Can anyone tell me where I’m going wrong?

[Darklane]

Could you explain please where I might be going wrong as I’m just not losing any weight.
I’m desperately trying to lose a stone or better still two but it just isn’t happening & I don’t know why. I’ve been following…ish…the Fast 800 diet along with only eating between 1pm & 7pm.
So no breakfast apart from a cup of tea, plus meds that I’m prescribed. Lunch is mostly soup, home made. This week it’s vegetable made with kale, carrots, celery, onion, tin of tomatoes, chillie, garlic, mixed herbs. I make a huge pan that lasts us two days. DH has bread, I don’t but grate on a little Parmesan.
Dinner is a portion of meat or fish, last night for example was a small grilled chicken breast fillet, tonight is hake, with vegetables, last night asparagus, fine green beans, cauliflower.
Snack was a nectarine, about four cups of tea & two instant coffees ( no sugar) through the day. One small glass of dry white wine in the evening.
Exercise I struggle with as I’m limited with spinal stenosis & arthritis in one hip though I do manage to do some gardening , rain permitting.
Ive doing this for a month & nothing! Not one pound lost. Can anyone help please? I know if I could lose the weight it would help my mobility as it has before, several years ago when I did manage to lose a stone on the South Beach diet. I currently weigh 143 lb at just five foot tall ☹️

It doesn't sound like you're eating enough. You must be bloody starving! That's not sustainable long term and is why "diets" usually fail. You need to eat healthily to fuel your body. Please don't skip breakfast - it gets your metabolism going for the day. 40g of overnight oats are a good option.

Have you tried logging your food on MyFitnessPal? It's a real eye opener and will help you understand exactly what you're putting into your body. Don't try to eat minimal calories - make sure your macros are balanced too.

Alcohol inhibits the body's ability to burn calories. If you're drinking every night, even just one, you'll find it hard to lose fat.

Also bear in mind that you might be losing fat and gaining muscle at the same time. Don't just rely on your scales, get a tape measure out.

I lost over 2 stone in 2018 and kept it off by permanently changing my eating habits, not going on a diet.

I don’t think you are eating enough either. I think fast 800 can be very good for people who have a lot to lose as a good kickstart but if you are losing a smaller amount of weight this is very restrictive and might be working against you. None of us are doctors or professionals and it’s hard to speculate just our opinions but I would work out my daily calorie intake and minus 300-500 calories from that and see how you get on

From your description it seems that you eat very little, possibly too little, but only careful logging could confirm this. Maybe if you keep a detailed food diary for 10 days you'd get a clearer idea. But there's always a risk of becoming too obsessed and potentially veering into ED territory.

Personally I found that a largely vegetable and protein based Mediterranean type diet combined with weight training helped. I didn't actually lose much weight (I didn't need to), but I gained significant muscle. So I'm currently about 2-3kg more than I had been aiming ing for. but I'm a size 10 and my old clothes fit.

YMMV, but fitness, especially resistance/weight based training, was life changing for me. I follow Caroline Girvan's programmes, which are excellent and very motivating.

I’ve been logging my intake on My Fitness Pal so know I’m not going over the 800 calories. I thought that would mean a weight loss, why would eating more help? Sorry I just can’t understand that.
Thats interesting about just a small amount of alcohol even within the calorie limit, I’ll just have to forgo that then, ah well. I’m not a big drinker, just one very small glass, something to relax & look forward to, stupid I guess.
Unfortunately it can’t be muscle gain, as I said exercise is painful for me, this drives me mad as I used to be really active till a bad accident five years ago badly damaged my spine, hence the creeping weight gain I suppose. Thank you for all the kind advice, it’s much appreciated.

Are you really only eating that?

If you are then try adding protein at lunchtime.

I ate a similar amount last summer (1000 calories) which included a lot of good protein and lost almost three stone in 4 months with no exercise.

Also I don’t think the wine is helping.

Sympathies op, it’s bloody hard work, particularly when you’re on the petite end of the scale, there just isn’t the calorie allowance to play with.

Alcohol is pretty calorie dense, I would try to limit yourself to two days a week where you have a drink. It can also cause water retention which will nullify small losses.

What do you cook with? Oil/butter? Are you measuring these?

Are you measuring your milk intake in tea and coffee?

Do you add salt to foods?

Do you drink lots of water every day?

Eating more won't lead to weight loss but you don't want to be on so few calories for an extended period of time. I know you say you can't exercise but can you walk, how many steps do you currently get in a day? Try and double it and see if the scale starts to move! Shifting from pretty sedentary to lightly active can make a huge difference in body composition if it's partnered with a sensible weight loss diet.

The exercise you're thinking you can't do is obviously helpful when trying to lose weight but it makes up a tiny tiny part of energy output so don't sweat it.

You say you "make a huge pan that lasts us two days" but if it's just you and your husband that's potentially 2 massive bowls of soup each a day. The soup sounds great but I'm wondering if it has more calories than you think due to the volume. Of course your huge pan might be my medium pan! It's a pain in the butt to do but for soups and homemade sauces I've weighed out all the individual ingredients, divided by number of portions and logged them into my fitness pal. Oil used in cooking? The wine isn't great obviously. Other than that possibly being an issue it looks like your diet is very good.

