Why am I not losing weight?

I agree, there's probably some water retention from the new exercise. In addition, you don't have much to lose so it will be slow - 2lb per week is really not possible at your weight and even 1lb may be too much. How are you measuring your food?

aishazia4631 wrote: »

aishazia4631 wrote: »

Hi! This is my first post so please bear with me. I have been dieting for two months now and until a couple of weeks ago I've been losing a pound a week. I have been happy with that although I did want to lose 2 pounds. About a week or two ago I hit a plateau do I started exercising. I now do a 30min video, a 5k walk and 15min of bodyweight training. But I haven't lost anything? I've been eating 1200 calories and I've been doing this workout for 10 days with only one rest day. But I'm not losing anything. I have no idea why. I know scales don't tell the full story but it's really frustrating. Is it possible I'm working out too much? Any advice please?

I am 5'4 and weigh 124 pounds. I started at 133 pounds. I'm 18 and female and I've been doing this workout for 10 days

You are already a healthy weight. It's unrealistic to be expecting to see the scale move regularly when you are already lean.

Set your goal to lose 0.5 lbs per week. Understand that this small amount can easily hide behind water weight fluctuations for weeks at a time.

If you are unhappy with your body, consider focusing on strength training, that may improve your aesthetics far more than losing more weight. And keep in mind you need to fuel your body to get nice muscle definition and what lots of women would call firming up. Losing weight fast when you're already a healthy weight is far more likely to leave you looking gaunt and tired, and can lead to your body rebeling with overwhelming cravings that will ruin any progress. Once you are lean, slow and steady with a focus on preserving and building muscle typically wins the race.

KateB989 wrote: »

Hi, I am in the same boat! I am 126lb and 5ft 2 and I defo have some belly fat to lose! Yet I just can’t shift it! I was eating 1200 healthy calories a day and working out every single day with no rest days and this is a mixture of an hours cardio, half hour hiit with weights and a brisk walk in the afternoon and I only lost 3lbs in 4 weeks! I tried to do intermittent fasting and scaled down my calories to between 800-1000 just to try and boost my metabolism and lose some more however, I haven’t lost anything in the last 2 weeks which is frustrating! Not even inches! (I’m on week 6 of exercising now) HELP 😩

you won't speed up your metabolism by eating less.

how hard are you working out with weights? are you putting real effort into it? if you want less belly fat, it might make more sense to build some muscle when you're already slim - you won't lose weight, as muscle has weight, but you'll be leaner and lose belly.

please note that working out 7 days per week means your body can't recover, so you'll build less muscle and possibly feel tireder. you could even lose a little muscle that way, which you don't want to do.

KateB989 wrote: »

Hi, I am in the same boat! I am 126lb and 5ft 2 and I defo have some belly fat to lose! Yet I just can’t shift it! I was eating 1200 healthy calories a day and working out every single day with no rest days and this is a mixture of an hours cardio, half hour hiit with weights and a brisk walk in the afternoon and I only lost 3lbs in 4 weeks! I tried to do intermittent fasting and scaled down my calories to between 800-1000 just to try and boost my metabolism and lose some more however, I haven’t lost anything in the last 2 weeks which is frustrating! Not even inches! (I’m on week 6 of exercising now) HELP 😩

First of all, at your weight, 3 pounds in 4 weeks is actually a great amount of loss, and, depending on your goal weight, possibly too fast.

What is likely happening is that you have over-stressed your body, causing your cortisol to increase, which leads to retaining water, which masks fat loss. You sure sound like this to me:

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/research-review/dietary-restraint-and-cortisol-levels-research-review.html/

...a group of women who scored higher on dietary restraint scores showed elevated baseline cortisol levels. By itself this might not be problematic, but as often as not, these types of dieters are drawn to extreme approaches to dieting.

They throw in a lot of intense exercise, try to cut calories very hard (and this often backfires if disinhibition is high; when these folks break they break) and cortisol levels go through the roof. That often causes cortisol mediated water retention (there are other mechanisms for this, mind you, leptin actually inhibits cortisol release and as it drops on a diet, cortisol levels go up further). Weight and fat loss appear to have stopped or at least slowed significantly. This is compounded even further in female dieters due to the vagaries of their menstrual cycle where water balance is changing enormously week to week anyhow.

And invariably, this type of psychology responds to the stall by going even harder. They attempt to cut calories harder, they start doing more activity. The cycle continues and gets worse. Harder dieting means more cortisol means more water retention means more dieting. Which backfires (other problems come in the long-term with this approach but you’ll have to wait for the book to read about that).

When what they should do is take a day or two off (even one day off from training, at least in men, lets cortisol drop significantly). Raise calories, especially from carbohydrates. This helps cortisol to drop. More than that they need to find a way to freaking chill out. Meditation, yoga, get a massage... Get in the bath, candles, a little Enya, a glass of wine, have some you-time but please just chill.