4 months working out and eating clean - no weight loss

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kaylaincali
kaylaincali Posts: 3 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi Yall! I am really losing my motivation....

I'm 5'2 , 27 years old, and 165 lbs. I have been working out , both weight training, and cardio for the past 4 months and I haven't lost any weight. My measurements have not changed.

I train at the gym at least 4 days a week, usually twice a day.
I track my food (clean eating) on this app, and track my calories (1200-1400), and macros (newly switched to higher protein). I don't have health insurance or else I would have had tests done, but that is next on my to do list.

Has anyone experienced this? How do you stay motivated. It's really starting to hurt my self esteem.

Thank you for any advice!
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Replies

  • kaylaincali
    kaylaincali Posts: 3 Member
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    1200 calories a day isn't a deficit?
  • Blitzia
    Blitzia Posts: 205 Member
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    Are you eating back your exercise calories? If so, you may be overestimating your calories burned and wiping out your deficit.

    If not, how are you measuring your food? Are you weighing out solids? At 1200 calories you should absolutely be losing weight, so it seems that if you aren't, then you must be eating more than 1200 calories per day. (And I'm not trying to be harsh or accusatory by suggesting that the problem may be with your logging. I started with very close to your stats - 28, 5 foot even, ~155 pounds and I'm losing a little more than a pound a week at 1200 calories with only a bit of exercise. So while everyone is different, the laws of physics still apply, and at your stats, 1200 calories should put you at a pretty good calorie deficit.)
  • p218862
    p218862 Posts: 1 Member
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    Depends how many calories you used to eat before
  • kaylaincali
    kaylaincali Posts: 3 Member
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    Blitzia wrote: »
    Are you eating back your exercise calories? If so, you may be overestimating your calories burned and wiping out your deficit.

    If not, how are you measuring your food? Are you weighing out solids? At 1200 calories you should absolutely be losing weight, so it seems that if you aren't, then you must be eating more than 1200 calories per day. (And I'm not trying to be harsh or accusatory by suggesting that the problem may be with your logging. I started with very close to your stats - 28, 5 foot even, ~155 pounds and I'm losing a little more than a pound a week at 1200 calories with only a bit of exercise. So while everyone is different, the laws of physics still apply, and at your stats, 1200 calories should put you at a pretty good calorie deficit.)


    Generally, I am not eating back the calories I burn. If I've had a hard workout, and I feel depleted I might eat and extra 200 calories (1400 total). Most of my food I cook myself. No added sugar, limited dairy, no gluten, limited caffeine. I do weigh it on a food scale, although I need to upgrade to a digital scale.

    I work freelance so I put all my time into doing this right, and I've gotten no results

    I'm worried maybe I'm not consuming enough calories? Or my hormones are off? I was hoping someone out there had been through something similar
  • TimothyFish
    TimothyFish Posts: 4,925 Member
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    Obviously, you can't be eating less than your BMR plus burning extra calories and not lose weight. You aren't sleeping all day, so your calories burned has to be more than 1200. That means it is your calorie intake that is too high. Weighing your food doesn't seem to be working for you. Maybe try buying some food that is packaged single serving if only for a couple of weeks. Just trust the label and keep your intake to 1200. If you start to see weight loss (I expect you will) then you've been using the scales wrong.
  • RMSchmidt17
    RMSchmidt17 Posts: 30 Member
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    There definitely may be a medical issue here. That said, you should look at 1) the accuracy of your logging (are you eating out a lot? That is always impossible to log accurately) 2) has anything else changed? I know you said measurements didn't move but does your body feel better and stronger? I GAINED weight and my butt got bigger, but body scans showed it was just muscle build. 3) whats your deal with cheat days? you can totally blow a week of 1200 calories if you have a day where you're knocking back cocktails and chips. 4) How hard are you training? Sometimes we train too hard and you can actually push yourself out of a fat burning zone. I had VO2 Max testing done and it turns out I burn fat between 137-147 BPM. That is basically a light jog for me or brisk uphill walk. You could be overtraining. 5)When are you eating? I'd try having only protein pre-workout and your carbs right after a workout. 6) You may be eating too few calories and stressing your body.
    Sounds like you are incredibly disciplined since I know I could NEVER hang in there at that low of an intake!
  • prattiger65
    prattiger65 Posts: 1,657 Member
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    Francl27 wrote: »
    You're probably eating too much, and using inaccurate entries or something.

