... 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.

@maddening there is no way that this adds up to 1200.

breakfast is weetabix so portion is set, lunch is soup from a container so portion set, dinner is half a soup and slices of bread

Hi OP, I resonate with this SO MUCH. thank you for posting.

I have a thryroid condition which medicated as it is, shouldn't really impact my metabolism too much. I'm the same height as you, average around 1200 calories a day and my weight does not change. People LOVE to tell me that it's too few calories, but actually for my height and my age, it's exactly what I need to maintain. Losing weight when you're short is really hard, losing weight when your standard metabolism is naturally low is doubly hard. Sending you lots of love, I know how frustrating it must be x

I am with you OP and I am fuming about it. If another person tells me that I am probably building muscle which is heavier, or stop eating carbs (I don't) I will explode! Even a few years ago I could go low carb for a few weeks and the weight would drop off, but it doesn't work any more. I am menopausal though and think I just have to think differently about my health now.

While I completely agree with and believe op I have NEVER in 20 years of having an underactive thyroid diagnosis found that 'better management' of it and changing doses makes any fucking difference to weight loss at all.

Me also o/p.

To lose weight I need to eat 600-800 calories. It’s just how it is.

Your calorie intake is the same as mine. As recommended by my PT at my gym. I’ve lost over 2 stone in 15 months by doing hiit and Les Mills workouts three times a week. I kept it off during lockdown too. A thirty minute daily walk isn’t enough exercise.

Eat less move more. You’re not doing anything proactive to lose weight.

You sound a big hangry Op

Bit not big 😂

You sound like your doing a great job. My partner is similar he can cut out all the calories and not loose a great amount. However if does a lot of cardio that really helps reduce his weight to where he wants to be. If your happy as you are and healthy then don't worry about it :)

@Titsinknicks mine is slightly (and I mean slightly) better now I'm not on a homeopathic dose of 25 (my TSH was 7.5 and apparently "just" out of range"
I pushed and pushed and ended up on 75. Still shattered all the time and fat but.. less fat

@Wroxie

Have you ever measured your body fat percentage?

I put a few of the figures you gave through a TDEE calculator for a 40 year old woman. If you were 40% body fat (I have been this before I'm 26% now) you could eat 1150 cals with a 500 cal deficit. If you were 50% you could only eat 949 with a 500 cal deficit. If you were 30% you could eat 1351 with a 500 cal deficit.

The TDEE calculator here:

tdeecalculator.net/result.php?s=imperial&age=40&g=female&lbs=171&in=63&act=1.2&bf=30&f=1

Not suggesting what you do regarding diet and exercise but it does show you (how people in the field of nutrition and weight loss etc believe that) body fat can affect your metabolism. There are also online body fat estimate calculators where you put your measurements in.

I'm 5'1 and 47kg, I want to lose 5lbs to get to my goal prebaby weight and I can't unless I eat 800 calories or less. I don't want to do that so it is what it is, but on a normal day if I eat 1200 I will lose hardly anything long term as my TDEE is only 1350.

People who overeat every day don't just keep getting fatter and fatter forever

I’m sorry but this is not right and your logic is flawed.

You need to eat a certain amount to maintain weight. The higher your weight the more you need to eat to maintain it. So to continue to gain weight you need to continue to increase your calorie intake to above what it takes to maintain.

As such you can gain weight “forever” or until you die, you just need to keep increasing your intake to do it.

So if you need to eat 1500 calories to maintain at 13 stone. You will need 2000 to maintain at 16 stone, and so on (made up numbers). There is no such thing as a magical maximum weight. The only limiter would be death or how much you can physically eat.

Reducing your calorie intake doesn't damage your metabolism. Weighing less means you need to eat less to maintain your weight.

Basically I got my weight down (by just under 4 stone in 2 years) by doing over an hour's running everyday and an hour's walk. I log my food onto FitBit which tells me calories and macros. The exercise ensures a good deficit (burns over 1000 calories) whilst not having to cut my food intake too much. I've gone from 40% body fat to 26% body fat. I do resistance exercise for strength and some stretches for flexibility too. I run at a very gentle pace and it's not at all difficult. Once you get the habit it's not onerous at all, it's pretty enjoyable. I'm stronger, fitter and leaner.

