Calorie deficit/no weight loss

Hi everyone!

This is a topic I've been beating to a pulp, but I haven't had the opportunity to discuss with other women cyclists. I'm curious as to whether anyone can offer advice or share personal experience.

I'm training 10-20hrs/week right now. I'm riding a ton and I'm doing a lot more strength training (as well as xc skiing, some running, etc).

I'm 5'4 and hover between 125-130lbs. As the season grows closer and I have much higher expectations than the last couple road seasons, I'm wanting to drop 5 lbs to see if this has an impact on my racing. I have a lot of muscle but my core could definitely use some toning.

I have started logging calories again VERY diligently. My calorie goal is ~2,300 if I want to maintain my current weight (that's assuming BMR+moderate activity, not including workouts). If I want to lose 1lb/week it brings me to ~1600+workouts.

Everyone I've talked to is telling me I should be eating 2000-2500 daily, sometimes more on big training days.

I have really been forcing myself to eat over 2,000 a day but my NET calorie in take is still really low. It's usually between 1,000-1,500.

I know the body can hold onto nutrients when it is not receiving an adequate amount of fuel. I'm wondering if this is what is happening to me. Honestly, I was eating 1,600-2,000 calories for a long time and training like a beast...admittedly, feeling pretty bad. And my weight wasn't any lower then than it is now.

I guess my main question is WHAT should I be aiming for daily (as far as NET calories goes) Of course, when I do 3-5 hour rides I just eat until I am satisfied. But on normal days when I have shorter workouts or a rest day, should I still be aiming for the higher intake?

Will I possibly see some weight loss if I continue eating more? That is what everyone's telling me.

Sorry for the long winded question! It's just so frustrating when I feel like I'm so diligent about my exercise+food logging and I can't even drop a pound or two.

Do you know your body fat percentage? Losing 5 pounds may not really be feasible or it may take awhile.

If you weigh 125 and your BF is already say 18% - I'm guessing since you said "race" that it's already pretty low. That means you have 22.5 pounds of fat, leaving you 102.5 pounds of lean mass. If the 5 pounds you lose are purely fat, that drops you down to 14.6% body fat. And it's not easy to get that low. You'll have to experiment with getting enough fuel to do your workouts, but not so much that you're not in a slight calorie deficit. You might even look at what types of calories are you getting.

Now if your core is "mushy," building it will increase your muscle mass, burn more calories and help your riding.

Veronica

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Originally Posted by Veronica

Do you know your body fat percentage? Losing 5 pounds may not really be feasible or it may take awhile.

If you weigh 125 and your BF is already say 18% - I'm guessing since you said "race" that it's already pretty low. That means you have 22.5 pounds of fat, leaving you 102.5 pounds of lean mass. If the 5 pounds you lose are purely fat, that drops you down to 14.6% body fat. And it's not easy to get that low. You'll have to experiment with getting enough fuel to do your workouts, but not so much that you're not in a slight calorie deficit. You might even look at what types of calories are you getting.

Now if your core is "mushy," building it will increase your muscle mass, burn more calories and help your riding.

Veronica

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wow- glad I happened upon this thread- since I upped my mileage/intensity/training I have also gained 4 lbs...but (menopause)..also turned 50.............trying to decide??? should I lose it? can I? Really, the only thing I can cut out is my 3-4 glasses of wine/week..........It almost sounds like you are saying the only way to know is get a body fat analysis done and go from there.........are skin caliper measurements at the gym reliable enough?

All depends on how accurate the person with the calipers is. :D

I've had the same person doing mine for the last few years so I feel like the numbers are accurate to themselves. If she's off, it's more likely to be consistently off.

I think it will at least give you a starting place. Personally, if I only looked at BMI or height/weight charts I would think I needed to weigh 125 - 135. And I can point to fatty places on my body. :D Knowing that I have 120 pounds of lean mass, means 125 is out of the question for me. I am actually working at getting down to 136. But I only want to maintain that through my season. IF I can lose it and still race well.

Veronica

V. That is a fantastic post. Very well put.

As a coach and healthcare professional, I strongly recommend that anyone who wants to get down to some ideal race weight should have their body fat percentage tested to establish if it is realistic. If you get skinfold testing done, it will be more accurate if the person doing it has a lot of experience and also if they use more points. Having said that, hydrostatic weighing is of course the best option.

I participated in a research study once upon a time when I was really quite lean. The skin fold tests had my body fat estimate at 19% while my hydrostatic weighing put me at 14.5%. The explanation I got is that my BF distribution is not typical of women, that I have less intramuscular fat than predicted. So in my case the women's formula used to predict body fat percentage with skinfold testing is quite inaccurate. Having said that, what Veronica says about not worrying about the numbers as absolute values but instead using them as guidelines to look at trends in fat loss or gain is an excellent way to use these tools.

