How come I'm not losing weight?

[SillyTilly123]

I've just done my bmi and I know I'm over weight.

I'm 5'0, 11 stone with a bmi of 31 which is obese.

The nhs thingy said I should be eating 1369-1760 calories a day.

However I'm using my fitness pal and on a normal day (without trying) I will eat around 1500, when i'm trying i will eat 1200. I walk the dog for an hour 5 x a week, plus usual looking after 3 kids, running a house etc. So why am I not losing any? Its really disheartening.

I don't want to go on any particular diet as I cannot afford to cook seperately for me-I just have a smaller portion of what dp and the kids have.
I dont eat chocolate or drink wine, I dont snack at all or eat late.

It's not constantly "dieting" - it's retraining yourself to a different normal. You can have one day over eating once you've got to your target weight, but not more than doing that once a week, ideally once a month.

I've had 2dcs and am "mid to late" 30s, I can have a small arse or a big plate of food, not both. Make a choice, be conscious every time you eat that it's a choice, accept either way, you have to live with your choice.

Just googled and my basal metabolic rate is 1758 calories, so to lose weight if I eat 1258 I should lose a lb a week. Ok going to try that without adding the activity i do and see if I can do it that way. :)
Thanks everyone.

I have quit mfp now as it did make me obsessive and miserable but it worked. I did miss a lot of things and that is what depressed me. When I first cut bread I thought life without sandwiches would be dull. It was. I got to a point where I wasn't losing anymore weight but id gone from a size 18 to a 12. I probably could lose a bit more but im happy. I quit in November and weiged myself once a week. I wanted to see if i. Could do it on my own. I lost more without logging and even over Xmas! So if you are strict with portion control you can train yourself and add nice things back when you are maintaining. I still weigh my porridge for example and when mfp said a portion of potato wedges was 3 wedges that's all id have. But that's better than None! I eat bread etc now just not as much as I used to and only. Once a day.

I have little rules that help too like never having seconds ever and never eating in the kitchen. Always prepare food and eat it somewhere else.

My point is whatever you're doing it doesn't have to be forever.

I know you don't want to do this really but you're getting a lot of advice to eat less which is probably feeling a bit depressing. Could you try Slimming World? I eat plenty, it fits in with my family and I've last over two stone.

I suggest 5:2. I have lost a stone on it. There are threads on here where you will get lots of support.

I think the very first post on this thread by Newbie sums it up - calories in vs calories out - work out what your body needs and consume fewer and you would lose weight, it's as simple as that.

In your case I wonder if you are underestimating your calories as it must be hard to work out for home made meals - do you measure and calculate each ingredient and then weigh out the portions and calculate your meal? For this to work you need to be that specific and count every calorie.

I don't really get the comments about cutting down on carbs or specific food items - calories are calories, and I also agree with Newbie that you could eat nothing but 4 Mars bars a day (260 cals each) and you would lose weight. Of course that isn't healthy, but there is a difference between losing weight and eating healthily. In an ideal world you would do both but you can do one without the other.

I was told to vary my meals so one day have cereal for breakfast, soup for lunch, fish for dinner. Next day is fruit and yoghurt, sandwich for lunch and chicken stirfry for tea.

Since I've done that it's made my metabolism confused and making it work harder as it had got too used to my usual days which I kept having.

if you like food then 5:2 might suit you.

Do those of you who are constantly dieting not miss food?

It feels like that at the beginning - but you kind of have to train yourself into not pigging out. I put on weight after dc3 as a result of overeating, snacking, being ultra busy with 3 children and moving house, and just generally eating sweet stuff/carbs to compensate for tiredness (dc3 was a terrible sleeper).

I had to retrain myself completely - I got WW gold, and then I just sort of stuck with it. I find carbs/sweet stuff addictive - the more you have, the more you want. Whereas when you're eating properly/getting enough sleep you don't crave them so much.

When you're dieting all food tastes delicious

If you work off 400 calories doing exercise do you 'spend' those 400 cals on food?? Mfp might say that 30 mins of aerobics is 400 cals but there is a BIG difference between a high impact aerobics class and waving your arms about in front of a DVD! So you could be burning off 150 but think you're doing 400!

Can I suggest the Hairy dieters books? The food is wonderful, so your DH and DC will probably like it as well. No food is ruled out, but they make small switches/weigh things out.

If you stick to proper portion sizes, you should be fine.

Had meatloaf tonight with colcannon. Spaghetti and mat balls tomorrow, chicken curry earlier in the week. All taste fantastic, just make sure you follow the amounts.

Good luck (I'm also 5"0' with a tall DH who is losing 4lb to my 0.5)

Should add that when I did it, I didn't buy a load of diet food/ww branded stuff. I just ate really healthily, thought about nutrition, tried to cut out as much processed crap as I could.

I'm vegetarian though - so I cook veggie stuff for the family. I think that makes it easier.

