I Cant lose weight
megansaw
Posts: 4 Member
I am in at least a 1000 calorie deficit a days, im doing the 75 hard day challenge so im working out twice a day, im three weeks and have lost no weight, in fact ive gained 2 pounds. What is going on.
I want to cry im working so hard!
I want to cry im working so hard!
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Replies
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What makes you think you're in a 1,000 deficit?
How does your calorie input compare to this?
https://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/
If your working out is new, and it sounds quite intense, you've probably gained a few pounds water weight from that.5 -
Hey i measure everything, ive mainly eaten protein and salad and veg, my apple watch is saying I'm burning between 2600 to 3000 calories a day and I'm eating between 1400 to 1500.1
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I am in at least a 1000 calorie deficit a days, im doing the 75 hard day challenge so im working out twice a day, im three weeks and have lost no weight, in fact ive gained 2 pounds. What is going on.
I want to cry im working so hard!
I think you may not actually be in a 1000 calorie deficit. You say you're working out twice a day, but calories burned from working out are unreliable and basically untrackable (despite what well meaning people will try to say). Yes, some people will say they are maintaining a deficit through working out, but what's probably closer to the truth is that they are monitoring their calories eaten, and that works out despite the calories they think they've burned through exercise, not because of it. Exercise is for health, not weight loss.1 -
This is an example from yesterday and ive basically kept to the same each day
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If you're doing two a day workouts AND severely restricting your calories, you're probably just awash in water weight from the workouts and the stress on your body. I would imagine that when you finish the 75 hard, you'll probably see a "whoosh" once your cortisol levels even out. How many days do you have left?
If you're committed to the 75 hard, then it's probably best to switch to weekly or monthly weigh-ins. You're probably cancelling out the intended benefits by stressing over the scale. If your intention with 75 hard is to build confidence, perseverance, self-esteem, self-worth, then this might not be the best path for you. If you're doing it just for weight loss....there are easier and less stressful ways to lose weight.10 -
If you’ve been doing this for less than 4 weeks it can be water retention, after 4 weeks it’s that you’re not in a WEEKLY calorie deficit due to many factors with your counting and tracking.3
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Most of your examples in yoir diary look like you aren't weighing your food on a scale. All food needs.to be weighed grams. Also, are you including all.sauces, drinks that may have calories?
That combined with over estimating calorie burn, means you are probably not in 1000 calorie deficit.3 -
This is an example from yesterday and ive basically kept to the same each day
Make sure you have your activity setting correct.
Make sure your Apple Watch negative calorie burn (I’ll have to go back and look up the real name) setting is enabled or Apple will credit you too many calories.
That seems to be a very very large burn for 88 minutes of work, although possible if you had a large number of steps, but I’d expect there to be a little bit of bump bump showing in the exercise graph if you’d had a lot of steps. You might double check what you’re calling your activity. I can get a large difference in calories between “functional strength training” with my trainer versus cardio strength, even though they’re comparative.
If you’re somehow picking up the burn from gym equipment via Apple Watch, know that gym equipment usually records very inaccurately high burns.0 -
i piggyback the question about whether you are using a digital food scale for foods measured in grams.
i also agree that for two-a-days, you may need more time due to water retention0 -
See the deduction circled at the top?
If you start the timer on an exercise, Apple will record both the steps in the exercise and the steps, period. Same with some calories burned. So they do a rather awkward and irritating adjustment to back off some of the duplicate burn.
You have to go into settings to enable the adjustment.
See how I’ve only got credit for 1000 exercise calories? That’s based on a setting of very active, and includes a gym session, cardio class, an hour swimming laps, and about 7 or 8 miles walked outside of steps around the house. You’ve got to be very careful about selecting the proper type of workout and recording exercise via Apple Watch. If you’re not conservative it will lavish you wish extra calories and throw your numbers off.
You’ll see similar deductions if you scroll back through my (open) diary. If you do: Caveat- I’m running a deficit for a cut right now.3 -
In spite of the multiple comments doubting things the big picture is that you ARE on a deficit.
