To think I’ll never be able to get my weight down?....

[OscarWildesCat]

I’m currently the heaviest I’ve ever been, I realised 4 weeks ago I needed to do something and downloaded MFP and have been religiously logging every single calorie, I started doing HIIT workouts and body pump and was feeling much better about myself. I lost weight and went from 13st13lbs to 13st6lbs in 4 weeks or so. I have had 4 days off for my birthday and wedding anniversary and have to say I’ve still been relatively conscious of what I’ve eaten as I don’t have a big appetite at the best of times, generally I have logged on MFP and done a workout 1 day. I’ve been drinking wine again over the 4 days, which didn’t get logged, I had cut right down.
This morning I thought it time to get back on it after my few days of relative freedom and decided to weigh in first, I’m 13st10lbs!!, 4 days of being a bit relaxed and I’m practically back where I started?!. I’m in tears, I feel like throwing in the towel and accepting I’m just fat, I’ve had enough, I simply cannot sustain the level of obsessive weighing and measuring food and calories to slip up for a few days and go right back to the bloody start again.
Please tell me I can do this 😞. I’m 5ft 5 and a UK16 for reference.

OscarWildesCat I find that my weight fluctuates hugely not only during the day ( I always weigh heavier first thing in the morning than at 4pm) but day to day and week to week. I discarded my scales a couple of years ago and have gained a considerable amount of weight so I'm back to weighing daily and it does help to keep me on track. You have to find what works for you.

Regarding the weight loss yes its really hard work and you HAVE to stick at calorie counting( in whatever form you do it - numbers, syns, points, shakes) for every hour of every day for many weeks and continue to do so when you reach your so-called goal weight or it all goes back on. its REALLY hard! That's why I'm now overweight for my height - 13 stone at 5ft 9" even though I'm still a dress size 14, exactly the same as I was 30 years ago when I weighed 11 stones.

And yes, alcohol can be very calorie laden

Would measuring your body work better for you than regular weighing? Set a date each month to take measurements and see if you are smaller than before

Have you thought about shaking up your training and building in resistance work? Muscle burns more clarities than fat and resistance work is know to have a greater impact on your metabolism and long term calorie burn; it also changes your body composition more effectively so rather than relying on the scales, which is a pretty arbitrary thing to focus on, it can give you results when you look in the mirror. I’ve been incorporating this type of training into my routine for quite some time and the results are great; I can eat more and look toned and lean and not at all big and muscly.

@DaisyDreaming probably, my tummy is noticeably different since cutting out wine so I should probably try that 😁

@sHREDDIES19 I’d certainly try it but wouldn’t know where to start. Once I’m back at work, I fear this will all be in vain as I work long hours and with 2 DC, rarely find time to do anything so it would need to be YouTube or at home coaching. I have a weight bar I’ve been using for body pump.

There is only ONE way to lose fat - that is to exist in a calorie deficit for a SUSTAINED period.

You can dress it up as much as you like with different diets - low carbs, fasting, slimming world etc but they are all the same basic calculation. You must eat less calories than you burn.

If you are not losing weight then that is the reason. You are not CONSISTENTLY in a deficit.

Having a few days off for your birthday will make the scales go up but it’s most likely water and salt bloating etc. You have to overeat by about 3500 cals to put on a lb of fat so it’s unlikely.

The way to lose weight for good -

1. CALORIE DEFICIT
2. Decent protein levels
3. Consistent sleep pattern
4. Activity levels - not tons of cardio! Just your day to day activity levels - getting your steps in, moving regularly etc.

I’ve gained and lost weight my whole adult life. At almost 40 I have finally come to accept that dressing up weight loss with fancy concepts is a distraction technique.

Once you consistently eat in a deficit you will lose weight. And that means months of it. Building a small deficit into your life.

It’s really really hard to stay motivated I know, if it were easy then none of us would be fat. I’ve lost 2 stone since lock down - counting calories and moving my arse more.

Shall I repeat it again just for effect — CONSISTENT CALORIE DEFICIT

Good luck - be kind to yourself. It’s hard

Really. Weight once a week. Weight is fluctuating day by day. And now there is the added bonus of heatwave which makes some people, like me, swell up like crazy.

