Why am I not losing weight ?

[specialk9]

Hi

I've always calorie counted to previously lose and maintain weight but it doesn't seem to be working this time ! Any ideas?!

I'm short (5ft) , 9st 9lb
My goal is between 8st 10lb and 9st.
I'm 40 with 3 children (one under 1).

I'd say I'm fairly active, naturally do over 10k steps a day with school runs and general life. 3x cardio sessions per week and some hand weight workouts at home.

I eat between 1000-1200 calories during the week and increase slightly at the weekend to allow an extra treat plus I have a gin and slimline tonic with dinner on a Friday and Saturday. I always ensure the average daily consumption is 1200 calories.

An example of what I eat

Yesterday 1150 calories

3x Tea with semi skimmed milk+ 1 sugar
1-2l of water
Breakfast- 30g porridge with semi skimmed milk + 1 teaspoon peanut butter
Lunch - 100g roast chicken breast (no skin) + salad + 1 tablespoon light salad dressing
Dinner - Fishcake + rice/veg
Treat - 2 low calorie biscuits

Today 1020 calories

3x Tea with semi skimmed milk+ 1 sugar
1-2l of water
Breakfast- 30g low sugar muesli with protein yoghurt
Lunch - 30g mature cheese + 1 boiled egg + salad + 1 tablespoon light salad dressing
Dinner - Grilled cod + light dressing + broccoli/peas
Treat - 2 low calorie biscuits

I'm getting a bit desperate now and really trying hard not to turn to a 'fad' diet.

Surely I don't have to eat less calories than that?!

I wouldn't ask on here as you'll get loads of ridiculous answers about metabolism/starvation mode/carbs/hormones etc etc

You're not in a calorie deficit if you're not losing weight. Somewhere your tracking is wrong because anyone would lose weight on that amount of calories. By restricting so much your weekends are probably accounting for way more calories than you think. Drnadolsky or ESG fitness on Instagram would be a good place to look. There's studies that show even dietitian's miscalculated their calories when tracking by quite a large percentage.

What @WreckTangled said. You might need to weight stuff like an obsessive nerd for a week or two and check your weekend treats.

You're a bit light on fruit and veg, could you swap out the low cal biscuits.

The only thing fad diets succeed at is making fad diet companies rich.

Because all calories are not equal. If you have high fat content foods that claim to be low calorie, you're going to put weight on. Look at quality of calories over quantity. Try it, juts once.

Incorrect. A calorie is a unit of measurement. It's like saying all inches are not equal. Of course they are.

Obviously 600 calories of veg with some carb and decent protein is going to be more nutritious and fill you up for longer than 600 calories of McDonald's but it won't make any difference to your weight loss/gain.

The main reason people say all calories are not equal is because some foods with be more satiating than others (and nutritious) and therefore can affect your behaviour and make you overeat at other times.

Hi wreck 😃 I wonder about insulin levels and the effect on weight loss with Ultra Processed foods having read a few books (Why we eat too much by Andrew Jenkinson, Tim Spector’s Spoon Fed and Giles Yeo - Why Calories Don’t count were all interesting on this and all seem properly backed up with scientific research) and listened to some podcasts on the same topics, which seemed to suggest that highly and/or ultra processed food is actually metabolically different to the same amount of cals of unprocessed whole foods. More metabolically available basically. But I’m not seeing vast amounts of UPFs here tbh!

Insulin levels doesn't make a difference to weight loss. If the excess energy (calories consumed) isn't there in the first place then it can't be stored as fat (because you're using it to walk, breathe, stay alive etc). I guess the same also goes for UPF, why would your body store it as excess fat when it needs to use it to function? And if it's storing it as fat then what's it using for energy?

You say you’ve got 1 under 1- are you breastfeeding or massively sleep deprived? Both of those killed weight loss for me…

Give 40 minutes of your life to watching this.

@WreckTangled

Insulin levels doesn't make a difference to weight loss

How d'you mean? Insulin release prevents weight loss. Its whole purpose is to push our body to use the sugar we have available rather than tap into our fat.

I meant it doesn't cause you to gain weight

That's totally different to what you said. It does, in fact, make a huge difference to weight loss.

Thank you for clarifying.

Are you not losing anything ?

I done a calorie calculator and your maintainanace is 1400 odd calories so for 0.5 lb a week you would need 1150 a day every day.

It wouldn't actually show me your weight loss needs as it deemed it too low on the calculator I used. I done light exercise 1-3 a week .

