Hitting Goals, but No Weightloss

[iFriend1980]

I am on a 500 Cal per day deficit.  Everyday last week, except for one, I ate less than the amount of calories I was allowed to consume.  Nevertheless, at the end of the 7 days, I still had over a 3500 Cal deficit for the entire week.  I was 199 before the week began.  I was 199 after the week.  Weighings were both on a Sunday right I woke up and used the bathroom.

Will someone suggest a possible explanation for the lack of weightloss during this past week?  In addition, will someone suggest some tips to start losing weight again?  I really appreciate it.

[Algenon]

Welcome!

There could be several reasons...

You might be retaining water because your muscles are sore.  (make sure you drink a lot of water otherwise your body will hold on to the water )

Your body might be adjusting....Are your clothes fitting better?  

You might need to add steps/subtract a few more calories.  The goals are defaults and everyone's body is different depending on genetics.  

What are you eating?  If you are eating foods that contain a lot of salt or fat, that might slow the weight loss.

Do not give up!  I did not lose weight at first but I did look and feel better.  The weight will come off if you keep at it!

[Heybales]

Only use valid weigh-in days to minimize known water fluctuations which can vary from 3-5 lbs.

Morning after rest day eating normal sodium levels, not sore from last workout.

Any other than a valid weigh-in, and you'll need a couple months worth of noise to get a general direction you are heading. You could have been false water low on first weigh-in and false water high on second, appearing to lose no fat.

1 week isn't long enough if you just started exercising.

Exercise is for heart health and body improvements, which is usually weight gain, not loss.

Diet is for weight loss - done right just fat loss, done wrong include muscle mass loss.

If the 500 deficit is reasonable for you (like 10-25 lbs to lose), then don't think making the deficit bigger is better.

1 week is too short, but keep doing it and you'll just be fighting your body, that's stress, and that's water retention all on it's own.

Logging all foods that go in your mouth by weight? Calories is per weight, grams, not by volume or cups and spoons.

When was the last time you lost weight, since you said "again"?

What changed since then?

[Tweetycew]

It's been only a week so don't get discouraged.  More important than exercise is what you are eating. I suggest you track everything that you eat and drink.  Do you have MyFitnessPal on  your smartphone?  I use both Fitbit and MyFitnessPal but you can track your food on the Fitbit too.  It is just easier for me on MyFitnessPal because I was using it before I got the Fitbit.  What is your calories per day and is it reasonable deficit for the exercise you are doing?  Exercise requires more fuel (food) but good fuel like lean meats, chicken fish, fresh fruits and veggies.  If you are eating any kind of prepared meals like Smart Ones or Healthy Choice, I would stop.  I found my weight loss and my over all health has improved since I stopped with these "easy" meals which are processed foods.  I do much better on food I prepare myself.  I also cut out bread (except Ezekiel Bread), white potatoes, and white rice.  Ezekiel Flax bread has 9 grams of protein in it per slice.  Eating more fiber will keep you feeling full longer and a high protein breakfast is a great way to start the day and keep your metabolism high. I eat my fruit before noon so the natural sugar can break down.  If you like carbs like bread you should eat them in the evening only if you have not had any during the day.  It's weird but the weight will fall off some people if you eat this way.  You just have to keep trying to find what works for your body and it may take a month or  more to hit on the good combo of food and exercise for you.  Good Luck! I am only sharing the things that are working for me right now.  You have to find what works for you. 

[SunsetRunner]

One other piece of advice.  I think that fitbit gives back too many calories for activity.  I often get credit for High Active Minutes when I am just walking.   

So if my daily base caloric intake is supposed to be 1530 cals, I try to stick to that number.  Even if Fitbit says I can eat another 1000 cals.   I think that without a heartrate sensor, automatically adjusting calories based on sensed activity is never going to be very accurate.  

Tony

[SunsetRunner]

Might be an unpopular response here...but that's okay..

So, since you got your fitbit, you're hitting your goals but not losing weight.  Cool.  I'd say, ignore for a moment the rated/computed cals/day based on what you ate, and what fitbit is telling you you burned.  Something is obviously not in sync and I don't yet know enough about that aspect of fitbit to help.

What I DO know about, is this.  With your fitbit you've upped your activity.  That's a plus for you.  Good news is that weight wise you've held your own.  Message:  Cals in is still = cals out.

So either need to work harder or tweak what/when you're eating.