It doesn't sound like your pain is under control. You will be using more calories dealing with pain so I'd definitely recommend something like porridge for breakfast.I have a family member with spinal stenosis and they are on a painkilling patch along with regular paracetamol and voltarol gel. They now do seated Zumba and seated Pilates and are so much better because the pain is controlled well. Before that they could barely walk.

Thank you again, everyone.
Yes, I’ll drop the wine completely & drink more water which I know I don’t do enough.
I use a bit of butter for cooking. The soup bowls aren’t massive, just like a regular cereal bowl really.
I have a low thyroid, controlled by thyroxine for years, regularly checked, which isn’t helping probably.
I see a physiotherapist, GP referred, but even walking is extremely painful at present & to think till the accident I was one of these who used to trot round a Crufts show ring & every other show throughout the year 🙄 So it’s changed my life a lot.
Sorry, bit of a moan. It just gets a bit discouraging when the scales won’t budge so I can’t be doing it right.

So sorry to hear about your accident and how it has affected your life. It's great you are seeing g a physiotherapist - what exercises are they suggesting? Could you do press-ups and pullovers and other dumbbell workouts lying down, i.e. less pressure on your spine? What about floor based leg lowering or leg circles and the like?

Mostly sitting down exercises. Couldn’t do press ups. Possibly lying ones on the bed. The trouble with getting down on the floor is that I can’t then get up without hauling myself up on furniture. The problem is lifting my feet, I shuffle & tend to trip over the slightest thing I’m so unsteady. Have fallen a couple of times, broke my nose last year landing face down 🙄 so have resorted to a walking stick in public so at least people don’t think I’m a staggering drunk! 😁

Anyway, enough of my moans. Tea tonight…grilled hake ( Morrison’s, not seen it for years) asparagus, mange touts, two tiny boiled new potatoes, cup of tea & a nectarine…..no wine tonight!

My mum suffers with osteoarthritis, she gets alot of fluid retention in a flare up and that makes her weight fluctuate quite alot, she's been falling the anti inflammatory diet and has lost weight and said she's needing less painkillers and having less fluid and pain flares. I think the foods are very similar to the Mediterranean diet she just bought the book on amazon literally called the anti inflammatory diet.

That’s really interesting, thank you. I’m going to look for that.

just looked,is it this one ?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Anti-Inflammatory-Diet-Beginners-No-Stress-ebook/dp/B06XPZ9RCJ/ref=sr_1_1?crid=MSP64IM24BGK&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9._NL6YK6T7abncRXmeerLA_T4NJ7BJJeT1WNqbx1KZbU4vbYL1SzDPmBZ-BneHLE7wpPl77mQXCnblrqSY4zsozjF-VuHVxcb7QNKvl0DJlDmAenxLMTNbwIqVq52QH28TcAElWl6v5MX4pOdAXhRr6JxEu1rZorbFa5M7-1q0eVgC9m23td5p0YBrlLz6ZeLJQV-ry8KFZMUhg84ZsoTEbnPpnJbY15nU6tjjmMlk5o.2pcg_ZRtS4IRqc0TTd8IvMif3uXs3alRwKW7v_VbUUY&dib_tag=se&keywords=anti+inflammatory+diet+book&qid=1710879909&s=digital-text&sprefix=anti+inflammatory+diet+book%2Cdigital-text%2C159&sr=1-1

Please don't skip breakfast - it gets your metabolism going for the day

Not this nonsense again.

I think hers is this one but I'm betting they're all similar hope you find something that works for you.

www.amazon.co.uk/Anti-Inflammatory-Beginners-Step-Step-anti-inflammatory/dp/B0CLS9B5QR/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=2E549E08WP3MK&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.V1pl9NK0kwZaZJELUizqQaxbDhV7bmcZSxJ6zYzN1QwAxMAIg72GwG-eaje1rp8NxbDr0mNYw4cwWk_sFZ-ekAqk6uZD1mwIDGPgX8vRHc4oWjUAz5Y26oFonkoNwvmzlBcwKN73h1YQ85r_5wCz6Rvjo2f4_S07_RlFvi_lmma9kvfGwVZY_FCjtEh_idbXeeVcO8t9EHVlyNQgW_QqzA.dM6xj1EELIoI5twhEBoU2Uhwr3FhqeHeEcC9Bc2QKoc&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+anti+inflammatory+diet&qid=1710881462&sprefix=the+anti+in%2Caps%2C84&sr=8-1

Check out Dr Jo on YouTube - she is an experienced physiotherapist who has loads of exercises for spinal stenosis.

Thank you everyone for so much advice.

I'm just going to add a different perspective, I'm not saying it's right but it's overall calories that matter, even if they come from alcohol. You don't need to cut it out completely, I say this from experience of losing 2 stone while still drinking 3-4 nights a week (I know this is frowned upon here!) what worked for me
Understanding your calorie deficit on a TDEE calculator and then logging on MFP
Eating 100g min protein per day
Aiming for 8000 steps per day
7-8 hours sleep per night
Drinking 3-4 litres water per day

As pp says it's a lifestyle change not a diet, a steps towards those goals, and hitting them 80% of the time is enough

Also banking calories in the week if you've got a meal at the weekend planned so you can have what you like helped massively.

I learnt all this from an online PT, helped so much. I also lifted weights at the gym 3-4 times a week but you can do this at home. After spending a lifetime with a poor food relationship I can't believe 1. How easy it was to lost 2 stone and 2. How much I actually enjoy food now!