Losing weight slowly
 

I'm not trying to complain, losing is better than gaining...but it's been over a month and I've only lost about 5lbs. My scale says I'm 220.

I'm doing everything right (I think) I count my calories, eat around 1300 a day (no more than 1500) I workout often (3-4 times a week of walking a 2 hour route) could it be my workouts aren't burning as many calories as I think they are? I notice changes in my body, could the weight be muscles?

I don't have any other theories. Is there is anything I can do to speed things up?

:?:

5 pounds in a month is more than good. That's great, actually. It sounds like you're doing everything right. If anything, you might want to bring your calories up a bit. Its possible that you're losing fat and gaining muscle. That's what I've been doing. I actually regained 5 pounds since I started going to the gym regularly, but my clothes are getting looser, so I know its just muscle gain. I just decided to quit weighing myself for a while.

It sounds perfectly healthy and reasonable to me! I know how you feel though, I want to try to loose about 7lbs a month but it's definitely not easy. Perhaps you could amp up your exercise routine? Maybe try a more brisk pace/speed walk to start? As for it being new muscle mass, I don't know how likely that would be considering your main method of exercise is walking - although it does help for sure I don't know that this would be the reason you think your weight loss is slow.

Could also be water retention, do you eat high sodium foods? Have you noticed a heavier weight around your TOM? Lots of factors can contribute to this.

All in all, I still think 5lbs/month is fantastic and on track with losing at a healthy and sustainable pace. Don't worry!

1300 is ridiculously low for your height weight and activity level. Eat more. If you don't, you will probably fail at this.

I have been saying over and over and over again, all you have to do is eat a bit less than your maintenance calories to lose weight at a good pace and consistently without stress or hunger. Use an online calorie calculator and say you want to lose half a pound a week. You will lose faster than that but you will likely find the going much easier.

Then when your weight loss stalls after a while, as it will, reduce your calories a little bit more. I started at 1650 and am now doing 1400.

You can definitely build up muscle mass by walking but not if your calories are too low. You will build muscles in your calves, buttocks and thighs.

But your exercise though a lot is doing you a load of good. Keep it up if you can.

I find 2 hours that frequently difficult to sustain long term though so don't worry if you ever decide to cut back, just adjust your calories accordingly.

My weight loss slowed down around 200 pounds, too. Just keep on doing what you're doing and you'll get thru it. From 325 down to 200, the weight seemed to melt off.

Have you lost inches? I know that it is so easy to fall off the wagon when the scales 'stick' Muscle weight is certainly a possibility.
Good Luck, you'll get over this.

Pattience-I know you mentioned this to me on a different thread. I have a similar problem to the OP, in that I'm slow now when it comes to losing, but 1300 is still a deficit so she should still be losing right? I've read that the starvation mode or metabolic adaptation is a myth, so it seems counter productive to me to increase calories. Is it just to trick your body?

OP-I've lost 2lbs in the last month and it's driving me crazy! I do cheat now and then so I can't complain much, however my cheats are still within my calorie range. I don't get it either! Here's hoping something changes for us soon!

Oh and I would definitely take measurements!

5 pounds a month is awesome, I slowed down to crawl when I got under 200 but I continue to see changes in my body. I think especially after losing a significant amount of weight our bodies need to slow down and heal from the process.

I've averaged losing a pound a week/4-5 pounds per month for last 60 or so pounds (not counting my pregnancy break!). I lost a lot faster when I had more to lose.

While you can control your habits and ensure you're eating right and exercising, unfortunately you can't control the rate at which you lose. For example, I often gain for the week no matter how strict I am, but since my trend is still going in a downward direction (see the chart on the right side of my signature), I don't panic over it. I know it's easy to get frustrated, but reaching that 5 pounds a month is actually a pretty good rate! :^: Remember it's not a race; the most important aspect is establishing good habits now so you can reach a healthier state and never regain.

