It’s only day 2 and I could eat my own arm I’m so hungry.

[ThewrathofBethDutton]

I’m 5 fucking stone overweight.

Huge, uncomfortable, feel disgusting, look disgusting, it’s make or break now.

Ive made up my mind.

im almost through the menopause, the 5 stone has attached itself throughout perimeno over the last 4-5 years.

I have tried I have failed multiple times. I can starve, weight watchers, slimming world, MFP, fasting, vegan, vegetarian, meal plan, walk more, move more… I’ve done them all, everyone of them over the last 30 years. I’m still huge.

Peri meno has proven impossible, utterly utterly impossible.
I could drop a stone doing any of the above over 4-5 months before hormones fucked off. Now with very careful changes, the weight WILL NOT BUDGE at all no matter what I do. Not even one LB.

MFP is a great little APP, I get on with it well because I like the nutritional information that it gives.
I like to track my nutritional intake, cholesterol etc, calories & fat secondary. I have 1200 cals a day,

I went to bed last night starving, I’m hungry now, feel like shit.

Pffftt and GAHHHHHH! I hate being so overweight and overwhelmed with the mammoth challenge ahead of me every single day.

What can I do??????

Thankyou, this is very interesting and factual.
I am also concerned with the potential gastro issues that go along side these medications. I don’t want to replace one health issue with 3 more due to a drug.

The science speaks to me rather than anecdotes.

I am cautious naturally, I may be overweight but I am conscious of what I take into my body.

I do try to eat clean, fruits & veg, cook from scratch, I take multivitamins and iron (I’m a regular blood donor).
Im not fat because I don’t try and don’t care, I feel very let down by my own body again if I’m honest.

I come from a family with weight issues. My cholesterol is raised which makes me furious as my dhs is lower than mine and he doesn’t touch any fruit or veg and lives on bacon, ham, white bread and fucking SPAM! Who the fuck eats that shite? My dh that’s who and his cholesterol is lower than mine!

I will keep going!

At 5 stone overweight I'd also be very hesitant. This isn't shitting on weight loss jabs (as lots will chime in to say any discussion is), for people seriously obese the risks outweight the risk of obesity but stuff like heightened risk of gastroparesis is a bit worrying.

1200 calories is VERY damaging and you will only slow your metabolism, and not lose any weight at all.

5 stone overweight is seriously obese and the risks are very unlikely balanced against the proven benefits.

I dont disagree, but feelings of hunger are primarily designed to get us to take action, it is dysfunctional in modern society as you say, but just like any animal, it will try to go and find food/obtain food when hungry. Humans are the same

My point was, and I made it earlier in the thread, we can afford to ignore that for a while, its fleeting, its momentary, its to be expected while losing weight because we have to eat less

People dont want to be told that you have to be a bit uncomfortalbe to lose weight or that you cant eat what you want.

This is nonsense, dont keep saying this.

Agreed.

@ThewrathofBethDutton the thing is, what you're doing clearly isn't working for you, so you need to take a different approach.

Like you, I'd be hesitant about using the injections - although it seems that there's no doubt that they will work, certainly in the short term.

Can I suggest that you read this book?

It's written by a bariatric surgeon, and talks about the process of losing weight (and in particular, why calorie counting really doesn't work in the longer term).

It's very well written, but also easy to read, and as someone who is interested in eating well, I think you'll appreciate it.

Based on your calculator, my BMR is 1288 and maintenance calories 1546 which is pretty much identical to others I’ve used. At some of the recommendations on here I’d gain weight rapidly!

Sedentary post menopausal women have much lower calorie requirements than younger women and it’s the root cause of the post menopausal weight gain. I’ve discovered that I can no longer eat as I used to and remain the same weight.

Same here, my maintenance calories around 1600

So I need to eat max 1100 per day in order to lose 1 pound weekly

I tend to do more some days and less on others, but need to have no more than 7700 calories weekly to lose a pound in that week

I think it's worth re-emphasizing that we don't need that many calories to survive, certainly less than you might think, and you must work it out accurately to get some results.