Probably too aggressive as opposed to not aggressive enough. Probably unsustainable if you're adding1000 Cal deficits to twice a day hard workouts and you're not starting closer to obese than overweight or normal weight.
Your monthly cycle, extra workouts and stress are going to throw weigh ins for a loop.
If you're trying to effectively lose more than 0.5 to 1% of your body weight per week you're going to end up making your life hard and complicated especially if you're not morbidly obese to start.
Throw in hard new exercise which by itself can be 2 to 5lbs of water retention which will go away when the exercise stops....
Timelines and overdoing things are not your friends.
If you make things hard enough so that you end up giving up when you don't see the results you deserve to see given the effort you've invested...well you will end up giving up and not achieving the end result you wanted
But will the root cause of the problem be the lack of results? Or will the root cause be the setup of making this so hard that it ends up having more chances to fail than to succeed?
Take a deep breath and try LESS hard. Either less intense exercise or less intense deficits. Probably take more time to measure what you eat if this is a long time thing. Or hit things with less expectations of results and more attention to finding a semi enjoyable process you can keep to for several months.
Exercise is good just for it's own sake and it didn't have to be deliberately hard in order to yield results. Just a slightly contrarian opinion I guess! 🤷♂️12 -
If you make things hard enough so that you end up giving up when you don't see the results you deserve to see given the effort you've invested...well you will end up giving up and not achieving the end result you wanted
But will the root cause of the problem be the lack of results? Or will the root cause be the setup of making this so hard that it ends up having more chances to fail than to succeed?
This is golden.3 -
You're 3 weeks in. Compare your weight trend (using a weight trend app) at the same point of your monthly cycle and under similar conditions
New or increased exercise or exercise cessation? Injuries? Bowel issues? Recent flight? Eating out during the past few days? Pregnancy? All of these would be conditions not similar! 🤷♂️0 -
How many times have you weighed yourself?1
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Could be hormonal/cycle fluctuations/increases... to be followed with a big woosh if you continue a real deficit the rest of the cycle. I always had an upswing the last few days irrespective of deficits.
I saw a clear fluctuation pattern when i charted daily weights across about 4 months, during stable eating and deficits. Body had retention intentions of its own
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As someone who has done 75 Hard several times, and am currently in the midst of Phase 3 of a Live Hard year - at least in my experience, if I'm going into things having fallen off the proverbial wagon (like I did between phases this fall/early winter), it takes some time for my body to adjust, then around the 3 week (ish) mark I'll have a woosh over a day or two (or three if it's bad enough). Before that, the scale and even my pants won't show any improvements.
I've tracked this over time enough times with myself that I KNOW this is the process my body goes through. It's normal for your body to retain extra water with increased/new workouts, then add in what may be some major diet changes, and it can take a bit for things to start to turn around. The woosh phenomenon is basically where your body, while it is burning fat, will replace that fat in those cells with water, figuring they will get refilled (or something, I'm not a biologist). Eventually your body figures out they aren't getting refilled with fat, and will suddenly release a ton of that water in a brief period of time. For some reason, anecdotally, this seems to be more common for women than men.
In my current case - this fall/winter I got HORRIBLE about my exercise and eating (no real good reasons for it other than not making it a priority, but I gave in to all the junk big time, quickly gaining a ton of weight, nearing in on my heaviest ever).
I started tracking again around Jan 4th when my BLC challenge started, and my Phase 3 started on the 11th, which forced more workouts than I had been doing (although I had already been doing more than I had been). My weight didn't drop at ALL until 2 days ago - Wed morning I suddenly dropped 3 pounds, and by today another 1.2 pounds down. Knowing my body's patterns, I will probably go up a little bit from here and then will start into the routine I've seen happen regularly: nothing, nothing, nothing, WOOSH around 2-4 pounds, slight uptick of .5-1.5 pounds, then hold steady for another week or two. This cycle will repeat regularly for several iterations before my body settles into the new routine and my losses get more steady.
