Am I not eating enough to lose weight?

[nemmanoo]

I'm in that weight loss plateau stage and it's so frustrating!!!

I'm 12.5 stone and need to lose about 2, 2 and a half. I've been sticking very well to a 1300/1400 calorie a day diet (trying to cut out processed foods within this). My DP and I are also walking a lot for exercise - we walked 6 miles each on Thursday Friday Saturday and today we did about 9. Don't have any other exercise really but we're speedy walkers and when I'm fitter I'll start running again.

Question is - I never eat back my exercise calories and am just not losing anything right now. In the past when I've calorie - cycled (eaten a bit more for a day then gone back) it seemed to have helped, but that may just have been my imagination! Any advice would help

How much have you lost and how long have you been dieting for?

All I can do is recommend Slimming World. I joined a month ago and really have found it is the only thing that works for me. I eat a LOT of food. And some bad foods too.

Not eating enough really will just not help you burn off calories.

Exercise builds heavy muscle, so Id suggest measuring your body and seeing if you are losing inches rather than lbs.

And only weigh yourself once a week at the same time in the same clothes.

Everyone I know who has joined SW has had results. Slowly, but overall successfully.

I'm the same-I seem to have lost half a stone but have just stopped. I think my digestion has just packed up though as I have got so constipated!

What can I eat that's low in calories that will get things moving along again?!

So just to clarify, when you eat 1300 calories, and then walk a lot, you're not eating any more to sustain what you've lost on the walk?

If so then it sounds to me like you're not eating enough.

I'd be looking at increasing your exercise and increasing your daily food intake. Have you looked up your resting metabolic rate? You certainly shouldn't be eating any less than that to function.

In fact re-reading your post I'd say it is very likely you're not eating enough. I'm 5ft 1 and when I was around 9st 7 and looking to lost half a stone, I was consuming around 1500 calories a day and losing about 1lb a week.

What type of food are you eating?

6miles is also not really exercise in my mind. My 3 year old walks that daily just dropping ds1 was school, walking back, and repeat in afternoon (1.5 miles away). Plus we then go out daily ontop, and swim 3-4 evenings a week. My pedometer averages around 250000 steps a day, have you tried using one?

*25 000, not 250 000!

two hundred and fifty thousand steps a day? Really? How do you manage that? Even on days when I've walked a lot, 16 thousand is high. Do you mean 25 thousand? Even so, that is loads. You must walk all day every day. I think I walk a lot, and am on my feet most of the day and average 12 k.

x posts. still, 25k is loads. Serious q. how do you do that? (am looking to improve, yet like I said, despite being on feet most of time, and think I walk a lot I am more like 12 k.

Haha 250, 000 would be loads. I suppose I just don't sit down.

So usually I'm walking between school runs, then walk to office, back and forth between them. Walk around the office, usually walk whilst I'm on phone at work, take kids on bikes and il walk alongside late afternoon etc. we live on 5th floor also (central London), so walking up and down stairs etc just to answer door/ bin/ pop to get milk etc.

I very rarely take public transport ( and have no car)

Definitely sounds as though you are not eating enough.

Are you weighing and measuring all of your food? Weight loss is less calories in than out. There is no such thing as "starvation mode".

I find I start to plateau when I get slack with weighing food and start guessing portion sizes. It doesn't take much to add an extra few hundred calories and start eating at maintenance, without thinking you're doing anything different.

The not eating enough thing is a myth IMO (and not just mine, just google it) www.weightwatchers.com/util/art/index_art.aspx?tabnum=1&art_id=35501

• what is probably happening is that as you get fitter you are building muscle and losing fat. Just keep going. If you feel the need to vary what you are doing then maybe distribute your calories differently - do a version of 5:2 where you have a couple of very low calorie days and get the health benefits from the fasting as well.

I think that you are probably building muscle AND losing fat so it seems like you have reached a plateau. Muscle is heavier than fat so it may even seem like you are putting on weight.

Perhaps have your body fat percentage checked? And monitoring your body using a tape measure as opposed to scale might be helpful for a while to see if you are getting in shape or if you really have just stopped all progress.

Good luck!

No. She's not building muscle. And muscle isn't heavier than fat.

Muscle isn't heavier than fat at all, it's just denser. So a pound of muscle will look smaller than a pound of fat, but you can still weigh the same.

Whoops, I'm clearly mixed up, don't listen to me, but some good advice from other posters here.

The not eating enough thing is a myth. Nor are you building muscle. Perhaps you're underestimating your calories, or just not moving enough to burn off what you eat.
I average 1200cals a day and have plateaued at 9st 9. It's frustrating but I know that I need to eat less, not more, to get lower than that.

I wondered about the whole, 'eating too little to lose weight' thing a while ago as it just didn't seem logical, after all if that were true Africa would be full of fat kids!

Anyway, I found this article which made a lot of sense to me, it also has a link to the page about the 'I'm building up muscle as fast as I'm losing fat' myth as well which makes interesting reading.

starvation mode myth

I have lost a lot of weight recently, counting calories, food diary, no clubs or suchlike and aim amazed at the amount of overweight woman that feel they need to justify to me why they are overweight.
I don't give a shit what anyone eats or weighs and i never discuss what i eat or weigh yet i have been told on numerous occasions that the reason they think they are overweight is because they don't eat enough.

Its embarrassing. Its not true.

Hi, Not eatting proceeded foods is a great start, but you need to make sure you are having enough goodness out of those meals, are you getting in enough fruit and Veg are you exercising regular? There are so many factors to weight loss

I like that link, Zalen! Am going to keep that in my mental store for the next time my very overweight family member tells me she's 20st but it's "all muscle"...

You can't really eat more to lose weight it doesn't make sense. Starvation mode would happen if you were very very lean but even so you'd continue to lose weight.
Maybe you could do the 5:2 diet of cycling seemed to work?