I'm not losing weight

jomajoo wrote: »

evileen99 wrote: »

Muscleflex79 wrote: »

jomajoo wrote: »

I am 5'4" and 130 lbs. I have a personal trainer 3x per week for 1 hr each which is intensive weight training and cardio at least 2 x per week (30 mins). For the past 3 weeks I've been on a VERY clean meal plan of 1100-1200 calories with macros of 40-50g carb, 40-60g fat and 120-140g protein.
What's your thought on why I'm not losing weight? I've gained about 5pts muscle mass and lost 5pts body fat but I think I should still lose about 1kg per week...

not sure what 'pts' is, but are you saying you think you put on 5lbs of muscle in 3 weeks?? or is 'pts' something else?

Ditto. There is no way you've added five pounds of muscle in three weeks, much less when eating 1100-1200 calories.

Did you factor in the macros not just the calories? I'm on high protein.

what do you consider as high protein? are you lifting like a professional athlete 4 times a week and doing interval training 2 other days with only 1 rest day? are you at least 25% body fat and new to weight lifting?

jomajoo wrote: »

evileen99 wrote: »

Muscleflex79 wrote: »

jomajoo wrote: »

I am 5'4" and 130 lbs. I have a personal trainer 3x per week for 1 hr each which is intensive weight training and cardio at least 2 x per week (30 mins). For the past 3 weeks I've been on a VERY clean meal plan of 1100-1200 calories with macros of 40-50g carb, 40-60g fat and 120-140g protein.
What's your thought on why I'm not losing weight? I've gained about 5pts muscle mass and lost 5pts body fat but I think I should still lose about 1kg per week...

not sure what 'pts' is, but are you saying you think you put on 5lbs of muscle in 3 weeks?? or is 'pts' something else?

Ditto. There is no way you've added five pounds of muscle in three weeks, much less when eating 1100-1200 calories.

Did you factor in the macros not just the calories? I'm on high protein.

5lbs of muscle in 3 weeks would require a heck of a lot more than a high protein diet...muscle is not that easy for women to put on...a woman training and doing everything right is fortunate to put on 1 pound of muscle in a month! you are talking about five times that...not happening without some serious steroid use (and even then not sure 5lbs in 3 weeks would happen)...

The expectation to lose 1kg/week with your stats is misguided. You'd need a daily deficit of 1100 calories to achieve that kind of loss. That's probably well below your BMR. Why the rush? Drop your deficit to 1/2 lb per week loss and fuel your body so you can do those workouts effectively!

gebeziseva wrote: »

jomajoo wrote: »

evileen99 wrote: »

Muscleflex79 wrote: »

jomajoo wrote: »

I am 5'4" and 130 lbs. I have a personal trainer 3x per week for 1 hr each which is intensive weight training and cardio at least 2 x per week (30 mins). For the past 3 weeks I've been on a VERY clean meal plan of 1100-1200 calories with macros of 40-50g carb, 40-60g fat and 120-140g protein.
What's your thought on why I'm not losing weight? I've gained about 5pts muscle mass and lost 5pts body fat but I think I should still lose about 1kg per week...

not sure what 'pts' is, but are you saying you think you put on 5lbs of muscle in 3 weeks?? or is 'pts' something else?

Ditto. There is no way you've added five pounds of muscle in three weeks, much less when eating 1100-1200 calories.

Did you factor in the macros not just the calories? I'm on high protein.

The 1200 calories are made from the macros: fat is 9cal per gram, protein and carbs are 4cal per gram.

But whatever the macros, to put on weight, fat or muscle you need to eat more calories than you burn.

To replace fat by muscle in terms of weight you need to eat at maintanance. At a deficit your weight would be going down, regardless of what your macros are and how much muscle you are making.

This is starting to wander outside the realms of reality.
In trying to simplify the science to explain that it's going to be difficult gaining muscle whilst in a daily calorie deficit, it still needs to be factually correct.
A calorie deficit in this context means providing the body with less energy from metabolising food than it actually needs.
However, the body is not set up to "do without" that missing energy, so it has to burn fat reserves to release it.
Of course this is a process that is continuously monitored by the body throughout the day, it doesn't just count everything up and then decide at the end of the day how much fat it does or doesn't need to burn.
But for our purposes, and for calorie tracking to have meaning over time, it works out just fine to look at the overall calorie intake versus calories burned on a daily basis.
The key part of it though, is that it's fat that the body burns when it needs to meet an energy deficit.
It doesn't look at the muscles in your arms (or any other lean muscle in your body) and say "that looks tasty, lets cook that to release the energy I need to meet the deficit".
However, everyone knows that when people lose weight they often lose lean muscle as well as fat.
That's not down to the calorie deficit, that's down to nutrition, or more exactly the lack of it.
In order to achieve a calorie deficit, you have to reduce the amount of food you consume. It goes without saying that if you simply eat the same foods as before but less of them, then you'll get less nutrition.
Depending what you actually eat, you may not be meeting your body's nutritional needs, in which case it will fail to maintain your lean muscle mass.
In that situation, weight loss will be a combination of fat loss and lean muscle loss.
But luckily nutrition is something to can do something about, you just have to re-think what you consume so that you still get enough nutrition even though you're having less calories.
Whilst the balance of nutrients is still very important, one of the key factors here is protein intake.
Proteins form the building blocks needed for maintaining (and building) lean muscle in the body.
A protein-rich diet is therefore a very good idea for someone on a low-calorie diet, since you don't want to lose your lean muscle.
The important part here is not to confuse calories with nutrition, they are not the same thing.
Going back to the OP of this topic and how this affects them, they are trying to achieve gains in muscle mass whilst losing body fat and have got in place a higher-protein but low-calorie diet combined with exercise.
The basics are exactly right to achieve the desired result.
However, it's still going to be a tough challenge because it is definitely more difficult to ensure your body is getting the surplus nutrition needed to build lean muscle when you're consuming a daily calorie deficit.
My advise to the OP remains the same, stick at what you're doing and see how you're doing in a few more weeks. Tweak your choice of foods to improve the nutritional content, specially towards protein-rich foods, and stay well hydrated.