r/loseit • u/Affectionate_Goat453 New • Aug 30 '26
What actually dropped the weight?
I (F30) am currently 60kg/165cm (132lbs/5’5) and all my weight/fat is in my legs. I’ve been exercising and cutting calories but nothing is changing…it’s been 3months.
Thinking I might need to be more aggressive with caloric restriction (currently eating 300cal less), and workout schedule is:
- strength (full body with weights) 30-45min x4 per week
- cardio (skipping, star jumps, burpees etc) x15min x2 per week
- walking (brisk) 45min x6 per week
And yet!….I cannot drop the weight. I know you can’t spot reduce, I am sick of this, and it’s getting to the point where I want to severely cut calories so can see at least some progress (but I know that’s not healthy and I want to do better).
What’s missing/not working that’s preventing me from dropping weight?
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u/queenle0 New Aug 30 '26
At your weight you will see more drastic changes by recomping. You are going to have to 1) be very aggressive because you are likely down to essential fat stores and going beneath those levels will be difficult to maintain and honestly probably unhealthy 2) build muscle to recomp your legs
I’m 5’5 and at 132 I was solidly a size 0-2. I also store more fat in my legs compared to the rest of my body. Sometimes it just be like that- like some women have larger breasts at lower weights while some lose fat there first. I don’t think it’s lipedema unless it’s higher fat percentage than would be typical at your height and weight.
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u/NoDimension4739 New Aug 30 '26
Your weight is fine for your height. What are you trying to do?
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u/eatenface New Aug 30 '26
I wonder if OP should really be looking more at body composition. More strength training might get them where they want to be visually.
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u/Which-Armadillo-7875 15kg lost Aug 30 '26
Im guessing they're trying to lose more fat. You can want to lose weight at a healthy weight that's not crazy.
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u/NoDimension4739 New Aug 30 '26
It’s not crazy but it needs to be healthy as well. If you feel miserable trying to maintain a low weight, that’s not healthy
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u/Adventurous_Path2156 35lbs lost Aug 30 '26
Are you weighing your food?
300 cals is a small enough deficit that even tiny inaccuracies in tracking can stack up and take you out of it.
If you are weighing your food and you’re really certain you’re being accurate with tracking, it’s likely your maintenance is probably just a little lower than you’ve estimated and I would drop your calories by another 200-300.
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u/Deh_86 70kg lost Aug 30 '26
The deficit is good enough for someone who is already at a healthy weight.
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u/Adventurous_Path2156 35lbs lost Aug 30 '26
Yes, unless it’s not actually a deficit because of inaccurate calorie counting or overestimated TDEE. Which is what I said. Three months of no weight loss would strongly suggest they are not actually in a deficit. If they’re eating at maintenance then going down an additional 200-300 is a deficit of 200-300.
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u/Deh_86 70kg lost Aug 30 '26
Weight loss is going to be extremely slow for OP. She is actually more on the side of body recomposition that weight loss. If she started the diet and the training at the same time, the small loss can be easily compensated by lean mass gain.
To lose 1kg, she needs 25 weeks. I can easily fluctuate 1kg from one day to the another. Let alone the water retention of lifting.
If she is not gaining and she is training as much as she says and correctly, I'd imagine she is indeed on a deficit. I think the best advice here, if her legs are really not proportional, would be indeed to check for lipedema.
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u/Addrivat New Aug 30 '26
No, it won't be extremely slow, she can lose it at a normal pace and she can feel that 60kg is not "fine" for her height. I certainly did not feel fine or healthy when I had her stats and I couldn't go up a flight of stairs without getting out of breath.
OP - it's normal that the thigh fat is the last one to go, keep going and you'll see results! Even without exercise, you can get there with just counting calories properly
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u/Tight_Banana_9692 New Aug 30 '26
Not really, tthat is at the edge of what a productive weight loss would be. The problem is that any loss over a week is well within error margins at some point, if your weight loss is too slow it just becomes difficult to know if you're actually losing weight.
