Why am I overweight? I can't work it out

[Gibralter]

It just doesn't make sense to me. I track every last thing in my fitness pal and I've been eating this way for about 5 months. I'm only overweight by a pound or two but surely I should be a lot slimmer?

Typical days food is:

Two slices of seeded brown bread with low fat spread and marmite OR porridge with blueberries on top OR a glass of fresh orange juice, two eggs and a small slice of toast.

Lunch: Rivita crackers topped with a 20 Calories laughing cow spread, cucumber OR avocado toppings, with banana and Diet Coke, OR sometimes I have for lunch a very small portion of last night's dinner.

Dinner: Vegetable curry (home cooked, low fat), OR vegetable rice and chicken, OR low fat Bolognese OR pesto pasta.

Snacks: Passion fruit (one), banana, raspberries (a handful or so), and sometimes on a Friday, a chocolate brought home by DH. It's rare I have more than 2 of these snacks a day.

Where am I going wrong?

I don't secretly eat other things, I'm also breastfeeding. I walk mostly everywhere. I go up and down a big hill with shopping etc.

I'm not very active indoors but is anyone, apart from my cleaning?

Bluntness I do agree, if it wasn't for that fact that I'm breastfeeding. I'm suppose to need extra for feeding, and it's not just a feed here and there but exclusively 😭

That has the potential to burn up to 500/800 calories alone although I doubt that, personally

How old are you op?
I think what you eat is very reasonable and don’t think that should cause you to be a stone heavier than you want. Are you about 40? Or younger?

How annoying! Maybe increase your exercise (in a manageable way). Also you don't mention booze and so I'm presuming you're not having any but I know that racks up random lbs for me.

Studies have shown that most healthy breastfeeding women maintain an abundant milk supply while taking in 1800-2200 (or more) calories per day. Consuming less than 1500-1800 calories per day (most women should stay at the high end of this range) may put your milk supply at risk, as may a sudden drop in caloric intake.15

Source from a few science websites and obstetricians

I don't lose weight while breastfeeding until the baby is at least 8-9 months old, eating several solid meals in the day. My ds is 15 months old and I've lost nearly 2 stone since November, with me actively dieting, but I couldn't lose a thing before then. I would always go down and back up by 2-4 lbs. But although I'm still breastfeeding now, the weight is coming off. I'm 5'8" and eat about 1700 cals daily. I don't usually eat my exercise cals. I will probably reduce to 1600 cals soon, because the weight loss has slowed down recently.

I know, but you have to look at the facts, not the theory. Factually you eat 1600-1700 a day. You're breastfeeding, you're fairly active. This calorie intake maintains your current weight. As such, if you wish to lose weight, you will need to drop by a couple of hundred calories,

Your normal tdee before breastfeeding could be something like 1300 a day as you're only 5ft three. So by eating up to 1700 and maintaining the breastfeeding is burning the extra 400 off.

Scatty I'm 20 years old, so quite a bit younger than that

Ta yes, think I'll have to start doing more exercises. I don't drink! (though this lack of progress makes me want to lol)

1600 calories is not going to help you lose weight!

You need to go to about 1300.

Your diet seems very healthy but I’d be upset too if I’d been eating what you have and not lost anything.

It doesn’t even seem to add up to 1600 cals tbh

1800 cals only applies to women who are taller than 5 6 I think.

I am 5ft 10
42yo
Lift weights 5x/wk (130kg dl, front squat 100kg)
Active job
Breastfeeding 1yo
Have 1200kcal 5d/wk and minimal 2d/wk
Protein 40% of intake
Minimise carb, less focussed on fat (usually 30%)
Was 30kg lighter when baby was 6mths old
I have lost nothing over 2mths

Everyone is different
The cookie cutter 200kcal means nothing to an individual.
But i have thyroid issues so perhaps why

Quite you're right! It often doesn't even add up to 1600 sometimes it just about adds up to 1200. This is what's confusing me

Plus me breastfeeding should mean I should be eating more. It's confusing

My health visitor asked me about my dietary habits recently and said she was concerned I was under eating. Well I'm clearly not

I'm getting a lot of mixed advice from health professionals and the truth of the scales/waistline

I'm the same height and wouldn't lose weight on 1600 cals. You need to create a deficit, even walking for an hour is only roughly 6000 steps so not that active. If I don't run appropriately 20 miles each week I'd gain on 1600 cals. Make sure you measure milk used for tea/coffee, I realised I was using almost 300 cals on that (I like full fat milk). Perhaps do exercise dvd or YouTube videos while baby is sleeping? Or jog with the buggy for a few miles? Where I live there are parent and buggy exercise classes in the park during the summer, perhaps there's one near you?

I lost weight quicker by doing 1200 cals 6 days a week and having 1 cheat day on the cheat day I ate what I wanted I was happy doing that. since I’ve stopped I gained 4lbs so I’ll start again soon ready for summer.

running it's a difficult one - I have tried lowering my carbs, and adding more protein. Didn't change the calorie intake

I was exhausted and felt really hungry

I find that if I add lots more active stuff into my daily routine, I get really tired and weak feeling. But I can't add any more calories, I will gain weight or not lose any

twinkle that sounds really good, I will give it a go. The cheat day sounds amazing! I haven't treated myself in bloody ages

Can I ask though, wouldn't the 1200 calories intake end up transferring into 800 or so calories because I'm using so many up by exclusively BF?

I really struggled loosing weight for 6-7 months after having my kids- then by 9 months i started loosing and by 12 months back to pre-pregnancy. Not sure if hormonal or tiredness - I wasn’t breast feeding.

My weight wouldn't budge when I was breast feeding but I stopped when dd was 10 months and lost a stone in a month without trying.

