hello .. i need help with my diet and weight loss

[jasmin97]

so am on diet for the last 38 days and am following the instructions also i workout at the gym three days a week for hour and half each day ,but the problem is when i stand on the scale .. there's nothing ... am still stuck with my starting weight sometimes it appears that i lost some grams sometimes i gained 1kg ,and am not sure what to do anymore, even that my body looks differently , i mean i look like i lost about 5 to 6 kg but there's no difference on the scale

does anybody know something about this or i just didn't lose any weight 

[bigjim1002]

Hey Jasmin97, Sounds like you're doing everything right, which is great. A few thoughts - first of all concentrate on staying on track with the diet and much more importantly staying active at the gym!!  About the scales - weigh in once a week, and don't worry about static or even upward spikes, look at the trend over a month - is the general trend/average downward? Monthly average is much more accurate. Second is your scales themselves try standing on them several times in different positions and see what is the heaviest weight it shows (maybe make a little mark on the scales _ make sure you measure yourself in the same position on the scales every week. My scales can differ by 1kg if I don't stand in the same spot. Lastly remember weight will flicker as you lose weight but then add as you increase fitness and muscle mass - thus the importance of weekly weigh ins but adjust your programme and diet based on the monthly trend. I do exactly the same week from week my weight has dropped nearly 1kg every second week and less than 1/2 a kg every off second week - weird, same food same exercise - everybody is different and how it works. Don't get hung up on the scales - if you have the motivation to diet and gym, and you feel you can see a difference THATS AWESOME - KEEP IT UP. After reading your post and thinking about my old WW scales Im going to buy one of those Aria scales to go with my Fitbit - Ill see how that compares - Be Well. JC

[AmandaGeorge]

There are all kinds of reasons you could be getting different weight changes - first off, how often do you weigh yourself?  Daily?  Weekly?  Fortnightly?  Monthly?  Second off, do you weigh yourself in the same circumstances every time - same amount drunk and eaten and the same length of time since?  Same length of time since your last exercise session?

I've been weighed twice since September and lost 9kg in that time and both using medical scales at my GP surgery.  Could you maybe try that so that you can get accurate measurements of your weight?

[Dominique]

Welcome to the community, @jasmin97 !

When you say you started a diet 38 days ago, can you be more specific about it? Did you change what you eat, how much you eat, or both? Or do you rely on your increased activity (the 3 x 1.5 h workouts every week) to burn the extra calories needed for weight loss to happen?

As @bigjim1002 noted, diet is much more important for weight loss than exercising. Let me illustrate this with numbers: let’s assume your BMR per hour (what you burn doing nothing, by merely being alive) is 50 calories and your workouts cause you to burn 5 times that (quite challenging to sustain that for 1.5 hours at a time). By doing nothing, you would burn 3 x 50 x 1.5 = 225 calories. By performing your workouts, you would burn 3 x 250 x 1.5 = 1125 calories. That’s an extra 1125 - 225 = 900 calories at the weekly levelworking out compared to being a couch potato. In other works an extra 900 / 7 = 129 calories each day. 129 calories is very little, knowing that you need a daily deficit of 500 calories in order to lose 1 pound (less than 0.5 kg) per week. Furthermore, working out often makes you hungry, and also make you feel you deserve a reward for it (like eating a treat). This is not to say working out is pointless: only that its primary benefits are for health and fitness, not for weight loss.

Let me also address something commonly suggested by well-meaning people: the idea that the lack of weight loss could be explained by a gain of muscle offsetting a loss of fat. Well, it’s very unlikely, especially in less than two months (gaining muscle is a very slow process). You could have switched to the absolute best diet and the absolute best workout programme, have exceptional genetics and you would still not gain any appreciable amount of muscle in two months time. So if your body weight is unchanged, it just means you have been eating at maintenance. Two months is long enough to take into account normal daily fluctuations (and for women, the impact of their hormonal cycle). If you want to see changes on the scale, you need to make some changes to your diet and/or your activity level. Tell us more about what you are currently doing and you may get suggestions as to what changes you could make. 

[jasmin97]

hello, my diet is the same one i've followed when needed to lose weight and every time i lose about 9kg in two months , and it's just i eat the same things but less amount of food , i cut out sweets to once every week maybe sometimes i cheat a bit and take a bite of some chocolate ( my basic overweight problem ) , it's the same diet i've done couple of times before i did lose 18kg, 30kg, 9kg at different times , the only different now is that i exercise ( only cardio) and i don't eat after the gym hours, cause it's basically dark time so i just end up with a yogurt with some lemon and that's it

do you have advice for me because it's getting really frustrating for me and i just keep pushing myself knowing i wont lose a gram

help ...

[bigjim1002 · Accepted solution]

Hello again Jasmin97, hey without going into intricate detail about the diet and the fitness I would say a couple of things, (1) Firstly, those previous weight loses show YOU CAN DO IT!!! 18kg, 30kg, 9kg wow. (2) Be brutally honest with your calorie counting (overestimate items you're unsure about) and just make sure your calories out exceeds your calories in EVERYDAY Jasmin (3) Experiment find out what foods you like that don't hit you hard on your daily calorie count - adjust the food so you're not dieting instead you're eating healthily but HAPPY too, make this a lifestyle choice do not think in terms of diets or gym programme's with a finite period of specific goal. (4) Experiment with fitness - find out what suits your lifestyle and what you enjoy - again switch things up with a view to a permanent lifestyle choice and happiness not short term weight targets. (5) Seek advice from the fitbit team or your local gym to find the right heart rate/training zones for you and SMASH that fitness in the fat-burning zone, don't worry about cardio and peak zones - consistency is going to be key because you CAN get to where you want to be. Lastly (6) Go to the library and borrow a copy of "A house in the sky" by Amanda Lindhout or "The sky is always there" by Camilla Carr - don't worry they're not diet or fitness books. Read a hardcopy not an online copy - go for a walk sit in the park and read some every day, or after gym nights, no sweets just pour a big/huge glass of chilled lemon water and read these books. Discover what these amazing ladies have to say about mindset, positivity and resilience. 

[JakeLikesCake]

Also keep in mind that muscle and fat are entirely different tissue types with different tissue densities. Fats kinda wiggly and loose, muscle is tighter and denser. The scale number may not be moving because you are adding on good tissue (muscle) while your fat decreases. That's hard to do, but over 38 days, you might have lost a couple or few pounds of fat but put back on a pretty equivalent amount of muscle.

Other than that, I have a website called Trendweight.com hooked to my myfitnesspal account, and it serves as a good tracker of whats' been happening all on one page. It's a really simple thing, but it just gives another look at weight trending (which is the important part) vs. absolute weight (less so).

Finally - for women especially - monthly cycle stuff can WAY throw off apparent progress. (Water retention due to whatever you ate also affects dudes, but not quite as predictably. I have had to talk my wife through a bunch of weeks where she gets all mad because she's stuck. Then, period arrives/ bloating departs and "oh. I am on pace just fine..." Happens.

[bigjim1002]

Hi Jasmin97 - been a few months since we communicated - just checking in to wish you well - how are you getting on? Success or those irritating blips up and down?? I've been following my own advice that I suggested to you, and have managed (only just at times) to lose weight consistently every week this year - feeling much better for it too. Anyway here's wishing you well, hope it is going grand God Bless JC