Not losing anything - why oh why?

[Bluesheep8]

I'll try to be brief. Got to goal weight with WW over 6 years ago (10 stone 3) then lost more (by choice) to get to 9 stone 7. Maintained this weight until 1 year ago when I slowly began to gain a bit. 'Went back to WW as a gold member as I was still within target at 10st 6 - bear in mind I'd gained almost a stone in a year, despite still following WW to maintain.(As my goal weight was 10 st 3, it meant I was still within range up to 10 st 7) anyway, got my head around Smartpoints and slowly lost a bit over a few weeks but then it started creeping up again although I was doing nothing differently. I'll admit, I relaxed things for 2 weeks at Christmas. I got a fit bit type watch for Christmas and despite doing a desk job, it's motivated me to get out and walk briskly every day for at least 6k steps and I do much more than that at the weekends. Also, ive been religiously back on plan WW wise since then too.
So here's what's happened...
Week after Christmas - weight 10 st 4.5
Week after that- weight 10 st 6.5 ( 2 pound gain!)
Week after that - 10 stone 5.5 (1 pound loss)
Week after that- stayed the same.
How can I not be losing weight?! I've gone from 0 exercise to walking at least 6k steps every day and am eating ad I was before. Also, a shirt that fitted me 2 months ago will not fasten, so I'm not losing inches either!
Thanks for getting to the end of my rant, WTF is going on?!!

Also, I have a freezing shoulder and tendonitis in one arm aswell as a recovering frozen shoulder on the other side so have to be careful with exercise apart from walking I guess

6k steps is really not much. It's probably only burning a couple of hundred extra calories at your weight.

If you are not losing you are not creating a calorie deficit, either by eating too much or not moving enough🤷‍♀️

Hmmm, thank you for replying and I understand what you're saying, but that is the max I can fit in in my day. As I said, I have a desk job and I have to drive to work. I spend my 30 min lunch break walking. I know it doesn't seem like much, but I am following WW as I said , did NO walking at all before, and managed to maintain at a stone less.

Sorry just to be clear, I am eating as I was before but have added in the walking.

Age and menopause can make a difference.

I used to be able to lose weight easily if I stuck to plan, now it's really difficult, I literally have to stick religiously to the plan and it comes off sooooo slowly. This is all since I'm now nearly 50 and menopausal

Yep thereef that could be it. I'm 46. It's so damned unfair though! A days food looks like this:

3 coffees with skimmed milk
WW overnight oats recipe with frozen fruit
Can of tuna mixed with butter beans and 0% fat dressing, chopped pepper and 10 olives, 2 hardboiled eggs if needed but not always.
1 or 2 bananas, 2 satsumas
2% fat turkey mince chilli and a weighed portion of brown rice.
Herbal tea and water.

Plus the 6k steps.

To answer your question on why oh why, here are my thoughts:

• why are you having tuna+beans + boiled eggs on the same meal . Have one awoth lettuce , cucumber, green beans, tomatoes. ....
• when trying to lose weight do not eat bananas, not one and certainly not two!

• if you have oats on the morning do not have rice in the evening. Have your meat ( and meat in addition to tuna, beans and eggs in the same day is way too much protein) , so have your meat with cauliflower or broccoli I or asparagus or roasted zucchini or carrots or ....

I don’t vegetables, except the chopped peppers and olives, and olives, same comment as the banana, don’t have them if trying to lose weight.

Do not stress over the steps, focus on what you are eating.

Use for a week a nutritional analysis website called Cronometer.com and eat more vegetables and more balanced meals.

Good luck

I get what LeGrand is saying and nutrition is important obviously, but what is most important is creating a calorie deficit. There's nothing wrong with anything you're eating - tuna, rice, beans, bananas are all fine, but if you want to lose weight you have to burn more calories than you eat. That's all. Doesn't matter what 'diet' you do to achieve that.

From what you have said I'd say have a look at your portions.

If you’re only doing 6000 steps a day and eating that you’re very unlikely to be creating a calorie deficit. You’re also eating more than enough carbs that your body will be running directly off those carbs, so no need to use fat stores up running the body. I suggest getting a Fitbit and tracking your food (Cronometer is better than the tracker on a Fitbit) and seeing what you’re actually burning vs what you’re eating.

How tall are you @Bluesheep8 - if you're quite tall you may not need to lose much and the last few pounds are always hardest.

