But you're losing fat, and that's what everyone wants, no? Nobody wants to lose muscle and bone. Most of us want to gain muscle and bone, right? This is a fitness sub, not a weight loss sub.
The second one would be the reason why you’re hungry, not the reason why you’re not losing weight.
And this is why Ozempic and other GLPs work, perhaps. Ghrelin and Leptin is important. I've personally always found exercise kicks in my Leptin, whereas for others it kicks in their Ghrelin, maybe because they were undereating. I don't know, I'm just saying CICO falls short when you're trying to build a strong and fit body, not necessarily trying to waste your bones and muscles a way along with the fat.
Third and fourth would just mean you have a lower TDEE.
Of course so why would you not suggest someone work on building their muscle mass and metabolism?
I get it if you are obese. I don't get it if you are normal weight or slightly overweight. A reminder, again, this is a fitness sub. The majority of people posting here are not obese.
@pandafan Once again, that was not the topic of this post and I didn’t want to discuss what the person’s goals should be. Whatever their reason for wanting to lose weight, this just explains why it’s not working.
I agree the goal is usually body recomposition but if someone is starting off off obese or overweight, they may decide the fastest and easiest way is to go through a cycle of weight loss before attempting to build muscle.
Strength training can prevent muscle loss during weight loss.
At the end of the day, I wasn’t writing a book on weight loss, body recomp, what people’s goals should be: this is just a short post answering why someone could be struggling to lose weight. Weight loss usually means fat loss.
@butterfly2222 When calculating your TDEE you should not select sedentary unless you actually are sedentary. You failed to mention that you need to take into account the amount of exercise you conduct (not merely just an active job or walking a lot)- resistance training (weights/pilates etc) expends energy too, that’s why there’s the option to select how many sessions you conduct in a week. As TDEE calculators can also be inaccurate I always suggest to eat at your maintenance TDEE for a few weeks and track whether your weight fluctuates, if it does, adjust your maintenance accordingly.
@zastari That’s kind of what I meant by adjust it if you notice you lose weight super fast but I guess starting by trying eating at maintenance would be healthier. It’s just that most calculators are somewhat accurate until you select to add workout sessions, then most of the time they add way too much to your TDEE.
@butterfly2222 What you’re suggesting really doesn’t make much sense. And what you mentioned about adjusting calories seemed like an afterthought. You’re saying to not account for exercise when using a TDEE calculator, and also saying not to account for exercise energy expenditure based off smart watches etc (which are extremely inaccurate). So exercise energy expenditure isn’t accounted for at all, which would put someone who conducts 5 2 hour sessions of resistance training a week at a completely inaccurate TDEE, put a deficit on top of that and their calories would be significantly lower than actuality. So you’re telling people to incorrectly calculate their TDEE and making it more confusing than it has to be
@zastari r/loseit suggests exactly that in their wiki: put sedentary and then adjust if you’re too hungry or lose weight super fast. But I guess I could simplify it.
@butterfly2222 There is a 1000 calorie difference between my sedentary and true TDEE. It is bad advice to select an activity level that does not depict actual activity levels, as it is very inaccurate. Eating significantly lower than the calories required can lead to binging and over eating. How are these people meant to know how much to adjust, do you really think they’d adjust their intake by 1000 calories? Fine tuning a true TDEE by 100-200 calories does a lot less damage
@zastari Well, if I follow the guidelines from a TDEE calculator by putting in how much I exercise, I’d be at an absolutely insane surplus, we’re talking about 1000 calories and that would mean I’d gain weight and be super discouraged too.
Also, keep in mind that this is supposed to be read from the perspective of someone that has not been able to lose weight because they calculated their TDEE as too high. Like I said, you need to check if you’re tracking your intake properly first. If you know you’re tracking your intake properly AND you’re unable to lose weight (therefore you have an idea of your maintenance), then you need to scratch whatever you think you calories burnt from exercise is.
@butterfly2222 It's still not good advice. If I set my tdee as sedentary but worked out 1.5 hours 5 days a week. The calorie recommendation is going to be much lower than energy needs and possibly prevent the person from working out or moving more during the day since they can be tired and hungry.
That's why in some cases people lose weight when they eat more, because they have more energy and ultimately burn more calories.
For example
Someone may be dragging at 1200 calories and have a crappy workout that only burns 150 calories
But they up it to 1500 and have an amazing workout that burns 300 and have more energy to move throughout the day and burn another 150. You end up with the same calorie deficit.
@zastari Setting the tdee to sedentary when someone is active is terrible advice.
I'm not sure why this is being downvoted. I see this all of the time. People complain that they are hungry and have no energy, and then when probed further, they admit that they set their TDEE to sedentary when they are indeed very active.
Calculators will have the number of sessions per week as a reference. People should follow that. That's what I do, and it's never let me down.
@inneed87 Absolutely brainless in this sub. I can guarantee they’ll all be complaining that they’re always hungry and end up experiencing metabolic adaptation. I can’t deal with the ignorance here.
@zastari I remember this one person specifally, might have been in xxfitness. They were basically training like an athlete and complaining of hunger, lack of energy, the usual. Come to find out, they set their tdee to sedentary - WHY??? They were so adamant about it, too. I hope they figured it out.
@inneed87 I hate that selecting sedentary seems to be the norm? OP tagged a sub that seeming promotes it. There is so much misinformation out there already, and there is absolutely no reason to eat at an activity level you exceed drastically. I hope all these people eventually come to their senses, they’re not doing themselves any favours
@zastari I agree, especially in the fitness subs. LoseIt is a weight-loss sub, so there may be people that underestimate their portions and overestimate their activity, but it still doesn't make sense to me.
@inneed87 Their sole argument is that TDEE calculators are inaccurate, and they decide to combat that by using a TDEE that isn’t accurate for their activity levels at all. Baffling. Well thank you for listening to me rant, it’s pretty frustrating how they dogpile onto someone when they don’t like their opinion
