Not losing Weight

[Johnnym12]

So im on around 900-1.2k calories a day. Cereals are around 150kcal; i would have museli or something in the morning. For lunch i would have a bag of crisps (with  more than usual protein in) and a go ahead bar (250-300kcal).  Then for dinner i would have 400g of chicken and lettuce (450kcal). I sometimes eat abit more, like a banana or a couple of ricecakes, or i would have a latte or something. Idk why i aint losing weight. I'm doing exercise, push ups with dumbbells and crunches/sit ups.

[WendyB]

Because you are treating it like a diet. NO ONE Especially a man should eat 900 Calories. Your not eating enough. You need to eat to lose weight.

Quit treating it like a diet do some research and up  those calories. You also need a balanced diet. Museli, crisps? How healthy is that???. You need real food to lose weight

[Dominique]

Crash diets usually don’t work. Consistently eating around 1000 calories would qualify as a crash diet for an overweight man. What’s your age, height and current weight? What’s your average step count? How many calories do your Fitbit says you burn in average? These numbers should help set a sustainable goal for your intake.

Formal exercise won’t play a major role in your weight loss (there are only so many calories you can burn in 30-60 minutes), so you should really focus on your diet, as well as overall activity during the entire day (step count is a good proxy for that). Doing some resistance training is a good idea, but you may want to focus on big compound movements (squat, deadlift, bench press, pull ups etc.) that work large muscle groups: they will give you more bang for your buck than things like crunches and sit-ups.

[bikerhiker]

@Johnnym12 

You're not giving us much to go on in terms of your current weight, height and your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate).  900-1200 calories/day seemed very low, in fact it's a very low caloric diet that was used in the 1970s to help obese patients whose BMI is 30 and above lose weight in a short period of time with the monitoring of a doctor of course.  VLC diet is NOT recommended for people with a BMI of 27-30 for various reasons; namely severe caloric restrictions means you are not getting enough of the vitamins, minerals and nutrients your body needs.

Having said that, any low caloric diet or calorie restrictive diet is meant to deplete your glycogen stores and eventually forces the body to use its fat stores as energy and thus reduces your body fat.  In the process of glycogen depletion, you will lose water weight because water and glycogen has a 2.7:1 ratio.  You need water to store glycogen, so 2.7 gram of water per gram of glycogen.  Glycogen comes from unused glucose converted from your food and then any excess of glucose not used is then converted into glycogen through glycogen synthesis.  Glycogen is stored in your muscles, red blood cells, liver and kidneys.  Glycogen stored in your muscles are called localized stores; meaning that they are meant to be used for those muscle groups.  The stored energy reserve can not be transferred to other body parts.  You probably hear a term saying you should train your muscles for the sports you'll be doing and this is part of the reason.  Having said that, extremely obese people have both glycogen, body fat and a lot of water weight so very low caloric diet which you are on can help shed weight by eventually forcing the body to use its body fat stores after completely depleting its glycogen stores.  But remember that the body wants to burn glucose and 75% of glycogen is used by the brain and the central nervous system which means exactly that the body wants glucose and not fat.  An Atkins diet or a Keto diet are both low in carbs and by seeing in your description, you are focused on protein consumption, less on carbs.  And because you are in such a low caloric high protein diet and you are also exercising, this I think slows down your body's gluconeogenesis process.  Gluconeogenesis is a process whereby the body converts muscle mass into glucose for the body to use as fuel in a VLC diet (Very Low Caloric).

Here is what I think is happening.  If you are BMI 30 and above and you are not losing weight through a VLC diet, then you need to see a doctor to determine what would be the hidden cause.  Any hidden illness prevents the body from losing body fat, as the body considers body fat as its reserve fuel source in the event of a major illness.

If your BMI is much lower than 30, then a VLC diet won't work all that well in the long run.  What I think you are doing is you are dieting a zero sum game.  First of all, your body preferred fuel source is glucose.  It's easy to convert into energy for your body to use.  Since you are in a VLC diet with high protein consumption and if you weigh yourself daily, you might see a trend forming.  Your weight may go up and down like a seesaw pattern, whereby your diet and exercise may help deplete whatever glycogen stores you have plus water weight ONLY to be counter-negated by the increase in muscle mass and glycogen stores because you're doing pushups with dumbbells and crunches/sit up and encourages muscle group build up and increase glycogen on the muscles you need to use to complete those pushups and crunches.  Whenever you store glycogen, you will retain 2-3x the water weight so you can do your next pushups and crunches.  The problem, however, comes from your severe low caloric diet where your brain and central nervous system needs must be met.  So where does the extra glucose comes from when you are on a high protein diet?  Well, it can only come from your muscles that you have nicely farmed for your body, through pushups and crunches, through a process called gluconeogenesis (muscle to glucose).  So when you are depleting your glycogen stores, you also lose water weight and because you don't have enough of the glycogen stored in your liver (liver supplies reserve glycogen to your other parts of the body) thanks to your very low calorie diet, then the extra glucose has to come from the breakdown of your muscles.  But thankfully, you are doing some exercises to maintain muscle mass and because of your higher protein intake prevents you from losing muscle mass which can happen with gluconeogenesis.  So what is going on is that, you will gain weight (mainly water and increase in muscle mass) after you finish your meal consuming protein mainly, you can weight yourself again after you finish your exercises and you may lose some weight (mainly water), but your body will convert your lean muscle mass into glucose to shore up any glucose deficit that your meal could not provide.  In time, your lean muscle mass will also decrease, but because you are doing pushups and crunches and consuming protein, you then rebuild the muscle mass lost through gluconeogenesis.  In the end, it's a zero sum game. 

The key to weight loss is to reduce stored body fat.  And you can not do that with a severe low caloric diet.  You need to have a diet specifically tailored to your body needs and exercises that you do to help you keep fit.  Doing exercises you hate and eating a very low caloric diet simply will raise your stress level and that will never help you lose weight, because any stress in your mind and body caused by stressors like glucose deficit causing you to be "hangry" sometimes simply pushes your insulin level up.  When your insulin level is up due to stress factors, your body will NOT burn body fat.  There has to be zero stress factors involved in order to coerce the body to use fat as part of its fuel source and a VLC diet is not one of them unfortunately.

Hope this helps.