So for me to help....log in here with your food.  Don't care much about quantities, but what you're eating.  Breakfast, mid morning snack, lunch, mid-afternoon snack, dinner, and post-dinner snack. 

Bonus homework...a bit about your activities.  Are we mostly talking at this point movement/walking via fitbit?  If so, that's okay.  Distance and durations would be useful info. 

Staying at same weight isn't all bad...could have gained, right?  So good news is just need a few tweaks to your food and your plan to get you moving towards your goal....hang in there!

[iFriend1980]

Thanks for all of the replies.  Also, for those of you that requested a look at my stats, I changed my privacy settings so that you can view them if you like.

I have been using a FitBit One for over a year now (starting in July 2013).  Before that, I started the AthleanX AX1 program in April 2013.  I have not always been consisted with my exercising and eating habits, but beginning in April 2013 till now, I have lost over 55 lbs.

I weighed myself on June 10, 2014 and I was ~214 lbs.  I then went to Peru and did not return till August 4, 2014.  During my time there, I stayed active walking a lot and doing some of the conditioning workouts from the AX1 program.  I did not feel like I was losing much my first 3 or 4 weeks there.  Beginning in early July, I started to log my food and keep a consistent calorie deficit (500/day).  My clothes became looser and my body was visibly becoming leaner.  When I got back to the States, I used my FitBit Aria to see how much I had lost.  On August 8, I was 204 lbs.  I weighed myself again on the first day (August 13) of the new school year (I am a high school science teacher) and the scaled said 201.3 lbs.  On August 17, the scaled read 199, the first time is late 2005 that I was less than 200 lbs.  I was super excited.

One week passed and I weighed myself again.  On August 24, I was 199 lbs.  No weightloss or gain.  I thought it was because I did not weigh myself after using the bathroom (i.e. going number 2).  Well, the next day I weighed myself after using the bathroom and the scale read 201.4 lbs.  Just to make sure I stepped back on the scale, this time it measured 202.6 lbs.  I was upset, so I get back on the scale one more time, and it read 202.6 lbs.  So, something crazy happpend and I gained 3.6 lbs since August 17, despite being under my weekly calorie deficit goals, meeting my daily step (10k/day) and floors climed (10/day) goals, and working out at the gym 4 days/week.

Reflecting on the past two weeks, I haven't been getting much sleep (~6hrs/night), teaching has started again (increased stress), and I have been eating a bit of ice cream almost everyday.  This week, I will try to cut back on the ice cream.  Ironically, I ate some ice cream almost every other day while I was in Peru.  But I'm just frustrated with the whole calories burned > calories consumed = weightloss equation.  There's got to be more to it than that, even though it was working so well for me before these past two weeks.  Maybe a nutritionist could weigh in (pun intended) on my ordeal and discuss quality vs quanity of food.

I will weigh myself again on August 30 and see if my adjustment helped me get my weight going in the right direction again.  Thanks again for all of your help, and feel free to keep this discussion going. 

[SunsetRunner]

Good for you!  Bet the other teachers noticed a difference in you from over the summer!.

On point to note, besides tracking your weight, you should track your appearance in the mirror too. Going t the gym 4x per week, there should be some size/toning coming along now too. And muscle weighs more than fat, so while the scale may be showing static or slight increase in weight, you may be gaining some muscle mass that should be more apparent in the more obvious places (shoulders, arms, chest) and with less 'non-functional' mass in your middle -- even some leaness in your face as your overall % bodyfat decreases.

Scale is just 1 of your tools to track your progress.

🙂

[gerrymcd]

Several answers spring to mind.  Firstly, most people's weight varies by a couple of pounds due to water retention or mild dehydration.  Weight loss of one lb is liable to be masked by this fluctuation. 

Secondly, weight loss - in the real world - is not an exact science.   Under laboratory conditions it might be possible to make someone gain/lose one lb for every 3,500 calories over/under.  But, think of it this way.  When we eat without paying attention - or at least when I eat without noticing what I shove in my mouth - we tend to consume way more than 500 extra calories a day, every day for weeks, months or even years.  Yet, we don't gain exactly 1lb a week as a result of eating a bagel every morning.  Sure, we gain some weight over time, but its not as much as it 'should' be based purely on calories consumed.  Even if you only have a few lbs to loose it might be it took you a long time to gain them.  And it might take almost as long to loose. 

