Fat Loss for Young Woman Please Help!

[missakitty]

Hey guys,

Look, here are my general stats. I know, personally I could be off a lot worse than I am and I do not care to hear it, please respond with honest advice. I have been pretty focused (in my opinion and correct me if I am wrong) with this routine but have not seen any results in before and after photos and actually gained 3 pounds. Why can I not lose weight or cut any fat?

Height: 5'5
Age: 22
Weight: 140
Waist: 27"
Hips: 36"

According to a number of Body Fat Calculators I have taken the average and come to find out that my approximate BMI ranges from 23-25%. The most common number I have seen however is around 23.5%.

I have been running and weight lifting for about 6 weeks now. I begin my workout with 20 min HIIT to warm up by running on the treadmill. I stretch before for about 20 min, I walk for the first 5, stretch some more and then run for 2 min as fast as I can walk for 1 run for 2 and so on until I hit about 20-25 min. Afterwards, I alternate my weight training routine which I will usually do for 30-45 min. Mondays: legs, Tuesdays: back and abs, Wed: arms, Thursday: legs, Fri: back and abs, Saturday: arms and rest on Sunday. My diet is usually kept at 1200 net calories, based on recommendations provided to me by the myFitnesspal app on my Android phone to lose 1-2 pounds per week. If I burn 200 on the treadmill, ill eat 200 more calories to give myself a net calorie goal of 1200 even .I do not work, I am at home most of the day doing absolutely nothing but housewife BS such as cleaning, laundry, cooking. I personally feel like because I do not require much energy my calorie intake must be pretty accurate according to this fitness app. My diet consists mainly of fruit, dairy, meat and vegetables. I limit myself to 1-2 fruits per day, usually just a banana or apple and usually have eggs and toast for breakfast with coffee, fresh veggies, deli sandwich or tuna with crackers for lunch with a handful of plain peanuts and usually a plate of steamed veggies with chicken or steak for dinner and a greek yogurt with honey for dessert. Maybe once every 4 days I have a bowl of cereal, but I usually keep my diet pretty bland. I do not use dressings, butters or even drink soda, I only drink water.

MY QUESTION IS!

I have not lost a single pound, I have actually gained 3. Why the F is that!? I feel like, I eat pretty clean. What am I doing wrong? Why have I not seen results? Have I not given it enough time? 6 weeks without any results not even a hint, not even a single pound? WHy!? Please help. this is VERY discouraging!

FYI the only time I've ever lost weight was unknowingly when my ADHD psychiatrist put me on Ritalin. THen, I dropped 40 pounds. Never have I ever naturally in my life. No matter what I eat..

WHYY :'(
PLEASE HELP ME!

[JLay87]

My diet is usually kept at 1200 net calories, based on recommendations provided to me by the myFitnesspal app on my Android phone to lose 1-2 pounds per week. If I burn 200 on the treadmill, ill eat 200 more calories to give myself a net calorie goal of 1200 even .

1200 is somewhat aggressive. Are you hungry, tired or lethargic ever on this?

Also, have you planned out a regular diet or are you just eating whatever and putting it into MFP? If you are on 1200 cals and not seeing progress, I would recommend planning out a diet so that your intake is more strictly controlled. You should be getting probably around 90g Protein.

Also, calorie burn counters on fitness equipment such as your treadmill is wildly inaccurate to the point where you should not pay attention to it whatsoever.

Afterwards, I alternate my weight training routine which I will usually do for 30-45 min. Mondays: legs, Tuesdays: back and abs, Wed: arms, Thursday: legs, Fri: back and abs, Saturday: arms and rest on Sunday.

This is too much. Go down to lifting 3x a week. You did not post your lifting plan on here but my guess is that you are not lifting heavy enough.

I have not lost a single pound, I have actually gained 3. Why the F is that!? I feel like, I eat pretty clean. What am I doing wrong? Why have I not seen results? Have I not given it enough time? 6 weeks without any results not even a hint, not even a single pound? WHy!? Please help. this is VERY discouraging!

