To not understand why I only ever gain weight while trying to lose it

[SEmyarse]

I've been overweight for years, but not hugely, I usually sit at about 11 stone naturally (at 5'5''). I would like to be slimmer, so inevitably I go on a health kick, and ALWAYS put on weight. People are going to start going on about muscle weighing more, but it totally doesn't feel like that at all, it's always just my stomach getting larger. And then I'll fall off the wagon and settle back to 11 stone again.

So 2 years ago, my youngest child left school, and it dawned on me that I've been trying to lose weight for 28 years, this is ludicrous, I have NEVER lost a single pound, that I'm aware of, intentionally.

So eat less, move more, right? How hard can it be? Two whole years now of getting up early, 20 min walk to the gym, 40 min there, 20 min back. Then off to my fairly active job, first hour lifting and loading things in the depot, then 6-10 hours deliveries. Obviously driving isn't super active, but it's short drop, I'm doing 25-30 an hour, always run back down driveways, or flat steps. I've never been a big eater at all, just bowl of cereal in the morning, and dinner at night. Dinner's vary a bit since DH cooks, but that really doesn't seem like a lot of food for my lifestyle. It's only standard stuff, pasta or potatoes or salad etc. I cut out the biscuits that I used to snack on completely. And apart from a glass of orange juice with breakfast I only ever drink water.

And now I'm 14 stone, what the hell am I doing wrong?

To those that say loosing weight is easy, it’s just fewer calories in more calories out- yup, that is the basics, but it’s not easy at all.if you have found it easy, I am so glad for you and I hope that never changes for you, but most people who are very overweight and have been for years do not find it easy. Bodily signals have been overridden and lost- I for one didn’t know what the feeling of full or even eating too much felt like until I started mounjaro. I couldn’t eat just 1 biscuit or 1 piece of chocolate and put it away for another day because of food noise, which, i didn’t realise was a thing until it switched off. I lost 3 stone on SW and it was a struggle every day and miserable because of food noise and never feeling full.
So please don’t belittle people by saying losing weight is easy, it’s effing hard!! Larger people have enough prejudice against them as it is!

But I still gained 4 lb. No one said whether it was fat etc Merely that you can't gain weight without eating too many calories

You’ve just explained that muscle does way more than fat? So it’s not a myth… a centimetre cubed of muscle weighs more than centimetre cubed of fat. A lb of fat obviously weighs the same as an lb of muscle.

Of course you’re dizzy, you’re eating two meals a day and by your own admitting barely eat.

You need to track your calories. That’s it. You’d be surprised at how much things add up. I recently lost two stone and decided I didn’t need to track anymore as I’m so used to it. 7 pounds slowly crept back on and I haven’t even been eating any differently- just eye balling portions wrong. An extra 50 calories of butter on my toast here, an extra 100 calories of pasta there. It can add up fast.

Add up everything he’s used in MFP and then divide by the number of portions. It won’t be 100% if you aren’t cooking your own individual but you have a starting point.

If you’re that convinced you’re under eating then go to the GP.

Enough cereal to make you feel full all day until dinner time is going to be a massive amount of sugar. Weigh out your usual portion and work out how many calories it is and I bet you'll be shocked.

Also this. I don’t eat cereal anymore because it’s empty calories. If I weighed out a portion to keep me full I’m guessing it would be about 800 calories. A portion of cereal is tiny.

You've just literally said muscle doesn't weigh more than fat in that post.

Muscle is more dense that fat, it doesn’t weigh more. So the same volume of fat and muscle, muscle will have a higher mass. A tonne of feathers and a tonne of tar will have the same mass but not the same volume.

1 lb of anything is the same as 1lb of anything else. A cubic cm of muscle weighs more than a cubic cm of fat as muscle is a lot denser.

Your OP and other posts mention cereal for breakfast, and items like pasta, potatoes and cheese for dinner.

If there's no underlying health problems it's too much cereal, too much pasta, too many potatoes, too much cheese.

Cereal isn't particularly healthy. Try something low in calories but high in protein, like eggs in their various forms.

I would measure calories for one day with all the usual ingredients, just to get an idea of intake. It'll probably be quite high.

DD has the opposite problem to you and I suspect the pasta is the culprit. The amount of calories isn't about the size, but how it's cooked. I can get half of her daily calories in a small portion for her using a recipe packed with cream, honey, butter, etc and it tastes healthy with small amounts of protein and lots of veg. Similarly she gets 1,000 calories in her brekkie in a small bowl of porridge made with cream.

Also what about drinks. Frappes are calorie packed as are other drinks.

You literally do need to know what he's cooking, even if he objects to you weighing it why doesn't he at least give you an ingredient list.

