Can't lose weight

tr24753
tr24753 Posts: 1 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I workout out everyday 4 times a week. Everytime i lose weight i gain it right back the next day. I try to lose weight. I lift weights i run, i do pushups, i do sit ups, practice and i don't lose.

Replies

  • Opalescent_Topaz
    Opalescent_Topaz Posts: 132 Member
    Do you also track your calories? Weight loss mostly comes down to what you eat. Exercise can "give you back" some calories, but I've noticed I can't eat all my exercise calories back and still see results. You'll just have to experiment for yourself regarding that.

    Good luck on your journey.
  • VRTC1960
    VRTC1960 Posts: 20 Member
    Many people don't realize that muscle weighs more than fat. With all that strength training you listed, you are building muscle, so you might be losing fat but replacing the weight with healthy muscle so it doesn't show on the scale. Also, most people (not all) should avoid weighing every day because the ups and downs are discouraging. Personally, I do better weighing daily but I have to put it on a graph so I can see what the overall trend is, beyond the squiggly daily readings.
  • herringboxes
    herringboxes Posts: 259 Member
    Unlikely that anyone is gaining muscle at the rate they are losing fat, unless it’s on an incredibly small scale.

    Exercising like crazy may be good for the body but does nothing for weight loss unless you are in a calorie deficit. Exercise can contribute to a deficit but if you’re not in a trend of losing weight, you’re not in a deficit. When we exercise more, we tend to eat more to fuel our work, and it’s definitely easier to eat, say, 400 extra calories than to exercise it off.
  • csplatt
    csplatt Posts: 1,205 Member
    But how much are you eating? And how are you calculating that total of calories? Have you tried decreasing that number since you began?

    How many days have you been trying?
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,091 Member
    One day is not a meaningful time horizon. Scale weight varies from day to day by multiple pounds, but that's mainly from a combination of water weight fluctuations and variation in digestive system contents that will become waste eventually.

    Fat loss is going to show up over a period of weeks. If in the first week of month one my weight is meandering from 180-186 pounds (not necessarily 186 at the start and 186 at the end!), and in the first week of month two my weight meanders around 175-180, I'd conclude I've lost roughly 5-6 pounds of fat. The day to day variations are the water/digestive contents.

    Our bodies are up to 60%+ water, so those variations can be big. That fluctuation is part of how healthy bodies stay healthy, so understanding that and working with it is the right approach.

    I'd strongly encourage that you read this (especially the article linked in the first post):

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10683010/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-fluctuations/p1
    VRTC1960 wrote: »
    Many people don't realize that muscle weighs more than fat. With all that strength training you listed, you are building muscle, so you might be losing fat but replacing the weight with healthy muscle so it doesn't show on the scale. Also, most people (not all) should avoid weighing every day because the ups and downs are discouraging. Personally, I do better weighing daily but I have to put it on a graph so I can see what the overall trend is, beyond the squiggly daily readings.

    Good point about the graphing! (There are free apps for that, like Happy Scale for Apple/iOS, Libra for Android, Trendweight with a free FitBit account (don't need a device), Weightgrapher, others.)

    The bolded is true, but under ideal conditions a really good rate of muscle mass gain would be one to two pounds per month. On the flip side, half a pound a week of fat loss - that same 2 pounds a month - is about the slowest fat loss rate most people would consider satisfying, and even that would take multiple weeks to show up on the bodyweight scale amongst normal daily weight fluctuations.

    "Ideal conditions" for muscle mass gain include a calorie surplus, i.e., weight gain. That doesn't mean one can't gain muscle mass in a calorie deficit, but it would be slower than that 1-2 pounds per month. Sometimes people believe otherwise because strength gain can be quite fast at first. That fast initial strength gain comes from better recruiting and using existing muscle fibers, not from growing new ones. A person can even look a little more "toned" early on, if there's some "pump" appearance from water retention in the muscles for repair, plus perhaps early loss of overlying fat layer so muscles show a bit more.

    But the sad conclusion is that no realistic rate of muscle gain is going to outpace any satisfying rate of fat loss on the bodyweight scale. I wish it were otherwise, sincerely.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,091 Member
    tr24753 wrote: »
    I workout out everyday 4 times a week. Everytime i lose weight i gain it right back the next day. I try to lose weight. I lift weights i run, i do pushups, i do sit ups, practice and i don't lose.

    As others said, attention to the eating side of the equation is the more important variable when it comes to fat loss.

    I stayed overweight/obese for more than a decade while training pretty hard 6 days most weeks, and competing as an athlete (not always unsuccessfully, either, in age group competitions). Exercise can spike appetite, and it's easy to consume that many more calories, almost without noticing (unless calorie counting).

    When I got the eating side of my routine on better terms, I lost weight pretty expediently (50-some pounds), and have stayed at a healthy weight for 7+ years since. Through that loss, I didn't materially increase exercise. I probably do more active stuff now, but that's more in pursuit of fun and because I'm required and have more time for fun, not particularly anything to do with weight management.
  • briscogun
    briscogun Posts: 1,138 Member
    tr24753 wrote: »
    I workout out everyday 4 times a week. Everytime i lose weight i gain it right back the next day. I try to lose weight. I lift weights i run, i do pushups, i do sit ups, practice and i don't lose.

    Looks like you just joined today. Welcome to MFP!

    One way it was explained to me: You watch your calorie intake to lose weight, you exercise for health benefits. Another expression that is used here a lot: "You can't outrun a bad diet".

    Exercising every day does not equal automatic weight loss. Most people here are going to subscribe to CICO (calories in calories out). Exercise can assist with the calories out part of the equation, but be warned: most trackers will drastically over-estimate the amount of calories you burn during a workout. A lot of folks only eat back half of the calories their trackers reflect as "burned" as a result.

    Are you logging all of your food? Weighing and/or measuring? There was no mention of your food in the original post.

    Let us know! You can make your diary public and some very smart people here can give you some insight into your food intake and logging.

    Good luck!
  • tomcustombuilder
    tomcustombuilder Posts: 2,191 Member
    edited August 2023
    Weight will fluctuate daily. When dropping calories it can take a few weeks for your body to adjust before seeing the scale move. When counting calories think weekly and not daily. Count 7 days worth of calories and divide by 7 and this is your true daily amount. Too many people cherry pick a low day and consider that their daily amount.

    Try weighing once a week on the same day first thing in the morning after peeing as that reduces the stress of seeing day to day fluctuations.

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