Help not losing weight

[carrottopper]

New to exercise. I got an I watch for Christmas and since then I have aimed to move more, incorporate small jogs, short runs, walk more and do YouTube exercises at home. I've been burning 700 calories a day but not seen any weight loss! I've been watching quite healthily but not changed it too drastically. I expected to see a little weight loss by now.

Any advice? Surely 700 calories should be a positive move and worth doing. I'm enjoying it but getting discouraged

I don't exercise for cal burn but I just looked up what Strava said I used on a 7.55 mile run. 700. That was quite hard running. Heart rate high, out of breath. There's no way a 4 mile walk, some housework and 30 mins exercise is using that.

Are you only eating when you're hungry?

I've gone back to fasting two days a week and logging foods on MFP. When I tried fitness alone without either of those two, I best maintained and often gain weight.

It seems pointless to exercise then

Pointless only if you see exercise as a way to lose weight. It is far more than that though.

I maintain my weight by intermittent fasting. I maintain my fitness by exercising hard four or five times a week. More often if I can find the time.

Exercise is far from pointless.

Firstly it's irrelevant how many calories you burn. What's relevant is how many calories you eat.

Eat the same as you burn, maintain weight, eat less than you burn, loose weight, eat more than you gain weight. You are doing the first.

So it doesn't matter if it's 200 or 700. You're eating those calories back.
If you don't do this, you will loose weight.

Secondly exercise tones you up. Changes your body definition. So instead of a body with no muscle definition and kinda flabby you look much much better both in and out of your clothes.

However if you think exercise can help you loose weight, whilst you just eat more to offset the exercise, no that doesn't work. You need a calorie deficit. You need to do it in conjunction with diet.

But if you want the toned arms, the flat stomach, the pert back side, the toned thighs, as well as the weight loss, then this is where exercise comes in.

And that's before any of the health benefits, inc mental and physical.

Don't give it up, but if you want to loose weight with it, then yes you need to manage your food intake st the same time.

It's not pointless to exercise at all. As well as improving your overall fitness, exercise builds muscle and muscle is good for weight loss. More muscle means you burn more calories/fat.

It seems pointless to exercise then

Not at all, exercise will make you fitter, healthier, help prevent disease and you'll build muscle, which raises your BMR so you burn more calories at rest. And it makes you feel good! Nothing helps my mental health as much as running.

It's just that if you're over eating and eating crap food, it'll be so much harder/impossible to lose any significant weight.

How much weight have you got to lose, OP?

If you're wanting to lose weight I'd highly recommend Chloe Madeley 'Fat Loss Blitz'and do the sedentary plan (which actually wants you to exercise 5 times a week!)

Cardio exercise for health, endorphins and good circulation

Resistance training for building muscle and looking 'toned'

Calorie deficit through diet to lose fat

Best way! You're doing great with the exercise- keep it up!

*forgot to mention you can just do the diet and do your own exercise if you prefer.

You need to be in a calorie deficit to lose weight. The best way to do this is to use a TDEE calculator

www.jamessmithacademy.com/macro-calculator/ is excellent.

Choose lightly active. This will tell you your calorie target and protein target. Then weigh and log everything you eat on Myfitnesspal. I reckon you'll be surprised at how many calories you're consuming, I was!

Never eat back exercise calories. Don't even think "woohoo, I'm in a calorie deficit because I've burned 700 calories today so I can have this milky way!", the watches, etc are notoriously inaccurate.

Continue to exercise, it will be having a positive effect on your body, it just might not be a visible one yet

Brimful- I would like to lose around a stone or stone and a half.

Chilly chicken- thanks. The calculator is showing I need to aim for just over 1500 calories a day.

Thanks toasterstrudle

Coming off high blood pressure medication and maintaining optimal blood pressure purely due to exercise is not pointless! Building muscle in my back so I am no longer debilitated by the pain of disc degeneration is not pointless either!

That's brilliant news.

One thing though, why does my watch show calories used for exercise if it can't be used against diet? Also my fitness tracker calculates in exercise too.

Well it can be used against diet, but you need to understand the more you eat the less weight you loose. So if you eat back your calories burnt you maintain.

Also those fitness trackers and watches notoriously over estimate calories burnt.

I'd second James Smith Academy, he talks a huge amount of sense: have a calorie deficit, be generally active in the day rather than specific "cardio", and lift weights. He's just about to bring out a new book "not a diet book". I'd immerse yourself in his strategies (his social media accounts are actually hilarious and informative) and you won't look back.

