I'm not losing weight

I worked out for over 30 years and kept gaining. Why? Because I ate too much. It took me way too long to figure out that you can't out exercise a "bad" diet, ie, too many calories from whatever form.

I'd rather my clothes be lose than the scale go down.

Follow mfp's recommendations. Use a food scale. Be patient.

Arletee657 wrote: »

I've been working out since January for 5 days a week. Its a mix of hiit and regular cardio. My clothes fit a lot looser now and I fit into clothes that I didnt before but the number on the scale is still the same. What should I do to start losing weight?

Which is more important to you? The number on the scale or being slim enough to fit into smaller clothes? If you want to continue to get smaller, keep doing what you're doing. If you stop getting smaller, eat a bit less but otherwise keep doing what you're doing. Clearly, it's working. If you need numbers to feel like you're making progress, you could start recording measurements.

If the number on the scale is very important to you, then eat a little bit less. Either shrink your portions, swap a few items for lower calorie alternatives or eliminate a snack or drink-with-calories.

Are you logging your food yet? If not, try logging your food accurately without making any changes. That'll give you a baseline (and has a sneaky tendency to lower your calorie intake subconsciously). Once you've done that for a few weeks, if you're not losing yet, cut a few hundred calories from that number and that's your new calorie target.

StaciMarie1974 wrote: »

I think you mean that muscle takes up less space than fat, so losing fat at the same time as gaining muscle: scale stays about the same, but the body is leaner. This really does not happen when eating at a deficit, but as the OP didn't indicate anything about food intake habits and did mention clothes fitting better despite no scale change: this is a reasonable assumption in my opinion.

hhhooorrrsssiiieee wrote: »

Calorie counting is key as everyone said, but also, if you are working out and gaining muscle, muscle weight is a heavier than fat. Therefore, though you may be getting rid of fat, the scale still doesn't change. I'm no expert, but this might have something to do with it? It really just depends on what your workouts consist of.

Yeah, thanks for making it more clear! I'm not great at explaining things. I got it mixed up but it's definitely good to have the info cleared up. I've recently started working on strength training and have wondered if the scale will tip to more weight when the muscle comes in, but you say the dieting will prevent that? That's a huge relief if I'm understanding it correctly.