I'm not losing weight - why?

[Katalinax]

I have been on a weight loss goal since April, I have lost near about 20lbs. I ate roughly 1100-1400kcal a day and lost about 1lb-2lbs a week. I would have done maybe 30mins to an hour and half of cardio and a mix of weight training on these days. I did 10,000 steps a day.

A few weeks ago, I noticed that I was only losing half a pound, so I thought of reducing calories to about 900-1000 a day to see a quicker weight loss. Then I started gaining weight. I went from 136.5lbs a few weeks ago, then I saw 138-139lbs. On weekends, I do allow myself to eat 1800-2000kcal since that is our 'treat day' as a family. I then made a chart with calories and weight loss (since I thought it could be 'starvation mode' and my body was holding food since I was eating a lot less) and went back to having more calories, settling on aiming for 1,300kcal a day because that is where I saw the most weight loss. Due to having more time in a day, I complete at least an hour of workouts, do more weight training and do roughly 11,000-16,000 steps a day.

My weight has stayed around 138-140 the past few weeks, but I'm so close to my goal of 130.

My BMR is about 1400kcal a day, but with steps, workouts etc, fitbit says I lose about 2300-2500kcal a day. (The last 2 weeks I have been running for cardio, 20mins in the morning, 30-40mins in the afternoon and sometimes 10-15 in the evening.) I workout every single day and haven't had a rest day for months. 

So I'm burning more than I eat, I'm eating healthily, why am I not losing weight? This week I am trying to weigh myself every morning to see a trend since I previously weighed myself once a week.

I understand fitbit isn't always accurate, but I know I should be losing weight - my scales don't quite agree though. I am quite muscular, with a medium build too. I have noticed my muscles do seem to be getting more defined and toning up a lot more. 

Many thanks!    

[Katalinax]

I have been on a weight loss goal since April, I have lost near about 20lbs. I ate roughly 1100-1400kcal a day and lost about 1lb-2lbs a week. I would have done maybe 30mins to an hour and half of cardio and a mix of weight training on these days. I did 10,000 steps a day.

A few weeks ago, I noticed that I was only losing half a pound, so I thought of reducing calories to about 900-1000 a day to see a quicker weight loss. Then I started gaining weight. I went from 136.5lbs a few weeks ago, then I saw 138-139lbs. On weekends, I do allow myself to eat 1800-2000kcal since that is our 'treat day' as a family. I then made a chart with calories and weight loss (since I thought it could be 'starvation mode' and my body was holding food since I was eating a lot less) and went back to having more calories, settling on aiming for 1,300kcal a day because that is where I saw the most weight loss. Due to having more time in a day, I complete at least an hour of workouts, do more weight training and do roughly 11,000-16,000 steps a day.

I drink 2.5ish litres of water or with a little bit of flavour to reduce water calories. But now I'm gaining weight, seeing myself stay at around 138-140lbs. I want to reach 130lbs and I'm so close to it, but I'm staying at this weight. 

My BMR is about 1400kcal a day, but with steps, workouts etc, fitbit says I lose about 2300-2500kcal a day. (The last 2 weeks I have been running for cardio, 20mins in the morning, 30-40mins in the afternoon and sometimes 10-15 in the evening.) I workout every single day and haven't had a rest day for months. 

So I'm burning more than I eat, I'm eating healthily, why am I not losing weight? This week I am trying to weigh myself every morning to see a trend since I previously weighed myself once a week.

I understand fitbit isn't always accurate, but I know I should be losing weight - my scales don't quite agree though. I am quite muscular, with a medium build too. I have noticed my muscles do seem to be getting more defined and toning up a lot more. 

Many thanks!

[Katalinax]

I have been on a weight loss goal since April, I have lost near about 20lbs. I ate roughly 1100-1400kcal a day and lost about 1lb-2lbs a week. I would have done maybe 30mins to an hour and half of cardio and a mix of weight training on these days. I did 10,000 steps a day.