Good luck and keep going! :hug:

I see weight loss as a marathon. If we persevere, we'll beat the wall and we'll reach goal. So far it has taken me a bit more than 2 years but I am doing well and in the meantime I have learned a lot. Congrats on the 5 pounds.

If you lose 5 pounds in 30 days then you are burning roughly 583 calories more a day than you are eating. You say you eat around 1300 calories a day and no more than 1500. Does that mean you average 1300 calories a day, including occasional higher calorie days. Or, are you saying that you eat 1300 calories a day and occasionally eat 1500. Let's say you eat 1300 a day for 5 days of the week and eat 1500 calories on 2 days. Your average would be 1357. So, do check that.

Let's say your average is 1300 though. Then if you lost 5 pounds in 30 days you would be burning an average of 1883 a day.

I don't know how old you are. I looked at this calculator to get your BMR. If you were 20 it would be about 1838. If you were 60, it would be about 1650.

Of course most people burn more than there BMR. I work from home and unless I do formal exercise I can end up burning only a couple of hundred calories more than my BMR. That calculator says my BMR is 1439. Last month I was fairly sedentary (knee injury) and Fitbit said I burned an average of 1656 a day. In January I did a lot of walking (although usually not for more than an hour at a time) and it says I burned 1786 a day.

So I would guess that most people burn at least a couple of hundred calories a day more than their BMR depending on how active they are.

So, you might look at that to see how well your losing matches up with your calories burned.

Ugh I a barely chipping at my number too. It's a bit frustrating but I do see the change in m body... but I just wanna be in One-derland NOOOWWW!!!:devil:

My goodness what I wouldn't give to lose 5 pounds per month! Keep up the good work :-)

him, i thought Koshka's post was going to clarify what might be going on but it didn't.


The thing is if she's eating 1300 calories per day and burning nearly 600 calories per day in exercise, she's only got 700 calories for her body to use for all its tissue repair type functions. Its unlikely she would be building muscle if her calories are this low. She's probably burning muscle.

But i think aspects of her body must be not functioning well at the moment if she is only eating so few calories. And this could be why she is not losing weight faster.

I read a fairly good article on it not so long ago but i don't know where. If you good enough you will find an explanation. Ignore the sites and articles where people simply states its a myth and look for articles that actually try to explain something about the processes involved.

If you can find a good explanation of what goes on, it will give you the incentive to override, the misconception you operate under.

But all i can say again and again, i've been losing at a steady rate with a much higher calorie intake since January. In fact i need to slow it down a bit because i don't want to experience any rebound. But i actually feel quite ooh at the weight i am at now. if i was still around 200, i would be definitely considering increasing my calories for better results.

I'm ok with losing weight slowly now. I was use to it coming off a lot faster so that's why it's surprising that I've been losing half of what I use to when I was bigger.

DO I need to eat more calories? I'll have to keep better track on it and check online to see how much I should be eating because it has been a while since I did that!

Thank you to everyone who replied.

slowly but surely
 

I'm also losing weight slowly. I started April in the upper 240's and my goal for the month would be to break into the 230's. The way I think about it, I put the weight on slowly so I'll take it off slowly, too. :)

ditto^^^

5 pounds is actually a great number (it's a loss!). It will come off, as long as you keep going. If anything, you're weight loss may become less pounds as you get smaller--that's how it was for me.

Small deficits have their place but they are best suited for someone with very little to lose in my opinion. Half a lb a week would mean 4 years for someone to lose 100 lbs. Not very motivating. Also, it is easy to screw up if you're shooting for a 250 kcal daily deficit. If you're going for a small deficit you need to be meticulous.

My point is ... context matters. You can say it over and over but it doesn't make it the best solution for all people.

It is possible she is burning muscle but extremely unlikely for a number of reasons. The biggest one is that walking can be powered almost 100% by fat and currently she still has plenty of fuel on board in that area.

What makes you think her body is not functioning well? The only complaint we are given was slow weight loss. There are much more simple ways to explain 1 month of "slow" weight loss than jumping to the conclusion that she is suffering from mal nutrition.

