Very slow weight loss- strength training
capriqueen
Posts: 976 Member
Is it common for weight loss to be slow when I am strength training? I workout with a trainer who has me doing some strength and resistance exercises (beginner level) 3 days a week, and then one day of cardio. Started this a little less than 19 days ago, and so far only lost a pound! Anyone experience anything similar?
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Replies
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Are you in a calorie deficit? How much do you have to lose? 1lb in 19 days is fine4
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How much total weight are you trying to lose? Are you logging consistently and staying in a deficit?2
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Starting a new exercise routine can result in a little extra water retention for muscle repair, and can mask fat loss on the scale temporarily. At 19 days into a new routine, you're still inside the time horizon where that's a possibility. It's common to suggest that someone stick to a new routine for 4-6 weeks (at least one full menstrual cycle for pre-menopausal women). If you're maintaining a calorie deficit, hang in there for another 2-4 weeks and see how things shake out. (I know it's frustrating.)
Weight loss is about keeping calorie intake from food below calorie expenditure from daily life and exercise. Water weight (and digestive system contents variability) can make the scale give you unclear feedback, over short time periods.
Best wishes!4 -
Same question as above. Have you calculated your TDEE? 3500 calories is equal to 1 pound. Over 19 days that is approximately a 180 calorie deficit. Once you determine your TDEE and set a 10-20% deficit you should start to lose more per week. It took a little time for me to start seeing results at first so I started weighing all of my food to track my caloric intake. Once I started tracking meticulously I started getting the results I wanted. Lastly, as you lose weight it is important to recalculate your TDEE. I was changing my caloric intake and macros about every two weeks. Doing this helped me lose 36 pounds. Here is TDEE calculator if you need one - https://damnripped.com/tdee-calculator/0
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If you are doing a healthy calorie deficit and doing a lot of strength training you could be losing fat and gaining muscle which may not make the scale move that much. I really love my Renpho Bluetooth scale because it tells me a bunch of measurements about my body such as weight, BMI, body fat percentage, subcutaneous fat, muscle mass, etc. You could also try taking measurements of your body and see if you are losing inches. The scale isn't the only way to measure your journey
Good luck! 9 -
Same question as above. Have you calculated your TDEE? 3500 calories is equal to 1 pound. Over 19 days that is approximately a 180 calorie deficit. Once you determine your TDEE and set a 10-20% deficit you should start to lose more per week. It took a little time for me to start seeing results at first so I started weighing all of my food to track my caloric intake. Once I started tracking meticulously I started getting the results I wanted. Lastly, as you lose weight it is important to recalculate your TDEE. I was changing my caloric intake and macros about every two weeks. Doing this helped me lose 36 pounds. Here is TDEE calculator if you need one - https://damnripped.com/tdee-calculator/
Interesting TDEE calc.
At least nice they separate daily activity level from exercise.
Too bad exercise has no time factor to it. Was that an intense 10 min or 85 min?
Doesn't matter - same TDEE.5 -
A woman eating in a deficit is not going to build muscle fast enough to offset fat loss on the scale. Even eating in a surplus a woman will barely gain half a lb of muscle per week.
OP, most likely it's either water weight, logging issues, or a little of both10 -
capriqueen wrote: »Is it common for weight loss to be slow when I am strength training? I workout with a trainer who has me doing some strength and resistance exercises (beginner level) 3 days a week, and then one day of cardio. Started this a little less than 19 days ago, and so far only lost a pound! Anyone experience anything similar?
If you have very little to lose and are losing very slowly at a small deficit, it could be explained by water retention. Otherwise, most probably a logging issue or overestimating your burns from exercise?0 -
Things that I've learned that may be pertinent here:
1) You lift to gain strength not lose wt.
2) You lose wt by eating less (below your TDEE).
3) Gaining strength is NOT the same thing as gaining muscle mass.
