Why the f*** can’t I lose weight? I’m doing everything right

[Sorryagain]

Postmeno, 55, want to lose half a stone. I don’t like my weight. I’ve always worked out, done lots of heavy-ish weights and eaten healthily but in the last month I’ve really upped weights a lot. I’ve also

• kept to a low calorie count (20% off my TEE - track food most days. Try to keep to 3 meals but some days I do graze but not over cal limit
• upped protein most days to around 100-120g a day
• upped walking to try to do 7.5-10k a day
• added at least one HITT class onto 3 days weight training
• drink more water (my weakness)

i don’t drink, I eat v little sugar and almost no white stuff

the scales have moved by 1lb! I’m so fucked off.

I know post meno it’s hard but this is ridiculous.

I feel stronger, though, and I sense more muscle definition. But I don’t believe muscle will weigh more and keep me at this weight

thoughts? It’s v un motivating

I agree. Obviously we’re all different but personally in my mid 40s I now understand why my MIL eats very little, with very small portions.

I also don’t understand why people are accused of disordered eating for eating e.g. 1000 calories a day through willpower but it is seen as ok for those on weight loss injections to eat so little - I know a couple of people on them and it affects their appetite so much that they struggle to eat. They’re doing the same thing.

Weight loss drugs are also a risk for bone density loss and maintaining good muscle mass and strength.

They are for fine people severely overweight - it gets them to get back in to a healthy range then allows them to be more active and then come off the drugs. They shouldn’t be a long term solution and not for people just slightly overweight.

Frail elderly women eating tiny portions shouldn’t be the goal for us all here.

I think your advise is great.

I'm 52 and trying to lose 1/2 stone to get jn a healthy BMI and maybe a bit more. I don't actually hate how I look. I was lighter when I was younger but I'm not interested in being that again. I'm trying to eat healthier food and do a bit of strength training.

Ah thank you. Strength training and a healthy diet are the way. Good luck. Doesn’t sound like you’re far off where you want to be.

You speak the most sense on this thread. My mum is a frail bird with no appetite, she's done no strength work and every time she falls, she fractures.

Strength work. HEAVY weights. Consistent workouts. Protein. Muscle building. Eye off the calorie counting but eye on eating healthily and staying a balanced
weight. This is longevity.

Yes we need the heavy weights. It’s tough but we can build up. Agree - all about the longevity!

I think our Mothers generation weren’t aware of how important this all was and we see so many fractures/broken bones and osteoporosis because of this.

Falls are the leading cause of death in the over 75s.

So you are saying we need to be tubby as we age? Because that’s what I end up being if I eat “normally”. And I don’t like it. And I do lift weights.

Exactly @Delatron I'm in my mid-sixties and an HCP, and stand by all the 'agree' comments I've made here.

When you say you never have cake or a biscuit or sit still, do you mean ever?!

I consider myself to be a very active person, I've done about 21,000 steps so far and will go for a run tonight but if I could never sit down and rest I would burn out.

I like cake, biscuits etc so there is no way I will ever go through life without anything passing my lips ever again.

I allow myself what I would consider normal food at the weekends so when we go out, I will have chips and I may have a dessert. I tend not to sit down during the day but once I’ve finished my day, I do sit down at about 8 pm, but other than that, I tend to be on the go pretty much all day.

I'd love to be on the go all day. But that's not possible for everyone. What about people who have desk jobs? It's simply not a standard everyone can reach. And that's ok. It's just life.

And for the record, a complex carb is not sugar, rice or potatoes. But that might just be how you worded the sentence.

The other way around; skinny should not be the sole aim. Overall fitness, strength and mobility is the aim, if you happen to be a bit tubbier that is not as risky to your health as being frail and undernourished is as you approach later life.

Sadly there is always so much emphasis on thin being healthy, that we lose the other important messages like strength and agility. There have been numerous studies done on women showing that the size of thigh muscle and bone density were a far better at predicting longevity. The risk is that women are starving themselves of essential nutrients that maintain muscle and bone for the sake of a few pounds on the scale. No one should be eating two crackers for dinner.

Those people will have to have had obese BMIs to qualify for the drug and are taking it as a medical treatment for their obesity. It is not remotely comparable to people of low BMIs obsessively tracking everything that passes their lips.

Most people on WLIs aren't eating as low as 1000 calories and if they are it's temporary while they adjust to the medication. It's not a long term strategy. It's also part of the treatment for obesity which is a huge health risk. It's hardly comparable to people who chronically under eat.

Low calories diets are also correlated with slower biological aging and longevity.