In contrast to those suggesting weigh in less often, I actually recommend weighing yourself DAILY and put it into a trend app (I use Libra on Android) so you can start to see your body's patterns and the trend. Weighing in infrequently could mean that you would hit an extra high, or abnormally low day, and you wouldn't know it was that, then your next weigh in could be very demoralizing. Depends on your take, some people get very stressed about that number every day, but for me, understanding my body's patterns helps me "trust the process" more.6 -
this is a question about the app in general as opposed to a criticism or suggestion — if you set your activity level to “very active” then also log all your workouts, are you double dipping in a way? double logging activity? i have always just selected sedentary — THEN logged my workouts3
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@csplatt
When you set your activity level, that should be your activity level EXCLUSIVE OF INTENTIONAL EXERCISE. Look at what the descriptions of the activity levels are and note they don't include exercise:- Sedentary: Spend most of the day sitting (e.g. bank teller, desk job)
- Lightly Active: Spend a good part of the day on your feet (e.g. teacher, salesperson)
- Active: Spend a good part of the day doing some physical activity (e.g. food server, postal carrier)
- Very Active: Spend most of the day doing heavy physical activity (e.g. bike messenger, carpenter)
If you do exercise on top of that, you should log it.1 -
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Bil38477447 wrote: »Me neither. Hahaga so silly we are
Understanding weight fluctuation and trajectory and the causes and time frames helps. A lot.1 -
this is a question about the app in general as opposed to a criticism or suggestion — if you set your activity level to “very active” then also log all your workouts, are you double dipping in a way? double logging activity? i have always just selected sedentary — THEN logged my workouts
Not to be snarky, but to be graphic:
If you are a bricklayer's apprentice by trade, carrying hods of bricks up ladders all day, plus you're remodeling your sprawling suburban home at night, and set your activity level to "very active"; then log exercise calories because you're also training for an IM triathlon; and you eat the exercise calories . . . you are not double dipping.
If you are a reference librarian who is tied to a phone at a desk all day because your job is answering calls from the public, and you go home at night to your ground-floor studio apartment (with attached carport) where you cuddle with your cat and knit while watching TV, and you set your activity level to "very active" then log exercise calories when you go for a walk after dinner, and you eat the exercise calories . . . you are double dipping and then some.
In between those extremes, there are some judgement calls, but the 4-6 week trial period will yield an answer.
If you're sedentary in terms of job and daily life activity (home chores, non-exercise hobbies), you wouldn't want to set activity level to "very active". If you are "very active" before intentional exercise, then it makes sense to set activity level that way.6 -
Perhaps some words of encouragement? From your data you may be overtraining and risking puting yourself into starvation mode - which will shut down most everything. Also, increased muscle mass has weight associated with it. You may have lost bodyfat while simultaneously added muscle mass. Added muscle mass can lead to attainment of your goals. Finally, attempt to not look too closely at things. relax, and perhaps attempt to attain more than weight loss and achieve a healthy sustainable life. Much good health to you.3
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Perhaps some words of encouragement? From your data you may be overtraining and risking puting yourself into starvation mode - which will shut down most everything. Also, increased muscle mass has weight associated with it. You may have lost bodyfat while simultaneously added muscle mass. Added muscle mass can lead to attainment of your goals. Finally, attempt to not look too closely at things. relax, and perhaps attempt to attain more than weight loss and achieve a healthy sustainable life. Much good health to you.
I'm sorry, but all of this is whoo.
1. Starvation mode is a myth, or how do you think people would starve to death? Yeah, if you undereat your body makes sure you move less, fidget less, increases cortisol which might increase waterweight and a few other things. But undereating does not stop weightloss.
2. Eating in a deficit and building a substantial amount of muscle, especially for a woman is just not possible. You might create some noob gains, but those are so insubstantial that this won't really show on the scale.
3. it looks more likely that TO is not tracking properly and not for a long enough period. Relaxing more would achieve exactly what?10 -
@Zachor717
The idea of a body going into "starvation mode" and somehow not burning fuel is common and also incorrect. It would be the equivalent of your car getting better fuel economy when it was almost empty compared to when it was full. Most of the calories you burn daily go to keeping you alive, and your brain is the biggest user of fuel. If you're not familiar with it, read about the Minnesota Starvation Experiment. Maclolm Gladwell did an episode on his podcast "Revisionist History" about it.