If you have been walking the dog for a year then your body was already used to this routine before you wanted to lose weight and so you can't really count this as loss is calories

Say you used to eat 2000 calories a day and walk two lies so used up 150 calories

That would mean to stay at your old weight of 11 stone you needed to 1850 calories a day

Now you are eating 1700 calories a day

So 150 calories less

This will take you 30 days to lose 1ilb in weight

What you need to do is another exercise on top of walking the dog

As others have said, the dog walking is probably not burning off the calories you think it is. Average walking speed is 4mph so if you're only covering two miles that's really more like a gentle stroll. My friend trained for a long distance walk and aimed for 4mph, it's actually not as fast as it sounds, and she found the weight dropped off.

Do you weigh all your food or estimate? If you don't weigh it you will be getting the calorie amount wrong. It's surprising how little you get for the calories when eating carby stodgy food.

Do those of you who are constantly dieting not miss food?

Like I said, I'm not constantly dieting, IMO, just eating less & retraining my brain to be used to smaller amounts. I had noticed in the past how much less my slim friends ate than I did.

What I try to do is to make sure what I eat is delicious, so my 1 egg on 1 slice wholemeal toast I mentioned earlier, I'll have with some watercress/rocket salad and teaspoon hollandaise sauce. Or I might have smoked salmon salad for lunch instead.

I still have a takeaway once a week and feel that my cutting down other days is worth it (I really enjoy the take-away btw ) in order to be slimmer.

If I'm going to eat treats, it has to be so good that I feel I don't mind maybe not losing weight if I eat them, iykwim, so a packet of crisps/slice of cake/extra toast & butter just isn't worth being overweight for, IMO.

Also have Hairy Dieters cookbook

Do those of you who are constantly dieting not miss food?

Yes, but I prefer looking slimmer so to me it's worth it. All a case of priorities :)

I used to eat similarly to you.
Recently I had gynae surgery which will put me into rl early meno so I looked at my diet in order to try and be healthy but loss weight too. It needed to be a change for life.

So I only ever eat one slice of good whole grain bread a day. So toast for breakfast but with fruit or yogurt to fill me up.
If I don't I have porridge and a handful of berries which I keep in the freezer, u get used to it.
If I have pasta or rice I have tiny portions of whole grain and I have a couple if potatoes now and again.
Dinners are low fat curries, chillis, casseroles, stir fry, fish or prawns all bulked out with loads of veg.
I'm after long term health and weight management so I'm in no rush, so if I do fancy a small treat I have one but consider it carefully first.
I do a workout DVD daily at home.
As a result I've lost half a stone in a couple of weeks.
If say make small changes that you can sustain and get creative with the veg. It's so lovely.

I'm sure that this is not true for everyone - but I have noticed that a lot of very slim people I know say they eat a lot, or eat what they like, but when I eat with them, they really don't pig out. They tend to eat slowly, make healthy choices and stop eating before they are stuffed.

When I eat out, I never finish my plate - I try to stop eating before I'm really full up. It's really much nicer - you never have that over-stuffed feeling 20 mins later.

It's also worth double checking the calories in some things yourself, rather than relying on MyFitnessPal's calculation. I have been ticking "Kenco - Kenco Decaf Coffee With Semi-skimmed Milk and One Sugar" which MFP lists as 31 calories. However, I just measured how much milk I put in, and that alone came out at 84 calories. With my 1tsp sugar added in, it's 98!!!!!!

I think you will need to really look at the size of your evening meal
Amount of fruit, veg, nuts, avocado etc
Amount of milk
Amounts of bread..question, do you need a sandwich/panini with soup for lunch or could you swap that for an omelette and salad?

The only reason you are not losing weight is that you are underestimating the calories you consume. Walking won't shift any weight but is v nice.

I don't eat gluten or any of its evil substitutes.

I think that before when I was eating pasta and bread etc it was very easy to overestimate the portion size that I needed
I happily eat potatoes and never worry about my weight

I'm sorry, but there is no way your basal metabolic rate is 1758, this will be your problem.

I also doubt very much that you burn as many calories as you think you do walking. How are you calculating this? With a heart-rate monitor?

Losing weight is hard, and it will mean having to give up things like toast and sausages.

The choice is yours at the end of the day - to be slim, or to eat what you like. Unless you are one of those mythical slim people who, as PP say, can take or leave food, you will feel a bit deprived. That is life.

Weigh everything, and be honest. If you want to frighten yourself, weigh your slice of toast when it comes out of the toaster, then butter it and weigh it again. I was quite merrily adding 25 or so grams of butter to a single slice of toast (nearly 200 calories worth!) - I just didn't realise and would have described it as a 'scraping' had anyone ever asked me.

Right, just worked out your BMR, its 1442.

Have you tried slimming world op? Im only in my second week but I lost 3.5lbs in my first week and I can eat as much pasta, rice and potatoes as I like. I had 5 or 6 roasties on my dinner last weekend. I have made changes like using low fat cooking spray instead of oil or butter, and snacking on fruit, changing white bread to brown, using sweetener in tea...its so easy to stick with it. I have no idea how many calories im eating a day and truth to tell I dont care. I can see it working, I could eat this food forever and I dont miss chocolate or crisps at all. Im having a fry up in a minute.

I would feel really depressed reading this thead and I dont think it needs to be like that necessarily