@Gibraltar I know it's put about a lot that breastfeeding makes women lose weight but it's just not true in all cases. I ate sensibly when bfing my DC but put on about a stone in weight. The good news is that when I stopped feeding I lost the extra stone in about a month, really dramatic and felt so good after bloated for so long. I can only think the extra weight was fluid retention to keep up with demand.

I am really not sure about the calorie thing being quite as set in stone as is being suggested here. DSIL has a condition that is somehow hormonally related that sees her struggle to lose weight even on very low calorie diets. She recently partook in a scientific study relating to her condition (result yet to be published so this is all word of mouth so far) with one of the main researchers in the area in this country which watched how she (and the others in the study) maintained weight where she should calorifically have been losing it. More recently she has been attending a specialist and is now eating far more calories than ever but has had to cut out an array of foods she is intolerant of and her weight has dropped by 2 stone in the last 6 months. I mean she can’t eat potatoes which I have never heard of anybody in history struggling with. The reason I mention this is because you are BF and obviously have as a result abnormal hormone profile so what works outside of BF may not be what works while BF. I have heard from many women who could not lose that last little bit of weight while BF and as my SIL shows there can be hormonal reasons attributed to this.

Gibraltar

What happens initially when you switch to low carb is that you go through an initial hungry/craving period. This is because the body prefers to burn the carbs (sugars) that we take through food first before the body will burn other sources of fuel like fat or protein. So your body will literally burn any ingested/stores carb/sugar before it will burn fat.

Some people genuinely have trouble restricting carbs (I’m one of them) however there are ways around this.

You have a few options which I will outline

1. carb cycling this means restricting your carbs to 30g per day for say 6 days (during this period your body switches to using protein and fat burning as fuel. This stimulates weight loss but also slows metabolism). On day 7 you have a refeed day, basically a cheat day where you can consume carbs, this stimulates your metabolism and actually further aided fat loss. This can be hard to maintain and does mean food a lifestyle changes so things like bread and fruit are out the window 6 days a week to be replaced with nuts, veg and protein.

2. Fasted cardio you can do this alone or along with the above. Before you consume any food you do some sort of cardiovascular excercise, run, jog, bike whatever. It can be high intensity for a shorter period of a lower intensity for a longer period, mix it up do whatever you prefer or suits you. This put your body into a fat burning state for at least a couple of hours if not longer. Once you eat after doing this excercise the food you then eat is used as fuel to burn and replace glycogen stores rather than being stored as fat.

Every time your hungry before you eat drink a glass of water, more often than not hunger is confused for thirst. Plenty of water intake also stimulates metabolism and the more water you drink the less water your body had to store so you will actually lose water weight. Plenty of people lose weight just from increasing water intake.

I think it might be worth you trying a lower carb diet. Here's what it might look like for you:

Two slices of seeded brown bread with low fat spread and marmite OR porridge with blueberries on top OR a glass of fresh orange juice, two eggs and a small slice of toast.

Full fat Greek yoghurt, with a handful of berries
OR
Two low carb sausages (all the supermarkets premium brands are generally low carb, or try a brand like The Black Farmer), with two rashers of bacon and two eggs - all fried
OR
Scrambled eggs with mushrooms and tomatoes

Tea or coffee, either black, or with a splash of milk
Glass of water

Lunch: Rivita crackers topped with a 20 Calories laughing cow spread, cucumber OR avocado toppings, with banana and Diet Coke, OR sometimes I have for lunch a very small portion of last night's dinner.

Avocado with salad (lettuce/cucumber etc, with an oil-based dressing, with some cheese or chicken or tuna, and a dollop of full fat mayonnaise on the side.

Dinner: Vegetable curry (home cooked, low fat), OR vegetable rice and chicken, OR low fat Bolognese OR pesto pasta.

Chicken (or other meat) curry, made with ghee (or butter, or oil), served with cauliflower rice
OR
Pan-fried salmon fillet, (fried in butter) with a lemon butter sauce, with roasted tender stem broccoli, (roasted with chili, shallots and olive oil)
OR
Bolognese, made with high fat beef/steak mince, served over thinly shredded (boiled and buttered) cabbage, with a large handful of grated Parmesan on top

Snacks: Passion fruit (one), banana, raspberries (a handful or so), and sometimes on a Friday, a chocolate brought home by DH. It's rare I have more than 2 of these snacks a day.

Unlikely to need to snack on a low carb diet, but could be chunks of full fat cheese, olives, veg sticks with a sour cream dip. A couple of squares of dark/high cocoa-content chocolate

You say that low carbing made you feel tired and hungry when you tried it before. This would either be because you were in the first few days of adapting to it (it takes a week or so), or you weren't eating enough - or eating enough fat. You really won't be hungry once you're adapted to it.

You say you’ve tried lowering carbs and felt awful did you up your fats intake at the same time if you didn’t that’s where you went wrong on trying it.
Just by reading your posts you sound stress by everything you’ve even mentioned Hv concerns about your eating. You mention also feeling weak well if baby is only five months your hormones will still be all over the place chill out it’s not a race to loose weight that’ll happen in time.

Mother Nature is holding onto that fat!

I never lost weight breast feeding,even when trying.

Wait till you stop and just keep eating healthily.

I am wondering the same OP, although my situation is very different to yours. TDEE calculators say my TDEE is 2687 cals!!! But obviously I eat nowhere near that, and i exercise most days. I eat a lot of vegan food but am not a vegan. The only thing I can think of is my fondness of chocolate, but even that is not OTT. I weigh 221lbs, 5ft5, perfectly healthy in every way except the number on the scale. I absolutely despair. I just keep trying my best daily.

Resistance training & free weight work could help