No weight loss despite exercise and fasting

Question

I've been trying to loose weight for a while but have had pretty limited success. I lost a couple of kg's earlier in the year by cutting calories, but nothing since. Details below:

My latest regime is a two day fast (with tea and filter coffee with milk) and 4 days 20 minute kettle bell snatch x 2 (40 mins a day) 15 mins on 15 mins rest. My weight is staying around 64 - 65kg (target 56kg). I've been on the new regime for 4 weeks with no difference, I'm trying to work out what I could do next, or whether I should just wait it out some more and see. I definitely feel better, stronger and more toned, I just wish the tape measure or scales would move! On a side note - maybe the tape measure did move a little - it's actually really hard to measure accurately and the differences are so small.

I'd say on my non fasting days I generally eat yoghurt or omlettes with quark cheese for breakfast. Lunch is savory yoghurt with soft boiled eggs, omlettes, turkey mince with eggs and cabbage, sardines on rye bread, peas and paneer... that kinda thing. I'm supposed to eat low histamine, but I struggle, plus I love fish, so I guess maybe I have inflammation from the reactions a bit.

I do eat out a couple of times a week - pretty much every meal on a saturday and takeout midweek and sometimes on a sunday , alcohol is no more than two glasses of dry white or gin and tonic 0 - 1 times a week.

I don't sleep especially well, I'm a light sleeper, I'm trying to limit screen time before bed. My room is by a noisy road and I have sensitive ears so can't use ear plugs. I'm a pretty stressed person, but working on it. So I know those don't help.

Any tips or advice would be appreciated. :)

Answer 1

Not a Doctor or a dietitian/Nutritionist here, but going by logic only reason you would target 56Kg is to satisfy a BMI index value. if not you should check that out. Here's a link! to calculate it. (you did not mention height so i reverse looked up the BMI table) so a height of 5'3" is ok with 141 pounds or 64Kg

Now to your question why are you not losing weight there could be many factors

• you are gaining bone and muscle mass. Here's a link
• net calorie intake is more than expended
• body is adapting and storing energy ( considering your fasting)

I suggest you work with a dietitian/Nutritionist and work out a diet plan and meditation may help with stress.

Answer 2

First of all, let's focus on nutrition. That's the real key in weight management. Exercise helps, but since it's hard to really estimate calories burned by that (because of variability in the workouts, like form or intensity) let's just assume you want to lose weight only with nutrition (which is completely doable).

But before that a little quick note about measuring progress. Weight and tape measurements it's a pretty good combo to measure changes, but it's not all down to that, don't forget the mirror. So take pictures of you with less clothing possible from a couple of angles once a month, you could spot changes that the scale or the tape can't tell you. You could have changed by now without knowing! Also: weight it's an immediate measure which is subjected to water fluctuations, bowel movements and such. You don't have to focus about your weight, you have to focus about your trend weight. You have to figure out if you are, in a reasonable amount of time, losing, stalling or gaining weight. There are a couple of apps that helps you with that. Wake up, use the bathroom and weigh in, then log the weight. You'll have a trend soon enough.

But let's assume again, that you are indeed stalling and not making visual progress. Weight management is all about energy, or calories in / calories out. Nutrition is not THIS simple, but if you are, for the moment, just trying to figure out how to lose weight, this assumption is all you need to know for now. So your expenditure of the week (all your steps, workouts, any activity plus your basal metabolic rate that you naturally burn by just being alive) is compensated by your intake, which is all you drink or eat. There's no escape from that. So we have to either increase the expenditure or decrease the intake.

The first step would be: figure out how much are you actually eating. Portion size is everything! Sauces adds a lot of stealthy calories too, and drinks too. I'm sorry if this looks boring, but if you are serious about it logging everything you eat or drink in an app will definitely help you. Log everything you eat or drink (that contains calories) there, eat normally for a week or two and you'll have an idea of your average daily intake. From that you start again to log everything you eat but this time you aim to lower your average daily intake by 300-500 kcals. This will create in your body all the conditions needed to lose weight, even if you'll see fluctuations you'll see a clear, straight trend line that tells you are actually losing weight.

Eating out will be a problem with this method: you can't really figure out the kcals of a meal just by looking at it. You should try to work around it. You can keep the alcohol in moderation, try to stick to liquors which are less sugary (less kcals). If you want to really keep fasting just make sure of adjusting the kcals in the non fasting days and keep a look at portion sizes, it's easy to overeat when you come back from a fast (I've fasted several times).

Answer 3

Fasting is not the answer to weight loss. Fasting results in fat storage. Stay clean/natural in what you eat. use an online calorie/macro-nutrient calculator to find the amount of carbs, protein, and fat. Also, remember that strength workouts combined with high intensity cardio intervals are the best way to burn fat/calories for long term. cardio alone does not burn fat for longer than the actual exercise lasts. Finally, cut your eating out down to once a week and make sure not to eat the entire thing, save some leftovers.

(just so you know, I am not professional, this is just information i have picked up after a lot of studying health and fitness)