Am I being impatient?

[Iloveyorkshire]

Some advice please - and maybe some encouragement!

Two years ago I lost over four stones, purely by calorie counting. I managed to keep it off until I was in hospital recently for quite some time. I have now gained 9lbs.

I started the 5 2 a month ago. Have kept to the fast days religiously. My TDEE is 1800, but I have stuck to 1400. Result....zero. I realise it's early days, but the weight came off quite quickly last time. Am I doing anything wrong, other than being impatient.

Hi ilove That's unusual, because most folk lose at least a few lb the first month.

Right, some questions:
. What is your current BMI and is your weight less than half your height ? If you are already lean, weight loss is often very slow - in that case, patience.
. Check that you input the correct data for your TDEE - people often over-estimate activity level
. Are you doing a lot of cardio ? This can sometimes overstress the body and cause it to hang onto fat.
. Are you eating back exercise calories ? Most folk seriously over-estimate these. Never eat back FD exercise.
. Did you really weigh and measure all food & drink for a week, not just estimates ? Folk can be a few hundred off when estimating over a day. Also, could you be forgetting / miscounting wine, biscuits etc
. Do you eat a lot of sweets, cake, biscuits etc or drink alcohol most NFDs ?
. Have you changed your type of food recently, e.g. started / stopped low carb or vegan ?

If you are sure you are doing all that already, I suggest
2 weeks of 5:2 bootcamp:
. Drink plenty of water
. Cut out any junk takeaways. Cut out sweet treats and alcohol, except for optionally ONE portion on 2 days per week
. Replace white carbs by complex carbs, e.g. oats, quinoa, brown rice, sholegrain bread
. mfp daily, (500 cals on FDs, around 1500 on NFDs)
. Do not eat back any exercise calories
. Change your current exercise routine to 3-4 days per week, replacimg any steady state cardio by resistance training (e.g. pump, circuits) and HIIT, e.g. rope skipping, spin

Also:
. Have you have been put on any medication after hospital ? - some have side effects of fat gain
. Were you in bed or sedentary for a few weeks ? - that may have lowered your BMR and lost muscle. You'd need to carefully build up exercise if so, to raise BMR and TDEE again and get into fat-burning mode.