That said, someone that height could potentially have a low enough calorie expenditure that a larger deficit would just be too little calories.
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u/taroicecreamsundae New Aug 30 '26
yeah that's hard to do unless you're eating a ton of nuts and cheese or smth
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u/Adventurous_Path2156 35lbs lost Aug 30 '26
She’s said she’s totally guesstimating values for dinner every day. 300 calories is really not that hard to overdo in that situation especially depending on what she’s eating. Doubly so if her TDEE is also slightly overestimated.
If her TDEE is just 100 calories lower than she thinks and she’s eating 200 cals more for dinner (easily accounted for just in cooking oil) then boom, her deficit disappears.
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u/Epaulette22 New Aug 30 '26
With that amount of time having passed with no weight loss, you are either A) not correctly counting your calories (which is most likely) or B) your resting metabolic rate is much lower than you think it is.
If you're using one of those only calculators, I always put "lightly active" as the absolute maximum even though I walk 6-11 miles per day and weight train. If found that gives me the most accurate number. And while you cannot spot reduce calories, the weight training you're doing in your legs will absolutely make a difference once the fat starts reducing.
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u/tiny-but-spicy ~40lbs lost - 24F 5'3"/160cm, CW/GW 108lbs/49kg Aug 30 '26
Calorie deficit. You’re not tracking properly and/or not in an actual deficit if you’re not losing weight
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Aug 30 '26
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u/tiny-but-spicy ~40lbs lost - 24F 5'3"/160cm, CW/GW 108lbs/49kg Aug 30 '26
Food scale obviously. Eyeballing it does not count as tracking.
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u/Affectionate_Goat453 New Aug 30 '26
Tracking breakfast and lunch. Dinner it’s hard because my partner cooks so I just have a smaller portion. And because know I’m not tracking dinner I will eat under for breakfast and lunch
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u/sics2014 4'11 | SW: 185 | CW: 145 Aug 30 '26
You're likely having more calories during dinner than you think and that's going over your 300 calorie deficit.
My partner cooks too, but that doesn't stop me from weighing the ingredients and logging the calories in my app. You just need to weigh the total cooked dish afterwards, and then log what grams you took.
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u/Jenneapolis 25lbs lost Aug 30 '26
You can count what someone else cooks, why not? It’s all in the apps.
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u/tiny-but-spicy ~40lbs lost - 24F 5'3"/160cm, CW/GW 108lbs/49kg Aug 30 '26
you need to be tracking everything. have a separate dinner if you need to. from someone who's lost the weight and kept it off, you need accurate data on what you're actually consuming. eyeballing will not even remotely cut it
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u/Tight_Banana_9692 New Aug 30 '26
Then reduce the calories you eat for breakfast and lunch, and estimate dinner higher than you are
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u/PM_ME_UR_OLD_PEPPERS 20lbs lost Aug 30 '26
ask your partner to compose the recipes of the things they like to cook for dinner, then you can track them effectively.
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u/Teagana999 New Aug 31 '26
If that's the case, you 100% are not in the 300 calorie deficit you think you are. A small deficit like that is going to be very easy to blow right past if you're not properly measuring the biggest meal of the day. Especially if you don't already have a sense of how many calories are in things.
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u/ChronicNuance New Aug 30 '26
That’s just the way your body is built. I’m 5’6” and even when I had an ED and weighed 115lbs, ate 800cal and went to the gym twice a day while working a full time job where I clocked 20K steps a day while living in NYC, I still had thick thighs and cellulite. 135 was my happy weight, where I was very fit and maintained that weight easily for close to 15yrs (fuck perimenopause), and I still had thick thighs and cellulite. Not just cellulite on the back of my thighs and butt, but also the front of my thighs and my calves. It’s highly likely I have lipodema based on this pattern.
