... to tell you that diets don't work for everyone

[Wroxie]

Today is my 9 month anniversary of tracking every bite of food that's gone into my mouth, with the exception noted below:

My birthday (one day in which I had, as I remember, pancakes with maple syrup for breakfast, no lunch, and fish and chips + a couple of donuts for dinner).

And that's it. I don't drink alcohol. No takeaways. No restaurants. Nothing that I didn't weigh, portion, and track faithfully. Even when I bake or make something from a recipe, every ingredient is weighed and the calories per serving calculated. I skip breakfast during the week and have normal, healthy food and smallish portions for lunch and dinner.

I eat, on average, 1,100 calories per day. I have a desk job but I walk for 30 minutes to an hour nearly every day.

Before this, my diet was pretty bad - takeaways 3-4 times per week, pastries for breakfast, sandwich with crisps and chocolate at lunch, biscuits whenever I felt like it- probably more than 2,500 calories most days (I'm 5'3" so that is A LOT).

And now, nine months later, I have gone from 13 stone to 12.3 stone. That's a grand total of ten pounds lost on an extremely restricted diet- and it was all within the first two months.

Please don't give me diet advice - no, I'm not in 'starvation mode' (because that's a complete myth). No, I don't need to 'cut carbs'. Seriously, I do not want your advice. What I want is to point out that, the next time you're tempted to say something asinine like 'it's just about calories in vs calories out' or to dismiss or vilify or judge someone based on their weight, to realise that the human body is not a two-stroke lawnmower engine and weight, food, activity, hormones, age, genes, and a million other factors are at play. Losing weight isn't simple and even with all the willpower in the world - which I have demonstrated - it isn't always possible.

I'm not giving up. I have gotten used to eating this way and I actually feel like my blood sugar is more regulated (no 'sinking feeling' a few hours after eating a big lunch, for example) and I know that as I get older, it will be better to, at the very least, not get any fatter. That, at least, I can probably do. But nothing short of eating less than 1000 calories per day or surgery or medication are going to get me to a 'normal' BMI.

Yes, namochangero, your own walks may burn your fat, but that doesn't mean that 'Walking burns 300kcals of fat', which is what you said. It's worth noting for people who are unsure that walking will burn fat if you don't have carbs to spare.

@Eckhart
Sounds restricting to me?

Why not eat breakfast? It can be a good way to get loads of nutrients.
I’d be eating my arm off by 10am if I didn’t eat breakfasts

@RufustheSniggeringReindeer

diet advice you all gleefully, desperately rushed in to share

You all?

Alrighty...

Agree. Really, really not all.

@Delatron

Are you willfully misunderstanding me? I'm not suggesting that we all give up breakfast or fall down a well. I'm saying that we can control when we get hungry quite easily.

And nobody who fell down a well ever ate their arm off because they didn't get their breakfast by 10am.

Dont think the thread went their way youve

So they threw all their toys and my sympathy out of the pram

Why are you ‘controlling’ anything @Eckhart?

t's worth noting for people who are unsure that walking will burn fat if you don't have carbs to spare.

Granted, but it's easy to completey deplete the glycogen (carb) stores once you are at a calorie deficit. And if you are always at enough of a calorie deficit they won't be building up again anytime soon.

I often have two breakfasts. Because I get hungry again about 10.

M weight doesn’t fluctuate.

I've explained it in full in my previous post, Delatron. If you don't get it, have a look at Jason Fung on YouTube. He's better qualified than me and probably explains it in a way you'll understand.

Yes, namochangero. Conversations about weight loss are usually to do with people who want to lose weight, though, and so they're not usually in a calorie deficit.

I have always struggled to lose weight which has got worse as I’ve got older - I’m apparently borderline for thyroid but GP says not in need of thyroxine
A few years ago I was very ill and to start with couldn’t eat without being sick - after a few weeks I ended up in hospital for nearly 3 months on a drip but still couldn’t eat - during that 4 months I lost 5lb - the consultant could not believe the scales as they expected it to be stones lost not pounds

@Wroxie I feel your last post was somewhat rude. I like many other posters didn’t give advice, we agreed and empathised with you.

But they could be @Eckhart, if they just tweaked what they ate and their exercise. I hate it when people dismiss, out of hand, the health benefits of walking and running. Two extremely accessible exercises. Walking for just half an hour a day has been shown to have a beneficial affect on type 2 diabetes which has got to be helping insulin resistance and therefore weight loss.

Agree @namochangoro
An hours walk is nothing. I go for a 45 minute run then walk the dog for an hour then do the school run. It does all add up.

@namochangoro

But they could be *@Eckhart*, if they just tweaked what they ate and their exercise. I hate it when people dismiss, out of hand, the health benefits of walking and running. Two extremely accessible exercises. Walking for just half an hour a day has been shown to have a beneficial affect on type 2 diabetes which has got to be helping insulin resistance and therefore weight loss.

The thing is thought that that ealking is usually on top of something else. We really cannot expect miracles fron nothing, nothing, nothing, walk, nothing, nothing...

@Eckhart I don’t need to watch anybody on YouTube? I’m a healthy weight and not dieting.

@Delatron You asked for a better explanation of what I was saying so I offered you one. Don't worry, nobody's trying to make you do anything you don't want to.

The thing is thought that that ealking is usually on top of something else. We really cannot expect miracles fron nothing, nothing, nothing, walk, nothing, nothing...

But walking is the gateway activity. It build your fitness. Before long you could be running!

@namochangoro

I hate it when people dismiss, out of hand, the health benefits of walking and running

Me too. And if you think that's what I was doing, read my posts again. I run several times a week for the health benefits and to stay slim and happy.

From online Dictionary:- Diet = noun
food and drink considered in terms of its qualities, composition, and its effects on health: Milk is a wholesome article of diet.
a particular selection of food, especially as designed or prescribed to improve a person's physical condition or to prevent or treat a disease:
a diet low in sugar.

verb (used with object), di·et·ed, di·et·ing.
to regulate the food of, especially in order to improve the physical condition. to feed.

verb (used without object), di·et·ed, di·et·ing.
to select or limit the food one eats to improve one's physical condition or to lose weight: I've dieted all month and lost only one pound.
to eat or feed according to the requirements of a diet.

So you are all right about what ‘diet’ means 😬

But walking is the gateway activity. It build your fitness. Before long you could be running!smile
😁 Ok.
Unless you are like me. I missed buses when slim (before all thsi) because I refused to run😂😂.
In my defence I have fucked knees since I was young. And I am lazy

@Eckhart my comment was not aimed at accusing you. More an explanation of the stance I take.

@SchrodingersImmigrant, speed walking with weighted rucksack?

TheRealHousewife I've been thinking that too. We're all on a diet. Some of us are on a good diet, some a bad diet, but they're all diets!

Pedants 'r' us

@namochangoro

Thanks for pointing that out. I misunderstood, sorry.