I don't disagree with you on nourishment and strength, though I would argue it's possible to do that while being slim and there's no need to present it as an either/or situation. I posted to illustrate that there's enough 'health' information out there on the internet for us all to cherry pick something that suits our own way of thinking.

Tbh I discovered the only way I can lose weight is low fat high fibre diet. I tried low cals with exercise and it worked for a few weeks then I reached a plateau.

Of course a person can be nourished, strong and slim. But people on this thread are advocating eating 1000 calories or less a day. Which is going to be at the cost of muscles and bone health. I'm not cherry picking anything when I say that advising women to eat that little in order to be a certain weight is disordered and dangerous.

Nobody is saying it is not possible to be strong and slim. I’m a size 8/10
and I lift heavy weights. I have no idea how many calories I eat but it must be at least 1800.

We are disputing the 1000 calories and under approach as you can’t build or maintain muscle with that amount. It is disordered eating and not healthy.

For women, unfortunately it’s better for longevity to be at the top end of a healthy BMI than at the bottom or under.

@BlueScallop and @Delatron But you are making judgements about women you don't know.
And it's very patronising to be honest.

I don't think anyone here is advocating 1000 cals a day every day for the rest of their lives. They're advising the OP what she may need to do to lose a few pounds. But even IF 1000 cals a day works for them how do you think you know better? What is your basis for telling anyone they need more?

You and other similar posters here can't see those of us who eat less.

I, for example, have tiny wrists and hands. I'm ring size H. This is nothing to do with disordered eating, but my build, and it's been like that from being a child.
Buying shoes is a nightmare because I have very slim feet.
But I still have belly fat, I don't look skinny by any means.

I've also had my gut health etc analysed via Zoe and am in the top 80% for all the assessments. I also pay for private checks on my bones which are above average for my age.

I hope you can understand that posters insisting on X cals like you, are annoying to put it mildly.

In terms of longevity, people who eat less have a far longer lifespan. I'm sure you've seen/read/ listened to the experiments that have been done on this?

The real reason fatter women may appear to live longer is they have a bit more padding on their hips and usually fracture them less,. Hip fractures in older women often end up as fatal - they end up bed ridden and with pneumonia.

BMI is outdated and misleading

www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/265215

@Delatron No-one has suggested it as long term life plan, merely that as a short term means to an end it won’t do OP any harm. OP already has plenty of muscle, works out, eats plenty of protein, if she’s frustrated that she’s not dropping fat on her current regime, she can achieve her goal in a relatively short time and then go back to building muscle. As long as she eats plenty of protein, which she is, she won’t lose muscle.

Your claim about BMI is not actually true - BMI does not tell you anything about muscle and fat %. A higher BMI with strong muscles, low body fat and good cardiovascular fitness is healthy; a higher BMI that is mainly fat, particularly around the organs, is not - you’re at risk from metabolic syndrome, diabetes, heart disease etc

The general societal trend towards overweight and obesity has skewed people’s perceptions of normal - people now genuinely seem to believe that bigger is healthier without discrimination. Or at least in the U.K. - in med countries such as France Italy and Spain general BMI is lower (altho there is obesity everywhere) and they take being overweight more seriously from a health perspective.

@Nota60schick the blanket statements on here that women from a certain age can only eat very small amounts promote a disordered attitude to eating and don't take into account the importance of strength as we get older. The blinkers of only prizing thinness over every other aspect of health isn't annoying, it's scary. There have been posts on here telling the OP to stop strength training - which is good for her health - and cut down as far as 500 calories per day - which is dangerous. And this is mostly not being suggested as a short-term crash diet (which are also disastrous for health and long term weight gain!) but rather the OP is being advised that once in peri/menopause/post-menopause that this is all women can eat forever.

I don't want to be patronising or irritating to anyone, but I do think posts that advocate a sub-1k calorie diet and giving up weight training should be challenged for balance. People can do what they like individually, how you manage your health is up to you. But anyone going online telling women not to strength train and to starve themselves into thinness is giving horrible and damaging advice to others.

This is a very skewed interpretation of itself. There’s zero evidence of anyone “prizing thinness” over everything else. No-one is promoting anything, this is not a clinic or a PR outfit. Middle-aged women are discussing the impact of menopause on their bodies. I haven’t seen anyone suggest 500 calories a day as a long term plan and if I did I wouldn’t take any notice and neither will the OP.

@Nota60sChick is right this kind of po-faced finger wagging to adults is tiresome.

@bluescallop 's posts have not been remotely skewed and they have provided the most sensible, level, responsible and evidence based advice on this thread.

The post I responded to was a skewed interpretation of the thread.