Slow to lose weight?
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madisonrmartinez
Posts: 19 Member
I'm 20 years old, 5'9 and currently 247 pounds. I've lost some weight (around 6.4 pounds) but it's been very slow to come off. I work out almost every day and burn anywhere from 300-600 calories during those sessions. Along with intensive cardio, I'm always working on building muscle to (arms, legs, LOTS of core excercises). My weight loss has been very slow lately and I'm always around 1500 calories a day even though my goal is 1700 and I know I'm measuring correctly. My question is this: is there anything I'm doing wrong? How much is building muscle effecting my weightless? This week I've only lost around .2 pounds. This is very frustrating but I don't know if it even should be.
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Replies
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How long did it take you to lose the 6.4 pounds? How are you measuring your calorie intake?1
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You really shouldn't be expecting to lose more than 2 lbs per week.
You say you know you are measuring correctly, but are you using a food scale? 1500 should be low enough, I'm lightly active 130 lbs and I eat 1500 to lose weight. Regardless, 2 lbs a week is awesome and not even close to slow!
Edited because reading comprehension is hard for me today0 -
Two pounds in a week sounds ideal, though I agree with the above poster. I maintain at over 1500 at 125 pounds.1
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Mezzie1024 wrote: »Two pounds in a week sounds ideal, though I agree with the above poster. I maintain at over 1500 at 125 pounds.
I said .2 pounds, not 2. I WISH I was losing two haha. And yes, I've been using a scale!
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Losing two pounds a week is a healthy pace to try and maintain. Your body will start to adjust and adapt to your workouts and diets so you will hit plateaus every couple months so just keep changing it up. Add a extra day of cardio instead of weights. Change from high rep low weight to low rep heavy weight, keep your body guessing and changing. Its hard to stay focused but remember you didn't the weight on in two months it will take a while to get where you want. Just keep up the good work and best of luck!
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Do you mind opening up your diary? There might be something in there we can see better.gearhead426hemi wrote: »Losing two pounds a week is a healthy pace to try and maintain. Your body will start to adjust and adapt to your workouts and diets so you will hit plateaus every couple months so just keep changing it up. Add a extra day of cardio instead of weights. Change from high rep low weight to low rep heavy weight, keep your body guessing and changing. Its hard to stay focused but remember you didn't the weight on in two months it will take a while to get where you want. Just keep up the good work and best of luck!
She's losing less than a pound a week (still good, but obviously not her goal). And no, the body does not adapt to workouts/diet. Plateaus come from eating at maintenance.3 -
Do you mind opening up your diary? There might be something in there we can see better.gearhead426hemi wrote: »Losing two pounds a week is a healthy pace to try and maintain. Your body will start to adjust and adapt to your workouts and diets so you will hit plateaus every couple months so just keep changing it up. Add a extra day of cardio instead of weights. Change from high rep low weight to low rep heavy weight, keep your body guessing and changing. Its hard to stay focused but remember you didn't the weight on in two months it will take a while to get where you want. Just keep up the good work and best of luck!
She's losing less than a pound a week (still good, but obviously not her goal). And no, the body does not adapt to workouts/diet. Plateaus come from eating at maintenance.
Yes of course! I believe it's public now. Be warned, I've eaten poorly today0 -
Do you mind opening up your diary? There might be something in there we can see better.gearhead426hemi wrote: »Losing two pounds a week is a healthy pace to try and maintain. Your body will start to adjust and adapt to your workouts and diets so you will hit plateaus every couple months so just keep changing it up. Add a extra day of cardio instead of weights. Change from high rep low weight to low rep heavy weight, keep your body guessing and changing. Its hard to stay focused but remember you didn't the weight on in two months it will take a while to get where you want. Just keep up the good work and best of luck!
She's losing less than a pound a week (still good, but obviously not her goal). And no, the body does not adapt to workouts/diet. Plateaus come from eating at maintenance.
Your body does and will adapt to diet and workouts. My wife has done the elliptical, treadmill and P90x type workout videos for the past couple years. She had a diet that she liked and was easy for her to stick with but just hit a plateau stopped losing weight and inches. After a few months of no results she asked me to help change things up for her. I showed her some of my plyometric workouts, HIIT training and a slight change in her diet and she lost 8 pounds and over an inch in her waste in a month. Your body will adapt to your workouts so you need to change it up.2 -
madisonrmartinez wrote: »
OP, commit to using the food scale for ALL solids and semisolids for at least a couple of weeks - even packaged food. Weigh the slice of bread. Weigh the burrito. Weigh the egg. I see several times you have 1 medium potato at 110 calories, unless you are buying super-weirdly-consistent potatoes, i'm guessing those aren't weighed - weigh them! I bet it will shine a light on at least part of your problem.