Lastly, think very hard about what the cost of losing that last 5 lbs is compared to what you will gain. I mean this in terms of performance, but also life balance. Is someone paying you to race? If not, is a trophy worth being unhealthy and prone to other issues like bone loss and immune system weakness? Is losing the weight really going to make you faster? Or is it possible that your performance may go down? Is what you will have to go through to loose the weight going to increase your life "stress-load"? If it is, your body may start to produce more cortisol which tends to make us hold onto/or gain weight instead of losing it.

Those are some great posts ladies! It was great to "eavesdrop" on this one and get some perspective!

Thanks for the posts, ladies. Those are some great perspectives. In all honesty, I think if I can "get comfortable" with where my body is, I will stop being so obsessed with dropping those pounds.

Though, I think the biggest thing, is making sure that I'm fueling my body properly aside from the mindset of weight loss.

Like I said, I've been trying my best to eat 2100-2500 calories/day but I'm having a lot of trouble reaching that.

My NET calorie intake shouldn't be so low as 1,200, correct? Because that's what I'm hitting most days.

At 5'4 and 125-130 pounds, you seem to be very slim already. So I would consider that your body just isn't comfortable with losing more weight and is holding onto whatever fat it has left.
So what Veronika pointed out seems a good point to me: maybe it would make more sense to put on some muscles than to try to drop more weight. It's likely that you won't race stronger if you are starving yourself.


That said, your calorie-intake seems quite high for trying to lose weight. I wouldn't force myself into eating more if you don't feel like eating more. Of course it all depends on your body, how fast your metabolim is etc.
But if I compare your numbers to myself - at 5'4 and about 150 pounds (hope I got that right this time - is a little less than 70 Kilogramm), and fairly active (1hr/day, more on weekends) I maintain my weight at about 1800-2000 calories a day (not NET calories but total calorie-intake from my meals).

Edit: I don't feel comfortable with the thought that you could take this as a recommendation to lower your calorie-intake.
My personal recommendation would be: do whatever feels good for you. Maybe just stop counting calories for some time if you have the feeling that you obsess about it. Eat if you are hungry, stop if you are full. It's as simple as that ;)

This is a tough topic - losing those last 5 pounds! We all seem to think we need to do this; but I would look at the strength that we sometimes gain with those last 5 pounds. I am 5'4", when I raced, I weighed 120. I always thought I would be better at 115, but I found that I lost strength and my climbing ability actually sent down instead of up when I lost pounds. This was the weight that my body normally got to when I did intervals, trained a lot, and ate a lot (good lean foods, no sodas, a good rounded diet). Of course, that was before I hit my late 40's and early 50's. This does not mean that 120 is the weight you should be at. It was the weight that if I lost pounds, I was weak, and I really did not gain pounds from that weight with the amount of exercise I was doing. Everyone is different, different body types, different bone structures, etc., etc.

So, did I need to lose the 5 pounds then when I was really fit to try to be a better climber? No, absolutely not, it made me weaker and less of a climber so maybe losing those 5 pounds is not a good idea.

So, now I don't race, don't ride bikes really at all. I do play a lot of tennis and compete regularly on the court. In the last few years, (i'm early 50's), I have gained and have been hovering around 125, sometimes up to 128 or so. So, in the last year, I have been trying to lose those 5 pounds (and this time, it was not for performance, but more because I do not like the weight that has settled round my tummy area); so last Spring I really watched my diet, quit eating as many calories, actually tried to count calories, got rid of some of the alcohol that i drink, etc. I lost about 2 pounds, but could not for the life of me keep it off. I would get hungry because of the lack of calories and feel ravenous. Not a good way to be. So, then I decided that I needed a more balanced approach and decided to cut calories, but not to be so good about tracking it. Nothing happened until recently when I started around 127; and now I'm at a pretty solid 123. But, let's see when I ramp up my tennis in the Spring if I actually stay there. I'm thinking not - I'm thinking I will gain muscle mass and go back to 125.

I know I am rambling here, but I think my goal with all of this, is that we really probably don't need to lose that last 5 pounds and if we do, and we eat a normal well rounded diet, the pounds will shed when our body thinks they should, not when we want them to!

Lots of good advice here! Thanks everyone (:

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Originally Posted by Susan

Edit: I don't feel comfortable with the thought that you could take this as a recommendation to lower your calorie-intake.
My personal recommendation would be: do whatever feels good for you. Maybe just stop counting calories for some time if you have the feeling that you obsess about it. Eat if you are hungry, stop if you are full. It's as simple as that ;)

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Very good advice. Like I said, I started eating about 2,000+ calories after I started counting again to make sure I was on track. I was only eating 1,700 or so.

That being said, I am riding/strength training/skiing/hiking/etc. about 10-20hrs/week (average of 15hrs generally)...so I know I need the calories.