@queenpaws glad you're feeling better!! Mine has crept up from 50 a day to 175 a day and after losing NINE STONE I've managed to reduce it to 150 five days a week and 175 on two. So yeah, no huge impact on dose for me despite weight change.

I see an incredible consultant and he said my thyroid was making little difference to my weight

Totally agree OP. I am 5ft8, eat an average of 1200kcal a day, vegan, gf and mostly whole grains and not huge portions veg plus pulses, beans and tofu with very little sugar. I do a lot of walking. I drink only black or green tea (no sugar or milk) and water. I skip breakfast. People are shocked that I eat what I eat but am still overweight. My BMI sticks at 33/34 and it takes months to shed two kg. My body doesn’t seem to react in the same way as my DP and exDP even when taking into account respective calories in/out and bmr. Weight loss is not as straightforward as people say!

Diets do work, but you have to follow them properly!

OP, you're not doing enough exercise. You're eating only a small amount less than the calories you need to maintain your weight, and you're not doing any "calorie burning" exercise (walking doesn't raise your heart rate high enough to burn anything), so you're loosing very slowly. If you want to lose more, faster, drop to 800 calories or do a lot more exercise.

@Mistymonday

Totally agree OP. I am 5ft8, eat an average of 1200kcal a day, vegan, gf and mostly whole grains and not huge portions veg plus pulses, beans and tofu with very little sugar. I do a lot of walking. I drink only black or green tea (no sugar or milk) and water. I skip breakfast. People are shocked that I eat what I eat but am still overweight. My BMI sticks at 33/34 and it takes months to shed two kg. My body doesn’t seem to react in the same way as my DP and exDP even when taking into account respective calories in/out and bmr. Weight loss is not as straightforward as people say!

1200kcal and no high-heart-rate exercise is basically a great route to not gain weight, but it won't help you lose weight. You need to be either eating less or doing more rigourous exercise or both.

I LOVE all the armchair experts on here!

I have to cut below 800 calories to lose weight. And after a month of this, I then have to also go low carb to continue to lose a small amount of 1or 2lbs a week.

And god forbid you don't get older and go through menopause, because it then gets EVEN harder. I can lose a stone. Or if I'm lucky, 20lbs. But then no more comes off. This despite exercising with a raised heart rate for a minimum of 30 minutes a day (some days up to 90 minutes in two 45 minute sessions).

It's soul destroying. I don't care about appearance, but want to be healthier.

You aren't doing any exercise, the walking isn't really much, and at 5ft 3 you aren't that tall and you have lost weight just very slowly so your maint weight is prob about 1200 for height and exercise level

So the small slow weight loss is correct for your cals in cals out

Diets do work and you are prof of that but your clearly only restricting a few hundred a week so it's taking ages for weight to come that said it's not a bad method and prob way more likely to keep you at a healthy weight level

Keep it up and when you stop I'd try starting at 1200 for main levels

People way over estimate what they think they needs

I'm 40 and 5ft 10 , I run on average 20/25 miles a week

When I restrict to around 1300 I lose 0.5lb a week maximum sometimes less

People just eat way too many calories and thing they need way more than they do

I'm with slimming world. I was thrilled the first six weeks, weight quietly came off, no drama. Then the GP reduced my thyroxine and bam! Total stop.

It's ridiculous to say it's all equal- people have different levels of hormones, including thyroxine, that hugely influence diet and eating.

@Titsinknicks they won't refer me to a consultant said my dose of 25 was fine, TSH of 7 was fine. I'm 5ft 10 and argued for a dose that wasn't for a 5ft elderly woman

No vice I promise just my observation; I am 5 ft 3 and was 11st 8lbs at the start of September. I have reduced my calorie intake as I have lost weight to ensure I am always in calorie deficit. I m now nearing my goal so will move to maintaining calories, at the moment I need under 1000 cals per day to lose. I will probably aim for 1200 per day to maintain.

It's ridiculous to say it's all equal- people have different levels of hormones, including thyroxine, that hugely influence diet and eating

Quite. I think OP may have taken 'average calorie requirement for x height/x weight' to be specific to her. Average means average. The only way to work out how much food you need to lose/maintain/gain weight is to experiment. So, it seems OP has spent 9 months assiduously eating precisely what she needs to maintain her weight given her current energy expenditure, and has maintained her weight. And is dissatisfied.