Why I am not loosing weight?

[Arower]

I've been rowing 20 mins/day weekdays since August, combination of intervals and pyramids, plus bike riding on the weekend. I've dropped a pants size but put on 2kg, I guess I am building muscle.

[JMac]

1. Diet
2. Diet
3. Diet

[dailob]

as Jmac said, diet.

you can't outwork a bad diet. seriously.

the mentality that you need to change your workouts in order to lose weight is the same reason why so many new year resolutioners quit the gym, not too long after they join.

if you stop exercising, know what your estimated calories in vs calories out are, and do that for a month in a deficit, i guarantee you will lose weight. add in exercise to get more lean mass but purely exercising and not paying attention to your diet is just the same pitfall as the average gym goer making the same complaints

[shadowpup]

I always find that when I step up my training that there is a brief "burst" on the scale. It is especially intense when I'm working new big muscles or the same muscles in different ways. This period lasts for about two weeks, and I see the same thing you do: inches go down, strength/endurance goes up, the scale goes up. This pattern has been true for me for many years. It is not that I'm eating differently: I track my food consistently (again data going back multiple years - including my macros) and track exercise calories with my HR monitor as well as my fitbit. I *do* tend to hydrate slightly better but it isn't enough to make the scale go up the usual 2-4 pounds. After the two weeks, the scale drops down again, so that at the end of the month everything's back to normal.

So … I don't worry about it now. If my goal includes fat loss, I'm fine with whatever the scale does as long as my clothing fits the way I want it to, and my strength/endurance is improving.

Why does this happen? There could be all kinds of reasons - we are all so different. My body holds onto water differently when I ask it to do different things, my digestive system sometimes "shuts down" somewhat. Also sometimes I'm shifting to more protein at the same time, and that makes a difference.

It's also easy to be fooled about the calorie in/out balance. If your clothing fits more tightly (when you're over the pump of the workout, and you're sure it isn't water weight, then you could be eating more. Intense exercise doesn't increase my appetite but long/slow distance does (opposite of what some others experience). Most cardio machines are big liars My HR monitor and my calorie tracking agree pretty well with my scale, … but if I believed my Rower, I'd be losing a half a pound a week … if I believed my elliptical, I'd be down a full pound a week.

Another thing that fools people is that they can do so much cardio without balancing it by increasing/maintaining muscle - essentially they hurt their metabolism by losing muscle. But in that case you'd expect to see a weight drop first, from the calorie burn, and then an increase starting up again when your metabolism rebalances.

[H2O]

Are you saying you are doing 22000 steps five times a week?

[Sylwana811]

Are you saying you are doing 22000 steps five times a week?

Yes, I am.
I’m a postwoman.

[H2O]

I am eating lots of fat in the form of linseed oil (seems to be the healthiest).
You need to be patient with the rowing, it's not a matter of weeks, takes years.
The most important thing is to endure an be consistent, then soon you will be rowing
an hour and longer.
The optimum combination for weight loss seems to be low intensity on longer rows
combined with very high intensity units ("transport sessions" in the C2 terminology,
3 x 4 minutes, 4 x 3 minutes, one 2K, rest=work)
It takes some time to find out what pace you can do for these.

[ukaserex]

Merry Christmas!

Sylwana811 -

I will do my best to give you facts that may be helpful.

There are more opinions than facts in any forum. Some call it "bro-science", as many present what was true for them, but may not be true for everyone.

Some say to do slower, longer, steady state workouts - like a 30 minute row, where your heart rate doesn't exceed 70% of your maximum heart rate. The reason behind this is because our bodies burn more fat, percentage wise, when we're not working that hard. When we exceed that 70% max heart rate, and drift up to 75% to 100%, we tend to burn more glycogen.

Consider this, though: when you do high intensity intervals (say 30 seconds max effort row, 2:00 rest X 8 times) you will burn more calories than doing 8 minutes of slow rowing. But - will you burn more fat? Who knows? We're all different, and it would require blood tests and lab work to definitively state the correct answer. Not only that, a lot would depend on other variables - like your hydration level, your hormone levels, the amount of glycogen in your blood and muscles when you began to workout - plus a host of other variables. Since it's incredibly problematic to control for all these variables in each person, it's really tough to say!

With that convoluted disclaimer, I would suggest you write down precisely what you eat each day. Every thing that goes in your mouth that gets swallowed should be written down, and you should search the internet for the calorie information. This is important, as you need to know if you're eating enough or eating too much. Search the internet for your basic metabolic rate for your age, weight and height. Do not trust the Concept2 calorie information, as it's a guideline and I believe it's a formula that would only work for a 165 lb male that's 6'0 tall. Or maybe it's a 180# male that's 6'2". Whatever it is - the calories burned on the PM are likely not even close to the number of calories you're burning.

