Newbie here - when does the weight start shifting?

[crystalsinger]

I'll admit I've only been doing this for a week so it's early days. 

I've set a target of 7500 steps to start with and let the FITBIT app determine my daily calories - which I'm well under.  The frustrating thing is that I'm not seeing any movement on the scales after a week?  Bit disappointed.

Any insight, motivational posts much appreciated.

[DominicJ]

A pound of body fat contains 3500 calories, so losing a pound of fat in a week is quite easy

A 500ml bottle of water weighs about 1.2pounds, so seeing that loss isnt quite as easy

[josephz2va]

You may want to check on the quality of your calories intake. There's two differences. Bad Quality (Donuts, Chocolate, Candy, super high sugar food, powerbars, protein shakes, etc.) and there's Good Quality (Fruits and Veggies for starters, Milk, Foods to Build Lean Muscle, etc.)

There's also the possibility of overeating. I for starters never meet the -1000 deficit or -500 deficit. I have -2748 calories deficit yesterday and concentrated on not eating any bad quality. 2 veggie salads, 2 servings of eggs, milk, and my jenny craig meal plan. Plus overwalking.

I wound up overeating when I was 170 and now I'm 193 with excess fat gained. All from the Bad Quality. Cut that out, I'm bound to get back to 170 in a few weeks.

[BradyM]

Focus on how you feel in the short term. Progress using weight as the only indicator will feel slow at first. Right now you will be building muscle and . Three months from now it will feel much faster and you will see changes.Patience and determination are the most important.

[DominicJ]

A calorie is a calorie

Saying their are good calories and bad calories is like saying there are good miles and bad miles.

If you eat ten thousand calories of broccoli you will get fat.

Its just a lot harder to eat ten thousand calories of broccoli than butter

[JillieBean22]

There are many factors that can affect your weight.  For one, if you are eating a large portion of you calories before bed, this will create more fat in your body.  Another is water intake.  You should drink half of your weight in ounces every day. So if I weigh 200 pounds, I should drink 100 ounces of water a day (this is a minimum).  Yes, it is possible to drink too much water, but if you stay around that amount, you'll be well-hydrated.  That will lead to weightloss.  Another thing is to eat frequently.  If you eat once a day, your body can go into starvation mode and you won't burn calories near as quickly. This is why fitbit has a section for 3 meals, 3 snacks, and 1 anytime.  They encourage you to eat frequently (in smaller portions of course).  And lastly, are you burning more calories that you're eating?  I believe you said you were, but if not, this is the key to weightloss.  

If you're at a plateau, I would suggest weight lifting.  Lifting weights burns more calories than most other exercise.  If you're already doing that, swimming is also great for burning a lot of calories.  Swimming burns more calories that walking, running, and many other activities.  

Just a little bit of advice. 🙂

I hope that helped some. 

Jill

[reuel]

some tips:

-the simplest explanation is usually always the correct one. if it sounds too scientific and stuff like hormones or some weird body mechanism are involved, don't believe in it.

-if you are not losing weight, you are not in a calorie deficit (barring stuff like thyroid problems). does not matter how hard you workout or eat right. you are doing something wrong, accept it and look on how to correct it.

-part of losing weight is resilience. if you get discouraged easily, you will not last. if you cannot accept that you make mistakes, you wont last. if you are too focused on feedback, be it from a scale or people, you won't last.

-there is greatness in you and all of us. you just have to let it come out through adversity. always remember that.

[djcass4199]

Don't forget that if you are just starting to be active again or have started to go to the gym, for the 1st two weeks it's possible you might actually gain weight, in the form of water weight.  Just your body's reaction to you starting to be more active.  That water weight will start to come off in 2 weeks or so.

[Heybales]

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@crystalsinger wrote:

I'll admit I've only been doing this for a week so it's early days. 

I've set a target of 7500 steps to start with and let the FITBIT app determine my daily calories - which I'm well under.  The frustrating thing is that I'm not seeing any movement on the scales after a week?  Bit disappointed.

Any insight, motivational posts much appreciated.

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There should be a first week big drop in water weight, usually eating less sodium, unless you already did that.

And your body stops storing as many carbs in muscles with attached water, unless you were already in a diet.

Were you already dieting and eating even less than you do now - which appears is even less than your goal calories is?

Also, a goal is something to reach, to obtain - not to miss.

Well under, as in making the deficit bigger, is not better, unless you want to lose muscle mass, and make it easier to gain it back next time.

Plus, you'll need a month of data, since your metabolism actually changes throughout the month.

1 week is not enough - but still meet your eating goal.