No longer losing weight on caloric deficit when lifting

[Rob G]

I am 35 years old and starting a caloric deficit (I eat 1800 calories daily) back in May. During the months of May and June, I consistently lost 1.5 pounds each week for a grand total of 12 pounds bringing my weight down to 212. During this time I lifted about three times. After reading To Be a Beast however, I realized the importance of lifting to maintain muscle and strength and began lifting every other day. Ever since I started lifting regularly at the end of June the scale consistently says I weight 213-214. Considering I am still eating 1800 calories daily, I have no idea what's going on. Is the weight lifting preventing me from losing weight somehow? or could it be that the biological processes that take place after lifting are messing with my scale reading? I should be at about 209 by this point and I don't understand what's going on.

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

What were you doing activity wise outside of lifting from May to June and how are you measuring your caloric intake?

[Rob G]

I use the lose it website and app to track my calorie intake. I wasn't exercising at all during the time that I was losing weight consistently. According to my fitbit, I was burning about 2,500 calories daily.

[Rob G]

I was using the lose it website and app to count my calories and I wasn't exercising at all during that time. According to my fitbit, I burned about 2,500 calories daily during that period.

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

I was using the lose it website and app to count my calories and I wasn't exercising at all during that time. According to my fitbit, I burned about 2,500 calories daily during that period.

I meant were you weighing/measuring out your intake or eyeballing portion sizes? What I meant by "outside of lifting" I meant general activity, e.g. delivering the mail to 1000 homes per day, hiking, etc.

[Rob G]

I always weigh out my intake using nutritional facts on food packaging. I wasn't doing much activity, just walking around at work (average 3,000 steps/day) and light yard work.

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

Hmmm, that doesn't sound very typical. I'm wondering if you're getting more calories in from another source or just being really efficient with your energy stores because you've been so low on cals for so long.

[Rob G]

Something else I just noticed is that when I was dieting with no weightlifting, my blood sugar was at 90 (fasting). I checked my blood sugar today in the morning and it was at 103 (fasting) even though I weigh 10-15 pounds less and consistently eat 1800 calories daly. I rotate the same 4 breakfast, 8 lunches, and 4 dinners while dieting so it's not because i'm eating something different. Could that huge blood sugar increase have something to do with the inaccurate scale readings? I went three days without lifting just to see what would happen on the scale and I went from 212, to 211, to 210 on those days. According to my calculations I should be at 206 pounds at this point. I still think I am but my weightlifting is interfering in some way.

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

That is a non-significant difference in blood sugar. You could even see that from checking different fingers at the same time. Also, are you diabetic? If no, why are you checking your blood sugar?

It sounds like, if everything else is in line, you're likely retaining intramuscular water and glycogen now that you're training and maybe gaining a little bit of lean muscle tissue if you were really untrained before.