Help! Can’t lose since 3/15

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KPauly6708
KPauly6708 Posts: 7 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I’ve been spinning 3-4 days a week min 45 minutes each class. I added some small strength building exercises early May (crunches, push ups, squats, wall sits, planks) and I can’t get the scale to budge. I eat the calories I’m allotted plus exercise if It’s a workout day. I’m eating 30%protein and fat and 40% carbs. The scale has been teetering at the same 2lbs for 2+months! Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!! I went from 166lbs to 151lbs Mid Jan to late Feb/early March and now I’m stuck! Help help please!!

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  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,345 Member
    edited May 2018
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    How are you determining/measuring your calories in? are you using a food scale?

    However new strength training could mean you are holding on to water weight, that's normal and will be temporary. It could well be masking any losses.
  • patsyacs
    patsyacs Posts: 1,322 Member
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    As you lose you need to eat fewer calories to keep losing. Have you recalculated your calories?
  • KPauly6708
    KPauly6708 Posts: 7 Member
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    I weigh and measure everything! I just can’t comprehend water weight for months like this?

    I wish there was something I could do to flush it out!
  • CharlieS96
    CharlieS96 Posts: 58 Member
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    You sound like your exercising just fine, I would say maybe don't eat exercise calories, you could be overcompensating for how many calories you've actually burned vs what you think you've burned, I use to do that and I had the same thing happen to me. I have now lost 3 stone by sticking to the same calories everyday no matter how active or inactive I am, any exercise I do is a bonus to my weight loss
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,345 Member
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    KPauly6708 wrote: »
    I weigh and measure everything! I just can’t comprehend water weight for months like this?

    I wish there was something I could do to flush it out!

    How often do you weigh yourself? have you taken measurements recently?
  • KPauly6708
    KPauly6708 Posts: 7 Member
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    So I’m 5’5” and my goal is 135! It seems my misfit tracker only counts my spinning as exercise (calories burned 330-430) which aligns with what the pretty technical bikes say too. Sometimes it counts if I have excessive steps >10-12k. I don’t log any additional exercise. My goal calories are set at 1440 which seems low given what I looked at for my TDEE and resting metabolic rate. I’m 36yrs old. I’m also eating mostly Whole Foods, very little processed crap.
  • KPauly6708
    KPauly6708 Posts: 7 Member
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    I’m eating 1750/1800 on my training days and yes maintaining!! As far as the Whole Foods, it’s kinda how I eat in general. I don’t eat a lot of crap. In general, 1 night a week we go out to dinner maybe 2 and Ill eat not as healthy as I generally do meaning I’ll eat Pizza or some fries but in general I do pretty well. Certainly not perfect all the time, but I rarely even on an indulgent day hit over 2000 calories and I always work out if I’m going to hit that high.

    As for being at a healthy weight I need to be under 150 to not be “overweight” for my height. I feel like my goal weight should be achievable??
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,728 Member
    edited May 2018
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    KPauly6708 wrote: »
    I’m eating 1750/1800 on my training days and yes maintaining!! As far as the Whole Foods, it’s kinda how I eat in general. I don’t eat a lot of crap. In general, 1 night a week we go out to dinner maybe 2 and Ill eat not as healthy as I generally do meaning I’ll eat Pizza or some fries but in general I do pretty well. Certainly not perfect all the time, but I rarely even on an indulgent day hit over 2000 calories and I always work out if I’m going to hit that high.

    As for being at a healthy weight I need to be under 150 to not be “overweight” for my height. I feel like my goal weight should be achievable??

    That's a common misperception that "overweight"= unhealthy. It CAN, but doesn't necessarily. Healthy weight is a range that includes part of the "overweight" BMI scale. The shorter you are, the less of that range is actually healthy, but it's not on/off it's a range. So you're not unhealthy at 150 and suddenly healthy at 149. You may be more healthy at 149, but you may not be.


    And yes, your goal weigh is achievable, but it's going to be a long slow slog, and if you're getting 1-2 indulgent meals each week, that can easily wipe out what little deficit you're generating.

    Bottom line is that If you want to get to 135, you're going to have to tighten up and settle down for 6-8 months. The good news is that you're relatively active, and as long as you maintain that, you'll be healthier than someone with your same body composition who doesn't maintain that activity level.
  • KPauly6708
    KPauly6708 Posts: 7 Member
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    But you just said it doesn’t matter what I eat, so if I’m staying within my expected calories should that not drive a deficit and therefore a loss? I think the use of the word “indulgent” was probably wrong.
  • KPauly6708
    KPauly6708 Posts: 7 Member
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  • lorrpb
    lorrpb Posts: 11,464 Member
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    Since you are maintaining at 1800-2000, you need to drop by 250 per day to lose 0.5 per week.
  • jessef593
    jessef593 Posts: 2,272 Member
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    stanmann571 wrote: »
    KPauly6708 wrote: »
    But you just said it doesn’t matter what I eat, so if I’m staying within my expected calories should that not drive a deficit and therefore a loss? I think the use of the word “indulgent” was probably wrong.

    It's harder to accurately estimate when eating out.

    So if your deficit is set for 250 calories a day(which is appropriate for your goals) and you're eating out 1-2 days a week(even on exercise days) So you're getting pizza/fries and getting to 2000 calories(which is 200 over your estimated burn, Misestimating by 10% wipes out your weekly deficit.

    So your options are,

    Accept 147-151 as your new goal

    Tighten up your logging and reduce the number of times you eat out monthly from 4-10 to 1-2.

    Yep. People rarely realize the amount of calories you consume while eating out. One big meal at a pub will fill your deficit for the majority of the week resulting in zero weight loss. You can also try only eating back half of your workout calories on working days to accommodate for the days that you are eating out.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,154 Member
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    KPauly6708 wrote: »
    So I’m 5’5” and my goal is 135! It seems my misfit tracker only counts my spinning as exercise (calories burned 330-430) which aligns with what the pretty technical bikes say too. Sometimes it counts if I have excessive steps >10-12k. I don’t log any additional exercise. My goal calories are set at 1440 which seems low given what I looked at for my TDEE and resting metabolic rate. I’m 36yrs old. I’m also eating mostly Whole Foods, very little processed crap.

    It's a pure guess, but I think your exercise calories could be a little overestimated for a 45 minute spin class. I'm your height, weight in the 130s, and estimate something more like 250 (+/- 25) for a pretty intense 45 minute spin class.

    If the bikes have power meters, that's a plus, but if they're gym bikes they may not have been calibrated recently. I don't know whether your fitness tracker uses a HRM, but they can over-estimate the calories for interval workouts, which is what most spin classes are. The problem is that one's HR tends to stay high from the preceding intense segments during the (relatively) lower-energy segments and the device over-estimates total work.

    I'm not saying your estimates are wrong, but there may be room for a little skepticism.
  • AliceDark
    AliceDark Posts: 3,886 Member
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    Every calculator, tracker, and calorie estimator just gives you an estimate. And even the best logger in the world is only capturing an estimate of their intake. So you're really just getting a fuzzy picture of your calories in, and trying to compare it to a fuzzy picture of your calories out. Your actual real-world results are more valuable than any tool you can use to estimate what SHOULD be happening.

    If you've really been holding steady for two months, your real world results are telling you that CI = CO, roughly speaking. There may be different reasons for that -- you could be over-estimating your intake, your daily activity, your exercise burns, or some of all three -- and whether you continue to dig to find the reason(s) is up to you. Regardless, if you're not losing (for a long enough period of time that it can't be accounted for by reasons such as water retention), you're not creating a deficit.

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