As pp said, 1kg is about 7000 calories. If you haven't eat 7000 calories, you didn't gain 1kg of fat. It's simple as that.

I'm not surprised you're miserable and seeing it as a slog if you're limiting yourself to 1200 calories a day. That's a tiny amount.
Work out your TDEE and subtract 500, that should be your allowance. 1200 is totally unsustainable for someone who isn't 5ft tall and 8 stones- your body needs a lot more than that and you're going to feel hungry, underfuelled and tired all the time on 1200.

You can't have gained 4lb in a weekend BUT if you're serious about losing you need to count even on days you don't stick to your calories. It's extremely easy as an over eater to go 250/500+ over maintenance which will undo your work of 2/3 days in one day.

I’ve been drinking wine again over the 4 days, which didn’t get logged

Why didn’t you log it? If you knew how many calories you were over you could make adjustments over the next few days to balance out the excess cals from the wine.
The lbs on won’t be fat in that short space of time. Don’t give up. MFP has helped me lose 2.5 stone and I do still drink wine and eat crisps!

Oh and @OscarWildesCat to go with my previous point about the scales not shifting - I did notice how my body actually looked different and DP even commented on it so I think I was toning up but the weight was still the same.

It is not as simple as that re weight for some people, I put on a stone in 5 days, it was 2 stone when I got home but 1 stone came off overnight due to water retention. It took months to redshift that stone. I had drunk many cocktails in that 5 days but I had 3 meals, breakfast being an ommelett. The dinners were not particularly healthy but I had no starters or puddings and as it was a festival cruise I was dancing like a mad woman from midday till 4 am every day in last years Mediterranean summer heat, it was late 30s in the day!.
However I do have hashimoto and suspect lipedema, so no, it is not all equal and "simple as that"

Hey madam you have lost weight, you should be having a boogie and high fiving yourself! And even though you gained some weight during your 4 day break it still was less then what you started with. Well done you!

Don't forget when you start exercising the scales will tell you you've gained weight because your muscles are getting stronger, once your body adjusts to all this exercise the scales will start dropping wayyyy down.

It's scary to realise how many calories are lurking in foods and drinks. There are around 30 calories in a glass of cordial. 30! I drink plain water now.

You're doing a fantastic job and some weeks will be great and others not so great, but don't become a slave to the diet. You're still aloud to enjoy yourself!

Weigh yourself once a week only, and keep a log for it. You will drive yourself crazy with false readings otherwise

I always gains pounds after alcohol. A Good flush out with water will do it

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/calorie_counting/3909663-1200-calories-a-day-28-waist-Levis-501

If you fancy joining there’s a few of us doing 1200 cals and MFP etc

I disagree with people saying 1200cals is unsustainable unless you're 5ft tall and a size 8

I'm 5'5" and started off at 11st 6lb and have been doing 1200cals comfortably for nearly two months now with a cheat day here and there. I don't go hungry and also exercise but do not log it onto MFP as when I did I would inevitably eat those calories and my weight loss would stop. I'm now down to 10st 4lbs and aiming for another half a stone to a stone loss to get to a weight I'm happy with.

For me it meant just having 3 good meals a day and no snacks OR no breakfast (I'm never really hungry in the morning) 2 good meals of protein, veg and carbs and a snack (I like Tunnocks caramel wafers or maybe a scoop of ice cream if I really fancied it). Lots of water and 2 coffees.
My favourite dinner is a salmon fillet, homemade chips made in the air fryer , wilted spinach or broccoli and a bit of garlic mayo on the side - hardly starving myself.

I just had to become more conscious of when I headed for the cupboard as it made me realise that "handful" of cereal I mindlessly had when making the kids breakfast could easily be 200cals and that bit of chocolate I kept snacking on straight from the cupboard when making dinner was inevitably helping me pile the lbs on.

Maybe have a look at the happy scale app.
It irons out the fluctuations and aims to keep you feeling more positive.

Don't be put off by this. whether you will achieve your goal is more about how you react to the setbacks because there will always be setbacks along the way.

