Scale won't Budge

[Trienity]

Advice please:

I may be a bit hard on myself...okay, I know I am...but either my scale is broken or I'm doing something wrong.  My goal on my fit bit is set to lose weight.  I stay within my parameters of my "harder" settings for eating goals and I weight-train daily.  But the pounds are not coming off.  Could this be because they are being balanced with muscle build?

Thank you in advance.  🙂

[A_Lurker · Accepted solution]

@Trienity- there are so many missing details it's hard to answer.

How much weight are you trying to lose?  If it's a small amount it can be harder to do.

How much of a deficit are you doing?  Again, depending on how much you have to lose it could be too agressive, or not aggressive enough.  Harder implies that you're doing -1000 calories a day.

How long has it been?  A day, a month, or a year?  Answers will be different based on how long you've been trying.

It is possible (especially for new lifters) to gain muscle faster, however, lack of weight loss should not necessarily be explained by muscle gain.  Now, heavy lifting will cause some water retention as your body recovers from the lifting.  You said daily, consider a break day or two in there and then weigh yourself.  When I was doing regular heavy lifting (and was weighing daily) my weight would go up the day after.  Two days after I usually saw a downwards drop.

[Trienity]

Hi Anne,

Thank you for your reply.  I am doing the -1000 calories a day and I do take one day a week to rest.  I have had previous weight training and look fit as far as figure...but I would like to lose about 13 pounds.  I've only been tracking the weight loss/gain for a little over a week.  I just wanted to see if there was something I should be doing differently or not doing.

Thanks again.

[A_Lurker]

Okay, I admit I'm not one for giving advice on the last 10-15 pounds.  I do suspect it's a lot different from the first 10-15 pounds.  Usually the advice I've seen is not to expect to drop 2 pounds a week.  @Dominique might chime in here as he's been doing some bulk and cut cycles.

My initial thoughts is that a week isn't likely enough to decide if what you are doing is right or wrong.  I can give you the same advice I'd give others - give it 3 or 4 weeks and if it isn't working, look at adjusting something.  In the meantime, check out this site:  http://www.fat2fittools.com/tools/bmr/

Put in your information, current weight and where you want to be.  It should give you an idea of roughly where you should be eating to get there.  The basic idea is that you should eat for where you want to be.  I know someone else recently posted a good idea - one which I may use on those last pounds.  Consider putting your goal weight in instead of your current weight, then eat what you need for maintenance (or maybe about 250 cals less just to allow for inaccuracies).  It might not be quick, but it might be as good an idea as any.

Oh, and you didn't mention what type of food you're eating.  With only a week in there's also the possibility that a salty meal could cause water retention.  Oddly enough, retained water can almost always be flushed out of the system by drinking more water.

[A_Lurker]

@Trienity- on top of what I just posted, one more thing.  I didn't click through to see that you're likely female. 

If you're in the age range where you menstruate that can truly mess with your weight.  You can retain a lot of weight before your period, more than you would think.  If you are in that age range I definitely would use a site called trendweight.com (it's free and it links with your Fitbit account).   If daily weighing doesn't freak you out (some people can get very emotionally affected by ups and downs) consider doing this and looking for the trends over the month.  A decade ago when I was working on my weight I could do everything perfectly and I'd start to gain weight.  After my period I would lose a number of pounds almost overnight.

[Trienity]

Thank you so much!  

I will start looking into those sites you gave me.  My usual diet consist of grains,leafy greens such as kale,and spinach, feta/goat cheeses, nuts, fruits, vegetables and eggs and around 7-8 glasses of water a day.  I think you're right....given time I hope to see some results.  If not, I'll change up something, just not sure what 🙂

[Dominique]

My first reaction is the same as @A_Lurker: more information is needed. When you say you "look fit as far as figure", I assume you’re already in the normal weight range. It’s going to be harder to lose 13 pounds if you’re currently 120 and BMI 23 than if you’re 200 and BMI 28. What is your current calorie expenditure (according to Fitbit) in average at your activity level? What is your calculated BMR? These will determine a realistic deficit and the time needed for the weight loss. If you’ve only started recently, it may be too early to say the scale doesn’t budge. The higher the deficit, the higher the risk you will lose lean tissue (muscle) in addition to fat, even if you’re performing resistance training. I assume you’re primarily interested in losing fat, not just weight. 

[Jeff2017]

Well #1 I am not a professional and this is just my 2 cents worth. 1000 calories a day might be a bit to restrictive. I have heard and read if you cut to many calories your body will start to conserve energy as fat. Simply your making your body think your starving and it is going to try to store any extra energy. Currently I am needing to lose 50-60lbs. I hired a personal trainer to get me started at the gym. The first month I did not really pay attention to my eating habits and I maintained my weight at 235. I made it my goal to eat cleaner starting Dec. 1st and my current weight is around 225ish.  I have had a 5lb weight fluctuation in one day. Dehydration does that I noticed.

Another tech gadget I bought was the Skulpt Chisel which you can measure your muscle quality and body fat. I have seen videos where people compared different body fat analyzers with the more expensive body scans and the Skulpt Chisel seems to be closely accurate to those analyzers. For the record the Chisel requires an app on your phone, but they also have the Skulpt AIM which already has a built in screen. You can find the Chisel for about $99 and the AIM for about $150.

One of the main things I did was to cut out alot of the carbs, but not completely. It seems to have made a difference for me and I will stick with what works for me. Good luck getting to your goals.

[Trienity]

Hi Dominique,

I am currently 162 and have lost 2.5 pounds this week 🙂  And yes, I'm interested in losing fat, not weight.  I do strength/weight training daily (taking one day off a week) and eat healthy and stay hydrated.  My current BMR is around 1450 calories.  I'm burning an average of 1970 to 2100 calories a day but only taking in around 990-1200.  After looking at the Fat 2 Fit website, it shows my daily intake for calories based on my activity should be around 2400 calories a day.  So I may not be doing my body justice.  I may need to up my calorie intake for the amount of work I'm doing?....

[Dominique]

If you burn around 2000 calories, I would go for a 1500 intake. This is still plenty of food, above your BMR and should result in an average loss of 1 pound per week. With 13 pounds to lose, you will reach your goal in about 3 months. Don’t worry too much on what you lose/gain each day or each week: it’s normal for your weight to fluctuate, especially for a woman (as @A_Lurker already mentioned). Take into account the expenditure reported by your Fitbit is an estimate, which could be slightly inflated (in which case your real deficit will be smaller and the total weight loss will take longer).

As to weight loss vs. fat loss: recommendations for minimizing loss of lean tissue (muscle) is to take it slower rather than faster, do strength training (which you already do) and eat enough protein. Also focus on reducing stress and getting enough sleep