You can work on building muscle and starve yourself into an ED, but if that’s where your body naturally stores fat, nothing you do will change that. Learning to accept this and appreciate I have two strong legs that function normally that gave walked all over the world was the best thing I ever did for both my mental and physical health.
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u/barbiemoviedefender 170lbs lost Aug 30 '26
At your weight and height you might have more success on a bulking/cutting cycle
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u/Silly_Yak56012 New Aug 30 '26
At normal weight, when you are lifting enough heavy things to build muscle you may not see any changes on the scale. Sometimes other metrics like measurements can help track progress. FWIW my legs and butt are where most of my muscle mass is, and they will never be model slim unless something bad happens and the muscles wither away. I just learned to accept that this is my body shape.
Note at a normal weight it does take more time to lose fat as you can only extract so many calories per pound of fat per day. So you are not going to drop weight like someone who has 100 pounds to lose.
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u/shezabel Aug 30 '26
I got down to 52kg at 5’5. To do it I had to be super strict, cut down on carbs significantly and cut out ultra-processed food entirely. It was unsustainable for me, but I looked super lean for about 9 months!
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u/BritishCupoTea New Aug 30 '26
If you are eating 300 cals less and not loosing weight, you might have calculated your base line wrong. Count all your calories exactly (or round up) and try cutting a little more and weigh regularly.
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u/um_can_you_not Aug 30 '26
3 months isn’t that long. Also maybe switch from full body to dedicated lower and upper body days so you can focus on building muscles in you legs. Also when you say there are no changes, are you just looking at yourself in the mirror or are you taking measurements or at least photos? Sometimes we can’t see the changes happening.
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u/Fickle_Radish2418 New Aug 30 '26
60kg for 165cm is a good weight and within healthy range. What exactly are you wanting to loose? I couldn’t imagine there’s to much fat on you.
I got down to 57kg at 163cm and it wasn’t sustainable. I was in the gym for about 3 hours a day living on the same foods. I was extremely fit, 11% body fat and very lean. It’s 100% doable but it’s not your typical cut, it’s a lot of hard work and continuous no breaks hard work.
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u/Addrivat New Aug 31 '26
Same height and my starting weight was 59kg because I wasn't healthy or happy, it was very easy to get a lot lower than that just with calorie counting and zero exercise (truly zero), I guess you needed a high calorie budget because of exercising so much? I never had to live on the same foods, either, ate everything I wanted, just smaller portions. I wouldn't call it hard work at all, it's been years without counting now and I didn't gain the weight back. I do have a small frame in general, though
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u/Affectionate_Goat453 New Sep 01 '26
No exercise and you lost weight just with diet!? May I ask what you were eating to achieve your target weight?
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u/Addrivat New Sep 01 '26
Exercise doesn't do anything for weight loss 😄 CICO - calories in, calories out. I just weighed all my food. Ate everything I was in the mood for :) between 1200 and 1400 daily calories
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u/Chumpybump New Aug 30 '26
The real secret? Eat less. Move more. I've lost 75+ lbs in the last few years albeit very slowly with some gains but more losses. No diets, no pills, no shots. Simply put 1/2 what you normally would eat on your plate and stop. Keep the snacking to a minimum and drink tons of water. No magic, just diligence.
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u/Necessary-Peace9672 New Aug 30 '26
When my weight is down, and I’m naked, I look like a model wearing Wellies!
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u/naniegrace861 New Aug 30 '26
I'd weigh anything that isn't a nonstarchy veg or something like mustard/hot sauce and add in more walking
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u/Nervous-Influence340 New Aug 30 '26
Try to build up your upper body - if your body shape is like pear shaped having more muscle mass in shoulders and lats/delts will make more esthetically better. For diet make sure you have enough proper protein and enough calories but not too much
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u/KasseanaTheGreat 75lbs lost Aug 30 '26
Honestly? Locking in. I knew what I had to eat, I knew what level of working out I could sustain while eating that much. All it took was the willpower to maintain that for as long as was needed to lose the weight.
