Cannot lose weight. AIBU to not know where I’m going wrong?

[Firehouse1]

For the last two weeks I’ve eaten less than 1200 calories (tracked in my fitness pal). Food is weighed or in defined portions.

typical day:
-breakfast: low fat yogurt or cereal bar
-lunch: ryvita and extra light Philly x4 and a piece of fruit/yogurt
-dinner: ham salad or a weight watchers ready meal or pasta/veg/chopped tomatoes or steamed cod/broccoli and rice or salmon/mixed green salad/rice

no snacks/a banana if I feel really hungry/one square of chocolate a few times which I added to my food tracker

zero alcohol and no fizzy drinks. I’ve just been a couple of teas and water. I’m pretty bad at drinking water though and it’s one area I’m working on.

exercise; I’ve just hired a personal trainer so just getting started with that. Only find a few sessions. I also cycle. At the weekend I walked over 10k steps each day.

I’ve lost a grand total of 1.5lb. Honestly I’ve had more weight loss after a poo 🤣

what the hell? What am I doing wrong? Too much carbs? Not enough protein?

Im 39 and hate that I just cannot get out of the obese category. I’m very short and weigh 78kg.

@Firehouse1 that sounds like not a bad workout with your PT. Have a wee look at Caroline Girvan on YouTube, loads of free weights-based workouts there. I'm in a fb group of devotees and some of the results are spectacular!
But no bad idea starting out with a PT to make sure your form is correct and prevent injuries.

Your macro split wants to be about 50% carbs, 30% protein and 20% fat

Given your starting weight I think losing 1.5lbs in two weeks is reasonable. When I have succeeded in losing weight in the past (though really struggling now) I have found it very difficult to lose more than 1lb a week, often a bit less. I think people with a much heavier starting weight than you may lose more because their bodies need to expend more energy to move around. In my experience weight loss goes in fits and starts and does not seem to follow food/calorie intake logically.

Eat real unprocessed food and drink plenty of water. Have you thought about intermittent fasting? I find fasting works extremely well for me for weight loss. So much simpler than calorie counting. Dr Rangan Chaterjee has some great podcasts/you tube videos about it and is so easy to listen to. His podcast this week was with someone called Dr Mindy Pelz, who talked about women (particularly aged 40+) eating/fasting according to their menstrual cycle. Was really interesting and a real eye opener.

Weight loss is not necessarily linear. Sometimes the scale can say the same for a few weeks and then you will suddenly drop a few pounds overnight. Some believe this is due to empty fat cells hanging onto water for a while which masks weight loss.

Two weeks is very early days so I wouldn't give up yet. 1.5lb is still something!

Echoing what others have said - you need waaaaaay more protein.

Breakfast - toast/tea/coffee. Feel free to have peanut butter on your toast if you like?
Mid-morning snack - green tea with some almonds (10 or so?) and a piece of dark chocolate
Lunch - small breast of chicken or salmon fillet or something similar with some broccoli or spinach or salad
Mid-afternoon snack - protein shake (I add cocoa powder to mine to make it extra chocolately because I love chocolate)
Dinner - normal, with protein like spaghetti bolognese etc. (like not pasta and butter!) but nothing fried and only have 2/3 of what you think is a normal portion.

Weight training 3 times a week
Something like Joe Wicks for 25 mins twice a week

Cycling is incredibly efficient.... at using very little energy. I really wouldn't count that as exercise, unless you have a truly shit bike that has to be practically dragged around. An old Pashley can be useful for that. 😁

Weights and HIIT burn the most calories. I prefer weights. I hate HIIT or running or anything fast.

I hate HIIT or running or anything fast

Omg HIIT is the WORST. Exercise of the devil.

Agree with previous poster about processed food.

I am about the same age/height and was the same weight end of last summer. I've shifted a stone in 6 months mainly by cutting as much processed food as possible, veg/fruit only for snacks, no booze, no evening snacking so I have a 12 hour window for food, as much whole foods as possible, avoiding added sugar.

We will have the occasional meal with UPF but this is not a daily occurrence (maybe twice a week). Lots of soups, stews, traybakes - freezer is full of batch cooking.
Spending way more on fruit/veg/meat but less on sugary snacks.
I cannot calorie count at all. It drives me mad. 1200 is so little especially with what you're eating.

Typical day:
-breakfast - 1 slice rye toast with butter and boiled egg, coffee, water.
-snack - 1 piece veg, 1 piece fruit
-lunch - leftovers or jacket potato with spinach, mushrooms cream cheese or a tray bake with haloumi, veg omelette, soup. I sometimes batch cook for lunch as well.
-snack - 1 piece fruit or veg. handful of unsalted nuts if hungry.
-dinner - 5 nights out of 7 something home cooked with lots of veg (e.g. soup and bread, chicken/sausage casserole and rice or mash, toad in the hole with 2 types of veg, lasagne, beef stew, spaghetti bolognese, swedish meatballs in red wine gravy. As little UPF as possible, only use olive oil or butter for cooking (no vegetable oil or margarine). Sensible portions of carbs but I don't cut them out. We do eat meat almost every day though have tried to cut down a bit.

I don't have a sweet tooth. Things like crisps or crackers and cheese have always been my downfall, especially in the evenings or when emotional. Stopping that was the hardest.

