Wedding Weight Loss

[Eightysixnotgreat]

Hi all,

just looking for some advice. My wedding is in early July and I desperately need to lose a stone for my dress. I’ve had a long time to lose weight and I have been trying but with stress and bereavements I’ve had lots of slip ups too.

I’m currently intermittent fasting and doing low carb, consuming around 1000 calories a day. Twice a week I do a personal training session and I do 30 mins cardio workout in the morning and aim for 12000 steps each day. The scales are moving so slowly. Some weeks I haven’t even lost a pound. I do think I’m losing inches because my clothes fit better on the bust and thighs but my stomach and arms are still stubbornly staying the same.

Any advice? It’s making me feel really down. I have about 3 weeks until my first fitting.

Thanks

What does your PT think about you doing this cardio and only eating 1000 calories?
Where did you get such a low number from?
I think this can be counter productive. I think what can happen is that your metabolism is like ‘hey, I’m not really getting the fuel I need to keep me going so let’s make this person really tired and worn out and slow down her metabolism to match this intake of food’ it’s not actually ‘starvation mode’ but can be called adaptive thermogenesis

Perhaps you could work out your actual TDEE and give yourself a calorie deficit that is more realistic? You could end up losing muscle through the cardio and restricted eating and muscle mass is also what helps with weight loss by burning calories

good luck, perhaps talk to your PT about your goals and they can help you?

you can’t spot reduce fat loss unfortunately

May I join you? I'm getting married in October and would like to shift quite a bit of weight too.
I met my partner 5 years ago and was a size 8. I've slowly crept up to a size 14 and shocked myself when I jumped on the scales last month and was 11st 13oz.
I joined the gym on the 31st March and changed my diet. I'm going high protein and low carb. I only eat between 1pm and 6pm. I've not been watching calories but know that I've reduced a lot as I'm no longer eating crap in the evening (no more share size bags of doritos and sweets in front of the tv).
I am doing 3-4 strength and toning type work outs each week along with dog walking daily to keep my steps up.
I jumped on the scales this morning and have so far lost 10lb. I realise that this is the big initial loss and it will slow to maybe a 1lb or so a week but slow and steady wins the race.
My problem now..... I've had a dress made for my size 14 frame. I'll have to spend more money getting altered. I'd rather feel great in that dress though then just 'meh' so it's worth it

I'm a November bride and also on a mission to feel great!! I don't have my dress yet but I really don't want to hate our photos, I want to feel confident and beautiful! I'm a size 12, sometimes a 10 depending on shop. No idea what I weigh and refuse to weigh, as I get obsessed with numbers. I'm going by how I look and how clothes fit. I am two babies in, have a mum tum and generally want to be fitter and leaner. I'm going running 3 x per week and intermittent fasting. Today's not a run day, but aiming to fast until at least 1pm, maybe push it to 2pm! Fasting worked for me to drop my baby weight so I'm hoping it'll do the trick this time.

This is a very slow loss on a crash diet.
I personally don’t believe in the starvation mode, there’s quite a lot of evidence that people can starve to death to believe that it’s a thing. Your metabolism might slow down but not to the point of 1000 calories per day not having any effect on your weight at all.

Do you measure absolutely everything you eat, as in weighing ingredients, counting and weighing every snack and drink?

Do you have any kind of monitoring device, such as a fitness watch to measure your cardio effort and the intensity of your sessions with the PT?
I found a dedicated fitness watch super useful. I used to have a cheap Chinese one which literally crashed under the weight of my fitness commitment 😅 and now I have a Polar which is much more accurate. Still even the cheap one helped me enormously to adjust my eating to my energy expenditure.

I also don’t think starvation mode is real, I think that this is taken from the theory that when you don’t eat enough, your metabolism will slow down, so you are more likely to move around less in daily life and your NEET reduces, which is where a lot of your BMR comes from.

30 mins of cardio x 2 is not much, also walking, this could be at 2mph so none of it at much at a high heart rate which doesn’t add to creating a large calorie deficit in reality and be only just in the ‘lightly active’ zone

If someone is not very tall and their TDEE is already lowish, losing the last stone is often really hard. I am at this point now, even eating 1400-1500 a day results in snail like weight loss. My TDEE is 1900 with light exercise so I try to make a deficit out of it or up the intensity of the exercise to create a bigger deficit. I often have done 7,000-10,000 steps just through daily life but I didn’t break a sweat to do it - actively walking a few miles at an intense pace will increase your heart rate and be counted as exercise.

I think it’s a good idea to look at the whole picture - food intake tracking and quality/intensity of the exercise. Obviously not much is happening so something is a bit off in one area.

She says it’s ok for the short term, although she did say she wouldn’t recommend the low carb as all food groups are important.

Absolutely! It’s amazing how easy it is to put on and so difficult to lose it. I had developed some unhealthy habits too. It was hard to kick them but think I’ve managed it. Doesn’t help my fiancée can eat what he wants and his weight never fluctuates!

My fiance is exactly the same. He's a tree surgeon so spends all day climbing and lugging big lumps of tree about. His feet is appalling yet he wint put on nor lose anything.
It's actually disgusting how many biscuits he eats. If I was to do the same, It'd all go straight to my bumbag positioned fat store!

I am also a July bride! Need to lose 10lbs for my dress to be comfortable so should just about be possible with discipline and determination. Going on my first jog on Thursday and diet started yesterday (a bit late I know)