Weight not shifting

[HunterCarrie]

A bit disappointed as I have started running 2 months ago to loose some weight…it worked before, it doesn’t now. It’s bloody cold out there in the morning, run at least 4 times a week 5 k and watch what I am eating…no food after 6 pm. I’m a baby elephant size and work hard to change this but no luck. Do yoga 3x times a week, walk everywhere, weight steady the same. What can be wrong with me??? Any advice?

How old are you and how much do you have to lose?

Have you had your thyroid checked? I have a friend who struggled with her weight and it ended up being her thyroid. Got it treated and it definitely helped.

You can’t outrun a bad diet. Are you tracking what you’re eating? How many calories are you having?

47 years old and put on 13 pounds…ideally looking to loose 20 pounds. Don’t eat bread, hardly ever pasta . Just feel cheated…was thinking thyroid. Booked consultation with gp next week as never had a round belly like i have now. Not a fan of running so feel really discouraged without seeing zero results.

You do need to know what you are eating as you could be eating at your maintenance, even 100 calories less a day will all start to add up but if you don’t know, you can’t make the adjustments

Eat healthish as vegetarian for majority of my life. Natural yogurt for breakfast with fruits, chia seeds, lunch soups, tea salads…don’t drink or don’t have any sugary drinks…I don’t remember when I ate crisps

You must have some bad habits with food? What are the unhealthiest things you eat?

Honestly, at your (our!) age running is not the one. You will lose weight if you count calories and exercise wise doing weights is better for you than running but to lose weight it's about what you eat not how much exercise you do. But seriously do some research into menopause and exercise - we need to be doing weights and explosive calisthenic type exercises rather than lots of cardio.

I wonder if you are getting enough protein? You need more as you're getting older and if you exercise. Try adding pulses and tofu to your salads and soups and have Greek yogurt. Fage yogurt is just under 10% protein and I think it is the Aldi (or if not Lidl) Greek yogurt that has nearly as much. Skyr is another option.

i am snacking (crackers,pretzels)but now try to behave as on the mission. The extra weight came from carbs loaded food around Christmas. I can’t eat much carbs as putting weight easily with them. I should loose some weight by now but the scale says otherwise. Started running again before Christmas…

When we say know what you are eating, you might have to weigh it and count it in an app to get a better idea of portion sizes and macros. Lots of carbs (vegetables are carbs too) and low protein can be an issue

How tall are you and how much do you weigh?

What was the carb loaded food you ate around Christmas? You have to be honest with yourself about all the calories you consume.

How long did it take you to put on 13 lbs?

At 47 peri/menopause kicks in, making women more insulin resistant, resulting in it being really bloody hard to lose weight. How is your portion control?

Weighs and HIIT will probably help you lose weight more than running.

It doesn't matter what time you eat- extra calories at 9am or 8pm are still extra calories.

Pretzels and crackers aren't filling snacks- they're empty calories. You need to be filling up on calorie dense food. If you have filling calorie dense meals, do you really need to snack?

And losing weight is mainly diet rather than exercise (which is important for health). They always say you can't out run a bad diet.

Welcome to Peri menopause Running is not going to do it for you on weight loss.

at best you’re burning 1000k a week from your stats which could be really easily eaten back.

You need to track. If you don’t asses you guess. I’d also look at weights to build muscle

Thank you! So far I will always put the weight in winter (I can easily put 10 lbs in 3-4 weeks by eating carbs heavy meals/snacks - potatoes, cakes, bread, crisps etc-the November, December usual food ) but easily burned it out running and be back to my usual weight. Now I’m stuck at 11 stones-the heaviest I have been outside the pregnancy, make an effort for almost 2 months and the weight doesn’t change. So I am guessing I might have some hormones imbalance or something…I cut the usual culprits first like alcohol, crisps, started running but don’t see any difference.

The best advice I can give you is to track your calories to include everything you eat and drink. You need to be in a deficit to lose and need to be very very strict on tracking which is a royal pain but well worth it. I am vegetarian too and very active but was not shifting the weight. I’m 53 and at that time Of life where it can be harder. It wasn’t until I started tracking that i Realised how many calories I was eating and didn’t realise. It has made all the difference and have lost 19lbs since new year. It’s a complete game changer. I do 10-14K steps a day. Hope this helps

Honestly, you will get tonnes of replies reminding you it’s calories in, calories out, and assuming you are stupid and are unintentionally overeating. When the same thing happened to me, I tried everything. Including going back to some really disordered eating habits I’d had as an anorexic teen. I knew how to starve myself and lose a tonne of weight, only issue was, it didn’t work at all when I tried it postpartum. I was desperate though, I just had no clue why I was still gaining weight despite my sometimes extreme efforts. Eventually I was diagnosed with severe insulin resistance. The only thing that worked was going on medication to treat it. Within 1 week I stopped gaining weight, but it took 2 months before the weight just started dropping off, without any changes to diet and exercise (they had always been good, until I had started trying to restrict too much).

If you are genuinely eating and exercising as you say, then my guess is you are similar, and the answer probably won’t be found in diet and exercise.

I lost weight and maintained by exercising and tracking calories. My diet has been very very healthy for the last couple of years and I would still slowly put on weight eating healthily because the amount of food I consumed was way too much to cover my needs. I never starved myself, restricted food or developed anorexia, I’ve just started tracking everything and eating very very slightly below my maintenance calories.

It turned out I needed more calories than I expected, despite all the scaremongering about being perimenopausal, middle aged and so on because I am very active.