Weight loss starting to piss me off

[Timeforallthecheese]

I had about 11 pounds to loose. Did all the checks and gave myself 1400 calories a day. I’m 5’7. I track everything. Even down to shelling boiled eggs and weighing them and inputting to MFP. I don’t eat back exercise calories. I have an active job. I’ve lost half a stone which took a while but I got there.

Now I seem to lose and gain the same pound and stall all the time. It’s been like this for 4-6 weeks. I was at 143 pounds on Sunday. Went to a friends house for lunch. She did Sandwiches, a scone and coffee which was difficult to track so I held back about 300 calories from earlier in the week to hopefully cover the scone at lunch. That pound has gone back on and today I’m 144.4.

I cannot seem to get below 143 and if I do, the slightest thing puts a pound or two back on, then it takes weeks to come off. I am fearful of the festive season or even just going out for dinner. If I’m struggling with 1400 calories, what would maintenance calories be.

Do you get to a point where your body just says no? Im 53.

Typical day for context is

Eggs or yoghurt and fruit for breakfast
Lunch a bagel with cream cheese, salad and cold meat or beans on toast
Dinner is a stirfry or cottage pie. I eat cauliflower rice instead of normal rice
Snack hummus with veg or, if on the go a cereal/protein bar
Alcohol is gin and tonic and only 2 a week.
2/3 litres of water a day.

As I say, everything is tracked.

I'm in a very similar situation. I think the answer might be intermittent fasting as the week I went without breakfast was my most successful week. It wasn't planned, I had a hectic week.

Also, maybe look at balancing your carbs and protein.

Maybe cut off carbs and do high protein, sounds like a healthy diet though, maybe will just take longer to lose but you will get there eventually

I think you’re probably sitting at your most ideal comfortable metabolic weight now and to push past that you’ll have to do something else. 16/8 intermittent fasting works for me. I’m 47.

Stalling for 4-6 weeks is not unusual, you're not going to show loss every single week on week in a linear fashion

Ive had weight loss surgery, I dont lose anything for 4-6 weeks each time, its like clockwork and then a couple of pounds will drop off, then I wait for the same period again and same again. I dont bother weighing myself very often for that reason.

Your calories are very low, I'm much smaller than you at 5 foot and my defect is 1650 calories. It could be that your body has adjusted to the lower calories being "normal" if you've been eating that way. It might be worth looking at reverse dieting, where you slowly build calories back up to a more sustainable number then cut again for a short period. If yiu di it right there shouldn't be too much of a weight gain as you slowly increase as long as its by eating more nutrient dense foods

Cut out the carbs.

Try not to eat breakfast and eat kefir instead of yoghurt which is usually full of sugar. Check the fruit you’re eating.
Instead of bagels have sourdough crackers (Peter’s Yard). Beans on toast is full of sugar and carbs that sugar. You need protein and carbs from vegetables.

Once you realise the things you though were healthy are actually full of carbs it gets easier to lose that last bit of weight.

I have a bulletproof coffee for breakfast.
Tuna and green salad for lunch or cheese and the sourdough crackers.
Dinner is fish cooked in butter with green veg (but plenty of it.)
Snacks are coconut, kefir and kombucha.

Weight naturally fluctuates by a pound or two depending on hormones and water retention from eating something salty.

What exercise do you do? When you say your job is active, what do you mean? I have found that no school run for a week equals a gain of 3 pounds because it's a 5 mile daily walk up some big hills just to take the dc to school and back. Exercise makes a big difference to me so I'd recommend adding in something most days and you should see a shift.

Oh and I eat all the carbs! My diet is mainly carb based and I lost 2 stone without too much effort or deprivation. Now trying to shift a couple of kilos that went back on when I took my eye off the ball.
My maintenance calories are around 2100 due to the amount of walking I do most days. I weigh 56.4kg and am 5ft 3in.

I work in a parts department for a car garage. I walk about 15000 steps a day at that. Lifting and moving boxes and parts.