Don't think that any calories that your watch tells you you can consume on top of your allotted 1500 for the day. The James Smith calculator has already taken that into consideration by choosing the activity level. Keep on walking to school, that's a good thing. I'd switch to some weight exercises at home rather than just a "cardio" workout so you build muscle that'll help you improve your metabolism.

I find my Apple Watch pretty accurate on calorie burn provided its set up right with my age, height, weight etc.

I've compared mine to stats using a proper chest based HR monitor and did some calculations manually to check (I know clearly I've nothing better to do!)

I've just looked back on my Apple Watch stats and the only days I've burned anywhere near 700 calories is if I've done some pretty high intensity stuff of at least an hour, aswell as 2 dog walks.

So one day last week I did 2x2 mile walks with the dog plus 1hr on my turbo trainer and my total burn was 729.

If yours is saying 700 just from 2 walks plus 1.5hr housework then I don't think you have the settings correct?

In regards calories in vs calories out, based on my BMR I need 1,500 just for "daily life" so if I do 700 exercise I can eat 2,200 and maintain my weight but if I want to lose weight I have to keep my calorie intake around 500 less than I've burned that day.

The 700 calories is from a workout (usually Zumba, hiit or jogging/running for 30 minutes), a 4 mile walk, housework and running around after a toddler.

Today I've done 2 mile walk, 20 minute hiit work out, housework and running around after a toddler. I'm on 557 calories so far.

For everyone saying 700 isn't right, don't forget the heavier or unfit yet you are, the more calories you burn in general. So me and my friend can't do the same activity but she is a lot heavier and unfitter than me, and her daily calorie burn can be double mine...

Today I've been sat at my desk all day (except for this morning getting myself and my DS ready m and to breakfast club) but I did a 30 minute HIIT and abs session at lunch which was a total of 231 exercise calories. My total calories burned today is 441 so far, so thats 210 calories from doing nothing...
If I got a walk in or did more exercise after work I could get it up to 700 ish

I think the issue here is that you're mentally including basic moving-around, such as the school run, housework, and looking after a toddler, as "exercise." In doing so, you're kidding yourself that you're doing more exercise than you actually are, and feel hard done-by as you're not losing weight.

Whereas, in reality, if you didn't have the watch logging everything, then surely it wouldn't occur to you to even consider this basic daily activity as exercise. This is one of those scenarios where the fitness tracker may actually be doing you a disservice.

So in reality, today you've done 20 mins of exercise over and above the baseline daily activity you presumably would've been doing anyway. And 20 mins of HIIT is probably the equivalent of about one biscuit.

In comparison, the only calorie logging I do is my run training, and that's only because Strava automatically does it for me.
If I also started factoring in my 40-min bike commute, housework, "running around" after two kids, climbing/swimming/jogging with the kids etc into my "allowance" of calories, and eating more to compensate, I'd be bloody huge by now.

I think fitness trackers can encourage some people to develop a warped relationship with physical activity. Exercise isn't about earning calories to eat back, it's about being physically, and mentally, fitter and healthier. Which then, in turn, often leads to a better relationship with food and healthier eating; because if you're fit and active you quickly realise you can't fuel that activity on takeaways, booze and chocolate.

557 in total for the day isn't probably far off.

Sorry I thought the 700 was just exercise. Over and above the basic. So is it 700 usually plus the 580, so on average with your exercise you burn in the region of 1300 calories a day? Is that what you're saying?

I'm on 557 calories so far.

That sounds right for everything you've done (the actual exercise and the normal living).

Do you feel hungry?

The inability to understand daily use of calories on this thread is kind of baffling. Women generally need and burn around 2,000 calories a day - that includes all of your breathing, sleeping, standing etc. Watches that tell you your activity = a certain amount of calories are doing you a total disservice because most people won't understand what it means to have burned 700 calories in one day.

OP, you need to address your actual calorie intake and get this under control into a calorie deficit. Sure, be as active as you can be, but this is not how you address the problem of having too many calories in your diet. James Smith uses a good analogy of a leaky bathroom tap which has created a pool of water. The leaky tap is your overeating, and the pool of water on the floor is what has resulted from overeating, i.e. body fat. You're choosing to mop up the water rather than fixing the tap, whereas you need to address what's causing the leak rather than the results of the leak.

OP I lost a stone last year. I did it with a combination of things- 7 minute workout app (I found the calories they said each exercise burned matched what my phone said), zumba classes , portion control and I did a couple of months of predominantly vegan diet. I also did yoga to help with flexibility. The exercise massively improved my fitness levels but tbh, I think it was the portion control that helped with the weight loss.

What are you actually eating?

which activity monitor do you have, OP? Brand & model, I mean.