaner

stroutman81 wrote: »

I'm going through my blog here on MFP and finding a few pieces I think are worth sharing on the main board. This piece specifically was a blurb from a conversation I was having with a relatively lean female who was "having problems" getting leaner.

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Where I'm going with this is... being a light female, you don't have a lot of room to wiggle, calorically speaking. 12 calories per pound is typically where I'll start my clients who are interested in fat loss. That's assuming a maintenance of around 14-15 calories per pound and frequent exercise.

So in your case, 12 x 122 = 1500ish calories per day.

You're most likely eating close to that after you eat your exercise calories back. Plus, keep in mind that mostly everyone under-reports actual calorie intake. Humans are just very poor at doing this accurately. I have papers showing dietitians significantly under-reporting their true intake, believe it or not.

So in this case, we're assuming your maintenance is 14 x 122 = 1700 leaving you with a 200 cal/day deficit.

Given that there are 3500 cals in one pound of fat, assuming all you lost was fat (which isn't the case), it would take you 17-18 days just to lose one pound.

And even with that, smaller women who are trying to diet invariably deal with all sorts of water balance issues. Part of it is glycogen, as mentioned above. Each gram of glycogen that is stored carries along 3 grams of water. But it also has loads to do with hormone balances that tend to get wonky in women in your position.

So your fat loss could be happening at this excruciatingly slow pace and even then, you won't realize it on the scale as it can be masked by 2-5 lbs of water weight.

I see it all the time... women in similar shoes heading in the "right" direction but they never stick with things long enough to realize it. They solely use the scale to measure progress so they never actually realize they're losing fat and this is coupled with short-term perceptions/expectations. They never stick to the plan b/c they allow water weight to dominate their emotional well-being. More often then not they cave, binge, and try again next week or month or whatever. It's a viscous cycle.

More often than not, managing expectation along with tracking weight/body comp over many weeks and plotting a trend is what's called for. Or to put it differently, it's a matter of patience, assuming you have your nutrition and exercise dialed in correctly.

I'm just finishing working with a woman who's a fitness competitor. Over the course of a 2 month cut she averaged under .5 lbs of fat loss per week. And her weight remained the same throughout much of that time. Think about that.

Also, keep in mind that your maintenance may very well be under 14 calories per pound. Say it's 13. That puts maintenance at 1600 and if you're consuming 1500 cals/day, that gives you an average daily deficit of only 100 cals. At that rate, again assuming you lose nothing but fat, it would take you 35 days to lose one pound of fat.

See where I'm going with this?

stroutman81 wrote: »

xbowhunter wrote: »

Wow this post really opened my eyes. I used to be a cardio junky. Little did I know I was doing my body more harm than good. Now I am doing the stronglifts 5x5 program & loving it. I still do some light cardio daily (1hr walks with the dog) & I have discovered that rowing machine @ the gym is a great work-out too. No need for me to pound the pavement running anymore.

Last time I checked I was 159lbs & my height 5'7'' so I am on the high end of most BMI scales.

I am looking forward to gaining my strength & being healthy back because after-all that is what this is all about.

Cheers...

Glad you found the post helpful!

What sort of harm were you finding the cardio doing to your body?

JanetYellen wrote: »

Why is this being answered 6 years later?