You scales have nothing to do with your body fat percentage. You can be 60kg and 20% body fat, you can be 65kg and 17% body fat for example. Also bathroom scales to monitor body fat is far from accurate. I sucked into this myself.
Who advised you exercise would hinder your progress? That's shit advice to be blunt ... insane
! If you want to lose body fat and not weight get training, it's the best formula if you can fit it into your life style!
How much more weight do you want to lose?
- If you want to shape, slim down and reduce body fat definitely ignore that really shit advice.
- You sound like you need to up your calories - Believe it or not eating helps you lose weight not under eating (for continuous and long term results).
- Replace carbs (breads potatoes rice pasta) with more greens and whole foods. To add more benefiting carbs eat slow release carbs and avoid grains - for example bananas, nut butters, none starch veg, quinoa, oats ...
This year I put on some weight due to personal reasons but I'll give you an example of last year when I dropped from a size 12 to a size 10 as a woman:
I ate 2000 calories a day
I ate high fat
I had carb days
I train 4-5 times a week
I had a combination of strength and conditioning
I lost 4lbs - Just weight loss I need a stone to drop a jean size *eye opener*
I dropped to 22% body fat (I think from 25%)
I lost inches (lots of from everywhere)
It's not that I don't understand because I was a NO to going over 1200 calories and I was exercising hard. It took me time and seriously good coaching at a slow rate increasing my calories to teach myself to eat. I'm glad I did. Now I love food
And forget the physical side of it - exercise is the best medicine for so much and great for you mental health!