That doesn't help with your question.  I think the answer is give it 'time'.  If you are truly eating a 3,500 calorie deficit you will eventually lose weight.  

[gerrymcd]

In terms of calories, not all calories are equal when it comes to losing/gaining weight.   A particular food may contain x calories as determined in a calorimeter, but this doesn't mean our body will/can extract x calories.  I mean, if you eat 100 calories worth of corn, its pretty obvious your body is only retaining a very small fraction of those calories!  On the other hand, 100 calories worth of highly refined simple sugars will be quickly absorbed into your bloodstream, and most of those calories will remain and be used by the body. 

[Heybales]

Constantly elevated cortisol can cause 10-20 lb water retention, so stress a factor for sure.

Add life stress on to fact diet is a stress, bigger is worse, unrecovered exercise is a stress, meaning not enough rest, food sensitivities/allergies, all stress.

Is your gym workouts step based - or you manually log it to correct for Fitbit bad underestimation?

If you don't and you should to be more accurate on daily burn - that means your deficit on those days, likely when you least need a bigger deficit, is bigger than reasonable and even more stressful.

As to gaining muscle so fast you are masking fat loss - not in a deficit. And you ain't a newbie with lots of fat left to lose. 1 lb gain in that case every 6- 8 weeks still isn't that fast.

Ice cream isn't the issue, unless you are bad with how much you are eating. But I'm betting you've had a much bigger average deficit than you think, and body has adapted now.

Calories in < calories out really does work, problem is most people don't realize their calories in can actually effect the calories out part of the equation, thereby making best estimates invalid.

This is the why it happens and what it means.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i_cmltmQ6A

Fitbit already underestimates daily burn, depending on amount of non-moving, worse effect. Teacher, even worse.

Because all your non-moving time is given BMR burn, and you actually burn more awake (called RMR), when eating & processing food (10% about of daily eaten), and when standing not moving even more.

Scale also sounds flakely if it's not consistent, just stepping on 2 times in a row.

[JPatsy]

Have you tried something like Shakeology that is meant to help you increase your healthy calorie intake - its a meal replacement - and is low in calories. If you're interested - message me. I've been pairing my fitbit work with Shakeology on a daily basis and have already lost 10 pounds in the past 6 weeks!

[SunsetRunner]

1st apologizing for potential thread hack...

2nd apologizing to others...but along with being counter to the general vibe here about trying to keep track of calories burned vs calories consumes = calorie deficit so losing weight nonsense....(math works, but man that is just too much work for me...how is that living?)

Yeah....shakeology...advocare....slim-fast...ephedrine...heck..lets go way extreme and go with cocaine....

These will all most likely make you lose weight.  In the short term.  Are going to consume these forevermore?  (those trying to sell you them would love that!).

Unsustainable.

I don't understand why there is such resistance to simply RELEARNING how to eat.  Forget counting anything.  Talk about freedom.  Talk about a lifestyle vs either a 'perpetual diet' or a 'yo-yo diet'. 

I'm an engineer.  This isn't rocket science.  And it's largely FREE -- you already by grocerys.  You already presumably eat at home most of the time....SO LEARN HOW TO SHOP, COOK, EAT and ENJOY life....

Or not.  I shake my head at most of the 'well according to my calculator/computer/fitbit I've burned this much, so I can eat this crap and still be ahead' mindset.

Still eating the same crap you were eating when you got overweight or sick or (fill in the blank)?  Most on here are not talking about losing frigging 10lbs or even 25lbs.  We are talking significant life-style induced unhealthiness.  Counting calories is like still going to McDonalds for crappy, low/zero nutrition food, and opting for the regular fries and maybe a quarter pounder with cheese instead of the double quater pounder with cheese...

yeah, on paper its better...less calories..less fat...but still 100% **ahem** for your body. 

Want dramatic results?  Want to enjoy what you eat?  Want to get off the hamster wheel that is continuous diet/non-diet that is making people RICH selling you both the crappy, salt laden, low nutrition foods and the get-better-now-by-eating-this-healthy-frozen-prepackagedbutalsocrap products, or this meal replacement product that likely will leave you hungry and still with poor nutrition...circus?????

LEARN ABOUT FOOD.  Not only is there a cornucopia of flavors and textures and styles of HEALTHY food you can not only eat, but make at home or eat out....you don't have to by anything!

