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.

Thanks everyone for your input.

I just want to add I eat Fage Greek Yoghurt so nothing like Muller Lights and the like. Bread and a bagel will always be wholemeal.

I think what you eat is fine, but I would recommend intermittant fasting. It's the only thing that helped me shed those last couple of kilos. I ate between midday and 6pm during the week and midday and 8pm during the weekend, and I replaced lunch with a lighter snack or a fruit. I also do a lot of excercise but even that wouldn't get rid of the last kilos. My goal was 60kg but am now down to 58 as I just enjoyed fasting so much that 7 months later I am still doing it.

It doesn't sound like you are doing anything wrong.

The main thing is that whatever you eat it should be sustainable long term.

If it isn't then stop dieting for a while and eat maintenance calories then have a another go in January, or try varying your calories on different days/5:2/fasting.

I have done very low carb and very low calorie before but I couldn't do it forever, mainly as the rest of the family certainly don't want to eat that way and eating different dinners from them isn't sustainable either.

While I managed it for two months and had a good weight loss, it made me go absolutely mad for carbs and alcohol, and loads of sweet things I don't normally eat much of, and I put the weight back on quickly. I hadn't binged or done emotional eating for years and it really set me back, hence why I would advise against doing anything dramatic.

Also I don't know about you but I have several events and dinners to go to in the next six weeks, so moderation rather than excluding whole food groups seems a hell of a lot more realistic. I could only manage VF 800 in lockdown when I wasn't going anywhere and as soon as normal life resumed the weight went back on, and more. It also buggered my metabolism so much that it took me a while to get back in the zone to lose weight. I stopped dieting for nearly a year and just focused on fitness.

Whereas now nothing is banned, I have a take away on a Friday night, chocolate and crisps at the weekend, and have lost almost as much as I did on Very Fast 800 in two months. Also I do a lot more exercise now, including some high impact cardio and weights, and all I could manage doing very low carb was yoga and walking. And while I'm not quite as light (yet) as I was after doing very low carb, I'm actually slimmer in terms of measurements due to exercise, and my middle in particular is slimmer, I have a 30" waist. Though I'd still like to lose 2".

You are a healthy weight?

The difference between what you ( at your current weight) need to eat to be stable ( say 1500) and what you are eating (1400) suggests weight loss will be very slow ?

Gosh I didn't realise you were around ten stone, OP.

That's pretty ideal for 5'7". Maybe you can't lose more because you are at an entirely healthy weight for your height and age. I would focus on toning up your middle and building muscle if you are worried about belly fat.

My goal weight is 11 stone which is great for me. If I was ten stone my waist would be about 26".

Check you height to waist ratio also. Mine is already in the healthy range at 30" even though my BMI is 27, so I don't want to go below BMI 24 personally.

https://www.omnicalculator.com/health/waist-height-ratio#:~:text=The%20general%20guidance%20is%20that,related%20to%20excess%20body%20weight.

Try weight training? I lift dumbbells and use a resistance band at home, and it's visibly changed my shape within a month or so. Toned, and lost weight. I wouldnt cut out carbs as some are suggesting. We need carbs for energy, cutting them out completely is not healthy. & your diet isn't even carb heavy really. Some kind of fasting is best. eg I never feel like eating in the morning, so I don't. I stop eating by around 8pm then next day I drink warm water when I awake and may have a cup of tea mid morning. Then I eat at lunchtime which is around 1pm. I don’t believe in dieting, just eating healthier for life.

No bread, potatoes, pasta, rice. I do eat cauliflower rice, and kefir for gut health. Occasional treats. & just maybe, some of us aren't cut out to be a size 6/8 whatever. Im a size 12, menopausal, no high cholesterol/blood pressure etc.

You're a good weight for your height. You're struggling to lose extra because you don't need to. Just leave it and enjoy your life

Thanks. I’m sneaking on at work. I wanted to get to 10 or just under 10 stone so not much to go but my body is possibly saying enough.

I got my calories from a TDEE calculator. I am thinking rather than losing at this time of year to increase marginally and see if I can maintain until January and then try again.

I am not doing down the low carb route. Too much coming up for the festive period. I’d rather eat.

Looks a bit high on carbs/sugar.

Thanks. Can you explain where sugar wise?

@MissJD is there any point quoting the OP’s post which was already long enough? It causes unnecessary scrolling!