On my Whoop! fitness tracker, the PM5 monitor will say I burned 600 calories, but my Whoop will say I only burned 388. My heart rate monitor, a MyZone will say I've burned 700. My Fitbit will say 295 calories for the same workout. Either way, the calorie information from all sources is suspect, but I trust the Myzone more, as it's actually on my chest; the other two are on my wrist.
If you have a fitness tracker, use the values it gives as a baseline; you'll need to either burn more calories or less, depending on the results you get.

With a workout that leaves you sweaty, you will lose water weight. The fewer carbs in your diet, the more water weight you'll likely lose, as carbs are stored with water. Because of this, it's really difficult to know if you're losing fat, or just water. So, try to weigh yourself at the same time of day, either right after you wake up in the morning, or right before you go to bed. Just be consistent.

Fitness is a journey, and the faster you go, the harder and more unsustainable it is, just like a long row. But, if you think and plan, you can determine your pace and know that you'll finish the row without gassing out. Plan your diet and exercise ahead of time, and you can also complete the steps without getting discouraged and "gassing out".

With your 10 miles of steps a day, and a 5k row each day - you are plenty active. If you're not losing weight, than you really need to look at your diet. It's critically important.
What do you eat in a typical day? And ...when do you eat it? Do you stay busy all day and eat like crazy after a long day?
These details matter.

[Allan Olesen]

As this thread shows, there are obviously many meanings on which type of training is the right type of training for losing weight.

When deciding between them, hunger should in my opinion be the deciding factor:
If two types of training cause the same amount of calorie burn, go for the type which makes you the least hungry.

We all know that weight loss is in theory as simple as burning more than you eat. But for a lot of us, this is just theory. Our reality is that if we don't eat, we have a big hole in our stomach, and we if don't fill it, we are too tired to work out.

Or at least that was how it worked for me, until I found a solution and lost 28 kg in 8 months. In my case, the key was low intensity training which I discovered that I can do for hours without becoming hungry. Other people in this thread have reported that they have had the opposite experience: That they get hungry from low intensity training, but not from high intensity training.

In both cases the important message must be: Do the type of training that YOU can do without increasing your hunger.

[mdpfirrman]

I got up to 250 lbs at my heaviest and got down to around 215 by exercising alone. That took me around 2 years after years of inactivity. I couldn't get beyond that even though I was eating healthier foods. Then, my wife got on an app that tracked calories (Loseit) and I joined her. She quickly quit, I stuck with it and lost around 45 more pounds in less than a year.

Over 6 or so years since I've lost the weight, I've put on around 20 lbs of muscle but stayed roughly the same bodyfat composition. Until you track what you eat everyday religiously, it's very hard to lose weight. Start with just simply tracking what you eat first and knowing your calorie intake. Do that for a month or two. It takes around 60 days to build a habit. You've already built a habit of moving more. Don't try to do too much.

After I fully understood exactly what I was eating, I worked out more (wanting to simply eat more of the same things). Over time, my diet has been completely revamped. Less sugar, fried foods, carbs and such and more whole foods, veggies, lean meats and healthier oils. Much less packaged stuff and going out to eat. Now, keeping weight off isn't a struggle any longer and when I see people that knew me when I was big they are completely shocked at how I look. They usually don't say "you look thin", I hear "you look so healthy" more, which is nicer I think.

Good luck. If I could do it anyone can.

[estragon]

I'm puzzled that you regard yourself as overweight. From the figures you've given, it looks like your BMI is about 23.5-ish i.e. not far off bang in the middle of the 20-25 band that denotes 'healthy weight' for your height. I realise that BMI is an imperfect gauge but using it as a rough indicator it looks like you are at the sort of weight for your height that many of us (me included) dream about. To reach the same healthy BMI level you're at, I still have around 50 pounds or 22 kilos to lose!

As others have pointed out, diet is much more important than exercise, which is now recognised as a very poor way of losing weight when done in isolation. That said, exercise is a very valuable element of most weight-loss programs as it makes us feel fitter and healthier, and this in turn helps to regulate food intake. If I've done a sweaty 30 or 40 minutes on the rower, the last thing I want to do is waste all that effort by tucking into a pizza and a couple of beers. Exercise makes me feel good about myself, and this helps me to make better food choices. I was quite obese when I started rowing am still significantly overweight, but am around 20 kilos, 44 pounds, lighter than I was a year ago.

In conclusion, keep rowing and keep feeling proud of your effort, but don't throw it away by feasting on pasta, bread, potatoes, and other carbs and sweets. You don't have to go hard-core low carb as you are simply not at an unhealthy weight, but to help shed a few pounds, check out one of the many low carb books or websites like https://www.dietdoctor.com/. You don't have to follow a strict regime of exact recipes but learn the basic principles. Just a few dietary changes will make a big difference.

