I’m starting to get mad at my scale

These two things suggest to me you are not in the deficit you think you are:

"my weight has stayed the same for 5 weeks. My lifting weight at the gym is going up and up."

You've made good progress. You're already fairly lean, so you should be taking regular pictures and measurements. It sounds like you're eating around maintenance and doing recomp, probably adding muscle and losing fat. This will help how you look (and feel) better, and that's far more important than a number on a scale.

As to why you maybe aren't in a deficit, remember the MFP goals are just based on estimates of your TDEE. It estimates your BMR from your height, weight and age, then applies a coarse multiplier to that to estimate your TDEE, like 1.25x or 1.4x etc. It's always likely to be wildly inaccurate. Same applies to all such calculators. You may be over-estimating workout calories too, that's common. Lifting especially doesn't burn much at the time.

This is all fine though. That your lifts are going up shows you are progressing. The weight not going down may be water retention for muscle repair, and monthly stuff. Keep tracking your data, add pictures and measurements to that, and stick with it. You may have to reduce your intake a little bit depending on your goals. Double check you are using the correct entries for food and drink in your diary, just in case. Weigh food, if you aren't already.

I have a hard time providing links via the app, but go over to Success Stories and look for the NSV thread.

NSVs are Non-Scale Victories- things you notice happening to your body when the scale is static. They are hilarious but inspiring, and reminded me throughout that sometimes the improvements are changes we can’t see or haven’t registered.

There’s thousands of posts and I’ve read every single one of them. I used to “bank” them for motivation during plateaus, cuz…..you know they’ll come, right?! 😂

First I want to validate you because I know how frustrating and discouraging a stall can be. Take some time to be compassionate with yourself right now. 💕🫶🏽

That being said, it’s important to remember that the problem is never that the number on the scale isn’t changing…the problem is what we’re making it (the number on the scale) mean about us.

This of course isn’t specific to you, this is how we’re conditioned…we take the measure of our body’s relationship with gravity to mean things about our character and believe that we’re broken somehow like we should be trying harder or doing more. Then we tell ourselves things like “What’s the point” “nothing is working”.

It’s helpful to shift your perspective to NSV (non scale victories) such as:
-Your consistency 🎉
-Your Strength 💪🏽
-Your vulnerability & willingness to ask for help 🙌🏽

Your brains job is to keep you where you are and all of the physiological processes that come along with losing weight are designed to maintain your set point. It takes time (several weeks) to adjust your body’s set point, and it’s critical to TRUST THE PROCESS!

Imagine a thermostat that’s been set at 90 in the dead of summer and all the sudden you come in and adjust the setting to 60. It’s gonna take time for the AC to start working and even longer for the AC to pump enough cold air to cool the space to that temperature. Now imagine in the meantime you keep checking the temp. and it’s only gone down 7 degrees—so you start cracking the window because wtf it’s not cooling fast enough. Then you check the temp again…ugh no budge..then you open more windows…then eventually you just turn the AC off altogether bc it’s just not working fast enough so what’s the point.

Okay that was a bit of a stretch but I think you know what I mean.

KEEP GOING GIRL!!!!!

TRUST THE PROCESS!

Stop slipping up because you think it’s not working—the slip ups will only prove your belief true.

You got this!!!!!!!

🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽

Your progress over a mere 7 weeks is amazing and obvious. It honestly looks like more than 7 pounds.

I agree with pretty much everyone above, but especially Lietchi: If you're getting discouraged and slipping up because you don't see fast progress, saying you have "cut so much from your diet", maybe you're adopting tactics that are unnecessarily difficult or extreme. The ideal route is finding new habits that are relatively easy to keep up, ideally even enjoyable . . . but healthier.

Weight loss may be a temporary project, but weight management (or fitness and health) are forever endeavors. Focus on finding permanent happy habits: That's the real goal, IMO.

You're doing this when young. That's perfect. If I'd figured out happy habits (that would keep me healthy) decades back, I would've saved myself a lot of unpleasantness. (Examples of unpleasantness: Bone loss from under-exercise, arthritis from stress on my joints (from fat and lack of muscle support), maybe even the cancer experience with an advanced stage of a cancer type that is more common with overweight/obesity. (Chemotherapy is a rotten hobby. Trust me, avoiding it is a good goal, grateful though I am to have had it in the circumstances.))

Going to the gym 3 times a week is great, especially if that's new for you. Increasing exercise gradually is the best strategy. But even that can result in some water retention (for muscle repair), and that can hide moderate fat loss on the scale for up to several weeks, especially in women young enough to have monthly cycles.

Harsh truth, though: Exercising 3 times a week is a good start toward the mainstream recommendation for general health that we get at least 150 minutes of moderate cardiovascular exercise weekly (ideally spread over 5 or more days), and at least two days weekly of strength exercise.

I don't want to discourage you by saying this: You're doing well, and obviously getting results. That's perfect. But it's not burning bunches of calories, realistically (especially strength training).

I stayed overweight/obese for a dozen years while training pretty hard 6 days most weeks, and eating healthy foods. (No, I wasn't managing my calorie intake properly then. My point is that exercise is great for us - I was far healthier than I would've been if not doing it - but it can be a pretty modest calorie burn, a small fraction in a big picture.)

Hang in there. You're doing well. Think about a permanent set of habit changes that will gradually lead you to your goal weight, continuously increase your fitness, and bring you overall thriving good health. Those are things well worth having - things that make life as a whole richer and better.

I wish I'd been smart enough to do that, instead of playing catch-up in middle/senior age.

I think I see a difference, which is pretty impressive, given that it's only 7 weeks. It's kind of hard to tell since you're wearing a jacket in the second picture. Moving forward, it would be easier to tell if you wore the same shirt, and a tank top.

Also, 7 pounds is 7 weeks is excellent, given that you don't have much weight to lose.

If your weekly weight loss goal is too aggressive, you may be retaining some water due to stress, along with the other water-retention factors already mentioned.



It's going to be slow, and should be slow, as you don't have the fat reserves to support fast loss.

Use a weight trending app such as Happy Scale (iphone) or Libra (Android) and focus on the trend, not the individual weigh-ins. I have Happy Scale and use the “Moving Average” as my official weight.

Ughhh..if I only only knew how good I looked when I was young... 😋

My ultimate goal was to make changes that I could maintain after the weight loss. It’s harder to keep it off than take it off.

AdahOats2023 wrote: »

Ughhh..if I only only knew how good I looked when I was young... 😋