A few weeks ago, I noticed that I was only losing half a pound, so I thought of reducing calories to about 900-1000 a day to see a quicker weight loss. Then I started gaining weight. I went from 136.5lbs a few weeks ago, then I saw 138-139lbs. On weekends, I do allow myself to eat 1800-2000kcal since that is our 'treat day' as a family. I then made a chart with calories and weight loss (since I thought it could be 'starvation mode' and my body was holding food since I was eating a lot less) and went back to having more calories, settling on aiming for 1,300kcal a day because that is where I saw the most weight loss. Due to having more time in a day, I complete at least an hour of workouts, do more weight training and do roughly 11,000-16,000 steps a day.

My weight has stayed around 138-140 the past few weeks, but I'm so close to my goal of 130.

My BMR is about 1400kcal a day, but with steps, workouts etc, fitbit says I lose about 2300-2500kcal a day. (The last 2 weeks I have been running for cardio, 20mins in the morning, 30-40mins in the afternoon and sometimes 10-15 in the evening.) I workout every single day and haven't had a rest day for months. 

So I'm burning more than I eat, I'm eating healthily, why am I not losing weight? This week I am trying to weigh myself every morning to see a trend since I previously weighed myself once a week.

I understand fitbit isn't always accurate, but I know I should be losing weight - my scales don't quite agree though. I am quite muscular, with a medium build too. I have noticed my muscles do seem to be getting more defined and toning up a lot more. 

Many thanks!

[MarciM]

Hi @Katalinax First I'd like to congratulate you on your commitment to a healthier lifestyle and the weight loss you have accomplished. Next, I'd like to ask a questions: What are you eating? they way I look at this, calories count is only a small data point. More importantly is what are you eating, all calories are not created equally. The quality of your food, no/less preservatives is also important information. If you are eating 'diet' food, you are likely consuming too much sodium and a bunch of chemicals your body doesn't know how to process. I personally take a very simple approach and only eat whole & natural foods, which means lean protein and a lot of veggies (green leafy are best), check the food sources too. I don't count calories, I just pay attention to the food quality, which mean eating at home most of the time, so I control the quality of the food, but at least I don't spent time counting calories. Happy to answer question about food source, portions, and so forth. I hope this helps. 

[emili]

@Katalinax hey there and welcome to the forum. In most cases, weight loss stalls or goes in reverse because your calories in are greater than or equal to calories out. There are of course times during the week or month that water retention will give a temporary gain, but once it passes, the weight loss catches up. Somewhere in your day you are eating too many calories or not accounting for each calorie. Over time it adds up, so at the end of the week, you don't see the loss you expected. You may want to go back to basics and start fresh. Get the scale out and measure everything that goes in your mouth all day every day. It is possible that your tracker is overestimating calories, but it will always do the same over estimation for the same activity, so you can factor that in. But more importantly, maybe figure out if you want to keep losing weight or if you want to change your body composition for now and let fat loss happen as a result of building muscle. So you won't weigh less, but you will look smaller. Whatever you decide to do, congrats on your success so far and wishing you on going success in your journey. 

[bikerhiker · Accepted solution]

@Katalinax

Hi Katalinax,

Body weight is a major determinant of health, the regulation and preservation of body composition are life-saving issues.

Having said that, I think what you are experiencing is Body Fat set point, meaning that you have now reached a new settling point that your body is fighting hard against your desires to lower body weight, because the body attempts to defend what it deems to be life threatening to your health.  When you started dieting and exercising, you started at a higher body fat set point and this is the equilibrium your body knows, but as you create a caloric deficit, you are building muscles and also reducing fat while the body fat resettles to a new point, you need the body to catch up to the new point.  And that usually is signalled by a weight lost plateau; meaning the body will no longer allow you to lower weight as it deemed to be life threatening to your health.  As a response to this, the body will try to revert back to its former equilibrium state, your starting weight.  This is why a lot of obese people who went on a quick weight loss of exercise and a healthy diet, achieved their goal but did not attempt to defend its new resettling point and then got all their weight back and then some.

