An interesting case regarding weight loss

Question

I have an interesting background related to my fitness.

In February 2021, I weighed 108kg( 19 year old male with height 183cm). I was always an ambitious, motivated and hard-working person but I had never really paid attention to my health until then. I ate a lot of junk and barely exercised. Suddenly, one day it struck me that I wasn't maintaining the beautiful creation with which I had been endowed with-my body. From that day on, I became extremely determined to lost weight.

I started a very strict diet and exercised regularly (mainly jogging but no weights). To my surprise, I lost weight quickly in the beginning and this motivated me further. The cycle continued and in about five months, I had lost about 29kg. My lowest weight was 79kg in August 2021. At this point, the weight loss started to plateau. A tragic event in my life in October in addition to other pressures made me lose my motivation and gradually, I went back to my old habits.

I remained in this state until September 2022 until I finally got out of it. I decided to start dieting again. I weighed 104kg at this time. But this time, I started going to the gym alongside restarting my old diet. I do weight training mainly and sometimes do cardio. I went 3 days a week for the first fifteen days and have been going 5 days a weeks since then. I take my weight weekly and surprisingly, my weight has not budged and is still at 104kg. This is quite shocking to me considering my old experience.

I wanted to know what could be possible reasons for this. Is the loss in fat being cancelled by gain in muscle mass or could there be other reasons?

Answer 1

You are not in an energy deficit.

If your weight isn't changing, it means you are not in an energy deficit. While the neurology, endocrinology, and behavioral science of weight loss is very complex and by no means easy to figure out, the physics of it is: a calorie deficit will result in weight loss, and weight loss requires a calorie deficit. If you aren't losing weight, you are not in a calorie deficit, full stop.

There are any number of explanations for why you think you are in an energy deficit and aren't, but that's not something any of us can figure out for you over the internet. But you are definitely not in a deficit.

Answer 2

It is certainly possible that "the loss in fat [is] being cancelled by gain in muscle mass". My experience of first going to the gym involved me going consistently three times a week for a ten minute cardio warmup followed by forty minutes of weight training, my diet was only at a "trying to eat quite well" level (I wasn't tracking calories or macros) and for the first three months (possibly six) my weight remained the same. However, there were other measures that showed clear aesthetic progress such as general appearance in the mirror, my t-shirts becoming tight around the chest and shoulders, my having to tighten my belt using a hole further along it - in other words, I got leaner and more muscular despite no change appearing on the scales.

You will need to be honest with yourself to come to the answer for sure, here. If you have concrete indications of muscle-gain-wth-fat-loss then you may be making good progress. If you don't have any measurable improvements such as these then you may not be making progress.

It can feel vain taking progress pictures and taking measurements (waist, chest, bicep, etc.) but these can be used to gain really valuable insight. For example, I know that I've been happy with how I look at a particular weight at one time in my life and then less happy with the same weight at another time - due to differences in composition (ie. how much fat and how much muscle was present). Weight is not the complete picture! (On the plus side, if you're weighing yourself regularly and it's not changing then you must be good at weighing yourself at about the same time each day, which is the sort of consistency that you'll want to apply for taking progress pics or measurements!)

Answer 3

Look into insulin resistance and intermittent fasting.

Generally speaking you can't metabolise fat in the presence of insulin, and insulin is going spike after you eat, esp sugary carbs.

So if you eat all the time, then your body always has insulin pumping around, so you never burn any fat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxl8hhyN6AQ