NO weight loss!

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Replies

  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 33,907 Member
    I am in same boat as original post. I am tracking accurately. But I am 10 days in and have lost nothing.
    I am keeping it up because the tracking keeps me aware and eating better.
    I am just curious about what is happening in my own body…


    Start a new thread. This one is eight years old. Your problem is going to get lost in this thread.

    10 days is not enough time. Keep logging, adjust in 4-6 weeks if you aren't losing at the rate you chose in your Goals set-up.
  • Theoldguy1
    Theoldguy1 Posts: 2,427 Member
    greenskpr wrote: »
    As mentioned above - it's a misnomer that you can gain muscle in caloric deficit. You just can't. If you're truly in a deficit, you're body is trying to come up with ways to feed itself. Muscle production and repair is minimal, if any. Fat stores, as well as muscle tissue are broken down for their energy producing potential. You may start looking more 'cut' or 'diced' but that's more from muscle tone improving and fat layers becoming less thick.
    When you're in a deficit, your body is functioning in a catabolic state - it's consuming itself.
    Nobody is getting big (or staying the same) when those conditions exist.
    .

    One can most certainly lose fat and gain muscle at the same time. Google recomposition. Your body can use excess fat to fuel building the muscle with an appropriate training program.
  • nanastaci2020
    nanastaci2020 Posts: 1,072 Member
    You're responding to an old thread - you may get more attention if you start a new one. Can you give info on your situation?

    My general response: 10 days is not enough to determine if this is not working. Starting out advice: set your Myfitnesspal profile for a realistic weight loss goal, and then accurately and honestly log your food intake for 6-8 weeks. Example, if you are already close to a healthy weight, .5-1 pounds per week is probably a realistic goal. If you have a larger amount of weight to lose, 1-2 weekly may be appropriate.
    I am in same boat as original post. I am tracking accurately. But I am 10 days in and have lost nothing.
    I am keeping it up because the tracking keeps me aware and eating better.
    I am just curious about what is happening in my own body…

  • Beautyofdreams
    Beautyofdreams Posts: 1,009 Member
    @smatthews9045 each person’s body loses weight at its own rate. People who lose a large amount of weight the first week are mostly losing water weight. In fact water weight may be hiding your weight loss. This is especially true if you have started an exercise program, eat a high sodium diet for example. There is a thread on the causes if water weight gain. You might find it in the stickied threads at the top if the forum or maybe some kind poster will direct you to it.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 31,724 Member
    I am in same boat as original post. I am tracking accurately. But I am 10 days in and have lost nothing.
    I am keeping it up because the tracking keeps me aware and eating better.
    I am just curious about what is happening in my own body…

    You'd probably get better feedback if you started your own post, rather than replying to this one from 2014.

    Ten days really isn't long enough to know what's happening. Your profile says you're female: If you're adult but not in menopause . . . well, some women only see a new low weight once a month, because hormonal water weight shifts can be extreme, for some. That's not necessarily typical, merely possible - but you won't know what your pattern is until you've been calorie counting for at least one full cycle, to compare bodyweight at the same relative point in at least two different cycles, as well as to see what the fluctuations are along the way.

    Many of us, even if not at that life stage, experience some water weight weirdness in the first couple of weeks of weight loss (because of changes in eating patterns), and it can last longer if there's new exercise in the picture as well.

    On top of all that, reasonably accurate calorie counting is a skill set that takes some learning and development. It's not unusual to discover during the first days/weeks that we have some inaccuracies or incorrect assumptions that can distort results vs. expectations.

    IME, weight management is the long game, if one has a meaningful amount of weight to lose - weeks to months at least, maybe even years in some cases . . . and that's just the successful loss part. Maintenance is forever.

    I'm not trying to be discouraging by saying any of this. Quite the contrary. It's realistic to assume the first month or so will be confusing, and IMO a good plan to focus on learning and refining one's plan for reaching the long-term goal.

    You can do this, I'm confident, if you stick with it and keep learning. The results are 100%+ worth it. Wishing you success!
  • knotmel
    knotmel Posts: 80 Member
    edited December 2021
    Just to illustrate Ann’s point about water weight for menstruating people, here’s about a month of data—that flat(ish) span is between periods (though different people have different patterns). It pays to keep the long game in mind. nvj1307168mh.jpeg
  • KarmaKamen
    KarmaKamen Posts: 42 Member
    edited December 2021
    If you aren't losing weight, you'll probably not actually eating 1200-1300 calories a day. It's likely logging errors. (eyeballing and guessing portion sizes)

    This. It can be tricky to measure calories accurately. It's why I purchased a digital scale recently, because I hear weighing is a lot more accurate. You could also try setting macro goals (carbs, protein, fat). I noticed when I have a lot of carbs (bread, pasta, etc.) It's harder for me to lose weight. I do much better when I have more lean proteins and veggies. (Whole foods instead of processed.) Also, I figured out when to eat is important. Spreading out meals during the day in small chunks and setting a cut-off point where I don't eat from 11PM to 11AM seems to be helping. If I eat big meals, especially late at night, I will tend to gain weight. What you should do depends on your body type, but considering macros, what you're eating and when you're eating, might be worth a try.

