Your slower metabolism will slow your weight loss, even if you eat the same number of calories that helped you lose weight. When the calories you burn equal the calories you eat, you reach a plateau. To lose more weight, you need to either increase your physical activity or decrease the calories you eat.
This is called a weight loss plateau. The initial weight loss is usually just water weight and not fat loss. The plateau is caused by loss of muscle that occurs during weight loss (if you are not working out). To counter this, you can either cut more calories or increase your physical activity.
Why Am I Eating Less and Not Losing Weight? Just because you're eating less than you were before doesn't mean you'll definitely lose weight. Calorie balance is about calories in AND calories out. If you eat less, but you do less activity as well, your weight could stay the same or even increase.
One of the main reasons why burning calories through exercise may still not result in weight loss is due to overexertion, or inflammation of your body. If you exercise too hard on a daily basis, there is an excess of inflammation in your body. All the added up inflammation makes you gain more weight than lose.
If you're a man, woman weighing over 164 pounds or a female who regularly exercises and you aren't losing weight eating 1,200 to 1,500 calories daily, it may be time to see a doctor. Hormone imbalances – such as underactive thyroid – can decrease your body's metabolism and inhibit or prevent weight loss from occurring.
So, How Long Until You See Results? As you can see, individual weight-loss experiences and time frames can vary heavily. However, most people who start dieting by cutting out a certain amount of calories each day will see results within one to two weeks, even if it's just one pound lost.
You can't lose weight on 1200 calories a day because you're no longer in a calorie deficit. Your body has adapted to what it's been doing and plateaued. If you start your diet with a 500 calorie deficit per day, your body adapts to this in various way so that over time your energy requirements are reduced.
At the most basic level, not reaching your weight loss goal can occur when calorie intake is equal to or higher than calorie use. Try strategies such as mindful eating, keeping a food diary, eating more protein, and doing strength exercises.
Muscle is denser than fat.
While one pound of fat weighs the same as one pound of muscle, muscle occupies about 18 percent less space. In addition, muscle burns calories while fat stores them. So, if your weight isn't decreasing but your clothes are starting to fit more loosely, you may be building muscle.
You've gained muscle.
And here's an often overlooked fact: Muscle tissue is more dense than fat tissue. So as you gain more muscle and lose fat, you change your overall body composition, which can result in a higher weight, but a smaller figure and better health.
If you've been stuck in a plateau for weeks, it usually indicates that calorie input (what you're eating) is equal to calorie output (what you're burning through physical activity). The only way to break through a weight-loss plateau is to cut calorie intake further and/or burn more calories through exercise.
If you're losing inches but maintaining your weight and you regularly strength train, you may actually be losing fat and gaining muscle. The process of gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time is called body recomposition. Most scales don't differentiate between the amounts of body fat and muscle you have.
It's possible to gain muscle and reduce body fat without actually seeing a change in your weight. This happens when you lose body fat while gaining muscle. Your weight may stay the same, even as you lose inches, a sign that you're moving in the right direction.
As you work out, you are building lean muscle which weighs exactly the same as fat but is leaner. if your clothes are looser but the scale is the same, this is because of the lean muscle you have built.
It simply takes time. Another common reason why people report not losing weight despite reducing their calories is that they don't give it enough time. Our bodies will do their utmost to hold on to our fat reserves and you often have to be in a calorie deficit for a while before you will see any meaningful weight loss.
The diet doesn't have enough calories
Eating too little — say, 1,000 calories a day — can prevent you from losing weight, too. "When you don't eat enough, your body is starving and it's not going to lose any extra weight" because it needs those energy stores to keep you alive, Fakhoury said.
If you have reduced your calorie intake below 1,200 calories a day, you could be hurting your body in addition to your weight-loss plans. “The big picture is to consume enough calories with a balance of nutrients and engage in physical activity for good health management to achieve one's weight goals.
The first place men typically lose weight is the belly, while women tend to lose weight all over, but hold onto weight in their thighs and hips, Dr. Block explains.
Mostly, losing weight is an internal process. You will first lose hard fat that surrounds your organs like liver, kidneys and then you will start to lose soft fat like waistline and thigh fat. The fat loss from around the organs makes you leaner and stronger.
You'd think that going on a strict diet and exercise regimen would help you drop pounds quickly, but most people actually gain weight at first. If this has happened to you, don't give up on your goals just yet.