I try to do 10k steps a day but don't manage much more exercise outside of that.
In the evening I only drink water or herbal tea.
Not only have I lost weight but am sleeping better and feel more relaxed.

You need to up your fat intake and watch out for sugar - loads in low fat stuff and ready meals, or even worse, artificial sweeteners which mess with your body and make you very hungry in the longer run.

I actually think this is a really decent weight loss in only 2 weeks! A bag of sugar weighs a pound, go pick one up and feel how heavy that is, it's hefty! Well done! Do the maths and see how much weight you will lose in 6 months or 1 year at this rate, it might surprise you. And think about how long it took to gain the weight in the first place, it was probably slower than that

1.5 pounds is real to a calorie deficit of 5100 calories.

Your diet is fine, so is your exercise. 1.5lb a week is pretty sustainable.

Keep plugging away, nothing is wrong.

try to leave longer before you have breakfast, it will give your body a chance to burn more fat. Even cut down to eating twice a day (late lunch / dinner). Stop with the snacks - they raise your blood sugar cutting out your fat loss ability. If you drink tea drink it black (same with coffee). The milk in tea or coffee again raises blood sugar. It will give you a better chance of weight loss.

I'm 47, 5ft5 and weigh 10 stone. I was 11 stone 3 months ago and lost it by having one day a week where I only ate about 600 calories. That's it.
I ate whatever I wanted the other days, drank alcohol. I.also don't do any exercise, like at all. Never have. If I stop the 600 calorie day then I.maintain. my weight. Honestly, you can work out all you want but it's about calories. Also, as a pp said, starvation mode is a myth. If you reduce calories, you'll lose weight, its that simple.

That's an interesting approach - I seem to remember reading / hearing something about how limiting calories for a short period then eating sensibly can help to reset your metabolic set point. I'd imagine its more sustainable and less miserable doing it that way.

When I was actively losing weight I would Peloton 5-7 times a week. Are you a member of UK Ladies Peloton on Facebook.

Weight loss sometimes plateaus for no obvious reason - or it can be linked to where you are in your monthly cycle. I find that it takes a couple of weeks to get going. But you're not doing badly at all.

That said I think you probably need to be more active - 10,000 steps is not very much if you are only doing it at the weekend (to be considered 'lightly active' you need to do the equivalent of 5000-7500 steps a day).

As others have said, you may find it more sustainable to up your activity if you increase the amount you eat. I've done the constant low calorie thing, and I just got too tired to exercise. Doing 5:2, where you eat your maintenance calories on 5 days and 500-800 calories on the other 2 days, allows you to incorporate more exercise into the week. It might not mean you lose any more quickly, but it's less miserable and you can get fitter at the same time.

And yes to increasing protein and fats.

Exercise makes you fit. It does not help you lose weight

Well it definitely helps me lose weight. I WFH and barely burn 1500 calories on non gym days but at least 500 more when I've been running & spinning (luckily I can go 4-5 times week)

It's definitely calories in V calories out for me so I try and stick to 1500 a day and only eat between 12-8pm. It's still a slow process as I'm not in my 30s anymore but it's keeps me in check 👍

Well it definitely helps me lose weight. I WFH and barely burn 1500 calories on non gym days but at least 500 more when I've been running & spinning (luckily I can go 4-5 times week)

Yes, because you're using a lot of calories when you're doing that amount of exercise if you can go that often.

For most people, they don't go that often, and they don't do exercise which is so intensive!

Cycling is incredibly efficient.... at using very little energy. I really wouldn't count that as exercise

Eh????

exercise raises your metabolism so even after you stop you'll be burning more calories the rest of the day. it's definitely worth incorporating!

I'm 5ft 8 and if I don't exercise 1200 calories is maintenance for me. Im just over 9 stone. So you don't have to be tiny to not burn many calories.

People massively over estimate what they need to eat.

When I first started dieting it took 4 weeks before I shifted a single lb. Cutting alcohol really really helped. I then stopped drinking anything except black coffee and herbal tea without sugar. I find I don't stay full unless I eat high fibre foods. White carbs like bread and pasta aren't great for you at all if you eat those.

You will lose weight if you stick at it, it's just much slower than most people expect.

Intermittent fasting works a treat

You have had lots of great advice around foods but I wanted to point our two things, the first has already been mentioned, when you start new exercise your body retains water to protect the muscles.

The second thing is that weight fluctuates through your cycle. I can gain 5lbs the week before my period.

Keep being consistent and the results will follow. 1lb a week is good progress and sustainable.

You do need to eat more than you currently are. Protein is important but I disagree with sitting out carbs. You find a diet that you can stick to whatever it may be but the key is consistency.

Have you considered that actually by reducing your calorie intake you have mostly stopped yourself getting fatter. Let's say in the last 2 or 3 years you've put on almost a stone a year, that's just over a 1lb a month. Now you're not doing that and you're actually loosing weight. 1.5 lbs per fortnight . In a year you will have lost the 2.5/3 stone.
You need to be realistic and start considering a change of mindset. You said you were quite short. It might be that 1200 is close to your maintenance load, so the amount of calories you need to not gain or loose weight. As your weight decreases you might plateau. You're going to find more inventive meals than that. A lifestyle change needs to last a lifetime.
Great you're thinking about exercing too. Don't get too worked up on what ghe scales say. You may well loose fat but gain muscle.