Not getting thinner

Question
QUESTION: Female, 5'6: I've been watching my food intake (more vegetables, less pop, no seconds, etc# and exercising #mostly resistance but have been increasing the cardio) almost every day for a solid 5 months now. I get weighed and measured every month, and I've gone from 358 lbs to 341.. which is really slow.. but the big problem is that I haven't lost a single inch! How is that possible? I think that I'm getting stronger because I'm able to lift more weight and endure exercise longer than when I started.. so where is the poundage coming from? And how can I start to lose inches since my goal is really to be thin, not buff?

ANSWER: Bren,
If you're doing mostly resistance, you're going to gain muscle. You need to be doing cardio to really burn the calories. Also I have found that lots of resistance training can cause bloating- the best cure for that is lots of water (8oz every waking hour) for a day or two till you have flushed your system.

Follow up with your age so I can figure out how many calories you should be eating in a day to lose weight.

Lela

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: 24 years old. I thought that muscle took up less space than fat? So if I'm gaining muscle and dropping pounds, shouldn't I be getting physically smaller?

Answer
You should be- that is why I suggested that bloat might be an issue.

You should be eating between 1800 and 2300 calories per day if you are eating less than that, you could be running into a crashing metabolism- which will cause all weight loss to stop. If you do the water flush and you are eating enough, but not too many, calories and you still aren't losing weight- you might need to talk to your doc.

Hope this helps,
Lela Simon

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