So now, I think you're in a defensive mode.  You are defending your new settling point, but you are aggressively defending by doing more exercise with no rest breaks and cutting down even more calories.  What do you think your body biology will do.  It will try to defend itself more because you are threatening its survival.  What you need to do is just ease off on your exercise routine and get more rest breaks and perhaps going back to the usual routine.  Exercising without rests isn't going to realize any of your fitness potential anyhow.  In fact, it will break down your body even more, lower your immune system as your body is weaker now, and subject you to exposure against illness that you may not have a strong ability to defend.  Basically it is your body way of saying -- if you're not stopping this then I'll make you stop it by making you sick.  Thus your weight will go back to your former state.

So having said that, the prudent approach would be to "RESET" your body fat set point to the new setting point, by allowing your body physiology to play catch up.  One thing I learned from this experience and ordeal (I had similar experiences) is a change in social and environmental conditions helped me reset to the new point.  In 2012, my weight was 142lbs, which was the race weight I needed to compete in marathons etc..  But just like you, I had to vigorously defend it by caloric deficit and running marathons almost weekly to keep 142lbs.  Then I got really sick as my body totally shut down.  Had to go to the hospital and had to stay there for awhile.  My weight went back up to 160lbs.  It wasn't until 2015 when I left my stressful corporate job and am now working at a job I loved.  Tried the weight loss with Fitbit app and now getting to 142lbs.  But the difference is that, it is so much easier to get there to 142lbs than in 2012!  I barely need to defend its resettling point at all as I sometimes consume up to 2000-3000 cals from BBQ ribs to 7oz juicy burger etc on the weekend with families and friends...  My exercise routine is only 30min swim and 30min bike rides 4 times a week with 10,000 steps; similar to yours by went from 160lbs down to close to 142lbs.  My waist line is about 1" smaller than in 2012 without need to run marathons, do 35-38min 10k and 100km + bike rides.

So my theory about resetting body fat set point is that if you change your social and environmental conditions, you have an easier time reseting your body fat setpoint, or ease up on your routine and major caloric deficit by defending the new resettling point and then examine how can you improve your life situation and may help to reset your point lower.  

I've included a link from the US National Library of Medicine which explains in medical detail about the Body Fat setpoint.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2990627/

[Katalinax]

I cut fat off of meats, I make sure I eat as lean meats as I can. I eat so much fruit and vegetables and 99% of what I eat is homemade and is without added fat. I eat healthily and of course - have the occasional treat every now and then.

---

@MarciM wrote:

Hi @Katalinax First I'd like to congratulate you on your commitment to a healthier lifestyle and the weight loss you have accomplished. Next, I'd like to ask a questions: What are you eating? they way I look at this, calories count is only a small data point. More importantly is what are you eating, all calories are not created equally. The quality of your food, no/less preservatives is also important information. If you are eating 'diet' food, you are likely consuming too much sodium and a bunch of chemicals your body doesn't know how to process. I personally take a very simple approach and only eat whole & natural foods, which means lean protein and a lot of veggies (green leafy are best), check the food sources too. I don't count calories, I just pay attention to the food quality, which mean eating at home most of the time, so I control the quality of the food, but at least I don't spent time counting calories. Happy to answer question about food source, portions, and so forth. I hope this helps. 

---

[Katalinax]

Everything I eat is added into the app, but I like the idea of maintaining weight and doing more weight training and losing fat that way. Thank you 🙂

---

@emili wrote:

@Katalinax hey there and welcome to the forum. In most cases, weight loss stalls or goes in reverse because your calories in are greater than or equal to calories out. There are of course times during the week or month that water retention will give a temporary gain, but once it passes, the weight loss catches up. Somewhere in your day you are eating too many calories or not accounting for each calorie. Over time it adds up, so at the end of the week, you don't see the loss you expected. You may want to go back to basics and start fresh. Get the scale out and measure everything that goes in your mouth all day every day. It is possible that your tracker is overestimating calories, but it will always do the same over estimation for the same activity, so you can factor that in. But more importantly, maybe figure out if you want to keep losing weight or if you want to change your body composition for now and let fat loss happen as a result of building muscle. So you won't weigh less, but you will look smaller. Whatever you decide to do, congrats on your success so far and wishing you on going success in your journey. 