Let's get a few things straight. First, weight loss is different than fat loss, which is why you cannot go by scale number alone. To have a comprehensive picture of your progress you need to keep track of three things:

1. Scale weight. Weigh yourself once a week, in the morning before you eat or drink anything.
2. Progress photos. Again, once a week in the morning before you eat or drink anything.
3. Lifting sets/reps/weight.

It is entirely possible that you could have lost fat while putting on muscle, which gave you a net increase in scale weight, and which would be discouraging even though this is the ideal situation. You don't know this unless you take progress photos and record your lifts. Your water weight could also be fluctuating based on variations in carb intake, hydration and physical exertion/sweating.

So my recommendations to you would be:
1. Design a planned diet to stick to for better control of calorie/macro intake.
2. Start recording what I said above.
3. Switch to a more intense lifting program. I would suggest picking up New Rules of Lifting for Women (only for the lifting program in there which is great, the nutrition section not so much), religiously follow it and record all your reps/sets/weight.
4. Stay hydrated, take your multi-vitamin and fish oil.

Stick to your planned diet for a few weeks and see how it works out. If it doesn't work out, then lower the calories. Once you start seeing progress you can loosen up a bit and allow yourself to go off plan once in a while as long as you record everything in MFP.

[Chazster]

Major problems I see.
1. You are only tracking your weight. You should be tracking measurements as well as taking photos. Also are you tracking this only first thing in the morning after bathroom but before eating or drinking? This is for consistent water and food weight.

2. You are doing cardio before weight lifting. You always do weights first. You need your energy for your lifts and if you do cadrio after when you are Carb depleted from your workout you will burn fat sooner. In fact I am about your weight and almost never do cardio and am losing weight.

3. You are doing a split routine. Don't do this. Get a good full body routine like allpros or starting strength. My gf and I do allpros.

[missakitty]

1200 is somewhat aggressive. Are you hungry, tired or lethargic ever on this?

Also, have you planned out a regular diet or are you just eating whatever and putting it into MFP? If you are on 1200 cals and not seeing progress, I would recommend planning out a diet so that your intake is more strictly controlled. You should be getting probably around 90g Protein.

Also, calorie burn counters on fitness equipment such as your treadmill is wildly inaccurate to the point where you should not pay attention to it whatsoever.



This is too much. Go down to lifting 3x a week. You did not post your lifting plan on here but my guess is that you are not lifting heavy enough.



Let's get a few things straight. First, weight loss is different than fat loss, which is why you cannot go by scale number alone. To have a comprehensive picture of your progress you need to keep track of three things:

1. Scale weight. Weigh yourself once a week, in the morning before you eat or drink anything.
2. Progress photos. Again, once a week in the morning before you eat or drink anything.
3. Lifting sets/reps/weight.

It is entirely possible that you could have lost fat while putting on muscle, which gave you a net increase in scale weight, and which would be discouraging even though this is the ideal situation. You don't know this unless you take progress photos and record your lifts. Your water weight could also be fluctuating based on variations in carb intake, hydration and physical exertion/sweating.

So my recommendations to you would be:
1. Design a planned diet to stick to for better control of calorie/macro intake.
2. Start recording what I said above.
3. Switch to a more intense lifting program. I would suggest picking up New Rules of Lifting for Women (only for the lifting program in there which is great, the nutrition section not so much), religiously follow it and record all your reps/sets/weight.
4. Stay hydrated, take your multi-vitamin and fish oil.

Stick to your planned diet for a few weeks and see how it works out. If it doesn't work out, then lower the calories. Once you start seeing progress you can loosen up a bit and allow yourself to go off plan once in a while as long as you record everything in MFP.

Thanks so much for replying! I have actually been quite tired the last week, sleeping in a lot more than normal and going to bed a lot sooner than normal. Normally, when I do not restrict myself, I naturally do not consume that many calories. I have trained my mind to dislike a lot of food so, I tend to feel gross if not eating at least SOME veggies @ each meal. 1200 may be too few. But, I do not stick to a planned diet per say, but incorporate one complete protein serving, one vegetable serving and usually one carb serving per meal and use protein for snacks like the peanuts or greek yogurt. Could dairy be the issue? I have milk and sugar with my coffee in the morning but maybe 1/4 c milk and 1 tablespoon of sugar. could that be ruining my diet? Thank you so much for advice, could you possibly point me in the right direction for a meal plan on this BB website? Jaime Eason's LiveFit Trainer maybe?
Lift 3xs a week with higher weights I can try...just need to get heavier weights than the 10lbs I'm working with I guess. Thanks again!

