To feel massively pissed off by this? (Diet related!)

[Violetcharlotte]

Last Sunday I started a diet. I have a stone to lose and aiming to lose 2 pounds a week. All week I have stuck to 1200 calories a day, cutting our refined carbs and sugar. I've been to the gym 4 times and been on 3 long walks.

I weighed myself tonight and have put on a pound. How can this even be possible?

AIBU to feel massively pissed off, give up on the diet and have a bar of chocolate?

I also think your calories might be too low. 1200 is really hard and I could never stick to it. Team RH / Richie Howey on Facebook is really good especially if you are already doing MFP. They give you formulas for working out how many calories you should be on, and splitting how much protein/fat/carbs. Don't give up!

just checked my activity level and it's set to light. Do you think I should change to moderate?

Depends what you get done at the gym. People commonly overestimate calories burned in the gym, just because they're in that environment.

I think what a lot of people do on MFP is set it to sedentary then log exercise calories and eat back half of them. Hang in there it will happen.

Try Intermittent fasting. You eat all your meals in an 8 hour period and then don'the eat for 16 hours. This gives you about 12 hours with no insulink in your blood. Although Insulin transportso glucose into your cells it also blocks fat leaving. Eric Berg does some great videos on this on YouTube. When you eat is as important as what you eat.

Weigh yourself in the morning after you have poo'd. How much water are you drinking? Aim for more than you think as it will help flush out any water weight. Also I put on about 6 to 8lbs before Aunt Flo visits so is most probably that.

Don't give up! And use a tape measure, a much better way of seeing how you are doing. Xx

By volume, muscle weighs more than fat.

And volume is what matters when trying on clothes and looking in the mirror.

*By volume, muscle weighs more than fat.

And volume is what matters when trying on clothes and looking in the mirror*

I think everyone knows that. The pedantry levels just seem to have been turned up to 11 this morning.

It's because this is in AIBU, it would read very differently in something like the weight loss section. A thread's not a thread in AIBU without a level of disagreement.

If you say that a pound of muscle weighs the same as a pound of fat, therefore muscle does not weight more than fat, you are saying that NO THING weighs more than ANY OTHER THING.

Because a pound of anything weighs the same as a pound of anything else.

Joey I do classes at the gym - bums and tums, body balance and Pilates.

I don't log the exercise in the app so perhaps the calories are a bit low. I am finding 1200 hard to stick to and feel hungry all the time.

That's like saying lead isn't heavier than feathers. Nonsensical. If you're only comparing the same weight of something (a pound or Kg) of course they weigh the same.

Maybe try the sedentary, manual logging of exercise plus eating back half for a couple of week? It's going to be really hard work if you are always hungry and maybe with a stone to lose you'd be better setting it for a slightly lower weekly loss? Also I have found that things go better if I eat a bit more on the days that I feel I need them, pre period can make you much hungrier.

Definitely set it to moderate, you need those extra calories if you're exercising. 1200 isn't enough.

No one said a pound of muscle weighs more than a pound of fat other than to laugh at the first poster.
She said "muscle weighs more than fat". I have no idea if that is the case but it's not logically unsound.
I weigh more than my sister in law. That is true despite the fact a pound of me weighs the same as a pound of her.
Some people need to brush up on their logic.

"Today 06:58 DecisionTree

Muscle DOES NOT weigh more than fat!

A pound is a pound ...."

A ship does not weigh more than a bag of flour. A pound is a pound.
I don't weigh more than a new born baby.
Lead doesn't weigh more than feathers.

Stick with it. I did exactly the same from January until March this year and lost one and a half stone. It is deadly boring, but if you really want to be thinner then it's the only way. Monitoring your calories every day and not lying to yourself by cheating. I exercised as well but don't allow yourself to exceed 1200 when MFP tells you that you can. I feel good now (not amazing but happy) and I've gone down 2 dress sizes.
Good luck!

'Last Sunday I started a diet'

There's no quick fix, OP. Even more important than willpower/self control etc is PATIENCE.