Good luck!

[johnlvs2run]

I've been eating 90+ percent calories from carbs for most of my life, and am much healthier than I used to be for this reason.
Today I went to the store and got more yams, potatoes, bananas, broccoli and dates. I don't eat bread anymore, but sometimes
have whole oats for breakfast with dates. I drink water only, or sometimes blend a banana with water, while eating several more.

I used to work in an office where everyone was overweight except X. The others asked how she kept so trim and she laughed,
because her six friends where she came from called her fatty, because all of them weighed less and were lighter than her 98 pounds.

The main thing for me is portion control. The more active I am, the better, as there's less time to sit around and eat food.
Writing a plan, posting the plan on the wall, recording weight every morning, focusing and sticking with the plan is most helpful.

[Sylwana811]

I'm puzzled that you regard yourself as overweight. From the figures you've given, it looks like your BMI is about 23.5-ish i.e. not far off bang in the middle of the 20-25 band that denotes 'healthy weight' for your height. I realise that BMI is an imperfect gauge but using it as a rough indicator it looks like you are at the sort of weight for your height that many of us (me included) dream about. To reach the same healthy BMI level you're at, I still have around 50 pounds or 22 kilos to lose!

As others have pointed out, diet is much more important than exercise, which is now recognised as a very poor way of losing weight when done in isolation. That said, exercise is a very valuable element of most weight-loss programs as it makes us feel fitter and healthier, and this in turn helps to regulate food intake. If I've done a sweaty 30 or 40 minutes on the rower, the last thing I want to do is waste all that effort by tucking into a pizza and a couple of beers. Exercise makes me feel good about myself, and this helps me to make better food choices. I was quite obese when I started rowing am still significantly overweight, but am around 20 kilos, 44 pounds, lighter than I was a year ago.

In conclusion, keep rowing and keep feeling proud of your effort, but don't throw it away by feasting on pasta, bread, potatoes, and other carbs and sweets. You don't have to go hard-core low carb as you are simply not at an unhealthy weight, but to help shed a few pounds, check out one of the many low carb books or websites like https://www.dietdoctor.com/. You don't have to follow a strict regime of exact recipes but learn the basic principles. Just a few dietary changes will make a big difference.

Good luck!

Thanks,

That’s exactly what I’m going to do. I will learn the basic food principles.

I already feeling much better doing something for myself and I’m proud of it

Thanks everyone, I will be back with more questions in the future, that’s for sure.

[hjs]

I'm puzzled that you regard yourself as overweight. From the figures you've given, it looks like your BMI is about 23.5-ish i.e. not far off bang in the middle of the 20-25 band that denotes 'healthy weight' for your height. I realise that BMI is an imperfect gauge but using it as a rough indicator it looks like you are at the sort of weight for your height that many of us (me included) dream about. To reach the same healthy BMI level you're at, I still have around 50 pounds or 22 kilos to lose!

As others have pointed out, diet is much more important than exercise, which is now recognised as a very poor way of losing weight when done in isolation. That said, exercise is a very valuable element of most weight-loss programs as it makes us feel fitter and healthier, and this in turn helps to regulate food intake. If I've done a sweaty 30 or 40 minutes on the rower, the last thing I want to do is waste all that effort by tucking into a pizza and a couple of beers. Exercise makes me feel good about myself, and this helps me to make better food choices. I was quite obese when I started rowing am still significantly overweight, but am around 20 kilos, 44 pounds, lighter than I was a year ago.

In conclusion, keep rowing and keep feeling proud of your effort, but don't throw it away by feasting on pasta, bread, potatoes, and other carbs and sweets. You don't have to go hard-core low carb as you are simply not at an unhealthy weight, but to help shed a few pounds, check out one of the many low carb books or websites like https://www.dietdoctor.com/. You don't have to follow a strict regime of exact recipes but learn the basic principles. Just a few dietary changes will make a big difference.

Good luck!

So because manny people over very overweight, the others may not look at their weight?

Bmi is not ment for individuals, but for populations.

A few kg more or less can be very relevant for an athlete and for your look. Just because someone is not obese he/she still can try to look better. Or be healtier.

[Allan Olesen]

From the figures you've given, it looks like your BMI is about 23.5-ish i.e. not far off bang in the middle of the 20-25 band that denotes 'healthy weight' for your height.

Sure about the 20-25? I usually see 18-25 mentioned.

Anyway, I am at the same BMI as the OP. (Some months ago I was above 30.) Even though I am within the band and have a somewhat heavy build, it is still obvious that I have a lot of belly fat to lose. So someone with a lighter build would probably have even more fat to lose at 23.5 BMI.