Where am I going wrong?!?!? Gained weight!

[velvetcandy]

I’m so depressed I’ve been eating between 500-1000 calories a day for over a week now and working out everyday, walking plus doing fat burn and squat challenge YouTube videos and cross trainer. Before this I did zero fitness and ate probably 3000 calories a day. Like I would wake up and have two chocolate bars eat McDonald’s every other day really really bad. Weighted myself this morning and I’ve gained 4 pounds?? I’m so disappointed and don’t know where I’ve gone wrong! Any tips please.
Food wise I’m having a morning coffee changed my milk to skimmed, then banana and slimfast shake, meal under 500 calories and a small chicken salad for dinner.

Or a weight watchers ready meal.

It could be gained muscle weight from your work outs? 500-1000 seems really low for a daily calory intake though, please take care of yourself OP!

Are you taking any medication?

Sometimes it does take time to loose so don't be despondent.

500-1000 is probably too little too to be sustainable.

@maybelou

It could be gained muscle weight from your work outs? 500-1000 seems really low for a daily calory intake though, please take care of yourself OP!

This is impossible, especially in such a calorie deficit

It's impossible for you to have gained weight if you're eating so little. Why are you eating such a small number of calories?

Time of the month due?

Food wise I’m having a morning coffee changed my milk to skimmed, then banana and slimfast shake, meal under 500 calories and a small chicken salad for dinner.

Well that's more than 500-1000 calories for a start.

Download MyFitnessPal, meticulously weigh/measure everything that passes your lips (every ingredient of everything, dressing, milk in coffee), and see where you're going wrong. Because you are eating more than you intend to.

Not time of month and I’m very overweight at 17st so cutting my calories right back seemed a good idea to kick start my weight loss.

Could you please provide your current weight, height and age.

Are you on any medications or breastfeeding at the moment?

What does a day of food look like for you on this new 500-1000 calorie diet?

I’m thinking TOM or water weight...

If you’ve really been eating 3000 calories (which is EASY to do!) then eating sensibly, relatively low fat for eg 1500-1800 cals a day and only a small treat (less than 200 cals) every few days plus eg a 30 min walk daily would have you losing a couple of pounds a week

Your exercise sounds great! I’d suggest you eat balanced meals to 1500 cals for a couple of weeks (lots of veg) & see how you get on

Are you about to come on, as that will cause you to temporarily gain 3-4 pounds for a week, after which it will vanish again.

Are you muscles sore OP? If you're exercising a lot from zero you might be retaining water in healing muscle.

@smeerf that’s not what I eat everyday sometimes I will have a banana and a ready meal or other days slimfast shake and salad.

How much water are you drinking?

@velvetcandy

Not time of month and I’m very overweight at 17st so cutting my calories right back seemed a good idea to kick start my weight loss.

I can see that: you’ve done it, I’d suggest you do something more sustainable as it will take probably 4-6 months to lose eg 4-5 stone and your routine sounds brutal

Because the body isn’t a straightforward combustion engine as the calories model dictates

Watch / read some stuff by dr Jason Fung (the obesity code) to understand how we put on weight and lose weight

Yes my body is aching all over!
I actually had a miscarriage the week before Xmas so I don’t know about if it’s time if the month yet.
Yesterday I had a coffee, orange, fibre one bar, weight watchers curry banana

OP I think it would do you good to do a bit more reading about diets and weight loss. Mumsnet has some great topics and threads.

The thing is, that a banana is very calorific, a slimfast shake sounds unhelpful. Then you have two meals as well which could be ok but might not.

Do tell us in detail what you are eating.

I would imagine that for your size, 1500 calories would be a better and more sustainable start. Or if not, try Michael Mosley's Blood Sugar Diet but you have to eat lots of proper healthy food .

I was going to up my calories in a month when I’ve started to loose some weight but just feeling very depressed now that I’ve been so good and gained weight. I’m drinking slight less water than I used to not sure why I haven’t got my normal thirst at the moment

Sorry to hear about your miscarriage OP. Your hormones are probably all over the shop still. I am also not losing on

Ok @velvetcandy I can see what you are trying to do and I've been there myself but honestly, cutting to extremely low calories doesn't work long term because it's so restrictive it becomes impossible to maintain. You must be hungry and the amount of exercise you're doing will be causing damage to your muscles which you are not giving an opportunity to heal because you're not eating enough to fuel that process or taking a rest day to give healing time.

I was 16st 9lb on 1st August 2020. I'm 13st 2 lb today and the 'trick' to achieving that has been slow and steady, healthy substitutions, moderate exercise and a reasonable calorie allowance.

If you sign up for something like MyFitnessPal, put in that you want to lose 1 lb a week and generally sedentary. It will then tell you how many calories you should eat to lose weight.

If you do exercise log it and that will give you extra allowance which you can choose to leave or eat.

Without knowing your height I can't calculate but I'd guess you should be having between 1600 and 1800 calories a day to give your body enough fuel to power it and still lose 1 lb a week.

Hi @HalfShrunkMoreToGo I use the calories counter ap that says I can have 1517 calories a day to lose 2 pounds a week. I’m 5ft3 and 17 st and really had enough of being overweight now.

The drastic change from eating whatever meals you were used to before and then completely changing your diet and starting to eat less has caused your body to store carbohydrates and sugars which is turned into fats, this is because you've changed your diet so drastically. Drink plenty more water and try to start over by cutting down your intakes of regular meals before you started to change your diet. For example if you've got a big plate of food (normal size meal) leave a little on plate and carry on like this for a week or two and slowly ease yourself into the diet change. Hope this helps, if it made sense

@ImagineWords thank you

@velvetcandy I know how you feel completely, I was obese at 11 when I first went to weight watchers with my mum, my weight tracked my age through my teen years so at 18 I was 18 stone. Been as big as 21stone.

This is the lowest my weight has been since I was a pre-teen and it is both fantastic and surreal.

But I didn't lose the weight by starving myself, my current calorie allowance is 1440 a day and I use it all most days.

I don't have breakfast as never have liked eating early in the day, then lunch is something like:

• a hearty thick veg based soup

-leftover casserole

• grilled bacon with mushrooms and fried eggs (2x medium) using fry light spray
• scrambled egg/omelette with 30g reduced fat cheddar, spring onions, mushrooms and peppers
• steamed veg (broccoli, asparagus, mushrooms, babycorn) and grilled chicken breast

Dinner is generally meat and 2 veg, sometimes with onion rings, pasta or rice but I tend to limit carbs because I have PCOS and my body doesn't react well to them.

Snacks

• boiled egg
• beef jerky
• cottage cheese
• cheese string
• Greek yoghurt (full fat) with berries
• fibre one bar or skinny whip bar

Exercise I do 3 x 30 mins a week, aim for heart rate to be at 70% above resting (my watch calculates that), and take rest days in between.