This is just what's working for me, YMMV! I'm 5'4"/33/F. SW: 158, CW: 149.5, GW: 125. Exercise is great, but I was putting in a lot of work without seeing much weight loss.
For *years*, like a decade at this point, whenever I wanted to lose weight I'd start working out a lot and join a gym. I'd go to trainers who I told over and over that I wanted to lose weight, and they'd put me on a workout plan. Not much talk of diet, more of a suggestion of "here's food we recommend to eat". I like doing cardio, and lifting weights is fine, but I told these people I wanted to lose weight and I'd get peddled shakes and supplements and never just "have you tried eating at a deficit without exercise to start?" which I understand - it's their livelihood! But you'd think someone could have just told me this to save me from years of anguish!
So I'd work out a few times a week on my own and eat at 1400-1500. It was really frustrating and slow. The workouts were hard and the results were so-so. I'd usually give up after 6 weeks when I'd only lost two or three pounds.
At 155lbs, I hired a trainer. I told her I wanted to lose weight, but she put me on a recomp without clearly communicating that. It started off with, 'let's raise your calories' and any time I mentioned wanting to lose fat, she doubled-down on the recomp thing being the way to go. She was keen on "don't give up - your results are just around the corner" so I trusted her - but wasn't clear that the results were me staying a bit above my starting weight while getting rid of some fat and replacing it with muscle. Recomps are great, and I saw good results, but man was it demoralizing trusting in her process and not getting where I wanted to be.
The scale moved up to 158lbs when I was done, after 16 weeks. I'd been working out 4-5 times per week, like 45 minutes each day, and that made me feel awful that I hadn't gone down in weight. I know that's the nature of a recomp, but when I told her my goal was to lose weight, I figured she'd help me lose 15-20lbs. After this, I told her I wanted to do a cut for 12 weeks. She insisted on the 1500 calories + workouts routine, which wasn't moving the scale much. My motivation hit a wall. What was the point? I'd seen people on this and other subs who were my starting stats, who lost all the weight I wanted to lose and then some by just eating fewer calories and going for walks sometimes. So I knew there had to be something different I could do.
A few weeks into this program with her, I just calculated my TDEE/BMR and such and found the numbers I needed to lose ~1lb per week. I'd been taking progress pictures, weighing my food, etc. for months at this point so I just needed to change up my daily calories.
Since then, I have been losing a pound a week without all the insane work I was doing before. As a shorter person, I know I'm going to have to work it in there at some point to keep losing. But it feels SO good to have finally seen some consistent results without feeling like I need to lift weights and do cardio multiple times per week.
Just calculate the calories you need to maintain your weight, and subtract 500 for an idea of how many calories to eat per day to lose a pound per week. This post has some good math resources.
TL;DR: Trust the whole "abs are made in the kitchen" thing. See what you lose by cutting calories!
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