Going down in dress sizes but not weight help!!!

[Rotexx]

Hi, I’ve been on a weight loss journey for about 8momths, I started with a size 20/22, I lost about 10-15 kg months later and then stopped. The most surprising thing I discovered is that I am currently wearing a size 14 now and I continue to go down in dress sizes but my weight hasn’t budged on the scale, I’m still well over-weight for my BMI, My height 5.5 and I weigh 96 kg although I can’t exercise and haven’t at all from the beginning of my weight loss solely because of health reasons, still I’m upset about the situation as I’m been on a diet from the start, what exactly is going on??? Help please!!!

[Rotexx]

Hi, I’ve been on a weight loss journey for about 8momths, I started with a size 20/22, I lost about 10-15 kg months later and then stopped. The most surprising thing I discovered is that I am currently wearing a size 14 now and I continue to go down in dress sizes but my weight hasn’t budged on the scale, I’m still well over-weight for my BMI, My height 5.5 and I weigh 96 kg although I can’t exercise  and haven’t at all from the beginning of my weight loss solely because of health reasons, still I’m upset about the situation as I’m been on a diet from the start,  what exactly is going on??? Help please!!!

[emili]

The normal rule of thumb is 10 pounds for every dress size. Converting your loss to pounds, that would be three dress sizes. So the size 14 is right around where you should be, particularly if the sizes are vanity sizes. Unless the conversion is incorrect... the calculator gave me 33 pounds is the equivalent of 15kg.

[EmjayH]

@Rotexx This is a good thing. Means ur converting ur fat to muscle. Ur weight will maintain but ur measurements will go down making you leaner. Awesome work 

[mranlett]

Muscle weighs more than fat, but is more dense and therefore takes up less space. Building muscle also burns fat just sitting around and so working out might be helping you more than you know. You might want to do some body fat analysis and track that as well as your body weight.

Don't stress about the number on the scale if you're able to see continued changes in your body (smaller clothes sizes is a great sign)

[seanslater]

When I wanted to lose a few pounds, I started working out hard. I saw that my body tightened up and I started to feel much better, but the numbers on the scales only grew. I didn't understand what I was doing wrong until my trainer explained to me that these are my muscles and paying attention to the numbers on the scales is not worth it. I even had to change my clothing size from S to M because of this. I was even happy about it because I was finally able to update my clothes So you need to look for advantages in everything

Moderator Edit: Word choice

[Heybales]

Though a very old original post, good learning lesson.

Sadly the comments with ideas of converting fat into muscle - with the stated no exercise being done - is totally bogus and impossible.

Muscle is sadly easily lost, not easy to gain at all.

Those may be some feel good thoughts but not realistic.

And reasonable rate of fat loss is so much faster than max rate of muscle gain - and those 2 aren't happening at the same time anyway. 

The only reason fat would still be lost shown by inches dropping in many spots, but weight staying the same - is water weight gain at the same time.

And that is only going to happen with certain disease states, meds, or stress.

Disease states usually cause that edema in specific spots that can be very noticeable, many times painful - so I'm betting that's not it.

As commented incorrectly (muscle weighs more than fat), by volume 2 lbs of fat lost in the right places can be very noticeable, 2 lbs of water is your 32 oz bottle size, and spread around the body not even noticeable when gained.

Stress increased cortisol with induced water retention can have a body slowly gain 20 lbs of water weight. That could hide many many weeks of fat loss on the scale. (probably causing more stress!)

Why stressed?

A body not happy with an extreme diet will do that, along with other stresses in life piled on.

No time given on that 10-15 kg lost, but say 3 months - that 10 lbs/month could be rather extreme unless a lot of fat to lose, like well over 50 lbs. Say 100 to lose was goal to healthy weight.

First month could have been not extreme, but by month 2 and 3 would have been very.

Easy to see body stressed pretty bad, slowly gaining water weight.

Eventually that maxes out.

But it's a bad state for the body to be in.

If it's stressed by amount of diet it'll start to adapt in other ways to make it not so extreme - slow down spontaneous daily movements, slow down other daily movements to have you not burn as much, slow down some aspects of metabolism, ect.

Very true by those getting some exercise (not the poster since stated can't and hasn't exercised) that better form in just body movements can have one looking trimmer.

Shoot, many losing weight while doing lifting discover they look trimmer and willing to change goal weight since they look better.