Weight is not moving - help!

[Greenegsandham]

I’m not overweight but I am very unfit at the moment and have eaten far too many takeaways and chocolate bars in lockdown. I’ve recently taken up exercise again (hiit workouts) and have started eating healthily in a bid to shift some weight. However it’s not shifting at all!! I’m not sure where I’m going wrong? My food intake is definitely less and far healthier choices than before. I am also regularly going for long walks on top of the workouts. I just seem to keep maintaining apart from fluctuating about 1lb either way.

Any suggestions? Or any idea where I’m going wrong? Is it possibly metabolism slowing down? I’m mid 30s, 5’3 and 9st 2lb - I just want to shift 5-7lb

The thing that stands out to me is that you are already well within a healthy weight without losing any more, losing 7lb I think would take you towards the lower end of healthy, it's way easier to lose weight when you are already overweight, the body will naturally hold onto weight for much longer when you are approaching being close to underweight. So I think you need patience and persistence - you don't mention how long you've been on your new regime for? If it's a matter of weeks rather than months I think you just need to stick with it for longer. Certainly don't try any extreme or 'crash diet' type stuff as that will just mess with you mentally and physically and not be worth it.

A few things you could try that will likely have health benefits as well as potentially helping you lose a little weight could be to introduce some intermittent fasting, the easiest kind is the 16:8, so where you do all your eating within an 8 hour window per day, can be any 8 hours, so you can for instance do 8am to 4pm, have a big breakfast/lunch and a early/light dinner, no evening snacking, or 12pm to 8pm and skip breakfast, have normal lunch and dinner and no evening snacking. Look up the intermittent fasting boards on here for more info.

Or you can try looking more closely at the kinds of food you are eating, I'm not a big fan of very low-carb/keto diets personally as I think they are often not a very healthy way to eat, but I do think for a lot of people carbs, particularly white/refined carbs and added/refined sugar are the enemy for weight loss as they do seem to cause bloat/water retention in some people plus they are highly palatable and very easy to accidentally over-eat. So if you can cut down on bread, pasta, cake/biscuits/sweets etc while continuing to eat potatos, brown rice, plenty of fruit and veg etc that may help? Sadly as I've gotten older I've found that I really need to limit how often I eat junk, even within an overall healthy diet/calorie limit 'treats' seemed to really sabotage me so things like pizza and cake really do have to be truly occasional things for me rather than something I have weekly/daily...

Hey - have been doing this for a month now. I know I’m within healthy bmi but I’m anything but healthy. Have been so lazy during lockdown in terms of exercise and have been eating all the wrong foods. I’m not crash dieting but I’ve always done the intermittent fasting naturally as I don’t eat breakfast.

I’ve cut down on bread massively am eating healthy lunches and dinners. I’m wondering if the last point you made might be hitting the nail on the head here and I’m going to have to completely cut the junk rather than scale it right back. Either that or accept that my natural weight sits a bit heavier than it used to.

Thanks for the reply!

Maybe you could start logging what you are eating. Even if it's healthier food, if it takes you over your required calories then you will gain weight. I log on myfitnesspal, and it's sometimes shocking to realise how many calories are in 'healthy' foods like walnuts, avocados etc.

Also portion size, we tend to underestimate how much we eat, especially after exercise if you are hungrier. Make sure you are drinking plenty of water as well.

One final thing - if you are doing lots of exercise, you could be gaining muscle and losing inches. Have you taken measurements?

Thanks mulletsaremisunderstood - I hadn’t considered that it could be muscle gain. My belly fat isn’t shifting but I have noticed the tone coming back to my lower body. If it is this will I eventually start to burn the fat from my stomach area?

I take your point with tracking calories a bit more closely too - will give this a go as it’s something I’ve never tried before.

You probably need to eat less than you think. I'd say around 1400 cals per day

Can you tell us what you're actually eating?

No breakfast, lunch will be something like soup (no bread)/salad with no dressing/omelette dinner will be something like veggie fajitas (homemade ingredients)/chickpea curry/ halloumi salad/chicken and veg. I also have a takeaway most weekends. I rarely snack if I do it will be an apple or raw veg Sticks dipped in humous (small amount of chocolate very occasionally)

I know there’s room for improvement (suggestions welcome) but it’s better than how I was eating. I’d have sandwiches and crisps for lunch and frozen food for dinner on a typical day all bready carby stuff with veg on top of that. Would also have 2 takeaways a week no exercise.

Still no movement on scales but I’ve notice so much more tone and definition this week.

What’s your n.e.a.t like? I can eat relatively ok and do 30 mins of exercise a few times a week but if I’m not getting my daily steps in nothing happens.

Had to google n.e.a.t - how many steps do you do daily? I don’t think mines great to be honest. I do try to walk as I mentioned but I’ve noticed I’m not really doing it as often as I intend to. I’m wfh on a laptop so not much movement during the day

No less than 10k. I wfh on a laptop too and it’s taken ages to get disciplined. Walk before work, again at lunch, 250 steps every hour from 8am - 8pm and a walk after work. I’ve got a dog which helps!

Chloe Madley’s bodcast podcast is a good listen. There’s a recent 5 steps to successful fat loss episode.

Thank you - I’d genuinely never considered this but it makes sense! I used to walk loads before lockdown without even thinking just going from place to place. Going to give this a go - thanks for the podcast recommendation too.

Same! I didn’t put two and two together for ages. Piled on the lbs, starved myself and got very little results. Now aim for hiit, 10k steps and 1600 cals. Slow and steady!

Good luck.

You need to calculate your TDEE and track your calories, chances are you aren't in much of a deficit
You can't lose fat on specific places and it's unlikely you're actually creating new muscle especially with cardio exercise.

Its quite tricky to lose weight when you are already a healthy weight. You can definitely lose inches though by getting fitter/firming up which is probably what you are doing.