... 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.

Diets do work though -well healthy living anyway. Calories in v calories out is science. It sounds like you have something else going on though, which is affecting your weight loss. I'd see a gp

@Pukkatea

jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2548255

www.health.harvard.edu/blog/theres-no-sugar-coating-it-all-calories-are-not-created-equal-2016110410602

pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f491/aaf2bb7f9d32164b018464deb68369208e8d.pdf

jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/1152779?casa_token=P8E8PgH_gXQAAAAA:8XViqmO8mOQbIFGGGrF4Fukdk4Xe8umrjAj3aV4swKhTFnuodRDYP9cR3EgRHUk7IDu8TAkRLTti

ofgs op it really is that simple! If you ate less you would weigh less! Do you imagine that if you stopped eating altogether that you wouldn't starve to death within a month or so? The problem is we hugely overestimate the amount of food we need, especially as we get older. Also walking for half an hour a day is burning about 100 calories a day, which is not really loads.

I agree OP, and I've succeeded in losing six stone and keeping it off. I know better than anyone what makes my body tick, and people still think they're being smart when they say "eat less, move more".

I actually achieved the weight loss through a combination of diet and exercise techniques. Completely random one month to the next.

I'm in no way saying this applies to the OP because she's told us she's so exact ...

But I know several who say they track calories but are still fat.

They don't count calories on birthdays because they're special occasions. Or they remember eating two biscuits when I saw them scoff half a packet. Or they don't factor in the full fat lattes they down because it's all about solid food.

Or this, or that, or a hundred other things that mean that they're obviously not going to really change.

@BahHumbygge

It's not so much about calories, it's about what your body does with those calories. It's about how the foods you eat trigger the release of the appetite regulation hormones leptin, ghrelin and insulin. You are a complex biochemical and metabolic being, and whilst the basic underlying laws of thermodynamics obviously apply, a lot of complex biochemistry happens along the way... you have an energy partition system and the body decides whether to use the energy from food for immediate use on the fly, or put it into longer term storage in the form of adipose fat around the essential organs (think solar panels powering the immediate electricity needs in the house -AC, vs putting it into battery storage to use later overnight - DC).

The key thing is to put the right fuel into your body... more meat, fish, non starchy vegetables, eggs, butter, full fat yoghurt etc... real, single ingredient foods and less of the hyperprocessed foods we're not evolved to eat such as sugar, seed oils and over processed starches.

This.

This is why so called healthy things like compressed apple and orange juice are just free calories. Eat the whole fruit (although not if you are on the Atkins!!) but be aware they cause an insulin spike which will make your crave later.

What about your measurements? Your clothes. Muscle weighs more than fat. The scales may not move much but I bet the inches have!

I believe you. Sounds like your metabolism is screwed. Get it tested.

I eat a similar amount and maintain a slightly overweight weight.

I used to weigh 21 stone though so fucked up my metabolism and I'll never be able to eat much more without putting weight on.

Honestly I get that everyone loves to give advice (and some of the advice you've all been spouting here has given me a right laugh, so thanks!)- but that's not the point. The point is that the received wisdom about weight loss doesn't work for everyone or even for most people, it's not simple OR easy, and fat people don't have less willpower than other people. Anywhere from 80 to 95% of people who lose significant weight gain it ALL back or more within five years - no one knows exactly why, but one theory is that the body reaches a state of stasis where the bigger weight is the 'new normal' and then the body's various complex systems will do almost anything to hold on to and maintain that weight - making dieting incredibly difficult and maintenance nearly impossible.

Honestly I was just thinking about this today and wanted to serve as an example of how you can do everything 'right' and still not lose weight, in hopes of making people think again when they make negative assumptions about their fat colleague or friend- and the majority of you have either jumped in with advice - again, missing the point, or assumed I'm doing something wrong, not counting calories correctly, or not eating full fat yogurt or whatever else. I am, by the way, counting calories correctly, and I do eat healthy, wholesome food, it's also NOT THE POINT. I take it on board that maybe I need to approach this in a different way if the majority of you don't get the point. Thanks, in any case, to those of you who do see the point, and understand what I'm trying to say.

