Why am I not losing anything?

[TomAllenWife]

I have a stone to lose.
I'm 45 and am noticing that even one cheat meal a week means zero loss

I exercise 4 times per week. 2 body combat, 2 weights sessions, each burning about 300-400 cals.

A typical day looks like:
Fast until 11am
Protein yoghurt
Lunch usually tuna or egg salad
Handful of almonds (no more than 8)
Dinner is something like chilli with cauliflower rice, or fajitas but I'll have lettuce cups

I drink alcohol thurs - Sunday typically which I know isn't great but surely that can't be the only factor that is preventing me from shaping up

I'm seeing all these different ads on FB like V Shred and how women in their 40s shouldn't be doing hours of exercise etc etc but don't know if it's all scams

Can anyone please shed any light on what's going on for me

The only thing I can think is that your metabolism is very sluggish. I'm 48 and recently lost a stone...what I did was minor really but I'll tell you about it.

I started eating breakfast...not a big one or anything, just a banana and a pot of natural yogurt with honey and a few crushed nuts.

Then I'd wait until lunchtime and have something like you've been having, tuna or boiled egg...two eggs...with salad.

Dinner was like yours. My exercise was and still is, walking...I do 3-5 miles per day briskly.

The only other change I made was to give up fizzy drinks. I used to drink about a can of coke per day and sometimes two.

So it is possible the alcohol is what's stopping you.

Where does that stone take you? Are you already a healthy weight?

Yes would agree its the alcohol.
Its full of empty calories.
I put on a stone over lockdown drinking a g&t each night to take the edge off. The only thing i did different was the drink so by all accounts it must be that. Good luck! Am down to one night a week drinking now as it became such a bad habit x

@PurpleDaisies

Where does that stone take you? Are you already a healthy weight?

I am a healthy weight now yes...I could do with losing another half or so...I'd be really happy then but as I am, I don't feel uncomfortable any more.

If I exercise I don’t lose weight. It’s been proven that exercise doesn’t have much impact on weight loss anyway. I’d say you’re not eating enough, there should be more protein sources in your diet such as meat or pulses, and some carbs too.

If you're not losing weight, you're just consuming the amount of calories you need to maintain your current weight. You need to consume less calories, basically. Just don't go mad with it. Don't starve yourself.

It's tedious, but start tracking calories using an app. Guess if you have to. Over time, you'll learn roughly how many calories are in what things, so you won't have to keep tracking if you don't want to.

It's much better in the long run to do it this way, because you will learn how many calories are in various things, and this will allow you to maintain your weight once you're at a weight you're happy with.

To lose 1lb per week, you need to eat 3,500 calories less than you need (i.e. 500 calories less per day).

Google "TDEE calculator". Enter your weight, height, age, etc.
Mark yourself as "sedentary".
This will give you an estimate of how many calories you need per day to maintain your current weight.
Remove 500 calories from that. The result is the estimated number of calories you'd need to eat per day to lose roughly 1lb per week.
If this leaves you feeling constantly hungry or weak, increase your calories and lose weight more slowly.
Monitor and adjust as necessary.

Forget calories burned during exercise. Think of exercise as beneficial for strength, skin, heart health, mood, hormones, etc. Any calories burned in the process are just a bonus.

Your body may be in starvation mode.

It seems you aren’t eating enough. Especially fasting till 11am. Your body is just holding onto the little bit of nutrition you give it.

It does look like a very low amount of food.

Two reasons.

Your age
Alcohol

You can't do anything about the first, but you can about the second.

One glass of wine has 128 cals. That's similar to a mars bar. Half a snickers is 100 cals.

The fact is that if you're drinking wine, you might as well be eating chocolate.

Portion size?
Overestimating calories lost through exercise?
Alcohol...

Lots of sugar in alcohol.

you won't lose anything through exercise

cut out the alcohol

cut out all sugar, wheat, margarine, vegetable oil, processed food.