If you started knitting a jumper last Sunday and you hadn't finished it in a week, you wouldn't go ripping it back in a huff, would you? Same with weight loss. You've got to dig in for the long haul.

AIBU to feel massively pissed off, give up on the diet and have a bar of chocolate

YABU. The most important thing is that there are several factors that influence your weight that have nothing to do with how much fat you are carrying, which is what you are trying to lose.

One of the biggest pieces of bullshit advice given to dieters is to 'weigh yourself only once a week' because then you have absolutely no idea of fluctuations that can affect your weight by several pounds.

Weight on it's own tells you little about how much fat you are losing.
Go by the feel of your clothes, waist measurement and much more frequent weighing, to get a handle on the fluctuations. Try twice a day and you'll see how much your weight goes up and down. The app mentioned by olli above looks good for this.

But make sure you take the fluctuations rationally. Drink a pint of water and you will weigh more, but you haven't got any fatter.

You may retain water and weigh more before your period, but you haven't got any fatter.

You are really dehydrated and weigh less because you had a load of alcohol and little food for dinner last night, but you haven't got any thinnner.

You appear to have gained 3 pounds because you ate pizza yesterday, but that's because the fatty, carby salty deliciousness has topped up your glycogen stores to bursting but you haven't got any fatter, not because 'you only have to look at pizza to gain 3 pounds' that sort of thing.

Stick with it and good luck. You're doing the right sort of thing, so it will work, but you can probably make it easier for yourself and be less hungry by doing something like Slimming World, where you can eat unlimited amounts of basic low fat healthy food like fruit and veg, pulses, eggs and lean meat and fish without any weighing or tedious app logging.

Just make all your meals frm this sort of food and the only things you have to limit is dairy and bread to a small portion of each every day, plus no more than 300 calories worth of obvious crap like cake, biscuits, crisps, alcohol etc.

Weigh in the morning and use tape measure. You'll prob find in another week you'll have dropped weight. My weight fluctuates between a couple of lbs, but if it stays on the upper limit or more, I cut down for a bit.

1200 is too low a) to sustain and b) for health and nutrition.
My daughter is restricting to 1400 and I'm worried about her. Having said that - good on you, and good luck!

If you suddenly change your diet, it can take timr for your body to get use to it. Just keep up thr good work. Make sure you eat calories for exercising you do. You need to eat to lose.

I've been dieting since Easter and roughly lost a pound per week, although it's not at all linear, 2lb some weeks and nothing for a few weeks in a row. I had less than 2 stone to lose and am over half way. Keep at it, it works. I'm on the low carb high fat diet and feel full on less calories than a traditional low fat diet, although it's been slower than past dieting. However it's more sustainable long term and I'll keep at it even when I've lost the weight. I've also gained muscle while on a calorie deficit, despite myths to the contrary above - it's undeniable I've lost weight and developed muscle as I can see it and feel it, my arms in particular. And yes I can reduce in size without reducing proportionately in weight due to muscle being heavier, that's why monitoring body fat us more useful than overall weight - I'm going to try specialist body composition scales to see how that changes instead.

If you have a regular cycle you may find monthly weigh ins more useful, this gives your body to be in the same "place" each time. You won't see much difference week to week even with tape measures and body composition scales. Keep at it.

I do classes at the gym - bums and tums, body balance and Pilates

I don't know enough about what's involved in bums and tums, but I wouldn't credit yourself with many calories burned from the Pilates or Body Balance.

1200 a day isn't a lot to eat though. So you should be losing some fat.

I found this book fascinating. He talks about why most diets just don't work long term. The Diet Myth

No way I could sustain 1200 calories a day every day for any length of time. Have you considered the 5:2, maybe combined with the 16:8 (and cutting out refined/processed foods) on non fast days?

With regards to your weight, never weigh in the evening - you're weighing your food! Weigh in the morning after going to the loo and before you eat or drink anything. And yes, of course your period being imminent will affect your weight.

Somebody said, " cutting calories and increasing energy expenditure is not gonna work long term" - really? I'm down 77 lbs so far doing exactly that.