Under calories and no weight loss
bobbiejoterry
Posts: 1 Member
I am following my calorie count of 1350 which I calculated here on FP. I have consistently walked 3-4 times a week with 2 days strength training and after 2 weeks I still have not lost a pound. Should I lower my calorie count more or could something else be stallings my efforts. Gluten free and very little processed foods.
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Replies
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I am new so bare with me. How are you counting the calories you eat? Are you weighing it on a food scale or measuring it? If you are not losing usually it means you are not in a calorie deficit and the first response to that is are you really tracking everything and are you doing it correctly?0
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bobbiejoterry wrote: »I am following my calorie count of 1350 which I calculated here on FP. I have consistently walked 3-4 times a week with 2 days strength training and after 2 weeks I still have not lost a pound. Should I lower my calorie count more or could something else be stallings my efforts. Gluten free and very little processed foods.
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bobbiejoterry wrote: »I am following my calorie count of 1350 which I calculated here on FP. I have consistently walked 3-4 times a week with 2 days strength training and after 2 weeks I still have not lost a pound. Should I lower my calorie count more or could something else be stallings my efforts. Gluten free and very little processed foods.
If you are exercising consistently with weights, your lack of weight loss can be to added muscle mass, and not because of calorie intake. Also consider how you combine your foods. Is your plate balanced with complex carbs, vegetables, and protein? A steady diet of 1300cal/day in exclusively potato chips is going to be different than 1300 cal/day of beans&brown rice. (I learned this the hard way over various weight loss platforms over the years.
I've personally found that only weighing myself once a month is the least disappointing to me. Also, try using a tape measure or keep one particular well-fitting button down shirt for size reference. It's so much easier to see weight loss when suddenly a collar is looser, or certain buttons don't pull.
I've been following the plan for over 3 months and have only lost 5 lbs. It's still a loss, and I chose a higher calorie bracket because my body will re-pack pounds on easier if I don't lose them very slowly.
Have you tried switching up your strength training routine? Try using free weights vs machines when possible, or look online for different exercises that will tone the same muscle groups. Switching things up can help break a plateau.
It can be frustrating, but stick with it, despite feeling less successful than you aim to be.1 -
Bobbie how tall are you and what do you weigh? Female?0
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OP: I agree with those saying that 2 weeks doesn't give you enough experience data to have a clear picture of the trend. Four to six weeks would be good, whole menstrual cycles if that applies so that you can compare bodyweight at the same relative point in at least two different cycles. (Hormone-related water weight fluctuations can be that weird, for some. It's not the most common pattern, but I've seen a few women here say they only saw a new low weight at one point in the month, even when losing at a reasonable rate.)
In particular, a new exercise regimen can trigger extra water retention (needed for muscle repair), and that water can mask fat loss on the body weight scale for a period of time.
If you are exercising consistently with weights, your lack of weight loss can be to added muscle mass, and not because of calorie intake.
In two weeks? Sadly, I think not. I wish it were otherwise . . . so fervently wish!
Fat loss takes patience, as we all know. Muscle mass gain takes even more patience, usually substantially more.
Under ideal conditions, two pounds of muscle mass gain in a month would be a really good result. Ideal conditions would include things like relative youth, favorable genetics, a good progressive strength training faithfully performed, good overall nutrition (especially but not exclusively ample protein), relative newness to strength training, possibly male hormones, and a calorie surplus (i.e., weight gain).
It's not that muscle mass gain isn't possible in less than ideal conditions, but it's reasonable to expect that it will be slower than that 2 pounds per month.
On the flip side, half a pound a week (that same two pounds a month) is about the slowest fat loss rate that most people might consider satisfying. Even that might not show up on the bodyweight scale in less than several weeks, in a context where multiple-pound water weight fluctuations from one day to the next are the norm.
The sad but inevitable conclusion is that no realistic rate of muscle mass gain is going to outpace any reasonable rate of fat loss on the body weight scale, when in a calorie deficit. Oh, how I wish it were otherwise!
Noting, however: Strength gain will usually be much faster than muscle mass gain for someone newly starting strength training. (It's from better recruiting and using existing muscle fibers, a.k.a. neuromuscular adaptation.) Since strength is useful in daily life, that's more than worthwhile. There can even be relatively quick appearance improvements: A little more definition from water retained in muscles for repair, better posture, and that sort of thing.