And dispel the nonsense like '1200 calories will send you into 'starvation mode' and other such myths and nonsense

Totally agree, I say this on threads like this all the time, then someone will come along and confidently tell you your brain needs 1200 cals a day just to function on its own or a coma patient

Recent posters with TDEE around 1600 a day - absolutely believe you're correct for yourselves BUT there is no way you are 5 stone overweight and still have such a low TDEE. So it's not incorrect to tell someone with 5 stone to lose that cutting to 1200 is far too low because it is. I'm over 40 and my TDEE is 2100 average and when I was 15 stone it was 2400. I appreciate it will go down when I'm post menopausal but even so, 2400 maintenance at 15 stone is not unusual.

I was nearly 14 stone and my TDEE was 1400. I had to eat 1000 a day to lose anything at all.

When I was 40 it was 2000 at 11stone and I lost weight on 1500.

I've just put all the stats in a TDEE calculator. To get to 1400 a day maintenance at 14 stone you have to be 75 years old and 4 feet 7 inches tall. If those are your stats then fair enough but you are clearly an outlier. Or possibly you're a quadriplegic and don't move your limbs independently? Because otherwise your TDEE could not have been 1400 calories at 14 stone. Are you sure you don't mean BMR?

Age 60, 5 foot 1 and sedentary, your BMR could be 1400 at 14 stone. But BMR is not your maintenance calories and not the number you should be using to calculate your weight loss.

Then you must be very active

A sedentary age 50 female of average height, 5 foot 4

Weighing 5 stone overweight, let's call it 200 pounds, has TDEE of 1800

( Would need to lose 70 pounds / 5 stone to get to 130 pounds which would give a BMI in mid normal range for that height)

So a LOT less than you think, and would need therefore to have more than 1300 calories daily to lose just 1 pound weekly
( Despite weighing obese range, and needing to lose 5 stone to get into mid normal BMi range)

Typo:

Have NO more than 1300 calories daily to lose just 1 pound weekly

Yes why do people keep saying 1200 calories is too low? It certainly isn’t, you have to create a deficit in order to lose weight: plenty of people sustain themselves on far fewer calories. Look at the Fast 800 as just one example of a very low calorie diet with huge health benefits.

i actually read 1200 in OPs original post and wondered if that was actually too many as it’s arguably enough to prompt a real hunger still, whereas fasting and doing a keto type diet likely to be easier

No, office job, gym twice a week, walk 8000-10000 steps a day. There's a big difference between 1800 and 1400 in any case, and honestly if you're so sedentary that you are burning that few calories you'd be very well advised to move a bit more!

I'm just picking 'sedentary' in the TDEE calculator so it's clear that a sedentary female age 50, even 5 stone overweight, needs 1800 calories to maintain, and must go no higher than 1300 calories daily to lose just 1 pound weekly.

This is with 70 pounds to lose as per my example.

As her weight reduces, she will need to recalculate and go for lower calories again, 1200, 1100 etc to achieve a sustained ( slow) weight loss to ever achieve a weight within normal BMI

(Sure, you can advise everyone to move more and eat less, that's not the point of this thread)

I don't think we actually disagree with each other do we? I didn't say that 1800 wasn't a possible TDEE for someone who is 5 stone overweight. I said that 1400 isn't possible. Which as per the calculator is true, unless the person is over 75 and under 4 foot 7. Or immobile.

Fair enough!!

It just surprised me that one may need so little to maintain even in the obese weight range, and so very little calories to achieve weight loss!

When I read the OP post I also thought 1200 could be too high, and that posters saying she's in 'starvation mode' ( myth) , or is eating far too little, are likely entirely wrong.

I'm 65 and lost 2.5 stone in 9 months in 2023 and kept it off since. I ate around 2000 per day but cycled gently for an hour a day and did strength training 3-4 times a week too. It was down to looking after my gut biome, eating protein twice a day but not huge portions and eating loads of veg. Didn't eat much fruit, ate almost no UPFs at all. Baked all our own bread etc, made our own kefir, cooked every single meal from scratch but did use very small amount of things like soy sauce. Found it very easy. I am exactly the measurements and weight I was in my early twenties.

Unfortunately the figures are just as high for those who follow "normal" diets. And also those who have surgery, many put back on too, there are several posters on the WLI boards/Facebook pages who have had gastric bands previously, have regained and are now trying injections.

It isn’t nonsense at all.