Strict all week and not a single ounce off!

[Vanillarose1]

Just looking for some inspiration. I'm a classic yoyo dieter - lost a stone and a half last summer, put it all back on since November. I only have to look at a biscuit and the scales bulge.

Anyway, I'm back to doing everything right - manageable exercise (rebounding), fasting until midday, eating healthy, unprocessed vegan foods, drinking water. No snacking other than a handful of nuts.

I weigh myself daily to monitor fluctuations and this week, the scales have not moved once.

My diet has changed so drastically that I'm intrigued as to why that would be. Has this happened to anyone else? And please tell me there is light at the end of the tunnel if I stay on the same path!

I am also over 40 and don’t expect instant results but to repeatedly gain while making a real concerted effort is incredibly frustrating.
Like I say, dh has now lost 11lb when I’ve lost 1lb eating the same. I’ve not even had a first week water loss, in fact I gained 2lb the first week.
I have done intermittent fasting for years and it’s always helped me maintain a healthy weight up until the pandemic. I know my blood sugar response is poor. If I eat breakfast, no matter how healthy, I am starving all day and have to eat. If I skip breakfast, then I can quite happily go through the whole day without needing to eat. I’ll have a moment of hunger but it will pass. If I’ve eaten breakfast, the craving for more food is pretty much constant.
I should be starting wegovy, I have as prescription, but I keep putting it off. I am already eating very little, around 1200 cals a day and measuring at least 600 active cals a day on my Apple Watch so that is a substantial deficit. It’s just a mystery!

Do you know what your BMR is? I calculated mine and at my age, hight and weight (I’m only 163 cm, is that 5ft 3 or something?) I need close to 1900 kcal with intense exercise 6 times a week. When I decided to lose weight I started counting calories and sticking to more or less 1600 a day. I’ve been training regularly for the last three years - martial arts classes twice a week, running once a week, yoga/stretching once a week and two weight training sessions, so I do something nearly every day. The weight moved very slowly, it took me 8 months to lose 8 kilos.

My bmr is 1600, so if I eat 1200 and activity of 600 (absolute minimum, usually a lot more) I should be in deficit of 1000 per day?

Intense exercise 6 times a week sounds pretty demanding of your time. How do you fit that around work, family, chores etc?

I have a barbell and weights at home and a Les Mills subscription, got a huge discount after a trial period three years ago and got addicted to them since. I have my martial arts classes when my son has his, I run either during lunch time or pick a Saturday/Sunday, and on a weekday I exercise after kids are in bed, I usually do a class that’s 45 minutes or a HIIT class of 30 minutes.
We often cook together with DH and I batch cook most dishes based on lentils, beans etc. Or make a huge pot of bone broth that we freeze in portions and then use later for cooking or as a snack.

The 45 minutes for exercise is my me time and I’m always looking forward to it. It’s my time to wind down.

That sounds like a great routine with exercise. I am a bit of a workaholic and always work in the evenings. If I could stop that I’d have a lot more time for exercise, but I love what I do so much!

i do have a reasonably active job and walk the dog everyday plus 2.5 hrs yoga every week and at least one gym session. I’m not totally sedentary.

I totally understand, I also love my job and used to work at all possible hours.

I think seeing my father’s health rapidly deteriorating due to diabetes made me totally reconsider my routines, eating habits and lifestyle. I was not overweight (yet) to start with, but I’m petite so I had double chin, large saddlebags and looked chunky. I also developed chronic pain in my left hip which started affecting my sleep because I could feel it constantly at night. So I had to do something. The hip pain has been gone for over half a year now.

I’m also the kind of person who suffers from a lot of mental chatter, I constantly think about stuff and have 1000 ideas per minute. My 45 minutes of exercise is the only time when I literally think about nothing. I love it. My favourite Les Mills class are Shapes and Strength Development. Both hurt a lot and turn my thinking brain off!

Some of the posts on this thread are depressing. You don't need a radical overhaul/change of eating plan/deprivation of major food groups to lose weight. In fact small changes and making sure you have a calorie deficit will be the most sustainable. Fitness watches and gym machines overestimate how many calories you've burned and are based on averages (of whom?) anyway. Get active and do weight bearing exercise for health and improved bone density if you're a woman. The vast majority of weight loss is from diet.

I’d really advise counting calories, if only for a few weeks so you get a feel for calories/portions. A ‘handful’ of nuts could have 500/600 calories, they are very high in calories.

I agree - a lot of people underestimate the calories in what they're consuming, think they're being "healthy" but don't lose weight, and sometimes put weight on, so throw in the towel and go back to eating habits they say they wanted to change. Track your calories, eat things you enjoy eating, but realise you can eat loads of lean protein and veg to fill you up for the same calories as a bit of chocolate or a piece of cake which will give short lived satisfaction. I really don't subscribe to deprivation diets. You do need to be properly conscious of what you are consuming.

I am tracking calories, eating loads and loads of veg and lean protein. I have cut out sugar, which for me was basically just chocolate. To be fair it was always over 75% and mostly artisan/unprocessed stuff but of course very high calorie. Same thing with nuts, I have cut those right down. I don’t even like sweets and cakes and crisps, I don’t drink much alcohol so not missing any of that.
I’ve tried cutting out sugar before to shift my stubborn pandemic weight. At the same time I worked out 6 days a week. I didn’t lose any weight. So this time I am doing calorie counting and fasting at the same time as no sugar.
I’ve done intermittent fasting on and off for about a decade and up until the pandemic it kept my weight at a healthy level. I never found calorie counting to be particularly effective in the past but I’m giving it another go.
also, I am reasonably active; non-sedentary job, dog walking, lots of yoga, functional strength training, weights at the gym etc. there isn’t much more I can do.
it’s got to come through in the end surely?

I agree with the watches overestimating burnt calories. I’m on sick leave, recovering from an injury at the moment, so went for a 5 km walk yesterday instead of training. My inexpensive MI Band watch calculated that my walk was 377 kcal - this is bonkers, I wasn’t even out of breath!

In the long run it’s not possible to maintain or gain weight with a calorie deficit. There have been several celebrity breatharians in history who claimed that they could live without eating, and several of them nearly died when their claims were tested in controlled settings.

If we look at 150-year old photographs of working people it’s nearly impossible to find an overweight or obese person. Those people were only eating less and moving more. The typical meal of a miner from the area where I come from was a huge slice of rye bread with lard. As far from any modern low carb high protein diet as possible…

@Oncetwicethreetimesalady it works providing you achieve a deficit based on your truthful activity levels, height and start weight. Where people fail with calories counting is in being too strict with what they eat for those calories. They cut out everything they enjoy and eat lots of things they wouldn't usually than wonder why they're miserable and hungry.