I also am a slow loser. I started in Jan. 2013 (with some regain at the holidays!) and have lost about 30 pounds now. It's actually coming off quite a bit faster now, which is nice, but I still have to remind myself that I won't be at my goal weight in a week or a month or even a year. And that is okay. I really hope the old adage that the slower it comes off, the easier it is to maintain, is true. And I think that gives my body and mind more time to adjust.

Good for you, 5 pounds a month is great! I hope you can learn to see that and keep going. I wouldn't change anything about how much you're eating since it's obviously working, unless you really feel the need to increase your rate of loss.

The most likely answer is usually the correct one. You're probably just retaining water.

Having said that, if you've been dieting for a while without a break you may want to take one. I had a lot of success taking two week breaks every couple months.

This is really, really interesting. Thank you for sharing! I inadvertently took a break from my diet (and working out) for about two weeks while ill, and the weight flew off, and is still coming off much faster than ever before. Very strange. I think I will (purposefully this time!) plan a two week "break" in June when I'm on vacation. It wold be a perfect time to not have to think about dieting.

5 pounds a month is reasonable. In fact, I'd love to say that was my rate of loss the last few months.

Yes, there are probably myriad ways you could "ramp it up" But please take in to consideration the time, effort and mental stress that could entail. Find a sweet spot where you can handle the effort/restriction, and still lose steadily.

Unless she's on a low carb diet, she will not be burning pure fat. Where do you get that idea?

I found i think that i lost more than half a pound when i used that goal as the basis for calculating my calories. The reason is logical. The half a pound is an average over a certain period of time that the calculator told me. If i had kept on with that same daily intake it would have slowed down much further later on, but instead, then i changed my calorie count again. Perhaps two pounds is a good aim at the beginning of a diet but its not sustainable over a long time so better to readjust the calorie intake. If on the other hand, you start with a calorie intake that claims to enable you to lose 20 pounds a month, you will quickly come unstuck. And i think we are seeing that in the initial question.

Though she didn't say at the outset that she was happy with a loss at 5 pounds per month so it was obvious to assume that she found this a problem.

A small deficit - I actually don't know what my actual deficit is - i keep in check by keeping a food diary. I don't stress over what i eat. I just keep make small adjustments when it seems necessary but also because life is not a text book, the odd incursion shouldn't be a matter of disappointment and self beating up but just life.

Well people may think its not the best solution for them, but given the failure rate of diets, i think it is a pretty good solution and worth trying. But a smaller calorie deficit in itself is not the whole story either. People need to eat better quality and more nutritious food in order to be satisfied.

I didn't say she was suffering from malnutrition. But she probably will soon be diagnosable with it if she were to continue on such a low calorie diet. It wouldn't hurt to read some article on what malnutrition is. continuing on this path will likely lead to getting run down will lead to a range of symptoms from depression, to catching every passing virus to fatigue. So if the OP wants to continue on this path as John seems to think is a good idea, then she should go for it. But she must complain or be surprised when problems arise.

Don't get me wrong OP, i want you to succeed but don't believe you can do it on your current program without significant modification.

Not really mysterious at all nona. Johns version of two week breaks from time to time is pretty much the same thing i advocate when i talk about doing it slowly, the article i read about why weightloss fails with most people, and staging your weightloss, though his is a slightly different formula.

It is basically about tricking your body back into thinking its not going to starve to death (from living on a calorie deficit diet) Read the article about Leptin in the nutrition wonderland website if you want to understand better what that is all about.

I think somewhere in either that article or the one on seratonin she suggests having a high calorie meal once a week. This is another approach to a two week break.

Walking is powered by fat. Thus, walking two hours a day does not mean your body is catabolizing muscle even if you're in a steep deficit. It might be but the body catabolizing muscle results in faster weight loss (not fat loss) than if the body was only burning fat. This is because a lb of muscle breaks down into far fewer calories than a lb of fat. Roughly 700 vs 3500. Since the complaint is slower than expected weight loss it does not follow that her body is catabolizing muscle.

