Unable to lose weight while strength training?

[solr]

I’ve been on a weight loss journey for a total of 18 months and I’ve been able to take my weight from 165 to 130. Unfortunately, I kinda plateaued at 130 because seasonal depression really hit me when fall/winter came last year. I’ve been the same weight for 6 months now, but I’d still like to lose at least 10 more lbs because I’m 5’2 with a small frame and my body fat percentage is still close to 30%.

In the past, I’ve been able to lose weight super quickly and easily just by cutting down my calories and doing simple workouts. This time around, I’ve decided to put a focus on weight training along with fat loss. I knew that I’d be building some muscle, but I assumed that any muscle gain would be heavily outweighed by fat loss and that I’d see a net decrease in my body weight.

6 weeks in, and the scale has barely budged. Is it possible that I’m gaining weight and building muscle at the same rate? How quickly can a beginning weightlifter build muscle? I know people will tell me that I need to be in a calorie deficit, but I’ve been eating 1500 calories most days. My apple watch says I burn ~1800 calories on rest days and ~2200 calories on workout days (4 days/week), so I’m assuming 1500 calories is low enough to see a little bit of fat loss. I also aim for 100g of protein per day, and I don’t think that’s enough protein for rapid muscle gain so I don’t know where this weight is coming from. Do I need to eat less? Why am I not seeing my weight go down?

 

[eclipsewolfe]

@solr They say when you start strength training it’s extremely common to stall in weight loss because your muscles will retain more water for recovery and adaption to your new activity. You’re just at the end of the 6 week adaption period that people say is common, so I’d say if you still don’t see progress in the next 2 or 3 weeks you can consider dropping your calories a little bit more.

 

[surskit]

@solr Congrads on losing the first 35 Lbs, I'm sure that took a lot of hard work. The calories burned that are estimated by smart watches are wildly inaccurate. Most people tracking calories are inconsistent and inaccurate.

100g of protein is pretty close to where you'd want to be, I would increase this slightly and be as consistent as possible.

How are you measuring your BF %?

How intense are your workouts?

 

[butterfly2222]

@solr It’s possible the you’re building muscle and losing fat st the same time, especially if you just started being serious with lifting weights (like newbie gains).

However, if you’re not losing weight, you’re not in a caloric deficit.

You can decide to keep trying to maintain your weight, lose fat and build muscle at the same time, only you know what your « goal weight » is.

It seems like you think that building muscle is kind of done out of thin air. Growing muscle comes from energy, either caloric surplus or from fat in your body. That’s why cut/bulk cycles are popular in the bodybuilding community. When you cut, you’re in a caloric deficit and you mostly lose fat (if you weight-train), it’s possible that you lose muscle too but the loss is minimal. During a bulk cycle, your body uses the excess energy from the caloric surplus to build muscle, but you will also put on some fat, inevitably.

In short, goal weight, recomp at maintenance calories or cut/bulk cycles are personal choices.

It seems like you mostly want to lose fat right now so I guess overall you’d probably want to be losing weight.

Regarding your calories, I also have an Apple Watch and I calculated it overestimates my caloric expenditure about 200-300 calories/day, which is very common for these devices. Here is a video where some people tested it:

Also, I recently wrote a pretty extensive post on plateaus, it’s in my history if you want to read it, I think it could be helpful.

 

[dmhanson511]

@solr Wow! I’m basically your before stats. I was weight training for awhile before I actually saw some fat loss. I’m your same stats for exercise vs non exercise days. I basically eat 1500-1600. Closer to 1450-1550 on non exercise days and trying to calorie cycling on days I do workout. So it should work! You might need to give it time. Honestly I’ve been maintaining my weight this entire time. The only reason I know I lost some fat was due to measurements. I measure my calves, thighs, hips, stomach and arms. I would try that!

In the past I’ve done Orangetheory and lost weight but mostly inches! It was 8 lbs total but a ton of inches. My shirts that were tight got so loose. I would keep doing what you are doing and start measuring

 

[cph]

@solr How’s your recovery time? I recently realized I was carrying 10 extra pounds of water and blood from my big workouts. 5’2, lost ~9 lbs in 9 weeks of strength training putting me at 144, but the clothes that were tight at 133 with no exercise fit me now. Then I realized that in the past when I’ve done this program I continue to lose weight for about a month after I stop exercising because I release all of that water, not because my metabolism has increased significantly. Felt pretty stupid when I looked back and realized I gave myself license to eat and then gained weight.