Weight lifting doesn't burn fat

Danicandothis, What do you think about keeping track of your measurements? Are you noticing a difference in how your clothing fits? Is it possible you are building muscle as you are losing fat so you're not noticing a big difference in your weight?

cwolfman13 wrote: »

CharlieBeansmomTracey wrote: »

cwolfman13 wrote: »

You burn fat when you are in a calorie deficit...exercise doesn't really matter save for increasing your energy expenditure to some extent or another.

I'm in maintenance and I lift a couple days per week, cycle 4-5 days per week, and rock climb...none of that is burning fat because I'm eating maintenance calories. If I wanted to burn fat I would drop my calorie intake...my exercise wouldn't change...the actual exercise is expending energy, not burning fat per sei...

so if someone is recomping they arent going to lose/burn fat? I thought you could?

Yes, because you're adding muscle mass at the same time which increases energy expenditure marginally which is why re-comp takes an eternity for much in the way of noticeable results. The squats and whatnot in and of themselves aren't burning the fat...you're just running hotter and expending more energy with more muscle mass, epoc, etc.

I'd say in reality that someone who's re-comping and actually losing fat and gaining muscle is actually in a very small deficit which was created by additional muscle mass.

thats what I thought but was confused lol that clears the confusion up. and I know its slow as molasses to recomp.

Maxematics wrote: »

cmriverside wrote: »

Maxematics wrote: »

Danicandothis wrote: »

cmriverside wrote: »

Danicandothis wrote: »

yirara wrote: »

Are you eating your exercise calories back? Fitbit doesn't work for many people. Hey, it gave me the same calories for a 14km run as for a 14km walk! And the running was already too high by about 350kcal! Running burns more than twice the calories as normal walking. Thus please be careful if you're eating your exercise calories back.

I don't eat back any of my exercise calories

None of what you are saying makes any sense.

Please open your food diary here so we can take a peek and help you. http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings
at the bottom, click "Public."

Made it public.

Okay great. I just took a look at your logs for the past week and I have some questions.

1. You said you weigh your food right? How come you have entries like "1 medium apple", "1 bar", "1 tablespoon", "1 cup", "13 pieces", etc.?
2. Entries for things like "Caprese", "egg, whole, cooked, fried, 1 large", and "Taco Pasta". Did you put that in yourself using the recipe builder or are you using random entries you find in the database?
3. Your Nature's Own bread is 120 calories every time. It's extremely rare that slices of bread match the grams listed on the package, are you weighing them every time?

I'm sorry OP, but like many people who come here, I know you're trying to log with the best of intentions but you're not as accurate with your logging as you'd like to believe. I can guarantee you are eating much more than you think.

Yeah, I agree with this. Always 4 ounces of deli meat (that's the default package serving) always "pieces" or "cups."

But she is staying under her goal by quite a bit. My guess is 1. A lot of food is not getting logged (or logged incorrectly) or 2. There is a medical problem.

There should be weight loss if you've been eating like this consistently and you've been honest. If there is guessing going on, all bets are off.

Also, try to up your protein, it's really low. It's possible to lose weight eating most of the stuff you're eating, but get in basic nutrition while you're at it. Makes it much easier. I find it hard to believe you are eating that low on protein and with so many sweet carby things and are not hungrier since you're not even allowing for exercise calories.

Yeah, I ran her stats through a TDEE calculator and chose lightly active. I get a TDEE of 2588 from Mifflin and 2853/2859 from Harris. If her goal is 1800 and things aren't being logged properly, there are probably days where she's at or above maintenance, and days where she's below it. If that is the case, then her rate of loss is going to be really slow. If she has a medical issue, then her actual TDEE would be even less than that. I think all the other stuff can be figured out once the logging issues are fixed.

Yes. At this point, we have a verified issue. If OP fixes this, we/she can see if this fixes the problem or if further investigation is necessary. But, as almost always, fix the known problem(s) before trying to fix other things that may or may not be broken.

Yes. Weigh Everything. And it's really hard to weigh fast-food so I'd minimize that as much as possible.

Danicandothis wrote: »

That's what my doctor told me. I went in for a wellness check. I workout. I eat reasonably well and I'm not losing weight. She told me to increase cardio and do less weight lifting. I think she wrong.

Some background: i'm 5'1, currently 230lbs. 40 years old. I work out 4-5 days a week 3-4 days of weight lifting. An hour per session. 3 cardio sessions (Zumba) per week. I eat 1800 calories a day. I measure everything.
My math has me at about a 4,000 calorie deficit per week.

What am I missing?

The calculators can be off quite a bit when you are short and have a lot to lose. 1800 sounds potentially high, especially if you are not logging super accurately.

I get that the exercise calories seem like they should be sufficient to make up for that, but 3-4 days of weight lifting is GREAT for health but does not burn a lot of calories. 3 sessions of Zumba if you are out of shape and new to it may not burn as much as your Fitbit (especially if it is a heart rate one) is saying either, as when you are out of shape heart rate is a bad measure and overstates it. I'd log about 300 per hour for that, 150 per hour for the weights and lower base calories to around 1400 and log back exercise. (Just as something to try.)

And tighten up food logging (going by what others have said).

Looking at the Katch-McArdle calculator and assuming about 50% body fat (it could be higher as you are only 5'1), I get that 1800 would be less than half a lb per week at lightly active (which you could be if the identified exercise is most of what you get in a week) or about a lb per week if you are moderate (which I would assume if you also get in some walking through daily activity). That can be easily wiped out by inaccurate food logging.

Danicandothis wrote: »

Even if my calories are off on my fit bit I don't eat any of them back so shouldn't I still be in a calorie deficit even if the calories are overestimated

If you aren't losing weight, and it's been a few weeks, then you aren't in a caloric deficit.

I would suggest opening your diary - lots of expertise here on sorting out issues like this. Calorie tracking is so simple in principle, but so many things can go wrong in practice!

Use a food scale for everything. I measure some liquids, but weigh some of them because it's convenient since I'm weighing everything else already.

When I measure oil, I make sure that I don't pour it so that it's high in the spoon. There are words to describe surface tension which are failing me at the moment, but there are points when you're pouring oil when the top is concave and where it's almost convex. I stop when it's concave in the measuring spoon.