    If you are strength training, as others said, you might be replacing fat with muscle. This is not a bad thing at all. Take photos of yourself. Maybe you're having results but can't really see them?
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 31,724 Member
    KarmaKamen wrote: »
    If you aren't losing weight, you'll probably not actually eating 1200-1300 calories a day. It's likely logging errors. (eyeballing and guessing portion sizes)

    This. It can be tricky to measure calories accurately. It's why I purchased a digital scale recently, because I hear weighing is a lot more accurate. You could also try setting macro goals (carbs, protein, fat). I noticed when I have a lot of carbs (bread, pasta, etc.) It's harder for me to lose weight. I do much better when I have more lean proteins and veggies. (Whole foods instead of processed.) Also, I figured out when to eat is important. Spreading out meals during the day in small chunks and setting a cut-off point where I don't eat from 11PM to 11AM seems to be helping. If I eat big meals, especially late at night, I will tend to gain weight. What you should do depends on your body type, but considering macros, what you're eating and when you're eating, might be worth a try.

    If you are strength training, as others said, you might be replacing fat with muscle. This is not a bad thing at all. Take photos of yourself. Maybe you're having results but can't really see them?

    Sadly, the bolded is very unlikely. People sometimes believe it's happening because they get stronger fast when new to training, but early strength gains are more about better recruiting and utilizing the muscle fibers we already have (that's sometimes called neuromuscular adaptation, or NMA). Sometimes, people can also look more "toned" from the effects of training, before gaining actual new muscle mass.

    Those things are great, very worthwhile, but they can deceive folks into thinking they've gained meaningful muscle mass, when they mostly haven't.

    Growing new muscle fibers is a much slower thing, and - oversimplifying somewhat here - the body isn't really triggered to do that very much until it's achieved what it can strength-wise from better activating the pre-existing muscle fibers.

    Realistically, a good rate of gain for muscle mass would be perhaps one to two pounds per month under ideal conditions. Ideal conditions include a good progressive strength training program faithfully performed, favorable genetics, relative youth, relative male-ness, good nutrition (especially but not exclusively adequate protein), and a calorie surplus (i.e. gaining weight, not losing it).

    It's not that no one can ever gain new muscle mass alongside restricting calories. Some can do that. It's that muscle mass gain will almost certainly be quite a bit slower than that 1-2 pounds a month that's a realistic high expectation under ideal conditions. (Some will argue that gains can be faster in some conditions; the main point here is that even fast gains are pretty slow, and require a lot of factors to be in place or they won't happen the fastest. For sure one of those factors is calorie surplus vs. calorie deficit.)

    On the flip side, half a pound a week of fat loss is about the slowest rate anyone is going to be able to observe clearly, and even that can take a month or more to sort itself out from the background noise of daily weight fluctuations. For most people, scale weight meanders up and down in a range of a few pounts (1-2 pounds if not more). Those fluctuations within a day or few are mostly caused by normal, healthy changes in water retention and digestive contents on their way to becoming waste.

    So: 2 pounds a month of muscle mass gain in a month is quite fast, unrealistic for most, especially when losing weight. 2 pounds a month of fat loss is pretty slow, and would not satisfy many people who are trying to lose a meaningful amount of weight - plus it might not even show clearly on the scale amongst shifts that aren't about fat gain/loss.

    Bottom line, and TL;DR: Any realistic rate of muscle mass gain is unlikely to outpace any satisfying rate of fat loss on the body weight scale, over short periods of time.

    I wish it were otherwise.
  • wunderkindking
    wunderkindking Posts: 1,615 Member
    edited December 2021
    10 days is effectively no time at all. If you haven't lost in 6 weeks or so come back to trouble shoot, but the likely answers will always be that either you're logging inaccurately, overestimating your activity level (or exercise burn), or you need to see a doctor. Those are, really, the only options if you are OVERWEIGHT or obese and not losing at all in a 'big' deficit.

    (Things get hairier when you're within normal weight and losing vanity pounds and the deficit would be smaller, so less room for error and slower loss that can 'hide' in the scale for quite some time, and also where statistical outliers re: calorie needs show up)
  • angelexperiment
    angelexperiment Posts: 1,917 Member
    Certain exercise programs will cause you to gain bc you are gaining muscle but also need to eat more some of those you don’t lose in numbers on the scale but in sizes. Also you may either need to exercise less or stop completely or adjust your calories to 1400-1500. I lost weight with diet only no excercise for health reasons. I had to find my magic calories number to lose. Also make sure you log accurately ( some things on the log here are not accurate) that your portions are correct not double portions on the container and weigh your food. Prelog is a good idea and also meal prep for the week.