Not seeing progress

[e3carey]

Hello everyone,

I'm sure you've all seen a post like this about someone complaining about working and not seeing any progress, yet they are not taking their diet or exercise seriously. However, I am counting my calories and macros down to the gram, doing interminate fasting, and working out 6 days a week (sometimes even twice a day). Yet I have only gained weight. A little background on myself is I used to be in pretty good shape about two years ago, but I got lazy and lost all my muscle and replaced it with fat. I'm 6 2 and currently weight about 218. Since school just got out, I've been trying to use this summer to get back into shape, unfortunately, I'm hitting some roadblocks. I've been consistently hitting the gym and counting my calories for the past two weeks. My apple watch says I burn about 3400 calories in a day, and since I'm trying to lose weight I'm eating in a deficit, so I consume anywhere from 1900-2200 calories a day based on how vigorous those days exercise was. Two weeks ago before I started I weighed 212lbs, and now I weigh nearly 220. I weight myself at the same time, in the same place, on the same scale each morning when I first wake up, and I have gained about a pound each day. At first, I thought the initial weight was just muscle getting back into gear, but the fact it been so drastic in such a short amount of time makes me think otherwise.

I know I shouldn't necessarily let the scale dictate the progress I'm making in the gym. However, it's discouraging to take everything so seriously and still be gaining weight. If you have any advice to offer, please post it on this thread. Thank you

[CBRIT89]

Ignore the watch. They're not accurate

[faithbrah]

Ignore the watch. They're not accurate

this. but even at 2000-ish calories you should be losing weight. are you absolutely sure you're counting correctly?

[e3carey]

this. but even at 2000-ish calories, you should be losing weight. are you absolutely sure you're counting correctly?

yeah, I've had an eclectic food scale for a while and weigh everything exactly. And I make sure to track every single thing I eat and drink. If the watch isn't accurate, how can I tell how many calories I'm burning?

[StartLifeOver]

However, I am counting my calories and macros down to the gram, doing interminate fasting

Why are you fasting? Your body needs building blocks for metabolic processes.

and working out 6 days a week (sometimes even twice a day).

6+ times a week looks like overkill. If you want to get back to shape, lose weight first up until the point you see your first level of six-packs (15%-18% of BF). Then start a heavyweight workout. If you were in good shape before, muscles will return back fairly quickly to the same level you had, further you need to build it. You can't lose weight and build muscles at the same time doing everything naturally. In addition, your muscles can't recover if you are working out every day.

What I did when was in your situation - I lost 40 pounds in 2.5 months and then started heavyweight workouts
1. Focus on losing weight first - cardio until you lose enough weight and do 3 workouts a week (Mon, Wed, Fri) - full body without critical weights
2. Stop fasting - eat every 3 hours, 5 times a day with smaller portion, speed up your metabolism. keep your daily menu balanced (carbohydrates (wheat), protein (1 Gramm per 1 kg of your body), 10% of your diet should be non-saturated fat (nuts, olive oil, cheese) + vegetables every meal). No carbs on the last meal. NO carbs higher than 50-55 in glycemic index.
3. no alcohol - but I assume you know it.

[CommitmentRulz]

If the watch isn't accurate, how can I tell how many calories I'm burning?

You can't on a day to day basis. Over time, if you are accurately tracking intake (calories) you'll learn that if you consistently eat XXX calories, your weight stays the same. That will be your TDEE (expenditure) on a average basis.

(I've seen people say "My watch says I burned 1000 calories doing 'x'." When I know based on my own experiences, that it would burn 400 calories for me...)

[faithbrah]

10% of your diet should be non-saturated fat (nuts, olive oil, cheese) + vegetables every meal). No carbs on the last meal. NO carbs higher than 50-55 in glycemic index

sure if you want to make it more complicated, i guess...

[StartLifeOver]

sure if you want to make it more complicated, i guess...

It is not complicated at all. Ask Google and in 10 sec you will get all info you need. Or, you can eat plain white rice and be surprised why are you gaining weight.

[Ghawk21]

It is not complicated at all. Ask Google and in 10 sec you will get all info you need. Or, you can eat plain white rice and be surprised why are you gaining weight.

I eat plain white rice among other high glycemic carbs and still lose weight? Your posts are full of BS. Telling someone to avoid lifting weights until they can see their abs doesn't make any sense either. Stop getting your information from google searches, all you get is sponsored blog posts/articles and clearly misinformation.

[Tommy W.]

It is not complicated at all. Ask Google and in 10 sec you will get all info you need. Or, you can eat plain white rice and be surprised why are you gaining weight.

You need to stop posting.

[Luclin999]

OP

1. Ignore "Startlifeover" as they are basically spouting a bunch of garbage in promotion of their Youtube channel.

2. Gaining a pound a day is bizarre and unless you are eating at an incredible calorie surplus (3000+ cal/day over maintenance) frankly has to be water retention. Why you would gain pounds of water is a mystery though. All I can think of is that your sodium content is way up (or your scale is defective).

3. Ignore your watch's calories burned estimates. Use it to track steps and to get a general idea of how active you are throughout the day but until you develop a baseline for your daily maintenance calories to compare it to, the specific numbers it is giving you for your calories burned each day are going to be inaccurate to the point of being useless. Definitely do not eat back any calories that you think you may have burned through exercise.

4. At 6'2" and over 200 pounds, you will lose weight if you are only consuming 2000-2200 cal/day. Since you are not losing weight, that means that your calorie count is way off and you need to take a closer look at everything you are consuming to find out where the discrepancy is. Double check the calorie information and actual serving sizes of the foods you are eating to make sure that you are basing your numbers on accurate data. Example: A lot of the data for food in apps like "Myfitnesspal" is entered by random users and can be wildly inaccurate almost to the point of being comical. I've seen things like an entry for chicken breast that listed 4oz as 35 calories (/facepalm). So you need to make sure that what you are basing your numbers on is correct.