pinkpanther x,

3 months ago I joined a gym and started working out a lot; probably about 5 hours a week. I figured I should be able to kick start some weight loss with that and work from there. It didn't work out that way at all. I didn't lost a pound in 2 to 3 months of working out like crazy but (in my estimation) not changing my diet. It wasn't until I had a calorie target to keep under for an entire week that I saw a loss, of 4 pounds at that. And I swear, I was the same; the first three or four days I thought I was going to go through the whole thing without a loss at all. You just started, give it some time. Keep to your target for 7 days. If theres honestly no loss, decrease it again a little bit. THEN if there's no loss you can start to worry theres something funny going on. Until then relax a bit.

My point exactly.

To boot, as noted by me already, remember weight is not measuring fat alone.

Ok - I will stick at it and see how it goes. I am so determined to lose this weight and tone up, I just want to do it properly and keep it off. I just feel a bit deflated at not losing anything in these 3 weeks, so came on here for advice.

Your diet is the primary driver and you have not been doing that for 3 weeks.

Pinkpanther, just give it time. Make sure you get your thyroid checked, if your thyroid is fabulous, and you're pretty sure you don't have any other condition like hypothyroidism that might suppress your metabolism then I'm quite certain that keeping up with diet and exercise, you will eventually lose weight.

I'm sort of in the same situation as you. But I also will admit, I have only started eating right and exercising. I just got back from the clinic (to get my thyroid levels tested) I don't think theres anything wrong, like I'm not feeling really tired or anything but I just wanted to get it checked anyway.

As an aside though, Steve, why!? Isn't a calorie a calorie? Why shouldn't we be able to lose through exercise deficit alone?

I have been eating the same foods for as long as I can remember, and quantities - it's only the last few days I have been writing it down and working it out.

I would just like to get down to a (UK) 12, at the moment I am a 16. I do actually feel slightly more toned than I did before working out an hour each day on my dvd so I guess that's one thing to be pleased about, and I have definitely improved on the abs side of things, they aren't 'as' difficult as they were when I started! (But they still hurt lol)

I never said you couldn't. A deficit is a deficit no matter how you slice it, you're right.

In the context of why I said that, it was basically to say she just started paying attention to nutrition and in general, you can't out exercise a poor/uncontrolled diet.

Okay.

If I would've known you were only 16 I wouldn't have been giving you the advice I've been. But my advice still stands.

Why would being a size 16 make any difference to the advice given? I'm assuming you don't think I'm age 16, as I said in my original post I'm 32.

Haha.

See how smart I am.

Somehow in my mixed up head I read that you wrote you're 16 years old.

Forget only what I said in my last post. Except for that part about my advice standing.

Its just that I keep reading that losing weight is in the diet, not the exercise. I've read that burning 500 calories will not lose the same amount that a diet deficient in 500 calories will (another thread here actually). Even studies don't seem to agree; some seem to come to the conclusion that diet is more important, others that lots of activity can keep it in check. So, if I ran 35 miles a week eating maintenence would I lose the same amount as if I did no exercise and ate 500 calories below maintenence every day? Or is it just one of those things that varies from person to person and they don't have much of an idea why?

Well for starters, these aren't apples to apples comparisons.

For instance, take two people. Person 1 burns 500 calories by lifting weights. Person 2 eats 500 less calories. Both are in 500 calorie deficits. More than likely though they won't lose the same amount of weight for the simple fact that weight is comprised of a bunch of stuff; muscle, glycogen, water, etc. Weight training influences things such as your endocrine system that can potentially alter fat oxidation. So and and so forth.

It goes well beyond the simplistic "500 calories from eating less vs 500 calories burned exercising"

So when you keep those sorts of things in mind, it's sort of silly to compare the two.

But from the bird's eye level... a deficit is a deficit.

See above. It isn't so simple.

Cool. I wonder if you know where I can read about this stuff in a format that's somewhat better than the dumbed down for the general population stuff but a bit easier to follow than academic/scientific reports? I should probably check out Lyle McDonalds blog for a while, before I ask huh? lol I just like to see the real information; not the reshaped, reformatted stuff presented for the general public, if you know what I mean.

Lyle would be an excellent place to start. He's sort of the middle road between the stuff that's needlessly complex and the dumbed down shit.

I'd start with his articles section on Lyle McDonald - Bodyrecomposition.