Why can't I lose weight?

[fitnessenthusiast]

This is my first post here. I have read a ton of stuff online, but it’s very difficult to find good advice. I like this forum and the female (and male) moderators seem very knowledgeable, so I'm taking the plunge.

I am female, 5’3”, 125 lbs, ~14-16% BF, been lifting for 5+ years and train heavy 7 days a week (60 min lifting + 30 min cardio). I gained a few pounds over the past few months, and I want to shed just a bit of body fat to get a more lean appearance and for my clothes to fit more comfortably.

I adhere to pretty strict bodybuilding nutrition; I am vegetarian and my 95+% of my diet consists of egg whites, whey isolate protein shakes, casein protein, oatmeal, oat bran cereal (low sugar), almonds, peanut butter, and flax oil. Yeah, no veggies, they are difficult for me to digest. Supplements include a multivitamin, taurine, a preworkout drink, protein powder, melatonin to help regulate my sleep, psyllium husk powder for fiber. Diet is: protein 50%, carb 25%, fat 25%.

I’ve been carefully tracking my calories for the past 5.5 weeks. My TDEE according to Harris Benedict is 2300 and according to Katch-McArdle is 2450. I’ve been eating about 1800-1900 calories a day for 5.5 weeks and have not been able to lose one ounce. About once a week, I do go over my goal by a couple hundred calories, but I should still be at a 2500-3000 calorie deficit for the week (that is a conservative estimate). Based on all of this, I should be losing one pound every 7-10 days.

I am hungry all the time at 1800-1900 calories; I'm pretty disciplined but I'm not sure I'm disciplined enough to go below that. I also know from past experience that my body can't handle adding any more cardio.

Why am I not losing weight? And can you offer me any advice for how to shed a couple of pounds of body fat?

 

[bonacris]

Welcome to the site.. I'm not an expert and will wait for someone with mote experience to chime in but isnt 14-16% bf very low for a female?

Sent from my HTC Sensation XL with Beats Audio X315e using EliteFitness

 

[CML0915]

If you really are 14-16% body fat, that's EXTREMELY low for a female And really hard to maintain. Many women that compete get on stage at
That %
Are you weighing, measuring and tracking everything... Every. Single. Thing.
It's easy to be off by 100,200 or more calories.
If you're doing all of this, I'd lower cals by 100, stay there for a couple weeks then adjust from there.

 

[caligirl85]

This will likely go against everything but if you are that low bf, I'd take a couple weeks off. Eat at maintenance and only train 3-4 days, lightly.

What's your history? You've been training hard for 5 years.....7 days a week? Have you been dieting hard? Do you eat any fish or chicken?

 

[fitnessenthusiast]

Thanks for the replies. I am fairly careful about measuring all my food, but I do see how it would be easy enough to be off by 100-200 calories if I forget to enter something or I'm a little lazy with the measuring cup/spoon. I can try to be more diligent with measuring.

Ha ha, yeah, I've gone to the gym pretty much every day, literally, since the year 2000, but I used to be just a cardio bunny/machine girl, and I got into real (free) weight lifting about 5 years ago.

It's difficult to measure BF - I have a bioelectrical impedance device as well as calipers. I find that the bioelectrical is really variable and difficult to trust, and it's tough to be super accurate even with calipers because one mm makes a difference, so it's easy to be off. The stats I gave are as close as I can get using those two devices, but it's not so much about the number (BF or scale weight), but more about how my clothes feel and what I see in the mirror and knowing I've gained a few lbs recently. I am happy with the amount of muscle I have, but over the past 4-5 months, my pants have gotten a little tight around the waist, and I just want to lose that little bit of "roll" (for lack of a better word) and like I said, have my clothes fit more comfortably and look more flattering.

And no, I don't eat anything that had a face, so no fish or chicken. I've been vegetarian for about 15 years.