Double check the entries you are using in the database to the package or published USDA values - many are user entered and correct. Avoid using recipe style entries unless you created them yourself.
Make sure you are logging everything - condiments, cooking oils, beverages, nibbles.
Hang in there :drinker:3 -
gearhead426hemi wrote: »Do you mind opening up your diary? There might be something in there we can see better.gearhead426hemi wrote: »Losing two pounds a week is a healthy pace to try and maintain. Your body will start to adjust and adapt to your workouts and diets so you will hit plateaus every couple months so just keep changing it up. Add a extra day of cardio instead of weights. Change from high rep low weight to low rep heavy weight, keep your body guessing and changing. Its hard to stay focused but remember you didn't the weight on in two months it will take a while to get where you want. Just keep up the good work and best of luck!
She's losing less than a pound a week (still good, but obviously not her goal). And no, the body does not adapt to workouts/diet. Plateaus come from eating at maintenance.
Your body does and will adapt to diet and workouts. My wife has done the elliptical, treadmill and P90x type workout videos for the past couple years. She had a diet that she liked and was easy for her to stick with but just hit a plateau stopped losing weight and inches. After a few months of no results she asked me to help change things up for her. I showed her some of my plyometric workouts, HIIT training and a slight change in her diet and she lost 8 pounds and over an inch in her waste in a month. Your body will adapt to your workouts so you need to change it up.
OP has only been at this for a couple of months, so it's doubtful her body has adapted to anything.0 -
madisonrmartinez wrote: »
OP, commit to using the food scale for ALL solids and semisolids for at least a couple of weeks - even packaged food. Weigh the slice of bread. Weigh the burrito. Weigh the egg. I see several times you have 1 medium potato at 110 calories, unless you are buying super-weirdly-consistent potatoes, i'm guessing those aren't weighed - weigh them! I bet it will shine a light on at least part of your problem.
Double check the entries you are using in the database to the package or published USDA values - many are user entered and correct. Avoid using recipe style entries unless you created them yourself.
Make sure you are logging everything - condiments, cooking oils, beverages, nibbles.
Hang in there :drinker:
Thank you! I'll start doing that for sure when I can. I wasn't weighing everything because I'm almost always under my calorie goal, but I'll try that out and see how it goes1 -
madisonrmartinez wrote: »
OP, commit to using the food scale for ALL solids and semisolids for at least a couple of weeks - even packaged food. Weigh the slice of bread. Weigh the burrito. Weigh the egg. I see several times you have 1 medium potato at 110 calories, unless you are buying super-weirdly-consistent potatoes, i'm guessing those aren't weighed - weigh them! I bet it will shine a light on at least part of your problem.
Double check the entries you are using in the database to the package or published USDA values - many are user entered and correct. Avoid using recipe style entries unless you created them yourself.
Make sure you are logging everything - condiments, cooking oils, beverages, nibbles.
Hang in there :drinker:
She said exactly what I was going to. Also the chocolate chip cookies...is that a recipe you entered? If not, you can't guarantee that matches exactly what you had.0 -
I totally missed the decimal point. My apologies.0
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madisonrmartinez wrote: »
Thank you! I'll start doing that for sure when I can. I wasn't weighing everything because I'm almost always under my calorie goal, but I'll try that out and see how it goes
Here on MFP that is a common thing to say 'I am on a plateau' and ' I don't measure everything because I am always under my goal.'
Once more, just for good measure (no pun intended): If you don't measure everything you can not know if you are under your goal. You have not measured everything.
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madisonrmartinez wrote: »I'm 20 years old, 5'9 and currently 247 pounds. I've lost some weight (around 6.4 pounds) but it's been very slow to come off. I work out almost every day and burn anywhere from 300-600 calories during those sessions. Along with intensive cardio, I'm always working on building muscle to (arms, legs, LOTS of core excercises). My weight loss has been very slow lately and I'm always around 1500 calories a day even though my goal is 1700 and I know I'm measuring correctly. My question is this: is there anything I'm doing wrong? How much is building muscle effecting my weightless? This week I've only lost around .2 pounds. This is very frustrating but I don't know if it even should be.
Regarding the "muscle building" - you are not putting on a muscle mass at a rate that would out pace fat loss - so no worries there. As others said, you need to weigh your food consistently and stick with this for awhile to notice change - this is a marathon, not a sprint - you can't expect results overnight.0
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