---

[Katalinax]

Thank you so much for this! This is incredibly useful. 

---

@bikerhiker wrote:

@Katalinax

Hi Katalinax,

Body weight is a major determinant of health, the regulation and preservation of body composition are life-saving issues.

Having said that, I think what you are experiencing is Body Fat set point, meaning that you have now reached a new settling point that your body is fighting hard against your desires to lower body weight, because the body attempts to defend what it deems to be life threatening to your health.  When you started dieting and exercising, you started at a higher body fat set point and this is the equilibrium your body knows, but as you create a caloric deficit, you are building muscles and also reducing fat while the body fat resettles to a new point, you need the body to catch up to the new point.  And that usually is signalled by a weight lost plateau; meaning the body will no longer allow you to lower weight as it deemed to be life threatening to your health.  As a response to this, the body will try to revert back to its former equilibrium state, your starting weight.  This is why a lot of obese people who went on a quick weight loss of exercise and a healthy diet, achieved their goal but did not attempt to defend its new resettling point and then got all their weight back and then some.

So now, I think you're in a defensive mode.  You are defending your new settling point, but you are aggressively defending by doing more exercise with no rest breaks and cutting down even more calories.  What do you think your body biology will do.  It will try to defend itself more because you are threatening its survival.  What you need to do is just ease off on your exercise routine and get more rest breaks and perhaps going back to the usual routine.  Exercising without rests isn't going to realize any of your fitness potential anyhow.  In fact, it will break down your body even more, lower your immune system as your body is weaker now, and subject you to exposure against illness that you may not have a strong ability to defend.  Basically it is your body way of saying -- if you're not stopping this then I'll make you stop it by making you sick.  Thus your weight will go back to your former state.

So having said that, the prudent approach would be to "RESET" your body fat set point to the new setting point, by allowing your body physiology to play catch up.  One thing I learned from this experience and ordeal (I had similar experiences) is a change in social and environmental conditions helped me reset to the new point.  In 2012, my weight was 142lbs, which was the race weight I needed to compete in marathons etc..  But just like you, I had to vigorously defend it by caloric deficit and running marathons almost weekly to keep 142lbs.  Then I got really sick as my body totally shut down.  Had to go to the hospital and had to stay there for awhile.  My weight went back up to 160lbs.  It wasn't until 2015 when I left my stressful corporate job and am now working at a job I loved.  Tried the weight loss with Fitbit app and now getting to 142lbs.  But the difference is that, it is so much easier to get there to 142lbs than in 2012!  I barely need to defend its resettling point at all as I sometimes consume up to 2000-3000 cals from BBQ ribs to 7oz juicy burger etc on the weekend with families and friends...  My exercise routine is only 30min swim and 30min bike rides 4 times a week with 10,000 steps; similar to yours by went from 160lbs down to close to 142lbs.  My waist line is about 1" smaller than in 2012 without need to run marathons, do 35-38min 10k and 100km + bike rides.

So my theory about resetting body fat set point is that if you change your social and environmental conditions, you have an easier time reseting your body fat setpoint, or ease up on your routine and major caloric deficit by defending the new resettling point and then examine how can you improve your life situation and may help to reset your point lower.  

I've included a link from the US National Library of Medicine which explains in medical detail about the Body Fat setpoint.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2990627/

---

[Daves_Not_Here]

@bikerhiker - thanks for posting this link.  I've been very interested in the idea that various feedback loops and factors affect energy balance.  In particular, I'm beginning to think that BMR is far more variable than I had previously thought.