I've been at 65kg for a year even though I've gone down 2 dress sizes! Have you noticed a change in how your clothes fit you?

I've very clearly lost weight..I can see the top of my ribs for the first time ever..but my scales tell me I'm still fat

I eat ~1300 calories a day to maintain weight (normal bmi).
Unlike you, i work out 5-6x a week though. I run 10km twice a week, weights 2x a week and yoga/pilates 1x a week.
With your activity im guessing youre just not burning enough.
Im mid 30s.

@Wroxie if you want to start a weight-loss thread for fat people who aren't stupid and greedy, and know how to lose weight in theory but it just ain't happening - then I'm in

So if your pet is overweight, what do you do?

Also, so many people regain weight lost because they abandon their new healthy eating habits that lost them the weight.

Your posts are very hostile. From the start.

I absolutely love as in absolutely hate that a woman can't just say what she means without weaselly sweetie-pie accommodating language without being seen as aggressive or hostile.

On the whole I agree with you OP, or at least I did until about four months ago. It was a comment on a thread in the weight loss section of MN about the Fast 800 diet. I had a look at it, the course is about £100 so it's not cheap, but it has worked for me. I've lost about three stone in three months.

I'm so relieved I could cry.

I have followed it to the letter, probably because I paid £100!! I know that you don't want diet advice but I thought it might help somebody. Literally nothing has ever worked before, or rather it's worked for about half a stone and then stopped. I don't know what will happen when I stop the fasting, but the course has follow on guidance so I will see. Anyway, just my experience.

I don't lose weight on 1100. I need to go to 800 or less to lose anything. I also run and lift weights (albeit light ones.) I do have an underactive thyroid though.

What’s your BMR?

I’m 5ft3 too & have a BMR of 1273 cals - if I was sedentary & ate 1100 cals a day then I would expect to lose weight at exactly the same rate as you.

@Genderwitched I know about Fast 800 but what is the course?

This 10000 steps a day is another marketing ploy with no meaning, it was set up tp sell pedometers in Japan

go for a brisk walk for 20 minutes 3x per day and raise your heart rate will have some effect, as you're raising your heart rate and this will change whats happening in your body

but 10000 steps going round the office or walking to the car and back will not achieve anything much, moving ten paces but not raising your heart rate will just not work and is meaningless

BMR. - online calculators are bollocks for this, that is OP's whole point!!

Also my inherited pet WAS overweight, RIP Boomer (he lived to a ripe old age in the end). I put him on a vet-recommended diet and a week into it he pushed an entire refrigerator over to get to what was inside. He eventually got used to less food and became less frantic about it but never lost all the weight he needed to.

I agree with @IDontMindMarmite, OP. Your posts are very hostile. It sounds as though you had specific things you wanted people to say when you posted, and are being hostile because people aren't saying what you want to hear. Lots of people, me included, have posted kindly to you and frankly you're just rude.

i think people grossly underestimate how many calories people need, like the first person who said 1100 is nothing! nope, you can get 3 meals and a snack from that!

OP you may not have lost much weight but your insides must be healthier!

@iftherewereahorseyinthehouse

It's the Fast 800 website (Michael Mosley) you sign up, and get weekly meal plans, an exercise regime, a forum and a mindfullness course. I didn't do it all, but mainly stuck to the diet. It's hard but I got used to it and feel so much better

I wasn't born weighing 13 stone at 5'3" lol, my terrible diet was what got me into this state in the first place, innit?

ok, but you're saying that basically
you lost 11 lbs in 9 months, 39 weeks, 273 days.
11 x 3500 kcal = 38,500 calorie deficit =141 calorie deficit/day.
So, your maintenance calorie intake would have been ~1250/day.

So on a diet of 2500 cal/day, that's 1250 too much, and you should have been gaining 2.5 lbs/week = 10 lbs/month = 8.5 stone/year.

Unless 2500 cal/day was your required maintenance calorie intake, and then you should have lost > 10 lbs/month on 1100 kcal/day.