... 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.

Have you had your thyroid checked ?

30 minutes walk a day is nothing though. I out on a stone in lockdown with a 30 minutes walk a day and two small meals (healthy meals, we eat no take aways because there are none where we live!)

It takes a run of 35 miles to burn off one pound of fat. For a sedentary lifestyle 1300 cals will just maintain your weight but you won't lose any.

But does that matter? Are you fit and healthy? Health is more than your weight. After I put that stone on, I was 8st3lbs, and couldn't walk up a 200yard hill without being out of breath! Most people look at me and think I'm not overweight so I must be fine, but to not be able to walk up a hill is terrible for my health (and I have done something about it).

What would happen if you stopped eating completely or reduced to under 800 cals? I would try that, if nothing happened after a couple days, it would be worth seeing a GP.

You don't want advice, but here's my twopenneth: you've mucked up your metabolism by cutting calories too much. I'm an inch taller than you and have lost 2 stone since January. I've gone from overweight to in the healthy range. The lowest my calories have been was 1200 for two weeks at the end of a two week gym programme. My maintenance calories are 1600 a day. I do three interval weight training sessions a week - sometimes more - and lots of walking. My job is sedentary and I've been working from home since mid March so have to make an effort for exercise.

Sorry - that should be for two weeks at the end of a 12 week gym programme.

@Bluntness100 I know I'm not a medical marvel and I don't want pity or concern. The fact I would be very hungry and very unhappy if I ate a small enough amount of food to lose weight at a rate that would put me within a "normal" BMI within a year or two, and I would probably find it difficult to get enough vitamins, minerals, and nutrients unless I were supervised by a nutritionist. I'm lucky enough to be able to track my food and cook for myself and never eat out because I'm good at cooking and it comes easily to me and I work at home and have plenty of free time and a good salary to buy healthy, nice food. But somehow people who have less money, less time, less inclination, etc. are judged as being lazy and greedy (and discriminated against in nearly every area of life) because they are fat, and told they can 'just lose weight' if they 'eat less and move more'. I'm just trying to show that I can barely make it work with literally every advantage in place. Imagine how hard it is for people who don't have those advantages.

That, again, is my badly-made but important point.

@Wroxie

The kind of dedication and sheer bloody mindedness you must have to stick to that diet for 9 months is really impressive.

No wonder you're angry and discouraged. I would be.

I hope the doctor/nutritionist doesn't fob you off, because it does sound like there's something going on. Keep pushing them to investigate and good luck.

I’m 5ft2, and reasonably active (at least 6km quick walking per day -slightly out of breath level). my calorie intake for weight maintenance is about 1500kcal.
i would think you need to be more active to loose weight - 30 min walking isn’t a lot, especially if not done at speed!

Are you saying that the 'received wisdom' isn't working for you? In terms of the recommended 'healthy diet' that the NHS puts out?

If so, I agree with you. Calories in v calories out is far too simplistic. If you eat 100kcal of sugar, you get 90%ish to use or store as fat. If you eat 100kcal of fat, you get 65%ish to use or store as fat (because it takes more energy to convert the fat)

So, it's not calories in v calories out, it's processed calories in v processed calories out. WHOLE different story.

That's to say nothing of the way hormones (insulin, ghrelin and leptin, specifically) affect processing of food, and triggering.

OP, you seem pissed off that your diet hasn't worked (and I thought you seemed pissed of without knowing if you were male or female), so try a different one. Bodies are complicated, not everybody is the same, and the NHS guidelines are funded disproportionately by companies that produce floury sugary food.

Not going to gove any advice, but I am honestly surprised people think half an hour walking a day with sedentary job is enough movement. Certainly isn't to be able to eat like the "average woman" from that old calorie advice.

Everyone's body is different, absolutely, there is just no argument about that. But they all have something in common. They require movement. Unless you are disabled and can't actually do it, you really should be doing more than half an hour walking.

There are very few people with actual metabolic disorders. Very few. Though they all seem to be on MN

How do you feel when you do exercise? Does it feel too much like a chore? I think it is important to live within the moment while you exercise - it helps me feel alive. Having said that it can feel like a chore, I'm currently fitting in marathon training twice a week.

It is worth looking at activities you want to try out - you are clearly capable of focus and dedication - that diet sucks! And 5kg is not a tiny weight loss - that's 40000 calories of eating.

@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.