I think after a week or two I'm going to stop with the calorie counting. It does get obsessive and I'm trying to overcome disordered eating habits (if you couldn't tell already...).

I'm a firm believer and practice in intuitive eating, but sometimes I record to keep myself in check.

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This is a tough topic - losing those last 5 pounds! We all seem to think we need to do this; but I would look at the strength that we sometimes gain with those last 5 pounds. I am 5'4", when I raced, I weighed 120. I always thought I would be better at 115, but I found that I lost strength and my climbing ability actually sent down instead of up when I lost pounds. This was the weight that my body normally got to when I did intervals, trained a lot, and ate a lot (good lean foods, no sodas, a good rounded diet). Of course, that was before I hit my late 40's and early 50's. This does not mean that 120 is the weight you should be at. It was the weight that if I lost pounds, I was weak, and I really did not gain pounds from that weight with the amount of exercise I was doing. Everyone is different, different body types, different bone structures, etc., etc.

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This sounds exactly how my mind works when I'm thinking about racing. I keep thinking "power to weight ratio" in regards to climbing, but you're right - I won't become a better climber if I don't have enough power, regardless of weight. I love climbing, so I might as well just do it a whole lot and not worry about the weight aspect. Seems counter productive :).

Again, thanks for all the advice. Very much appreciated.

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Originally Posted by alevinsky

My NET calorie intake shouldn't be so low as 1,200, correct? Because that's what I'm hitting most days.

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IMHO - you are absolutely right. 1200 cal would be low for a somewhat active woman of your size. It's definitely low for an active woman.

Again, if you have your body fat tested, you can get an estimate of how many calories you need a day based on your lean mass, then add in what you burn with activity and you have a decent estimate of your daily caloric needs. Keep in mind of course that estimates of calorie expenditure are all over the map depending on the source, I usually use lower estimates to err on the side of caution.

Then finally, if you want to lose weight, you would be best off trying to hit a consumption level that is about 80% of your daily caloric needs. This level of restriction allows for weight loss while not upsetting you metabolic hormone levels.

I hope that helps.

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Originally Posted by Wahine

.....Then finally, if you want to lose weight, you would be best off trying to hit a consumption level that is about 80% of your daily caloric needs. This level of restriction allows for weight loss while not upsetting you metabolic hormone levels.

I hope that helps.

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I am not the OP, but have been looking for some sort of rule of thumb regarding this, thanks!

You can estimate your recommended daily calorie intake based on activity level and your weight loss goal on the livestrong calorie tracker.
I once read that you shouldn't try to lose more than one pound a week, but I can't come up with any source for this claim at the moment.

I sometimes check my calorie intake for a couple of days just because I am curious, but most of the time I don't. I start to obsess about the numbers after some time, first, I track what I eat, but at some point, I notice that I begin to eat what I want to track. A bit hard to explain.
Also, if you don't know your exact numbers, your bodyfat-level, you exact metabolic rate, if you can metabolize every kind of food you eat, how much you are burning during exercise; and if you don't weight every morsel you put in your mouth exactly, there a high chance that what you track isn't accurate at all.
To achieve a save slow weight loss we are talking about a deficit of some hundred calories a day, so there isn't much room for tracking errors.

Remember that you burn calories with every little activity including while you sleep. I used the body media (BM) armband for 4 months in a row last year and I was amazed to see the approximate amount of calories that I burned while I was just sleeping, doing dishes, working at my desk; it was a WOW. By then I was in a low cal diet of 1200-1300 cals per day and almost very little to none exercise. I lost an approx. of 1.5 to 2 pounds some weeks and other weeks nothing. I was doing a very popular weight loss plan and managed to loose 20 pounds in 6 months doing this. Weight loss is affected by a lot of things (like hormones, water retention) and you are not going to loose at the same rate all the time. By then I was religiously entering all my food intake at the BM website just to know my calorie deficit. My deficit was always around 700-1000 per day and around 3500 per week which is supposed to make me loose one pound, but that wasn't always the case. It was really hard for me to understand that and I was constantly obsessed and frustrated by the numbers. Numbers can be tricky and deceiving!! I was thinking is just pure math why is not working!! The last five ones, hmm, they are the hardest and I gave up on them once I hit 143 since I'm 5-8. I was aiming to 138 but boy, never got there but I was looking GOOD!! You will get there and be sure that those days that you are training you are eating properly in order to avoid the non-avoidable plateau. I'm not an expert but just wanted to share my experience with calorie deficits and how it worked for me :)

NOW, that I'm training for a 65 mile cycling event I have to be extra careful in the training days with what I eat if I want to loose the extra pounds that I gained during winter and x-mas. Let's see how I will balance these things out without having to give up the bikini. Oh boy!