    The vast majority of the time, ^^^^ this is what's happening.
  • cedar2526
    cedar2526 Posts: 44 Member
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    Thyroid or thyroid medicine can cause this, or several other medicines. Good luck
  • TxTiffani
    TxTiffani Posts: 798 Member
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    Are you having cheat meals or days? As a fellow short girl 5'0 I know it is harder for us to create a very big deficit and cheat meals, or cheat days especially, can completely negate any deficit you created during the week. I started tracking cals again about 6wks ago and have dropped 12 lbs (obviously some water weight early on and expect it to slow a bit) by eating around 1200 cals and riding my exercise bike for 30-90min/ 5 days a week (usually 60min), but I'm really good about weighing everything in my power and NOT having cheat days where I track nothing;) SW 152 CW 139.8 GW 110? Feel free to add me for some short support;)
  • crazyycatlady1
    crazyycatlady1 Posts: 292 Member
    edited April 2017
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    kaylaincali wrote: »
    Blitzia wrote: »
    Are you eating back your exercise calories? If so, you may be overestimating your calories burned and wiping out your deficit.

    If not, how are you measuring your food? Are you weighing out solids? At 1200 calories you should absolutely be losing weight, so it seems that if you aren't, then you must be eating more than 1200 calories per day. (And I'm not trying to be harsh or accusatory by suggesting that the problem may be with your logging. I started with very close to your stats - 28, 5 foot even, ~155 pounds and I'm losing a little more than a pound a week at 1200 calories with only a bit of exercise. So while everyone is different, the laws of physics still apply, and at your stats, 1200 calories should put you at a pretty good calorie deficit.)


    Generally, I am not eating back the calories I burn. If I've had a hard workout, and I feel depleted I might eat and extra 200 calories (1400 total). Most of my food I cook myself. No added sugar, limited dairy, no gluten, limited caffeine. I do weigh it on a food scale, although I need to upgrade to a digital scale.
    I work freelance so I put all my time into doing this right, and I've gotten no results

    I'm worried maybe I'm not consuming enough calories? Or my hormones are off? I was hoping someone out there had been through something similar

    None of this has anything to do with weight loss, (or 'clean' eating, which is an arbitrary term with no defined meaning).

    Get the digital food scale and then focus on being super accurate with your logging for a couple weeks. If nothing changes then it's probably time for a doctor visit.
  • CharlieBeansmomTracey
    CharlieBeansmomTracey Posts: 7,682 Member
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    RMSchmidt17 wrote: »
    There definitely may be a medical issue here. That said, you should look at 1) the accuracy of your logging (are you eating out a lot? That is always impossible to log accurately) 2) has anything else changed? I know you said measurements didn't move but does your body feel better and stronger? I GAINED weight and my butt got bigger, but body scans showed it was just muscle build. 3) whats your deal with cheat days? you can totally blow a week of 1200 calories if you have a day where you're knocking back cocktails and chips. 4) How hard are you training? Sometimes we train too hard and you can actually push yourself out of a fat burning zone. I had VO2 Max testing done and it turns out I burn fat between 137-147 BPM. That is basically a light jog for me or brisk uphill walk. You could be overtraining. 5)When are you eating? I'd try having only protein pre-workout and your carbs right after a workout. 6) You may be eating too few calories and stressing your body.
    Sounds like you are incredibly disciplined since I know I could NEVER hang in there at that low of an intake!

    building muscle and losing weight is hard ,building muscle for a woman alone is hard even in a surplus. I doubt she is building enough muscle for the scale to not move in 4 months. exercise gives a bigger deficit and if she isnt eating any of those calories back its not due to being out of the "fat burning zone" ,you burn fat in a deficit,exercise just makes a bigger deficit.

    fat burning zones should only be used for people who are training for something.for those of us who are not those zones are basically worthless,since you can lose fat without exercise and just eat in a deficit.But,exercise is good for your body. if she were eating too few calories she would lose weight and she definitely would NOT gain muscle.something is off somewhere,it could be her scale,she could be logging things wrong,the part of the cheat wiping out her deficit could be it, or its a health issue.
  • cerise_noir
    cerise_noir Posts: 5,468 Member
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    nutmegoreo wrote: »
    I would start with going over your logging. There are several ways that inaccuracies can slip in. Weighing food is more accurate than measuring cups and typically way more accurate than eyeballing. The database has many inaccurate entries, which can throw off the logging. If you are using packaged foods, the serving sizes are often inaccurate. For example, the pyrogies I eat, package says I serving, 5 for 200g. Those 5 are usually well over 200g, so without weighing, I would be underestimating a fair amount. If you are cooking a lot of your own stuff, make sure you are using your own recipe, there is no way to know what the creator of each entry had put into their recipe, which makes it inaccurate, for your recipe.

    This.

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