[missakitty]

Major problems I see.
1. You are only tracking your weight. You should be tracking measurements as well as taking photos. Also are you tracking this only first thing in the morning after bathroom but before eating or drinking? This is for consistent water and food weight.

2. You are doing cardio before weight lifting. You always do weights first. You need your energy for your lifts and if you do cadrio after when you are Carb depleted from your workout you will burn fat sooner. In fact I am about your weight and almost never do cardio and am losing weight.

3. You are doing a split routine. Don't do this. Get a good full body routine like allpros or starting strength. My gf and I do allpros.

I try to track in increments of about 10 days. Every 10 days I will weigh myself first thing in the morning, and take progress shots. I have them, I totally overanalyze them but can not see any results after about 40 or so days. Cardio after weight lifting? Interesting thought. I will try. Do you think it particularly matters what time of day to workout? And you sparked my interest with the Allpros, where can I find information about that at? Thanks for replying!!

[dmacdonal9]

MFP will never recommend eating less than 1200 net calories, even if you need to. It's a baseline setting.

My advice is to disregard its model of eating back your exercise calories. That works for some people that have a highly variable energy output, but most folks do not.

Whatever your calorie intake has been for the past few weeks, knock 200 off that number and eat less. Ignore the exercise part of MFP and just do your cardio and lifting according to your normal schedule.

Good advice above about lifting, but that's not to blame for no fat loss, it's your calorie intake.

Also, women and smaller men need to be especially meticulous in calorie counting, because there is so little room for error. http://www.fitnessfactreview.com/the...orie-counting/

[JLay87]

Thank you so much for advice, could you possibly point me in the right direction for a meal plan on this BB website?

1. Calculate your required calories using a calorie calculator.
2. Go to the store and put together a diet using the nutrition info on the back. Make it so that it works for you, you enjoy eating whatever you plan and that it hits your required calories/protein.
3. Stick to the diet you plan and follow the advice in my previous post.

Lift 3xs a week with higher weights I can try...just need to get heavier weights than the 10lbs I'm working with I guess. Thanks again!

10 lb weights will do absolutely nothing for you, you need either a home gym or a gym membership so that you can lift heavy and progressively increase your weight. Again, pick up the book I recommended, get a gym membership and follow the book's lifting program.

[missakitty]

[QUOTE=dmacdonal9;911386853]MFP will never recommend eating less than 1200 net calories, even if you need to. It's a baseline setting.

My advice is to disregard its model of eating back your exercise calories. That works for some people that have a highly variable energy output, but most folks do not.

Whatever your calorie intake has been for the past few weeks, knock 200 off that number and eat less. Ignore the exercise part of MFP and just do your cardio and lifting according to your normal schedule.

Good advice above about lifting, but that's not to blame for no fat loss, it's your calorie intake.

Also, women and smaller men need to be especially meticulous in calorie counting, because there is so little room for error.

Thanks for the reply! I really really do appreciate the advice I am receiving from you guys! It is encouraging! Are you suggesting to stay at 1200 but disregard the "net" part of it? Regardless of calories burned during exercise to remain @ 1200. That is interesting! I know it sounds bad to have 1200, however, like I said my daily expenditure (or whatever) is very low, I think I require a lot less calories than I normally would, say, if I am working out, maintaining a family, and a 40 hr a week work schedule then I would def need more calories. Ill try to maintain a standard goal of 1200 regardless of exercise. That might help. Thanks again!

[missakitty]

I am trying to make this possible without a gym, I am in the process of finding a home gym. Where I am at in California, the gyms in the area are a bit pricey, and I do not have the funds for it at the moment.

[jolanar1]

I suggest reading the stickies in the Nutrition thread.

[Chazster]

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=4195843


Should take you to allpros routine.