Regarding the nutrition - it really depends on what the OP is eating. You appeared to be making the case that one reason the OP was not losing faster was that her body was not functioning correctly. I don't "hear" any evidence that is happening. Certainly I've never seen the case made that lack of micronutrients would slow weight loss.

Great advice RadioJane. I find sometimes if I ramp up my exercises I look for and easily find reasons to skip it, so I just do my little number of reps, and have been able to keep it going for a few months now and am developing little muscles in my arms, so I'm happy.

I know how you feel, OP! They say if you're at a higher weight, the pounds should be flying off. But in my case, the first 20 came off fast and the rest has been 5-6 pounds a month, even when strictly calorie counting. But 1-2 pounds a week falls into healthy weight loss, so keep it up!

I don't see you making much of a case for saying that fat powers walking. I just read an assertion that doesn't actually make much sense anyway. If you want to convince me, you will have to provide some a link to some a reputable source that this is what happens.

Everything i've read about the way the body provides energy for exercise involves a higher proportion of carbs to fat. And if the carbs aren't there, the body makes glucose from muscle. the fat is always the less part of the ratio.

What you've said more or less contradicts the notion entirely that the body burns muscle at all, when calories carbs are not available.

The exception to this is if the body is in ketosis or whatever the right terminology for the way people burn on a low carb diet. The OP didn't say she was on a low carb diet. she just said she's eating low calories.

Given her weight, and the fact she's exercising, normally she'd be losing faster than 5 pounds a month whether its muscle or fat if she's eating carbs in a normal sort of ratio to protein

Either you haven't read very much or you are reading from very poor sources. Most of the body can use fat as a fuel source. The CNS is the big exception. If the body catabolized muscle as often as you have been lead to believe humans wouldn't have made it as a species.

Source

I know the body can use fat but that's not what you said John.

Anyway i just calculated my BMR which is 1396 calories. That means i am burning this many calories even if i do nothing. If i am eating 1300 calories and walking for miles a day, how is the body going to meet its basic energy needs if so much of it is being used up in walking? Its not the case that your body goes "oh, there's no more glucose circulating in my blood and muscles but she's got all that fat sitting there so i will get that." It doesn't work like that.

So anyway where is that convincing article that explains so clearly what you asserted. Fat does not burn by itself as you suggested it does but i'm waiting to be convinced.

If you think i'm going to go and buy a book because you tell me to, forget it. If what you say is true, there must be the information all over the web. I"m waiting to read it.

I really don't know what to tell you. I linked the book as a joke because the body using fat as fuel during low intensity exercise is not something most people need to be convinced of since it is basic human physiology. You yourself have said you know the body uses fat as fuel.

Here is a link you can read I found after a 5 second google search.

From the link ...

"During exercise, stored fat in the body (in the form of triglycerides in adipose or fat tissue) is broken down into fatty acids. These fatty acids are transported through the blood to muscles for fuel."

I took your first post in this debate to mean that the body only burns fat and not muscle. In fact you did say this and this is what i am asking for proof of because its nothing like i've ever read. So yeah stop making out i'm the dumb one here.

My understanding is that walking, like all activity draws its energy from a combination of glycogen and fat after glucose in the blood stream has been exhausted. IF there's no glycogen, in the tissues, the muscles will be broken down to provide it because fat doesn't burn by itself.

According to the usual formula, My body needs 1396 calories for its BMR and i think i weigh less than the OP. I can't remember. If i took half of that away to pay for my walking,, my body would be functioning under par. I might not notice it at first. I might even feel like i'm getting away with it for a while. But i am sure it would catch up with me.

We're going around in circles at this point.

I already gave you a link. You disregarded it. I suspect I could give you dozens of links that show the basics of human physiology and you would attempt to find a way to twist the arguement around and we would end up at this same exact point. Therefore I am done.

Lets just agree to disagree on this issue.