Trying to lose weight when you're already at a "normal" weight

I agree with Gamliela. I'm between 118 and 120 most of the time and to get any lower, I'd have to starve myself because it doesn't take that many calories to maintain my already fairly low weight. So, I work out and eat at maintenance.

I am 5'3 started out at 134 and now I am at 123 after about a month of paleo diet and running. I even had a few cheat days

Hi,

What you refer to is Vanity pounds. You have to tackle these lbs differently because they are considered essential fat. The top things i've found that work are HIIT, Intermittent Fasting, Carb cycling and 90% of 1RM.

HIIT: there is am 8 week program that will really tell your body to burn fat. you need only 15 mintutes 3 times a week and every 2 weeks you increase intensity.

Intermittent fasting: careful on this, many people completely starve themselves before working out thinking the body will target only fat for energy. ultimately this will hapen but with a few tweaks. Be sure to take BCAAs before and during. with no carbs in your system and bcaas telling you not to go catabolic, you will be in an anabolic state and burn more fat. do not go too intense, TBH I like to do IF before cardio, eat an apple and some protein, and continue on with the heavy lifts.

Carb Cycling: simply put we lower our calories through carbs on our inactive days.

If I lift M,W,F and my maintenance is 2,500 calories, then on those days I eat 2,300 but exercise like heck. say cardio and lifting I burn 500 calories.

2500 bmr + 500 exercise - 2300 food = 700 cal deficit.

To many people go too low without realizing that your deficit should largely come from exercise. less than 30% of the deficit in this example came from reduction in calories. on off days you aren't exercising and therefore should drop your calories from 2300 down and adittional 200.

2500 mbr - 2100 food = 400 deficit.

700 x 3 days a week = 2100
400 x 4 days a week = 1600
total cal deficit = 3700 or 1.05lb of fat.

if you want to lose more, subtract 50 calories.

This reduction needs to come from carbs not protein or fat.

200 cal reduction = 200/4 - 50 grams of carbs

I'm 5'3.5" and currently 110.7 pounds; I'm almost at the end of my final cut to 108 pounds. I would say that my most useful tool is my food scale. When you don't have a huge margin of error calorie wise, a food scale is extremely useful for being as accurate as possible regarding your calorie intake. I workout every day, mostly resistance training, and I walk anywhere between 15,000 to 20,000 steps per day. I also do Intermittent Fasting since it fits my lifestyle.

Yup - my whole life and that's what goes into the head, I don't "need to" until my cholestorol was bad and 'skinny fat' was truly an issue. I did well, but then an injury kept me from working out and pre-menopause is messing with me and I'm back up 10 pounds.

Currently doing 22Minute Hard Corp.
I'm under 4' 11"

I am now considered to be at a healthy weight, but I still want to lose another 10lb to get to my personal goal weight, but I get so many comments about me looking fine, or "Ooh don't lose any more weight, you'll look ill" but I know that I have got a lot of loose skin from the weight I have already lost, so my weight loss is more about shaping up and losing those last few pounds, I mean whats 10lb when you consider what I've already lost - people won't even see those pounds, but they still insist that it'll make me look ill, or gaunt...

I also find it frustrating that when I was 321lb people said little or nothing about my weight, activity levels or food choices, but now that I'm 164lb they are all suddenly experts on what is good for me and my body.

xXx

I'm a bit heavier at the moment because I ran a bulk to try to gain muscle over the winter, but yes. At certain points people have told me I look slim already and should stop losing. But you know what? I was 5'4" and 133 lbs. There is nothing wrong with trying to lose a few vanity pounds or get down to 18% body fat. If you're happy at 25-27%, great...but I'm not. Sometimes so many people around us are large, I think the idea of "slim" is skewed a bit.

Anyway, I have a decent amount of muscle so even in the 130s I struggle very much with losing weight. It can take me months to lose a couple pounds. Yes, weightloss is about CICO, but at some point-once you're pretty lean, other factors start playing a role or at least mask losses.

This is a great podcast with Lyle McDonald explaining some of the difficulties with relatively lean women trying to lose fat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6846ZTBu08k

Yup. 5'2" and starting at 123. My initial goal is 115. Then we will see where I'm happiest.