Or not.  Set goals.  Cut calories and exercise.  Hit your goal.  Go back to eating 'normally'...gain it back plus usually more...and repeat....

(rant over....)....

[JenniLacey]

One week is not enough to tell if you are losing fat. Your scale measure more than just body fat. You are not 199 lbs of fat, there is also lean muscle/tissue/fluid and food/drink in the digestive tract that makes up that weight. Fluid weight fluctuates greatly. You may step on the scale in the morning and weigh 197 lbs and then get on later that evening and weigh 201 lbs. Did you gain 4 lbs of fat in less than 12 hours? Impossible.

Same goes with weekly weigh-ins. If you are indeed being honest with your calorie intake, measuring and weighing what you eat and recording everything. You are losing fat. However, your "weight" may not change one week or two, you may even go up in weight. You may lose nothing one week and then drop 4 lbs the next. There's no way to predict it and weight loss is not linear.

You could greatly reduce your sodium and sugar intake and drink plenty of water and you'll probably lose 5 lbs in a week despite only having a deficit of -3500 cals/week. Again, not all fat loss... you are manipulating fluid retention.

Weight is affected by the food you eat, hormones, how hydrated you are, food in the digestive tract, working out, etc.

Be patient, fat loss is a slow process. If you're doing everything right... it will come off, it just takes time. Don't put too much emphasis on the scale as a measure of your progress. It is a tool to see progression and trends over time but is not going to tell you accurately how many pounds of fat you are losing week to week. Having your body fat % tested is far more accurate.

[panamadiva]

i have been working out and I thought eating right and yet I am gaining weight, aches and pain etc... what am I doing wrong it is making thing of just stopping.  I workout out - hlit, bootcamp, spin... I dont know what else to do.. I looked at my measurements and I am up 2 or 3 inches.  Go figure.. HELP ME!!!! BEFORE I GIVE UP 

[gerrymcd]

If you've already lost weight, the amout of calories you need per day will have dropped and should be taken into account.  Its an obvious solution, but sometimes the obvious answers are most easily missed. 

Otherwise, if you are truly eating good food, in the right quantities, and getting plenty of exercise..... don't worry about the scales or any other measurements.  Think of 'improvements' in these as a side benefit to a healthy lifestyle, rather than the goal.  Afterall, they are just numbers.

[trideceth12]

I kinda disagree with this. Human evolution has favored those who eat as much as possible of the highest energy content food, because up until very recently scarcity was the norm. I budget calories to overcome the natural human instinct of over eating. It's not really a hassle to do this as a life long practice, I also account for every dollar I spend to stop myself over spending. It's just data.

[SunsetRunner]

---

@panamadiva wrote:

i have been working out and I thought eating right and yet I am gaining weight, aches and pain etc... what am I doing wrong it is making thing of just stopping.  I workout out - hlit, bootcamp, spin... I dont know what else to do.. I looked at my measurements and I am up 2 or 3 inches.  Go figure.. HELP ME!!!! BEFORE I GIVE UP 

---

Are you consuming a lot fruits, milk and other foods with hidden sugar?  

[Ukase]

I can just feel the frustration through your post. Trust me, you're not alone. 

Allow me to probably repeat what some others have said. But! Keep reading, I'll state it with verve! 

So, here's the thing. Or things. A pound is roughly 3600 calories. What this means is that for every 500 calories deficit day - and you say you had 7 of them, you're at 3500 calorie deficit on the week - probably more. 

So - why has the scale not respected your efforts? Well, it's simple and complicated. 

Top 10 reasons why your scale didn't respect you: 

10. It's not working properly.

9. You forgot to log some food that you ate. 

8. You logged food that you ate incorrectly

7. You walked past a bakery and smelled the bread baking, resulting in caloric intake by osmosis. 

6. The labels that stated the caloric values on the food you ate were not accurate. 

5. You were dehydrated when you started the diet, and now you're less dehydrated. 

4. You've lifted weights and your muscles have absorbed a lot of water, resulting in weight gain.

3. You've eaten so little, your metabolism has slowed down. 

2. You haven't consumed enough fiber and have accumulated a lot of "intestinal gut" weight. 

1. That one day last week that you weren't at a deficit has stalled your efforts. 

The simple part is it could be any one of those. Admittedly, most are unlikely. 

The complex part is it could be a combination of many of these reasons. 

Just stick to it!