It also sounds like he plates it up for you. Dh always gives me way too much. It's better for everyone to serve themselves imo.

A higher protein diet helped me not be hungry/get a 2pm crash.

But I agree you need to see a doctor to rule out anything else.

Unless you have a medical condition there is no way you gain weight by eating a bowl of cereal and then nothing until dinner that you are often too tired to eat, unless of course your cereal is a huge bowl of muesli with full fat milk and your dinner is is a large portion of say, butter covered pasta in a creamy meat sauce with some grated cheese with a side of garlic bread which would add up to way over 2000 calories then yes your 2 meals would increase your weight. If you don’t eat anything all day are you having calorie laden coffees or drinks? It’s so easy to drink calories.

A lb of lead is the same weight as a lb of feathers. Are you telling me lead and feathers are the same weight?

A lb of elephant weighs the same as a lb of a sparrow. I’ve never heard anyone argue a sparrow weighs the same as an elephant, which by your logic it does.

You probably aren't eating enough and your body is in starvation mode

Muscle is denser than fat, so takes up less space, but there is no inherent difference with their respective weights.

Person A - 9 stone, 20% fat, size 8, waist measures 26 inches
Person B - 9 stone, 25% fat, size 10, waist measures 28 inches.

Same weight but Person A has less fat & more muscle, so is smaller.

It's not that muscle is 'heavier' - it just takes up less space.

But the whole premise of this thread (and talking about weight in general) is that we are misusing the terms weight and mass.

Mass is measured in kg/lb, weigh is measured in Newtons.

Muscle is denser, and so if you are interchanging the words weight and mass (which we are because no one has used the word mass, nor have they talked about weight) then it’s reasonable to say muscle is heavier.

The same way lead is heavier than aluminium. It’s actually not, it’s just denser. Or wool is heavier than linen. Surely when anyone says one material is heavier than another it’s implied that they are saying it with a reference point of identical volume. Otherwise you are comparing apples and oranges.

It can be harder to lose weight as we age. If you can track your calories and exercise you'll be able to see what's going wrong.

I read your post this am and I've been thinking about this all day. Agree with pp about getting checked out with GP.

But, to me the problem is you are eating only sugar/carbohydrate all day. Orange juice, cereal, pasta or potatoes, and yes to be fair some veg. No protein.

Either you're over your maintenance calories, or your body is doing a weird thing of storing fat even though you dont eat a lot, because of your eating pattern.

Forget the exercise apart from bits you like, it won't be making any difference. You can't even build muscle because you're not eating protein. Going to the gym doesn't change your maintenance/weight loss calories.

I'd focus time, energy and money instead on your nutrition.
Breakfast: Smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, or ham omelette, or bacon and poached eggs, spinach, tomatoes, mushrooms if you fancy.

Take some cooked strips of chicken, or top quality sausage or salami, or boiled egg, olives, or some tuna mayo in lettuce with you to work and try to just have a little bit through the day.

For dinner ask DH for the meat part with some veg.

It will take you time to reset, as your body is just used to having sugar all day.
Don't have any fruit, and ideally not even sweet veg like carrot or peas.

You are most likely eating more than you think.
Even if you eat relatively little during the week, without tracking you actually have no idea how much you're eating.
And if you have a day off on Sunday (which you should so don't stop that) you still don't know how much you're actually eating. Going for long walk might burn about 100 calories that's not even enough for a chocolate bar so you can't really count on those calories to offset eating a lot more.

What medical condition would cause to put on 3 stone in 2 years if you were genuinely eating that little because even with thyroid issues or pcos or insulin resistance at least a little weight would have been lost at some point during that time, but you've put on 1lb a month eating one bowl of cereal and about half a plate of dinner while doing exercise every day.
I'm not a doctor so I have no idea, but I do know people who have these and other conditions and while it's very difficult it has been achieved. Obviously everyone is different

I think you should try a 2-3 week experiment
breakfast - Greek 0% yoghurt or omelette
lunch - salad with meat or fish
dinner skip the potatoes or rice - meat and veg

weigh everything and stick to 1,400 calories and see if you lose. There just isn’t enough in your post to see if you are being reasonable or not

@SEmyarse let husband focus on Gina bed you focus on you.
Stand up for yourself . If he is putting you under pressure and having a go at you the body will be under stress , this won’t help with weight loss.

He needs to stop comparing you . Everyone is different .

what are you having for breakfast?
have something that will
keep you going and stop You snackng . You get some nice granola .

I also agree with another poster if you don’t change anything , then nothing will change.

Also you don’t need “to gym “ in the morning just ten minutes at home ? If you can get a cheap treadmill then gym at night