Unfortunately for you personally to lose weight, with your height , and age etc it isn't a lot of calories. I wouldn't recommend trying to lose more than 0.5lb a week due to this and wouldn't diet for excessively long (no more than 2-3 months) without having a break aka maintainance calories as it can lower your metabolism which then creates more problems for losing/ maintaining weight

As others said, you aren't in the deficit you think you are, do you know how many calories these weekend treats account too? Maybe that calorie difference is enough to make you maintain weight and not lose of you're only on a small calorie deficit on the weekdays

I eat between 1000-1200 calories during the week and increase slightly at the weekend

^

I'd say here is where the problem lies. What are you eating at weekends? If it's a 2000 calorie takeaway, then no, you won't lose weight overall.

Instead I'd eat:

Porridge made with full fat milk (no peanut butter)

Big chicken salad with full fat dressing

Dinner can be meat and two veg type meals, if possible try and go lower carb tbh. I lose easier from baked potatoes than with rice.

It does, in fact, not. Insulin release does not inhibit fat loss.

Are you losing inches rather than weight? Muscle weighs more than fat so might be you are heading in the right direction more than scales show?

Agree with the above about weighing food and making sure your count is accurate but are you also doing all the other lifestyle stuff you need to do like:

• getting enough sleep - lack of sleep triggers cortisol which triggers your body to save energy so it doesn't release the fat stores as well.

• getting enough water - your body uses water to heal muscle fibres and to break down fat, if you don't have enough then your body can't do those things as efficiently.

• increasing movement - you don't have to be running marathons or doing several hour long HIIT sessions but upping your activity increases your metabolism and again just helps with weight loss and health.

None of the above alone will stop you losing weight or cause you to drop loads of weight but they do help to make calorie counting more effective and to make you feel better while you're doing it.

Insulin release is for inhibiting fat loss, via encouraging the body to burn sugar, not fat. It's basic biology. That's what insulin's role is.

Where are you getting your information? Have a look at the video above and the article below.

www.diabetes.co.uk/news/2018/jan/drop-in-both-insulin-and-leptin-needed-for-fat-burning-to-occur-90969878.html

If you're not eating more calories than you're using then there is no excess energy to be stored. Regardless of whether it's glucose or fat. That article doesn't say any different. If you're not eating carbohydrates then your body has to use something else for energy, the next best thing will be fat but it's not going to use stored fat unless you're in a calorie deficit, it will just utilise what you're consuming.

Insulin moves sugar from the blood into the cells. That's basic biology. In order for insulin levels to decrease you'd need to be eating little carbs in which case your body is going to burn whatever you're consuming, which for many low carbers will be fat.

I would take that article with a pinch of salt as there's no link to the actual study so it cannot be interpreted properly. Plus diabetes.co.uk is a pro low carb website so of course it would publish an article to promote it (and with good reason, there's a lot of research to say lower carb diets are extremely beneficial for people with diabetes to help control glucose levels).

@WreckTangled

OP isn't asking about how not to gain weight, she's asking why she isn't losing it. Nobody is saying that insulin will make you gain weight if you're eating the right amount of calories for your current weight. You're answering a question that isn't being asked without stating that your doing so, which conflates your answers with those who are answering the right question.

Nobody is debating what you're saying about maintaining a healthy weight, but that isn't OP's situation, so it's not relevant.

Who made you thread police? I was responding to a comment made by gen who mentioned insulin. And then you jumped on what I said. And now you're telling me what I'm saying isn't relevant to the OP when I was responding to you 🙄

OK, I'll just speak to OP from now on. OP, be careful of WreckTangled's advice, for the reasons I've mentioned above, and sorry for the derail.

You’re wrong. The person eating 600 calories of McDonalds will not lose as much weight as the person eating 600 calories of healthy, non-ultra processed food. There is a huge amount of new evidence for this. The idea that you can simply count calories and lose weight is no longer supported by scientists.

I would urge you to read about ultra processed foods and some of the studies done where groups have been given meals that are exactly matched in terms of number of calories and amount of fat, salt, sugar, fiber etc - the only difference being one was all ultra-processed food and one wasn’t. The group eating UPF gained weigh.

really interesting podcast about it that I recommend listening to

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00180lb

OP are you drinking enough water? There's a science behind not drinking enough water and weight loss (or lack of) I watched a very interesting video on the science behind it and how it helps.

Yes. Put in basics, a calorie of protein takes a lot more energy for the body to turn into energy than a calorie of carbohydrate, so what you have left for bodily processes including fat storage is very different.

Also, if you store the calorie as fat, that process needs energy too, so the surplus to use/store is different for calories burnt immediately than for those we save for later.

All calories are not the same, and a calorie is not a weight measurement. If you watch the video above, you'll see what happens when you ask the authorities where the 3500kcal = 1lb of fat 'fact' came from. They don't know.