It is possible that if a body is underfueled, some movements that we aren't even aware of might slow down, like foot tapping and the like. That would reduce our caloric expenditure, but doesn't alter our metabolism.
Adding muscle mass does indeed affect our total mass as shown on the scale. It's a slow process. Gaining any appreciable mass from muscle growth wouldn't show up quickly, and it would be hindered if a person was in a caloric deficit. I had to look up what the 75 hard day challenge is, and it incorporates 90 minutes of working out each day. A person eating 1400 to 1500 calories per day while working out for 90 minutes would almost certainly be in a deficit, so no - the issue isn't muscle mass.
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OP, try setting your settings to sedentary and adding your workouts - and take calories burned with a grain of salt, because i've never seen a calorie counter that was exactly right as they're all averages.
starvation mode isn't an actual thing. when i was a teenager and didn't know any better, i ate 600 to 800 calories per day, and you know what? i lost a lot of weight - including muscle, no doubt - very fast. i didn't go into "starvation mode" and stop losing weight at any point.
the only way that the OP isn't losing weight is that they're not eating at a deficit. it's basic biology.3 -
Hormones, thyroid, and adrenal glands play a HUGE role. Sometimes when the body goes too hard or does too many HIIT style workouts it can lead to too much cortisol in the body (stress hormone that leads to weight gain). If you already have a lot of stress in daily life AND you’re stressing your body out via intense workouts it can backfire and burn your adrenal glands out which also affects your thyroid.
Underlying inflammation is also a biggie. Not sure if you experience other daily symptoms at all but gut imbalance could lead to that extra stress and retained water as well.
Just thought I’d bring a different perspective to the convo as we always jump to calories as the blame!
I’m a dietitian and deal with a lot of this
again, just trying to give a different potential root cause! 2 -
I am in at least a 1000 calorie deficit a days, im doing the 75 hard day challenge so im working out twice a day, im three weeks and have lost no weight, in fact ive gained 2 pounds. What is going on.
I want to cry im working so hard!
Hi Megan, this may sound counterintuitive at first, but have you tried upping your calories? And working with a smaller calorie deficit?
Are you doing mostly cardio or weight training?
Twice a day sounds like a lot of stress on your body- have you considered working out only 3 times a week, but doing high resistance training? For the protein to work with you, you also need to grow your muscles, lift heavy.
For the weight gain you noticed: does your scales tell you whether this is muscle growth? Or fat?
Your body might be stressed out and retaining...perhaps you could try upping your food with protein and cards to a small calorie deficit ans reduce training but switch to heavy weight training? Good luck!!!0 -
PeacefulBalance wrote: »Hormones, thyroid, and adrenal glands play a HUGE role. Sometimes when the body goes too hard or does too many HIIT style workouts it can lead to too much cortisol in the body (stress hormone that leads to weight gain). If you already have a lot of stress in daily life AND you’re stressing your body out via intense workouts it can backfire and burn your adrenal glands out which also affects your thyroid.
Underlying inflammation is also a biggie. Not sure if you experience other daily symptoms at all but gut imbalance could lead to that extra stress and retained water as well.
Just thought I’d bring a different perspective to the convo as we always jump to calories as the blame!
I’m a dietitian and deal with a lot of this again, just trying to give a different potential root cause!
I would've just ignored this, except that you claim to be a dietitian, so I'm going to call it out, because as such, you are hypothetically giving real people this advice. None of this is true nor based in scientific evidence. You can't "burn your adrenals out". That's not a thing. It's not how it works. Furthermore, hormones would not be in your scope of practice, as you are (assumedly) not an endocrinologist.11 -
I am in at least a 1000 calorie deficit a days, im doing the 75 hard day challenge so im working out twice a day, im three weeks and have lost no weight, in fact ive gained 2 pounds. What is going on.
I want to cry im working so hard!
Ugh 😣 I’m having flashbacks of when I decided to be active, get a trainer, and log but not weigh my food. It was SO HARD physically, emotionally, and then to not lose weight… completely deflating. Here’s what happened to me, and many of us before going back to the basics and finding a healthier way.