You only had the second comment on here, surely everyone will know you’re responding to the OP?

sorry i'm still figuring out how to use this app
won't do it again

It's the menopause. It doesn't effect everyone like that, but some women find it very difficult to lose weight in peri/menopause. Our bodies are craving oestrogen and oestrogen is in fat cells. Our bodies are desperately trying to hold onto the fat.

For me, a lifelong carb lover, cutting down on carbs and eating high protein is the only thing that has worked. But its hard and miserable.

@Timeforallthecheese I wouldn’t do very low carb either but check your macros on this as even replacing 5-10% with protein can help a little

What worked much better for me was taking oestrogen.

At 5 ft 7, 143 pounds is a perfectly healthy weight with a BMI of 22.3. Why do you need to lose 11 pounds?

@MissJD if you want to respond to someone directly then it’s best to quote them as the poster will know what particular comment you’re responding too. However, if you’re just responding to the OP’s first post then don’t worry about quoting!

Hi. It’s not 11 now, it was 11 when I started. I’ve got between 3 and 5 that I’d like to shift.

I agree with this. Intermittent fasting has been amazing for me. I'm 49 and put on a stone over the last 18 months struggling with peri-menopause issues and starting HRT. It was making me so miserable. I listened to The Circadian Code on audible after seeing it recommended here. I did struggle a bit with the delivery of it but perservered and listened to a couple of other podcasts about intermittent fasting before deciding to give it a go.

Have been doing 16:8 it for about 8 weeks now and have lost 9 lbs. For the most part I try to finish eating by 8pm every night and don't start again until 12pm the following day. I was pretty strict for the first few weeks (apart from a couple of work dinners I had to go to which involved later eating). But am less strict now. So some days might not quite get to 16 hours but always have a minimum 14 hour fast in every 24 hour period.

I genuinely don't miss breakfast - thought I would - but I really don't. I have loads of energy. Feel 100% better than I did a few months ago and can get back in all my clothes which I'm very happy about.

The other thing I've done is significantly reduce the amount of bread I eat and try really really hard to not eat any bread that isn't proper sourdough from a good bakery. The stuff is supermarkets is full of crap and really doesn't agree with me. Makes me so bloated and gives me stomach ache. Proper sourdough doesn't have that effect on me. Although I still probably only have bread once a week.

Apart from that I haven't changed anything and eat the same foods I ate before. Although we've always eaten healthily and cooked most things from scratch. But I still have chocolate when I want it (within those 8 hours). We had apple crumble after dinner on Sunday. So I'm really not restricting what I eat. Just when I eat. It has made huge difference.

I am on HRT as well. The highest licenced dose of oestrogen is nowhere near what our bodies produced naturally. So some women's bodies are still desperate to have more oestrogen and therefore hold onto fat. As I said not all women, just like not all women get vaginal atrophy or hot flushes. Oestrogen depletion effects women in different ways.

I put on 4 stone in perimenopause despite eating the same and exercising the same.

I was just sharing my experience, I'm not sure why I warranted such a snippy response really. But I guess some people come on the internet so they can be snippy.

I am in the same situation. I would like a weight loss partner. I’m trying a water fast. Seems extreme but I really need to lose.

We are the exact same height and weight and I have also plateaued (although this is my goal weight for me)
I lost 20lbs since the start of the year and plateaued twice, and both times the way I got out of it was to up my calories for a week, then go back down. So I was on 1400, and I went up to 1800ish for a week then back down. However I did try and do that in sensible calories like extra meat or veg or hummus or cheese or yoghurt, rather than crisps or takeaways or chocolate. Worked really well for me.

I would also realy recommend mixing in soups at lunch - not cup-a-soups or tinned, either homemade or fresh from the fridge aisle. I try and stick to one portion of bread a day, so I'd have a bagel and half a carton of soup (stuck to the serving sizes) then a piece of fruit after for lunch and I found if I did that for a week I'd see a difference.

I'd also consider maybe mixing up your dinners a bit, and adding some more variation - how are you as a cook? Do you have an air fryer? I'm sure we can come up with some easy recipes.

Also, want to be clear - I don't actual track any more, because I am at goal weight and started weightlifting with cardio tacked onto the end of the session, great motivator for eating well. I think you are a healthy weight, but if you really want to change your body, weightlifting is amazing and I highly recommend - it makes you hungrier but it drops the inches like nothing else.

Carbs are in a number of foodstuffs, fruit, veg, milk, yoghurt. You can get all your carbs from those products without touching what I suspect you might think are 'carbs' being starchy foods or complex carbs. Pulses and legumes also contain carbs.

I’ve explained above, I’d misunderstood the protein bit to mean protein from veg. Ignore me.