I would cut the yoghurt, it is probably full of sugar.

drink tea and coffee black

(this is all temporary, not long term)

I mean...there's lots of sugar in the stuff that you drink alongside alcohol

Give up the alcohol, stop fasting (I find I lose weight faster if I have breakfast and then leave a bigger gap until lunch, so maybe 6/7 hours between breakfast and lunch)

try tracking your calories in and out ( fitness tracker: yes i’m aware that they aren’t 100 percent accurate but they are a good indicator and better than guessing). i’m a personal trainer & lost 4 stone after gaining it through autoimmune thyroid disease. here is what i’ve gathered over the years:
start with the basics as above; track calories in and out across 4-6 weeks. log your weight daily into your fitbit or similar app: across the week it can vary based on water weight, food eaten, toilet, exercise causing inflammation etc, so log it daily and get a good idea ( doesn’t have to be forever just to get acclimatised and familiar with your body)
measure your body and take photos from front, side and back. i’ve gained weight when exercising but on photos i look leaner, it’s muscle
look honestly at your calorie in and out: are you in at least 500 calorie per day deficit? if so on average you would expect to lose approx a pound a week. if you aren’t doing so try reducing alcohol to once a week or no alcohol for a few weeks & see if it makes a difference

if you can honestly say you have been accurate and diligent in being in a calorie deficit; look at your thyroid and any other hormone issues ( i use thriva finger prick testing) I do feel as i’ve hit 40 ive found it much harder to lose weight, and that’s with all my years of training, not drinking and tracking calories, so i firmly believe hormones play a part. as i mention above i have autoimmune thyroid disease so my thyroid has been largely destroyed, so my weight loss is much slower and at times non existent.

good luck 🙏

I gave up alcohol and lost a couple of stone without really trying.

@mummylondon16

try tracking your calories in and out ( fitness tracker: yes i’m aware that they aren’t 100 percent accurate but they are a good indicator and better than guessing). i’m a personal trainer & lost 4 stone after gaining it through autoimmune thyroid disease. here is what i’ve gathered over the years: start with the basics as above; track calories in and out across 4-6 weeks. log your weight daily into your fitbit or similar app: across the week it can vary based on water weight, food eaten, toilet, exercise causing inflammation etc, so log it daily and get a good idea ( doesn’t have to be forever just to get acclimatised and familiar with your body) measure your body and take photos from front, side and back. i’ve gained weight when exercising but on photos i look leaner, it’s muscle look honestly at your calorie in and out: are you in at least 500 calorie per day deficit? if so on average you would expect to lose approx a pound a week. if you aren’t doing so try reducing alcohol to once a week or no alcohol for a few weeks & see if it makes a difference

if you can honestly say you have been accurate and diligent in being in a calorie deficit; look at your thyroid and any other hormone issues ( i use thriva finger prick testing) I do feel as i’ve hit 40 ive found it much harder to lose weight, and that’s with all my years of training, not drinking and tracking calories, so i firmly believe hormones play a part. as i mention above i have autoimmune thyroid disease so my thyroid has been largely destroyed, so my weight loss is much slower and at times non existent.

good luck 🙏

This is all complete rubbish. You can't track calories out like that, exercise is never going to be more than 5 % of calorie consumption at the absolute most, and the rest, metabolism, tempt control, hormones, cell division etc is completely outside of your control.

If you use up more calories in exercise, your body adjusts to use up fewer through your metabolism.

This is is no amount of exercise has ANY affect on weight loss

exercise is healthy for many reasons, but not as part of weight control.

This is a very old fashioned, totally disproven and obsolete view of weight control.

@mummylondon16 if you are truly a personal trainer, I suggest you update yourself. You are decades out of date in your understanding of bioenergetics.

It's crazy just how contradictory the advice on this thread is.

This is why people are so very confused about how to achieve weight loss. (Me included!)

This is why people are so very confused about how to achieve weight loss. (Me included!)

People are far too wedded to the idea that there is only one way to lose weight.

I am doing the sort your fit out on Instagram at the moment. It’s been an eye opener for me. We track all our calories and I mean everything. For me to lose a pound a week I need to stick with a daily intake of 1600. Exercise is not taken into consideration and I can exercise twice a day but if I overeat the scales don’t change. So I would suggest you track everything your consuming including drinks. It all adds up I have lost over a stone since doing syfo

I think it's very likely the alcohol.

If you're drinking 2 large glasses of wine 4 nights a week that's possibly an additional 1600 calories a week.

This is is no amount of exercise has ANY affect on weight loss

Absolutely not the case for me.

Alcohol would be my number 1 suspect, and possibly other drinks too, if you drink non-diet soft drinks or milky hot drinks.

I lost a lot of weight from my mid forties and have kept it off. What worked for me is:

Skipping breakfast
Logging all calories as best I can (in and out) - this means weighing foods and measuring alcohol.
Assuming that any exercise calorie count given to me by a machine/heart rate monitor/online calculator is 20-25% too high.
Keeping to an average calorie deficit of 500 per day.
Working out what foods hold my hunger and what foods make me ravenous (a high fat, low-ish carb, next to no sugar, high protein approach works best for me)

Steer VERY clear of Facebook ads.