OP: Keep going, consistently, for at least another 2-4 weeks. If there are cheat days or slips or something in the scenario, log those honest so you know the impact.
Hang in there - losing a meaningful total amount of weight takes a long time, even if fat loss is relatively fast. Success rewards those who are patient. I know that's hard, from experience.
Best wishes!5 -
@Aliepants:
Is your plate balanced with complex carbs, vegetables, and protein? A steady diet of 1300cal/day in exclusively potato chips is going to be different than 1300 cal/day of beans&brown rice.
You don’t need to eat in a certain way to lose weight, you just need to eat in your calories. Oddly the types of foods you eat are for health and satiation not weight loss.
I've personally found that only weighing myself once a month is the least disappointing to me.
I’m the opposite. Daily weigh-ins for others can help recognize their weight trend. People often recommend Happy Scale for that. To each their own But I do agree measurements are insightful.
Try using free weights vs machines when possible, or look online for different exercises that will tone the same muscle groups. Switching things up can help break a plateau.
Weight loss is mostly due to diet so the weight lifting preference is individual. The best way to break a plateau is to tighten your logging (food scale for accuracy) and be consistent. I’m pretty sure the “keep your body guessing” thing is a myth. But it can help people from getting board maybe haha.
I've been following the plan for over 3 months and have only lost 5 lbs. It's still a loss, and I chose a higher calorie bracket because my body will re-pack pounds on easier if I don't lose them very slowly.
Congrats on the weight loss. Nothing wrong with taking it slow at all!4 -
@Aliepants:
(snip really good reply post for focus on one point)
Try using free weights vs machines when possible, or look online for different exercises that will tone the same muscle groups. Switching things up can help break a plateau.
Weight loss is mostly due to diet so the weight lifting preference is individual. The best way to break a plateau is to tighten your logging (food scale for accuracy) and be consistent. I’m pretty sure the “keep your body guessing” thing is a myth. But it can help people from getting board maybe haha.
(more snip)
From a weight loss perspective, "keep your body guessing" is a myth. (I think some people experience it as having worked, because unexplained sudden plateaus usually break eventually, and folks' credit the most recent "plateau breaker" that they tried.)
Calorie burn is about the work performed, in pretty much the physics sense of "work". Sure, any given thing at a given intensity feels easier as we do it more, because that's literally what improving fitness makes happen. A heart rate monitor (HRM) may even suggest that the activity burns fewer calories, but if doing the thing at consistent body weight while getting fitter, that's a flaw in how HRMs work. (Our bodies pump more blood/oxygen per beat as we get fitter, so we need fewer beats to provide enough oxygen for the same workload.)
As a general principle, the "body confusion" thing also isn't helpful for fitness improvement, which is more about having a logically constructed, progressive plan (not just for weight training, but anything - Couch to 5K, for example, is an example of a progressive cardiovascular exercise plan).
That said, of course it's good for one's general fitness to vary activities in intelligent ways, to develop different physical capabilities - strength, flexibility, power, mobility, etc., and varied detail aspects of those. Still best done with a plan of some sort, though.
For boredom, without ambitious fitness or weight loss goals driving decisions, of course it's fine to switch up activity types/intensities to keep things interesting.
The "body confusion" "keep your body guessing" thing comes, I'm convinced, from outfits like Beachbody wanting to sell us new and different programs/equipment/diets so that they keep making money. If I'm generous about the marketers (which I'm disinclined to be), maybe there's an element of trying to develop different capabilities in their thinking, but they don't want to go into the details.
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bobbiejoterry wrote: »I am following my calorie count of 1350 which I calculated here on FP. I have consistently walked 3-4 times a week with 2 days strength training and after 2 weeks I still have not lost a pound. Should I lower my calorie count more or could something else be stallings my efforts. Gluten free and very little processed foods.
If you are exercising consistently with weights, your lack of weight loss can be to added muscle mass, and not because of calorie intake.
In a calorie deficit, a person isn't going to gain muscle fast enough to mask fat loss.3
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