Calculate your TDEE. A ~200-300 calorie deficit a day is unlikely to lose you a pound in 14 days. Keep in mind that a pound of fat is about 3500 calories; a mile = about 100 calories expenditure, and a gallon of water in your body weighs more than 8 lbs.
Keep at it, and don’t weigh yourself more often than once a month!
It took a while for the weight loss to start for me too. I didn’t really see results until I switched to 18-6 and stopped putting that tiny dash of cream in my morning coffee lol. So crazy that a spoonful of half and half was holding me back. As others said here, it started as difference in measurements before a real drop in scale numbers. Stop weighing and focus on quality food. You’ll get there soon enough, stick with it!
Honestly, weight means very little. Body composition is far more important. Nobody who sees you will know your weight or judge you by your weight. They will judge you on your posture, your confidence, your physique, your style.
The same person can be 180lbs at two different points in their life and look like two vastly different people.
I recently came close to my heaviest weight. As a formerly obese kid (who’s been through an eating disorder, and experienced body dysmorphia for most of my life), this should be a nightmare situation. But you know what? It’s not. Has my 16:8 fasting routine failed me? No.
I’ve never looked better. My shoulders are broader, my face slimmer. I can actually feel my core muscles when I work out. I’m confident. I have my skincare and haircare routine down. I know how to dress, I look better in clothes. I eat far healthier foods, I’m not stressed. Haven’t had a depressive episode for years.
A number on a scale means very little to me. It’s a useful metric in a far broader picture, but I’ve technically gained weight since getting into intermittent fasting and I’ve never looked better.
It took me five months to lose 3lbs. Then I lost a lot more in a shorter time after I got the right timing and number of meals. After a year of maintenance, I’ve stayed within 5lbs of my lowest weight while loosening up my eating window.
Things I learned about weight loss:
Depends what your diet consists of. If it’s carb heavy you will spend more time converting back to ketosis. Less time in ketosis, less fat burned over time. It will still work if at a defecit, but will take a longer time just by the bodies process of running off it’s belly battery(fat) will be less efficient by nature if you filled up the other gas tank for it to run on(carbs) and it has to burn through that before the Battery becomes the main power source again.
I feel I am your same situation. It is 2 weeks I am doing 18:6 with a 24h fast once a week, so far the scale is fluctuating down a bit and then coming back up where it was. I am frustrated too but I want to trust the process, overall I fell less bloated, so I guess little by little results will come. Just leaving this comment to say you are not alone in this, don’t loose motivation and keep going! :)
It takes awhile sometimes to play with your eating windows to find that place where you’re losing and it’s easy and it fits in your life. It took me a few months to get that figured out.
For me, I really noticed that I do best with a combination of “up day, down day” and OMAD (depending on my work schedule that week). I also do waaay better when my one meal is lunch. (I work swing shift.)
Keep trying things and see what works for your life. When I started, I lost some weight but gained it back when I moved the TIME of my OMAD. Frustrating, but useful information.
Personally, I wouldn’t recommend getting too caught up in calorie counting. What’s great about fasting is not having to think about any of that restrictive stuff and still getting to where you want to be.
20/4 for three weeks (down 12 total since I started after Thanksgiving). I’m at a plateau and at 145. I eat from 1- 5 pm, just lunch and dinner. Started running today so hopefully that will get things moving again. I am losing inches though…constantly yanking up my pants, belly getting smaller. Trying to get to 130.
I know you’ve said your goal is “fat loss” OP, so if you’re noticing that you look better although your scale is not moving, you are probably losing fat. Someone else has said it but fat takes up more volume than muscle.
Fasting is great and really helps to balance out your insulin levels, but two weeks isn’t very long. I didn’t see my first pound of loss until week 4, and that was with pretty strict 16:8-18:6 windows with a 36 hour fast. But I did notice myself looking way slimmer than before. A lot of factors weigh into it, patience is probably key. Healthy fasting isn’t meant to be a lose weight fast method, it’s actually quite slow unless you’re at a much higher weight.
Not everyone will see results right away. It’s also important to consider what you’re eating and if you’re counting your calories properly. Fasting or not if you break your fast and still eat in a surplus of calories you will not lose wieght.
Hear me out, please don’t focus on the scale. I fixated on the scale for so long and it back fired and I ended up binge eating. Now I’m restarting without looking at the scale and I feel better, your weight is going to fluctuate for different reasons, give it a little longer! You got this!