2nd week of 2nd cut, no weight loss??

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happybird1217
happybird1217 Posts: 8 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Background: I'm a 19 year old 5'11 girl. Last year I lost 50 pounds on pretty low calories (214-164). I slowly started gaining weight even though I was eating in a "deficit," (around 1500 calories, maybe more or less some days) maybe it was calorie creep. I hadn't reverse dieted, and I was skinny fat. In 6 months I gained 15 pounds. My theory is my BMR decreased from losing so much muscle mass on low calories, my TEF obviously decreased, and my NEAT decreased from being so tired all of the time. Anyway, I took a 2 month reverse diet so I could cut again. I gained 7 pounds in 7 weeks, going from 1400-1900 calories. I gained weight pretty fast, and I assumed a lot of it was water weight from the extra carbs.

Two weeks ago I started cutting again at 1600 calories, which is a less harsh calorie deficit than my last cut (I ate anywhere from 1500-900 calories on my first cut). This is so I don't lose as much muscle mass and hopefully don't gain the weight back. I've been strength training for 3 months now, and I've been doing cardio 2x a week. I stepped on the scale last week, only lost 0.2 pounds and my measurements increased. Today I stepped on the scale again, I gained 1.2 pounds. I'm really frustrated. I understand it's only been two weeks, but this battle with dieting has been going on for 2 years. I feel like I just keep gaining. I've been going to bed/waking up hungry, too, so I know I'm in a deficit.

Is this normal? Shouldn't major weight loss happen within the first week? I know it would be water weight, but still. Should I cut on lower calories or wait it out?

Thanks for your time.

Replies

  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,724 Member
    edited June 2020
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    Not enough time. Time of month. Exercise in mix. So hungry you're tired doesn't sound right or appropriate. Subtext is that you're about 180 now?

    And top of normal weight for your height is?

    I.e. you're already there.

    Are you picking 1lb or half lb a week for weight loss target?

    Especially if you've regained before and think you're likely to have to fight with a propensity to regain, taking a longer term weight management view where you do things you see yourself doing over the next few years may be more appropriate that just concentrating on weight loss at all costs.
  • happybird1217
    happybird1217 Posts: 8 Member
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    Thanks. Based on my Tdee I thought I would be losing 1 pound a week, but I think my Tdee is a few hundred calories lower than 2100, which is what it is supposed
    to be. I heard that after you lose weight, that if you’re the same weight as someone else, your Tdee will be significantly lower than the other person because you’ve dieted. And I know I’m technically not very overweight but I have a high level of body fat (embarrassing love handles, a pouch of belly fat, a puffy face, and flabby arms) and it really makes me feel terrible about myself constantly. And I’ve been strength training but I haven’t seen progress.
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,428 Member
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    happybird1217 wrote: »
    Thanks. Based on my Tdee I thought I would be losing 1 pound a week, but I think my Tdee is a few hundred calories lower than 2100, which is what it is supposed
    to be. I heard that after you lose weight, that if you’re the same weight as someone else, your Tdee will be significantly lower than the other person because you’ve dieted. And I know I’m technically not very overweight but I have a high level of body fat (embarrassing love handles, a pouch of belly fat, a puffy face, and flabby arms) and it really makes me feel terrible about myself constantly. And I’ve been strength training but I haven’t seen progress.

    First of all TDEE includes a) your base metabolic rate, which is the energy your body needs to stay alive: running your organs, breathing, brain function, etc. And then there's b) the activity base energy expenditure, which depends on how active you are in everyday life, whether you fidget, sit all day or walk constantly. And then there's c) exercise on top of that. TDEE is a sum of those three things. MFP doesn't use TDEE, but a NEAT method, which is a combination of the first two. Thus b) and c) totally depend on what you do. a) happens automatically. It might be possible for this to go down a bit in people who lose masses of weight in a very short time, think Biggest Loser. But you only lost 50lbs. The effect, if present at all will be very small.

    Thus in order to help you it would be good if you answered a couple of questions:

    how do you measure your food intake and exercise calories?
    how many calories does MFP give you for which activity level? I gather your deficit is 1lbs per week?
    how heavy are you now?
  • happybird1217
    happybird1217 Posts: 8 Member
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    Hey, so I know MFP doesn’t use TDEE, I just base my calories off of a TDEE calculator. I usually eat back my exercise calories for cardio (usually about 300 cal, 45 min on bike) but not for strength training. I’m pretty honest about tracking, I weigh sometimes (pasta, nut butter) but since I eat pretty much the same foods, a lot of them packaged (rice cakes, protein bars, cartons of berries), I don’t have to do too much weighing. Ive been at it for so long (2 years of serious calorie counting) that I feel good about my numbers. MFP gives me 1610 calories a day at sedentary. When I do strength training (high intensity body weight workouts), I do not eat back the calories. However, if I do cardio, I eat back the calories. I only got up to 1900 in my reverse so I figured I would only be at a 300 calorie deficit. But MFP thinks at this rate I should be losing 1 pound a week. Well I’ve gained a pound... Right now I’m 20 pounds above my lowest weight (185 pounds).
  • MelLC2019
    MelLC2019 Posts: 7 Member
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    If you were eating 1900 calories and gaining a lb a week it’s probably not a good time to start dieting again. Maybe you should focus on trying to eat 1900 calories or so again, cut the cardio out, and just do strength training a few times a weeks. I see you mentioned “high intensity body weight workouts” which might actually = cardio rather than actual strength training. So maybe eat more, actually lift some real weight and avoid cardio and see if you body will finally settle, maybe put on a little muscle and increase your metabolism again.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,724 Member
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    Not enough time. Strength training and exercise. Water weight. Are you looking at your daily weigh ins or at your weight trend? Are you using happy scale / libra / trendweight or similar? Do you have data for at least a complete hormonal cycle? Are you comparing weight to similar points in your cycle.

    How long have you been strength training? How fast are the results you're expecting?!??!?!?!?! Have you read the belly pouch / uterus thread? What do you do in terms of activity during your daily life. 2K calories does not sound at all excessive for a TDEE given your stats.

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