In Calorie Deficit and Only Maintaining Weight; Why?

[Kezliegh]

Hello, I'm a 24-year-old, 140lb 5'9 female that has been in a 500 calorie deficit for a month (4 weeks). 

I'm not seeing any results. I'd like to be at 130lbs. 

I walk a ton. About 13000 steps a day and I do HIIT about 2 times a week. I also have a physically demanding job lifting and walking and I'm up and down stairs all day. 

I drink an average of 1900ml of water a day. And I eat well. 

What gives? I read that it could be water weight? 

[WavyDavey]

Hi @Kezliegh,

It takes 3500 to burn off a pound of fat. At 500 calorie deficit, you might expect 3 pounds of so to come off in that month.

How many calories are you burning each day, and how many are you eating?

I'm not a fan of deficits that go past 500. They can be really hard on the metabolism. And difficult to keep in place.

I am a big fan of HIIT, and would probably say you could add a third HIIT session per week without any trouble.

[Kezliegh]

Hi, thanks for replying.

I burn about 2,230 calories on average per day and I consume anywhere from1,400-1,700 calories. So I'm mostly under my daily intake (unintentionally). 

I love HIIT because they're only 15-20min long! I'll think about fitting another one in each week for the upcoming month. 

Thanks @WavyDavey

[Daves_Not_Here]

Some random thoughts:

• My opinion is that weight loss is 90% eating and 10% activity.  Your high activity level could be counterproductive, if you are "reward" eating, failing to log sports drink calories, increasing carbs for more energy, etc.
• You sound very physically fit -- you may be so efficient that Fitbit overestimates your calorie requirements, which would erode your 500 calorie deficit.
• You may already be doing this, but I find that unless I weigh my food, I tend to underestimate calories.  A 500 calorie deficit can get wiped out by measurement errors (and if you don't log absolutely, positively everything).
• 500 calories per day, 3,500 per week adds up to 4 pounds you should have lost in a month - I think your actual weight loss could be masked by water weight from carbs and salt.

OK - here's a suggestion that some may strongly disagree with:   once you are sure that your current approach is not producing results, change it.  (the business of doing the same things expecting different results being a bad bet)  Maybe try reducing carbs (which should help strip off some water weight).  Or maybe increase your calorie deficit and try to get your weight moving.  Maybe increase your total sleep.hours.  In other words, make changes and see what works.

[Esya]

How do you get to the calories burned? I am asking as the trackers give an estimation of the amount burned, but as we are all different they can be off by a bit. Specially the HR enabled trackers are known for overestimating the amount of calories burned. You might want to check with some other online calories calculators where they put you on the amount burned.

You can also get a free account with https://trendweight.com/. You can link your FitBit account to it. It will show your weight history and calculate a trend from that. Using that input it will tell you how big you deficient is according to your weight changes.

[DavidSchneier]

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@Kezliegh wrote:

Hello, I'm a 24-year-old, 140lb 5'9 female that has been in a 500 calorie deficit for a month (4 weeks). 

I'm not seeing any results. I'd like to be at 130lbs. 

I walk a ton. About 13000 steps a day and I do HIIT about 2 times a week. I also have a physically demanding job lifting and walking and I'm up and down stairs all day. 

I drink an average of 1900ml of water a day. And I eat well. 

What gives? I read that it could be water weight? 

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Your calorie burn rate is overstated and you're not achieving the deficit you believe you are. I don't mean to be blunt, but if you are truly generating a 500 calorie deficit for four weeks, you absolutely would have lost weight by now.

As a rule, I subtracted 600 calories from what FitBit estimated I burned plus an additional 10% of the calories I recorded. That adjusted number got me close enough to reality where I could accurately predict my weight loss for nearly four months to within a pound of what the scale showed. 

[ska45]

I have had a Fitbit HR and Charge 2 for 1,5 years now. For long periods I weigh my food and record it in the Fitbit app. According to the Fitbit app I burn app 2.400 kcal a day. Trendweight put my BMR to app 1500. Still I realized that I have to eat app 1.300 kcal/day to loose 0,5 kg a week. This means, that I'm eating 500 kcal/day less than I need to sustain my weight. 1.300 + 500 = 1.800 kcal. So Fitbit estimates my burn at 2.400 in reality it is more like 1.800 kcal/day

[UVcat]

A few other things that maybe haven't been mentioned yet:

Your goal weight will put you at a BMI of 19, which is just about the bottom of the healthy range. You are currently at a healthy weight and might actually prefer your body composition if you stayed closer to 140 and added progressive strength training to your workouts, rather than losing 10 pounds.

The steeper the deficit, the more muscle loss you should expect, so you should probably be aiming for 0.5 lb/week rather than 1 lb/week. That slow of a loss can make it hard to see if anything is happening (and a monthly menstrual cycle often means you need at least 4 weeks of data to see a reliable trend), but you should try to be patient and watch the trends. I like weighing daily and then using a trending app (I use trendweight) to smooth out the fluctuations and reveal the trend.

That said, I agree with others who are pointing out that if you are not losing any weight (averaged over a suitable period, which for you might be more than 4 weeks), you are eating at maintenance level, and not eating at a deficit. This could be because your fitbit is overestimating your calories burned, or it could be because you are actually eating more than you think (most people, even trained dieticians, overestimate their portions). I found using a food scale for high-calorie-density items like peanut butter, cereal, and dry pasta to be illuminating.

FWIW, I'm 5'10", 140 and lost weight (from 160) eating ~2300 calories/day. I was averaging ~15,000 steps/day and working out two to three times per week. I actually got down to ~135 but didn't like what I saw there (I had definitely lost some muscle and looked sort of gaunt), so that's part of why I pointed out that your goal weight is sort of low.

Hope that helps.

UVc

[SunsetRunner]

Honestly, I wouldn’t worry about your weight, especially how small you are already. You can still lose fat even if the number on the scale doesn’t move. In fact, some people will gain weight but appear more cut. Take pictures and measurements to determine if you are making improvements. Here are some things that are helping me:

1. Eat 4 oz protein, 4 oz carbs (vegetables), and half an ounce of fat at each meal. That’s approximately around 200 calories per meal. If you eat a protein that is fatty like chicken thighs then don’t add the fat.
2. Eat every 2-3 hours.
3. Have a strength training routine in place. I do this 5 days a week and add abs on 2 of those days.
4. Do at least 30 minutes of cardio or 15-20 minutes of HIIT after you do your strength training. I do this 5 days a week.
5. Stay away as much as possible from alcohol, added sugar, processed foods, simple carbohydrates, added salt, and inflammatory foods like dairy products.

Diet should be your main focus. It doesn’t matter how active you are, you cannot out run a bad diet.