Not much after that but I do go on long walks over the weekend and one evening a week while DS is at a club, another mum and I go for a walk.

Its not possible to put on a 1lb in a day anyway, thats not how the body works

Try eating variable calories, I am 5'7" and losing 1lb a week doing 5:2. I have 800-1000 calories on 2 days and up to 2000 on others and average about 1700 calories. Also I generally only eat lunch or brunch & dinner which helps keep the calories down.

I go to the gym 3 x a week (not on lower calorie days) and also try and have 80-100g protein a day, <150g carbs, 25-30g fibre and eat 6+ portions of veg. If I hit the fibre targets that really seems to help with the weight loss. Pears, high fibre carbs and puy lentils really help, and I find high fibre food more filling than high protein.

And how do you hit 30g of fibre a day?

Yogurt is not "full of sugar".

The main thing with any way of eating is that it is sustainable long term.

I wouldn't last a week on your diet and long term your metabolism is completely fucked eating like that.

I think it sounds like you’re doing fine and you’ve hit a natural plateau. That would be too few calories for me but we’re all different and it sounds good and balanced.

If you put aside your frustration how do you feel? Do you have energy? Are you sleeping well? How’s your mood?

Have you tried on any clothes that were previously too small or uncomfortable? You might find they fit better in spite of what the scale says.

Flavoured yoghurt has a lot of sugar in it. Fibre is in the green vegetables, nuts and seeds and the fruit I choose. I also eat puy lentils. I also lift weights several times a week.
My metabolism is not ‘fucked’.

I have just been through this for weeks on end and finally broke it this morning! I have finally dropped down a lb instead of gaining and losing the same one.

To do this I changed my macros to reduce carbs by 10% for protein and tried doing more strength than cardio. I also basically gave up a lot of the things I had been saving calories for like alcohol, sweets and just went without them all to try to shift the plateau. To some extent a plateau is normal but it SUCKS

What do you mean by this “You need protein and carbs from vegetables.”? Pulses maybe?

@Cheeesus although I don’t agree with their meal plan and missing breakfast tbh I do agree that carbs from vegetables is better than carbs from bread and potatoes if you are trying to actively lose weight. You can eat things not on bread and just on their own or with something else or only have 1 smaller Wholemeal slice of bread. I say this as I was eating a lot of rice cakes and cutting those out has helped me get out of my plateau. Veg are carbs
I don’t like low carb though generally

I don't have a solution, but I hear you! I'm 53 and nothing is shifting at all. I know I'd have to do something drastic, and I can't face it. Not what you want to hear, but it absolutely isn't the same (for me anyway) as losing weight in my thirties or even forties. I agree, your body gets reasonably happy at that set weight mine is, it's just too high!

I just want to say that you could lose weight eating nothing but sugar and carbs if your calories are low enough.
Unless you can cut (processed) carbs forever, it's better to try and make peace with junk food and accept a compromise such as choosing better quality, smaller amounts or just having them less frequently.

Oh and it's just a plateau it was bound to happen at some point and will keep happening, just ride them out and weigh yourself less often. Daily weighing would drive me mad.

@AllFeetAreUgly you would think this to be true and it is if you did this long term and I am not a science denier, but like OP I have also tracked my intake for weeks and been gaining and losing the same 1lb. The body is weird as fuck sometimes.

I noticed with my self that i can gain up to a half a stone before my period is due
And i was not eating any more than what i was doing.

Took me a while to notice the pattern.

I don’t get periods I have no womb lol

I always find that once I get to a stone threshold I struggle to break the barrier and go under. Currently I’m fluctuating between 12st and 12.1 - getting scales to start at 11st is painful but as soon as I break through I tend to see steady loss. It makes no sense.

Oh I’ve got it, I read it as needing to get both protein and carbs from veg. That’s me being daft.

What it meant was you need protein and you also need carbs from veg.