Why the heck am I not losing weight

[Chattycathydoll]

I’m 5’5, in my 20s.

Breakfast- nope usually just coffee (black). I am not a breakfast person
10:30ish- some fruit. Apples, dried pineapple, cherries, whatever. Fruit.
1pm- an ordinary sandwich, with a naice coffee (my only one of the day with milk in)
3pm- a graze box
7pm- DD has supper & I have something proteiny with her, usually an alpro yoghurt or 2 hard boiled eggs
8:30pm- dinner. Lately I’ve been doing allplants meals. Average 500 calories.

I walk 8 to 10 thousand steps a day and go to the gym 3 times a week (weight machines that don’t aggravate my arthritis, and cardio) but my body fat percentage keeps increasing and I’m gaining 3lbs a month on average. I’m now overweight, whereas in the past have always been around 8 stone, even after DD. Wtf is going on with me? I’m arthritic and experiencing the middle aged spread and I’m not even 30! Beginning to loathe my body. WWYD?

You're not pregnant are you? (Sorry, I'm sure you'd have thought of that, just trying to eliminate the obvious!)

Hmm, you have quite a few meals/snacks there, are there any you could cut out? The graze box maybe?

Track accurately to the gram what you eat for a better idea using My Fitness Pal or similar. Dried fruit could be hundreds of calories. Your sandwich could be another high calorie culprit depending what’s in it. It’s most likely that you’re eating more than you think - then, if you’ve tracked for a bit and still gaining weight, you can go see a doctor armed with all the info.

Your description sounds like you eat like a bird but 3 lbs a month is significant weight gain. Log it for few days on an app like chronometer or MyFitnessPal and if you really are eating very little I would go to your gp pronto because it suggests an issue.

Agree with tracking calories. It's a game changer. 8-10k steps isn't necessarily a lot.
Your snacking seems to be a lot. I'm on 1500 calories a day and there is no room in my diet for snacks.

Are you on any medication for the arthritis? Or taking anything else, like the pill?

It will be because you’re eating more calories than you expend.

8st is on the light side of normal anyway for 5.5, so your calorie needs may be lower than you think. .

10:30ish- some fruit. Apples are about 60-100 cals. A small portion of dried fruit would be about the same- a very small handful.

1pm- an ordinary sandwich, with a naice coffee (my only one of the day with milk in). Sandwich- about 400-600 calories, depending on filling. Coffee about 100.

3pm- a graze box. A whole box? One of the little punnets should be about 200 cals. A whole box will be nearer 1000.

7pm- DD has supper & I have something proteiny with her, usually an alpro yoghurt or 2 hard boiled eggs- 200 cals

8:30pm- dinner. Lately I’ve been doing allplants meals. Average 500 calories.

so you’re eating roughly 1700 calories. If you’re having a large portion of fruit/dried fruit, or an entire graze box, you’re calorie intake will be much higher.

tdee calculator says your maintenance cals should be 1600-1900, for light-moderate exercise. So you’re bang on right in the middle, but it will only take an extra couple of hundred calories a day to see that slow gain.

There are a lot more calories there than you think...

I would cut the pre tea snack to carrot and celery batons, substitute the sandwich for spinach with tomatoes and salmon or turkey, check there are no calorific nuts in the graze box (just have three if so), avoid all dried fruit (only one piece of fruit a day) and start the day with a conservative portion of porridge/scrambled eggs.

I suggest you skip the 3 pm graze box and your 7 pm protein snack.

I’ve checked 3 times because I’m paranoid about this anyway, thankfully not pregnant!!

Too many snacks, not enough protein, and too much sugar in dried fruit.

Naproxen & had a corticosteroid injection a couple of months ago, and yes I’m on the progestogen only pill.

The graze box stands out - is it the whole box or one of the offerings in the box?

@Reallyreallyborednow Has broken it down well for you.

Check your thyroid health. Ask GP for a full panel, including antibodies, and get a print out of results with reference ranges. Putting on that much weight is a key symptom of hypothyroidism.

Cut out gluten if you haven't already. Assuming your arthritis is autoimmune condition, gluten should be cut out as it can aggravate all autoimmune conditions.

Hypothyroidism can also be an AI issue (hashimotos) and as you may know, having one AI condition is a good indicator that you may get another. Check out tpauk.com for help understanding thyroid health.

only one of the little portion things! A whole pack at once would be mad.