4) It is fairly easy for newbies to gain strength while losing wt because newbies are generally way out of shape.
5) Newbies also can gain strength while losing muscle mass for the same reason.
6) While your BF% will decrease as your fat level decreases and muscle mass increases, it will correspondingly increase as your fat level increases and your muscle mass decreases.
7) You usually lose both fat and muscle mass while losing wt. So, you may see no change in your BF% if the rate of muscle loss negates the rate of fat loss.
8) Lifting may reduce the rate of muscle mass loss but you are very unlikely to gain muscle mass while losing wt even while lifting.
9) You will most likely gain muscle only while lifting heavy and eating more than your TDEE (including more protein to support muscle development) after you've become a more experienced and,dedicated lifter.
10) It takes much more time and effort to gain muscle than lose wt. 19 days in NOT enough time to assess either. You need to think in terms of months (or years), not days,
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What were you doing before starting lifting? If someone goes from 45-60 min of cardio per week to 3 lifting workouts and 1 cardio workout per week, there is a good chance your exercise calorie burn has gone down. If you haven’t reduced your intake, then, yes, despite the massive “afterburn” claims for lifting weights, your weight loss will slow.4
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I go through this every time I give myself a break. I tend to hold onto weight. Idk why.
I dont have a legit answer to why this is happened. 19 days and 1 lb is good. Dont beat yourself up about it. Keep going, the weight will come off.1 -
capriqueen wrote: »Is it common for weight loss to be slow when I am strength training? I workout with a trainer who has me doing some strength and resistance exercises (beginner level) 3 days a week, and then one day of cardio. Started this a little less than 19 days ago, and so far only lost a pound! Anyone experience anything similar?
My scale went up seven pounds when I started lifting weights again, and it did take a few weeks for that water weight to come back off.5 -
Thank you everyone for your responses and I am sorry I could not respond individually. I started at 196.8 pounds and am now hovering around 195.6. Since the 196.8 I went up 1-2 pounds and then went down to the 195.6 mark. I have been eating at around a 500 calorie deficit. I have been eating out a lot but trying my best to mentally log what I am eating. I am just worried if this is a hormonal thing, but I got my TSH recently and it was normal.1
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capriqueen wrote: »Thank you everyone for your responses and I am sorry I could not respond individually. I started at 196.8 pounds and am now hovering around 195.6. Since the 196.8 I went up 1-2 pounds and then went down to the 195.6 mark. I have been eating at around a 500 calorie deficit. I have been eating out a lot but trying my best to mentally log what I am eating. I am just worried if this is a hormonal thing, but I got my TSH recently and it was normal.
Mentally logging and a 500 calorie deficit means your mental logging/estimation is probably a bit off. It really needs to be off by not much at all, it is impossible to estimate accurately without using a scale.3 -
Agreed, you are probably underestimating your eating out calories. Restaurants add lots of fat and salt to everything. Fat increases the calories consumed compared to what you might do at home. Salt causes water retention which affects the scale, even though it isn’t body fat gain.
You can search this site for “restaurant” to find past threads that give you lots of tips for saving calories when eating out2 -
I've tracked, weighed, and measured regularly for a number of years, and even semi-frequent eating out seems to kill my losses. Restaurants end up with so many added calories that you simply cannot see or eye ball, varying portion sizes, etc, that it really increases the difficulty to losing.
That, and "mentally tracking" doesn't work for - well, most people anyways. There are plenty of apps that you can put right on your phone - have you tried tracking every single bite, lick, and nibble through your days in an actual tracker? If so, even with eating out, you may well find that your estimates were quite a ways off.
As for strength training slowing your losses - new routines (as mentioned) can mask losses, and a lot of apps way over estimate calorie burn. Add in the eating out and most likely consuming more than you realize, and your losses will be slow at best.
You're still losing though, so that's a good thing, and means you're headed in the right direction. Just probably time to tighten up some of the things you've already started to get the next phase going.0
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