Firstly, I gained quite a bit of water weight, something like 3-4 lbs immediately. It didn’t ever drop off like I heard it would.
My NEAT decreased because my planned activities and exercise made me lethargic for the rest of the day, and I had a pretty sedentary desk job so that didn’t help.
I was so hungry because I truly thought I had at least a 1000 calorie deficit. The gym also made me hungry literally the entire day. It felt like torture wanting to lose weight but feeling ravenous all the time. Oh, and the trainer put me on a diet eating food that wasn’t familiar to me or in my comfort zone so I didn’t have that joy or satiation I was used to.
Because of the hard work I was putting in my eating had little bites of things I wasn’t allowed to eat. Or I would have days where my calories were higher and some lower, which probably knocked out my deficit for the week.
I knew I had the best intentions, but this wasn’t a lifestyle I could do long term and I wasn’t happy so I stopped. I pouted for a couple of months, came back here, and got the exact same advice you got, and wow did it change things. Literally everything.
First thing, I figured out a rate of weight loss that made sense- .5-1 lb a week. Then I weighed everything I ate and drank with calories. If you’re logging already, it’s a no brainer and kind of fun actually. I also weighed myself at the same time everyday to learn my natural weight fluctuations and see my weight loss trend. I found enjoyable exercise that I was excited to do, and could find non-scale victories in all the time. Lastly, I ate MY FOOD. As long as it was in my calories, I ate what made me feel full, stuff I enjoyed, that gave me the best energy levels, and didn’t make me feel like I was on a diet. And I ate WHEN I wanted to. Not 3-5 times a day as advertised, but when it made sense for my life and my body’s cues.
So, I was happy, started losing weight (what seemed like) effortlessly, and I was able to stick to it everyday. I’m now in maintenance, eating and doing the same thing, but with slightly more calories, and I have no desire to change it because it’s my lifestyle now. Believe me, you are not alone. And I hate that we felt that killing ourselves was the only way to meet our goals, when in reality it’s the only way to yo-yo diet and be miserable. I promise you, there is a better way out there that works for you and your life. Listen to the excellent advice from the others, and disregard the myths and misconceptions that don’t serve you, they’re to sell books and magazines. This is a free platform, use it to your advantage. Read the stickies at the top. Ask questions. Check-in and let us know how you’re doing. We’ve been there and we want to help. Just keep in mind that some advice we may not want to hear but it’s what we need to hear, but it’s always coming from a good place.12 -
sollyn23l2 wrote: »PeacefulBalance wrote: »Hormones, thyroid, and adrenal glands play a HUGE role. Sometimes when the body goes too hard or does too many HIIT style workouts it can lead to too much cortisol in the body (stress hormone that leads to weight gain). If you already have a lot of stress in daily life AND you’re stressing your body out via intense workouts it can backfire and burn your adrenal glands out which also affects your thyroid.
Underlying inflammation is also a biggie. Not sure if you experience other daily symptoms at all but gut imbalance could lead to that extra stress and retained water as well.
Just thought I’d bring a different perspective to the convo as we always jump to calories as the blame!
I’m a dietitian and deal with a lot of this again, just trying to give a different potential root cause!
I would've just ignored this, except that you claim to be a dietitian, so I'm going to call it out, because as such, you are hypothetically giving real people this advice. None of this is true nor based in scientific evidence. You can't "burn your adrenals out". That's not a thing. It's not how it works. Furthermore, hormones would not be in your scope of practice, as you are (assumedly) not an endocrinologist.
Completely agree - adrenals don’t burn out and giving endocrinology advice when not medically trained in that field is irresponsible and downright dangerous. Why does this wind me up? I had a dopamine secreting pheochromocytoma which *kitten* up my body for years. Yet you know what? That little sucker of an adrenal gland was still going for it, pumping out hormones like it was supposed to. Just massively in excess in my case.
OP: you are exercising v hard, which can definitely lead to water weight gain. But you may also (unintentionally) not be recording your food intake accurately. Set up MFP, pick a less aggressive rate of loss, and log as accurately as you can. Weight loss is a marathon not a sprint - and trust me, it’s easier that way.
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