Where am I going wrong? Can’t lose weight!

[Amelia891]

Hi, hoping someone can come up with a solution here as I can’t work out where I’m going wrong!!

Pre baby weight was 9 stone and I’m currently 10 stone and I’m 5’6 tall. DD is 2 and I am 30 if that’s relevant. Got back down to 9,6 before Christmas and was really happy with that. I have a holiday in Sep which looks like it’s going ahead and I really need to lose weight before then, but nothing is working! No matter what I do my weight won’t change. I’ve started running 3 x per week, I eat very healthily. I’ve even tried slim fast shakes as a meal replacement and now I’m doing a 3 day juice cleanse. I know they aren’t great for you but my friend just did one and lost 6lb in 3 days. I’m on day 2 and haven’t lost a single pound!!!! Before I had a baby I used to find it so easy to lose weight and now it’s impossible.

Please help! Where am I going wrong???

Are you sure you desperately need to lose weight? I understand the desire to get back to pre-baby weight but you are already well within the normal weight for your height and you must have been pretty slim when you were 9 stone as that's at the bottom end of normal!

That being the case, losing weight is going to be a slow process for you I'm afraid, when you have lots of excess fat stored your body will quite easily burn it off when you are in a calorie deficit, but when you don't have much to start with the body will really hold onto every last pound in case of famine/starvation in future! Bear in mind also that our weight fluctuates a lot (by as much as 3lb-4lb over the course of a week), if you are retaining water (can be caused by TOTM, dehydration or too much salty food/carbs) or are constipated (sorry TMI but these juice/shake based diets can cause bad constipation if you aren't getting much fibre), you could easily be holding onto that much weight in your digestive system somewhere!

It doesn't sound as though you are doing very much wrong, if anything I'd say abandon the shakes and the juice fasts and so on, and concentrate on a long term sustainable healthy eating plan and exercise which will tone and strengthen - although running is good cardio exercise it's pretty ineffective for weight loss compared to other exercises, if you are able to do some strength based and/or flexibility exercises (e.g. yoga, pilates) alongside it should make a bigger difference to how you look and feel. For cardio exercise, HIIT (high intensity internal training) is better for fat burning than steady state cardio so for preference rather than a 30 minute job I'd do 3 sets of 5-10 minute sprints (or aerobic exercises like star jumps, squats etc) followed by rest intervals (google HIIT workouts, there's loads out there).

The best diets for losing visceral fat (ie fat around your tummy/waist) which is both unsightly and unhealthy are (IMO) 5:2/IF or low carb, so you could check out those boards on here for a bit of a boost for your holiday (although as I say I would really not go overboard as you are already healthy at the weight you are!).