Honestly OP, I could have written that myself. I'm 5ft7, 12st4lb and can only lose weight if I drop to less than 1000 calories a day. I've had my thyroid tested, I KNOW what I'm eating, I'm not cheating but i'm just not shifting the weight. My metabolism just seems very very slow, i'm perimenopausal but not a candidate for HRT for various reasons. I live with chronic pain and various meds for that and other things and I think it just all adds up to a slow metabolism. I too have levelled the blood sugars, got used to eating less, but sometimes I just want to binge!

maddening you don't really just have soup, weetabix and bread every day do you?

Also I gained 3 kg in 3 months in lockdown when I calculated my average daily overeat was ~ 100 calories a day. I have since lost that weight but it took a damn sight longer than 3 months!

pumpkinpied I'm the same size and weight as you, is yours deliberate or just the way you are? Sorry that sounds weird but hope you understand, I'm curious.

And your diet seems to be very white carbs and sugar heavy - not good for muscle building or weight loss/ maintenance.

I totally get the frustration as I really, really struggle to shift weight. I have a “low functioning” thyroid (gp says it’s not quite low enough yet to be classed as underactive) and I’m also physically disabled, so struggle to do 100 steps a day, let alone 10,000. My friend and I both started slimming world online 2 months ago - I’ve stayed on plan 100% and tracked everything. I’ve lost a total of 3lb, but my friend has lost just over 2st. It’s soul destroying.

Completely get your point as I'm 40 and have always been the fat one since I was a teenager, currently weighing in at 16 stone 5lbs at 5'6. And I've done them all, WW, SW, Aitkens blah blah blah!! I especially love the "oooo you've lost weight" when I havent seen someone for a long time when I know full well I haven't because everyone thinks that's what fatty wants to hear!! Actually I'd prefer you didnt mention it, I know I'm the elephant in the room thank you very much!!
However, the only thing that has ever worked for me is eating around 800, no more than 1000 calories a day and exercising. Sorry to say but you're not exercising enough or you need to drop the calorie intake a bit more. You are doing great with what you have done so far but maybe for the next month cut another 200 calories a day and up the exercise, if you still havent lost anymore then get checked out with your gp.

[quote Wroxie]@lljkk the human body doesn't work like that. Most people who overeat every day but within a reasonable level will only get so fat and then they sort of hover there. I ate whatever I felt like and then some for about fifteen years but I reached my maximum weight about five years into that. People who overeat every day don't just keep getting fatter and fatter forever - and the people who do, who get so big they can't leave the house, are very much the exception to the rule and incredibly rare.

It works the other way too, to a point - let's say you went to a lab and figured out your exact metabolic rate, and ate exactly 3500 calories less than that over the course of a week. You're not going to automatically lose exactly one pound - because of the hundreds of other factors that are in play. Your body isn't a car (and even if it were, even a car burns fuel at different rates depending on how you drive it, the temperature outside, the age of the car, the condition of the fuel injector, and on and on until the metaphor is absolutely beaten to death).[/quote]
Why are you trying to justify it?

@helloxhristmas what are you on about? Justify what?

@40somethingJBJ

I totally get the frustration as I really, really struggle to shift weight. I have a “low functioning” thyroid (gp says it’s not quite low enough yet to be classed as underactive) and I’m also physically disabled, so struggle to do 100 steps a day, let alone 10,000. My friend and I both started slimming world online 2 months ago - I’ve stayed on plan 100% and tracked everything. I’ve lost a total of 3lb, but my friend has lost just over 2st. It’s soul destroying.

You shouldn't be comparing uourself to your friend. It is incredibly hard with disabilities and any loss is an achievement! Especially in a situation like yours.

I believe you OP because, at 5ft 8" and with an active lifestyle, I maintain at 1200 calories and have to do Fast 800 style stints in order to lose. However, I have both PCOS and underactive thyroid (Hashimotos).

I'm the same op. I eat 1200 calories per day to maintain. If I crank up the exercise I lose a 1lb or 2lb but that's it.

It sucks! People can't believe how little I eat.

Worth getting a blood test for thyroid abs hormone imbalance checks though.

You need to go on secret eaters

I learned the same thing over 20+ years of different diets. Unfortunately, when you cut your calories, your body adjusts your metabolism in response. If you're open to new things, have a look at Jason Fung's YouTube videos. He advocates fasting. He sees lots of patients, and women tend to do best on a low carb diet (sorry, I know you don't want to hear it, but his explanations show that the science backs it up) with added fasting (three 24-36 hour fasts a week results in about 1.5 pounds of weight loss a week).

Jason Fung's YouTube channel