Like others have said you are reading too much into one weighing. Weight fluctuates naturally. I am aiming to loose 6kg. I am working on the basis of 0.5kg per week and 2kg per month. However my weight can easily change by 0.5kg in a day or 2 depending on what I have eaten (I have a tendency to bloat a bit with certain foods), if I have drunk a lot of water, where I am in my cycle and if I have been to the toilet.

Now I weigh myself every day but I don't focus too much on the changes but on the overall so I can see each week that while I have heavy days they are still 0.3/4 kg lighter than my heaviest day last week but maybe 0.2/0.3 heavier than my lightest day.

If I was only weighing myself once a week and it was a heavy day I would feel like I wasn't losing and be unmotivated but as I do it daily I can see the fluctuations are normal for me and I can see the overall trend is downwards.

Please dont be disheartened by one bad weight. If you try again in 2 days you will see it has changed again. Hang in there.

I weigh myself every day. When I was trying to actively lose weight I plotted my weight on a graph each day and although it went up and down there was a clear downwards trend.
And regarding your current weight gain, I read a couple of years ago that when you go on holiday you appear to gain weight really quickly, however this is almost all water retention and the weight of the extra food you have eaten. So I weighed myself before and after my week long holiday and despite being really careful I put on 9 pounds. I would normally have given up at this point, but decided to just start again with my healthy eating and a week later half a stone was gone, followed by the other two pounds a week later. I didn't have to do anything special to get back on track, and I have noticed this is what happens whenever I eat more for a few days or more.

@PowerslidePanda

It's very hard to gain 4lb in 4 days. A pound is 3500 calories, so you would have had to have consumed 14,000 extra calories (i.e. not including the ones you naturally burn every day). And a glass of wine is around 160 calories. You may have gained a pound or so, but the rest of it is much more likely to be normal fluctuations - could be due to the time of month, time of day you weighed, having consumed a lot of salt and retained water, etc. Weigh yourself again in a couple of days - first thing in the morning.

This!

You'd need to have eaten an awful lot to undo that good work. I weigh regularly and see fluctuation of 4-6lbs day to day and I'm sticking to a strict diet. Don't lose motivation. Slow and steady is the best way and is far more sustainable in the long run. Even if you have gone off course and gained a little, just draw a line now, get back on it and refocus. You've done great so far and definitely great results to come.

I find daily weighing helpful as you can then see just how wildly the weight fluctuates anyway. It can be extra water I drank or maybe I had something salty and bam it flies up by 2lbs. But because I weigh daily I just record it and use apps like Libra or logmyweight (both android only) which show you the TREND of your loss. So it removes the stigma of it.

Some people even specifically get those scales that update their apps via bluetooth and cover up the numbers on the scale. So you can log daily without seeing it and then maybe once a week just check the trend weight loss rather than get bamboozled by a random fluctuation?

I honestly don’t find 1200 calories restrictive?, I’m not really eating less than I was before, I’m just making healthier choices. Alcohol is definitely my biggest downfall and I’ve struggled with that. I feel better when I don’t drink at all but at the moment I’m drinking through boredom.

I'm the same. But now I am losing weight. Easily.
Low carb, high protein, salad, salad salad, nuts as snacks. Limit fruit. Exercise too but most weight loss is 80% diet.

Don't focus on what you are losing weight-wise - look at what you are gaining health-wise. As long as the graph is heading down even with blips thats fine. It will not ever be a smooth transition. You will get a good feel for what you are eating and how it affects weight. I know if I am tired/ have a cheat day/ two beers -it goes to bits and takes days to get back in the zone again. You are doing well.

I agree measurements are a better way of tracking your progress.

Plus, you've made a great start but seen how easy it is to put back on, if you totally gave up and continued toput on at that rate think where you would be in a year!

You need to stop thinking of eating healthily as restricting yourself. That's why mfp etc is never going to be sustainable in the long term. You've gone hell for leather at it with exercise and refer to having days "off". And you're already back to normal. You need to completely change your mindset to eating a healthy balanced diet and some exercise and the weight will come off in its own time. Throw away the scales and just deal with each meal/snack/glass of wine as it comes.