Body seems to be stubborn

kearly206 wrote: »

Hi all, back at counting calories again and trying to get healthy and make it stick this time, trying to stay away from super processed carbs and have one cheat meal per day. Staying to the allotted amount of calories daily (trying to fix it over weekends those are my weak points)

As far as exercise goes, I used to lift a lot last year but my joints suffered. Also this is my last rugby season so I can let my body recover a little before I start lifting again. I started cycling 4 weeks ago. I am trying to get in 50-60 miles per week.

Why aren’t I dropping weight? I took measurements when I started and I haven’t really lost anything, anything I’m doing wrong that someone can point out? Any advice and info will be helpful thanks

Sounds like you already identified it.

One cheat meal per day? When I successfully lost weight (maintenance now), I had one cheat meal per month. With me, I know one trip for burger and fries could wipe out my whole deficit for the week, leaving me with zero weight loss.

kearly206 wrote: »

CSARdiver wrote: »

A quick glance through your diary is showing several gaps - days without logging which could easily lead you to break your calorie budget.

Processed carbs is meaningless in long term. The only impact this has is connected with water retention, same with sodium. Calories are the only thing that matters in reference to weight management. Does not matter where they come from.

What is a "cheat meal"? How many calories is this?

Imagine holding to a financial budget and having a "cheat spend" time...now apply this illogic to calories.

Yes this is true I have a hard time logging over the weekends and this last one didn’t go well. To be honest I really thought with cycling I could offset the calories over weekends, provided I don’t go way overboard, since I don’t eat them back. This is a bad thought I will track weekends and the cheat meal I have per week.

Thanks everyone for the replies much appreciated.

Something you will see repeatedly on here is that weight loss occurs in the kitchen and the saying 'you can't out run your fork'. Basically, this means you can't really rely on exercise to offset calorie intake enough to have a significant impact.

For example, depending on your stats, intensity and other factors your cycling could be burning, worst case scenario, as little as 250cal per day (based on 50 mile per week, moderate effort). Given that exercising will naturally increase hunger it's extremely easy to blast through those 250cal and much more during a single un-monitored day or even meal.

Exercising is great for health and fitness and can add some wiggle room to your calorie deficit but if you're not properly monitoring your calorie intake then it's doubtful that any amount of working out is going to be reflected in the scale or the waist.

G'luck