I also weigh & preportion dried fruit out to bring into work so it’s never more than 100cals bc I know it can be quite calorie dense, and bring my lunch in from home. I did the maths for my sandwich choices so none of them are over 350 cals at the highest (with avocado, for when I’m feeling fancy) and also do soup or salad sometimes but again all below 350. Rather than totting up each day I give myself a range of options, so for eg all my dinner recipes are around 500, all my lunches are around 350 + 70cal flavoured coffee sachet thing, morning snack around 100, afternoon snack around 250, evening snack 200 tops. Works out to an average of 1470 a day.

NHS thing said not to go below 1600 so I’m presuming that’s bullshit.

Oooh didn’t know that about gluten.

Have a massive family history of hypothyroidism so at first assumed that was what it was, given my eating hadn’t changed, exercise increased once arthritis was a bit better managed, and I put on so much weight in a short span of time- but had my bloods done last week and they said TSH normal so figured that was ruled out.

I think the thing that bothers me is that I’m not just not losing weight, I’m GAINING weight.

If I cut out the snacks, that will bring me presumably down to maintenance level. Then I’d be stuck with a sandwich and a 500 calorie dinner, and have to cut one of those out to start losing again. And surely living off just a 500 calorie dinner to lose weight is not right

Not all calories are equal. I can put on weight eating 850 calories and lose weight eating 1400 calories.
You need to track properly, not roughly.
Also look at your eating window. You're eating dinner late considering you start eating at 10am.

I think it's just too much food.

You might see a big difference if you lost the dried fruit and bread. Have an oat biscuit for breakfast and increase your protein at lunch. Bread and dairy and dried fruits and all not your friend. I also don't know anyone who would have two eggs at tea time as a sort of starter and then a whole meal quite late. I would gain weight on all this. Can you keep raw vegetables chopped up and ready for snacks. Or make some vegetable soup (without starchy vegetables) and have a cup of that instead of graze?

I also have AI issues and - while not gaining - could not lose weight even eating one meal a day. The only thing that made a difference to me was cutting out the carbs, as much as some on mn demonise LC as a fad. I can actually eat more (and yes, I did weigh every single blueberry!) on LCHF than when I ate "healthily" before.

I'm two stone down since then.

Naproxen can cause quite a lot of water retention; it always pushes my weight up (also an arthritis sufferer). Do you drink enough water in the day?

you will be underestimating your calories.

i swore for years I only ate about 1500 cals a day-logged with mfp, everything. Even dh agreed I didn’t eat much and couldn’t understand it.

i also slowly gained weight. Couldn’t understand it.

in the end I signed up to a diet service out of sheer frustration. All meals for 10 weeks calorie counted. 1200 ish a day.

i lost 2 stone.

i was likely underestimating portions, rounding down, “forgetting” the couple of mouthfuls of dd’s dinner, or having too many days “off” where I didn’t log and ate nearer 2000 cals.

i also underestimated how sedentary I am. Yes I was going to the gym, and getting my steps in, but it still meant I was sat for 20-22 hours a day, and only active for a few hours. Probably meant I only needed about 1500 to maintain, and so easy to have that extra handful of nuts and go over.

TSH is only one of the tests you need to rule out thyroid. Another thing you should know is that the 'normal' reference range varies from area to area. So you could be 'fine' in one part of the country, but the same result would get you a prescription for levothyroxine in another place!

That's why you need a full thyroid panel and to see the results with the reference ranges. TPAuk.com is a good resource to help interpret your results. Do you have any other symptoms? (fatigue, insomnia, hair loss, air hunger, feeling cold, irregular periods, dry skin... there are loads of symptoms but weight gain is a key one.)

I'd cut out gluten straight away. Go back to your GP, and have a look at the resources on tpauk before cutting more calories from your diet. If your thyroid is struggling, it will have a knock on effect on adrenals, and cutting calories will only stress them more, which in turn will cause more struggle for your thyroid. Yes, it might be that you're overeating (doesn't really sound like it, but maybe) but at the rate you're gaining weight, I think something else is going on.

You should eat something at breakfast, to kick start your metabolism.

Food choices (dried fruit) aren't great. But I don't think your eating loads.