Thanks everyone for reading and for your advice. The thing is, I have followed the WW way of eating for 20 years and according to the WW plan, it's fine to eat those things together and fine to have oats am and rice pm, it's about staying within your points allowance. The beans and tuna are 0 points. Maybe I need to look at a different plan then....
To answer another pp's question, I'm 5ft 6.
As I've said, I'm just really frustrated that the only thing I have changed is passing in the minimum 6k steps. I know that some people think that's a paltry amount but I've gone from doing literally NO exercise to doing that amount for 5 weeks so that's actually a big increase for me.

I hate these plans anyway, but haven't they recently changed WW?

Maybe go back to the old WW if it worked for you and see if there is a difference?

Whilst going from zero exercise to 6K steps a day will improve your general health it is certainly not enough exercise to give a sufficient calorie burn to induce weight loss. Your metabolism has probably slowed down due to dieting and you would need to do some heart raising exercise and muscle building to increase it.

I know plans like WW divide opinion but my original thread was about the fact that WW has worked for me for 20 years. I have introduced walking and am not losing weight. As someone who weighed almost 16 stone in 1999, I HAVE to follow a way of eating to stop me getting to that size again. Maybe due to my age, WW isn't working for me anymore. Yet it's working for new members of that age....it's a mystery!

I don't like WW or sw I find they don't teach about calories. I eat 1200 a day and I wouldn't have 3 teas with skimmed milk. I've cut it down to a morning one with skimmed and then water rest of day (sometimes an options hot choc) I would probably have oats later for lunch and then the lunch for dinner. No bananas either.

Download myfitnesspal and log what you eat in a day. I think you'd be pretty surprised by the calories!

I'm not sure how WW works, but I used to do slimming world. So a banana was "free" but in reality a medium banana is about 100 calories.
SW and WW work by making by making you have a calorie deficit, by just a rather complicated way!
So, basically if you're not losing, you are in fact eating too many calories.

Hmmm, not sure how I managed to lose over 6 stone and maintain it by eating too many calories on WW though. What I'm saying is that I'm eating the same as I ever have, less if anything, have introduced walking and am gaining/maintaining week on week....

Watch rh fitness and he explains people initially lose on ww etc but the calorie deficit does not work properly long term and people lose idea of how many calories in stuff.
Cut the calories and track 1200 on MFP and you will start to lose.

I will watch that, thank you. Although as I keep saying, I lost 6 stone and kept it off for many years so I'm not talking about an initial weight loss with WW. I will give anything a go now, though

I'm the same op and I'm convinced it's a combination of my peri menopausal age (47) and my underactive thyroid. Do you have any other hypothyroid symptoms like feeling cold, tired, sluggish, constipated etc?

I see your point, but although it did work for you, it’s clearly not now. There could be any number of reasons for that - hormone changes, age changes, plan changes, something else...

All you can do is either stick with it or try something new.

Heya.
If you've got the WW app,why not ask one of the consultants?
It's free as part of your membership.

I'm 47 and finding it reeeallllly hard. Everything I've read suggests that it just is that much harder to lose weight or inches at this age. My Fitness Pal has me on 1300 calories per day and on top of that I make sure I get 30 mins of exercise daily (treadmill/elliptical or weights plus a bit of cardio).

What I'd say immediately is how fast are your steps? Could you speed up your walking, eg fit in a 30 min very brisk walk? Trust Me I'm a Doctor did a bit on this a few weeks ago. It had all sorts of other benefits too.

Well done on losing 6st, I am aiming to lose 5 and it's slow going but very necessary!

Well I'm 47 and trying to lose weight, having done so successfully in the past just by reducing my calorie intake to about 1200 per day. This time it is coming off so slowly. It is going in the right direction, but very gradually - no big motivating weight losses each week.
OP all I can say is that sometimes I find my body doesn't catch up immediately. So I can be really good all week and only register a minimal loss, but the following week when I had a night off and had pizza and gin, I still lost a decent amount! If the general trajectory is downward I guess that's what matters - we might just have to accept that at our age it's a bit more difficult to do!

The more you weigh, the more you'll lose.

When you were 16 stone you'd lose weight on a 1800 cal diet for example. Someone who is 10 stone would maintain or gain depending on your height and activity at 1800 cals.

Get my fitness pal app and put your details in to see how many calories you need to lose or maintain.