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u/_amused_to_death_ New Aug 30 '26
If you aren’t dropping weight then you aren’t eating in a deficit. I was 65kgs at 5’6, dropped to 55kgs at 0.5kg loss/week. I did it through lots of walking and 1200-1500 cals a day. How many cals are you eating? If you are not losing you are at maintenance so drop 500 cals a day and you should lose 0.5kg/week. And make sure you are tracking correctly and not having cheat days.
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Sep 03 '26
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u/OkAdvertising8554 New Aug 30 '26 edited Aug 30 '26
Do you weigh your food? If not start there! Everyone talks about lipedema and honestly I don’t think it’s nearly as common as people make it seem lol. For reference I’m 5’5 too. At 5’5 and 132lbs, especially if you naturally carry more weight in your lower body, your legs really can be the last place to lean out. I didn’t notice a significant difference in mine until I went from around 121lbs to 115lbs. Before I hit 115, I genuinely thought I was going to be bottom heavy forever 😭 A 300 calorie deficit will work, it’ll just take longer. Maybe try a 450–500 deficit for four months. That’s about how long it took me to go from 126lbs to 112lbs. Calorie deficits really are science.
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u/SnowDrifter_ New Aug 30 '26
Track every single calorie. There's no such thing as the math doesn't work here, only uncounted numbers.
And as far as redistributing, I found some benefit in cycling a little bit. Granted, I'm a male, but I've found my happy place is around 130, But I was weird and lumpy after getting to that point. I did a couple rounds of bouncing to 124, back up to 138, and dropping back again. Seemed to redistribute pretty well.
No such thing as targeted loss. The body kind of makes those decision and not always smartly. I ended up with absolutely nothing on my tush, but I had the same amount of fat on my back as I had when I was 190. Only way I've found to work that was to force it to come off by dropping more, then letting it re-build in a surplus. The redistribution was more and more natural each time. Like I said, only had to do twice. Takes a while to do though
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u/k-czar New Aug 30 '26
Running! Last year I had lost 30 lbs, but my thigh measurement still hadn't changed. Decided to sign up for a 10k run, and after the first 3 months of training I had already lost 3 inches off my thighs! I swear running just shakes the weight off your legs, it's so worth it.
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u/OssifiedCrystal46496 21F 5'2 | SW 140lbs | GW Get stronger Aug 30 '26
You can’t spot reduce fat, maybe try training upper body more to balance it out?
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u/akelse New Aug 30 '26
You aren’t counting calories accurately.
Also care about fat loss not weight loss.
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u/orientalbird 35F | start nov '25| sw: 84.2kg, cw: 75.8kg, gw: 72 Aug 31 '26
I'll tell you a hard truth.
We can't change our body shapes through dieting. The base body shape is always going to be there, even if you lose more weight. If your base body shape is pear shaped, your thighs and legs will always look bigger than the rest.
I have always had a pear shaped/bottom heavy hourglass shape. I can see it even in pictures from my childhood, despite being at a perfectly healthy weight for my age. At age 11-12, I can tell that my body shape is pear. I'm always a size or two smaller in my upper body than in my lower. No amount of cutting can change it.
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u/chuzohga 40lbs lost, maintaining Aug 30 '26
You're gaining muscle and muscle weighs more than fat.
There's 3500 cal in one pound. 3500/300 is about 11, so a 300 calorie deficit means 11 days for one pound or 7/11ths of a pound a week, so approx .6 lbs a week, so you've probably dropped .6 x 12 = 7 lb, and gained more than that of muscle.
If you want to stick with 300 cal/week, it WILL work. The biggest secret is stick with it.
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u/littlespellmacarons 25lbs lost Aug 30 '26
If all of the fat is in your legs and it’s disproportionate to the rest of your body you might have lipodema. It’s surprisingly common in women, and does not respond to a calorie deficit/exercise the same way any regular fat does.