Why an I not loaing weight?

[Croissantsfordinner]

Sorry for the long post.

Have changed my eating and lifestyle habits for the past month. I have gained a few kg over the past couple of years due to lack of exercise and eating pretty much whatever I fancied and I am now determined to get my life back on track.

I haven’t however noticed a big change on the scale (although tbf my scale is very unreliable and seems to fluctuate a lot, even within the same minute) as it seems I have only lost 500 grams, which is disappointing. I do notice some of my clothes fit better and I can close a pair of jeans I couldn’t wear until last months, which is a good sign but I thought I had lost more.

For reference, I am 5ft3 and 10.8 stones. I’d like to get to 9.4 stones – don’t want drastic diets as I know they are not sustainable for me and am not in a rush to lose weight, I just want to change my lifestyle for good, get back in shape, be healthy and age well etc.

Here is what an average week would look like before vs what it looks like now:

Before Mon to Fri average day:

• Porridge or overnight oats with banana or 3 ricecakes with peanut butter and banana + cappuccino
• Lunch when in the office was pretty much anything I fancied, like a falafel wrap or a pret baguette
• Dinner would usually be a big plate of pasta (150 grams probably) or something like meat or vegetarian burget with bread bun and some roasted potatoes or curry with rice
• Snacks would change depending on days but would sometimes eat out of boredom even when not hungry

At least 1 take away over the weekend and a coffee with cake or pastry on Sunday
Pretty much no exercise, sedentary job during the week. Average of 5K steps mon-fri and then longer walks during the weekend hitting 10K steps or more.

Now Mon to Fri average day:

• Porridge or overnight oats with banana or 3 ricecakes with peanut butter and banana + cappuccino
• Salad with some protein for lunch, often 1 or 2 eggs or some feta and other veg; might add a slice of bread occasionally. Alternatively grains and veg salad pot from M&S
• Dinner varies every day but generally speaking I am being much more careful about portion sizes (i.e. not more than 100 gr of pasta) and eating much more veg. For example might have a mixed bowl with a cup of legumes, salad, some other cooked veg, a spoon of hummus
• Limiting snacks as much as possible and mostly eating them when genuinely hungry: either a fruit, some nuts or a peanut and cocoa bar with good ingredients (like the Ella ones)

Still having 1 take away over the weekend, avoiding cakes and other sweet things though.

At least 1 take away over the weekend and a coffee with cake or pastry on Sunday
Pretty much no exercise, sedentary job during the week. Average of 5K steps mon-fri and then longer walks during the weekend hitting 10K steps or more.

Averaging 10K steps mon-fri now and more over the weekend (for example last sat I walked 23K steps). Aiming to go to the gym x2 a week, although admittedly this is still a challenge due to work and childcare. Need to be more consistent.

I don’t think alcohol and no sugar in my coffee.

Generally aiming for 1600 kcal a day (less than this is simply not sustainable for me) and a bit more over the weekend but still trying to eat healthy things (with the exception of the 1 take away).
Why am I not losing weight?

@Croissantsfordinner I must have missed the part when you said you’re “moving much more and going to the gym now”. This was from your OP:

Pretty much no exercise, sedentary job during the week. Average of 5K steps mon-fri and then longer walks during the weekend hitting 10K steps or more.

Averaging 10K steps mon-fri now and more over the weekend (for example last sat I walked 23K steps). Aiming to go to the gym x2 a week, although admittedly this is still a challenge due to work and childcare. Need to be more consistent.

So I didn’t take from that that you were actually as active as you’re now saying 😕.

Ah sorry I accidentally pasted the bit above. Before no gym and 5K steps a day, now 10K steps a day and gym twice. Appreciate is still not much but I struggle to do more time-wise. I need to start working out during lunch breaks when home

As you say, it’s taken years for you to put on 5kg, you can’t expect to lose it in a month. I would carry on with what you are doing as it seems sustainable and you are losing weight. Just think of it more as a long game.

If you have digital scales you need to step on them then get off and they set to 0 then you get on and weigh. Digital scales need to be calibrated.

I think I agree you are eating enough not to gain weight anymore but not quite less enough to lose weight fast, but you will do if you keep going and make little adjustments.

What do you do when you're at the gym, OP?
Gym twice a week doesn't sound much in itself but if you're, say, running 10k on the treadmill and doing a full heavy weights session while you're there then that's a whole different game to if you're just doing a basic circuit of the machines.

I don't understand all the hand wringing. You're doing fine. Your diet is fine, your exercise levels are fine. You're losing weight. Chill.

@FortyElephants well I am only losing 400gr a month which is very little so I was just wondering why that’s all

Ok I get that but the thread explained that at the start, and you've said you don't want to cut calories any lower (fair enough!) and you can't exercise any more (also fair, and exercise isn't what leads to weight loss anyway) so you should be happy with slow weight loss as it's manageable and it's working. You can't have it both ways - lose weight fast AND eat enough not to feel too hungry.

I know a few people have said you're probably eating more or less at maintenance which is why you're not losing much, and I tend to agree. I'm the same height as you and my maintenance calories are depressingly low.

But also, when did you start the increased steps and going to the gym? When you start/increase exercising, it's really common to gain water weight for a few weeks (I gained 7lbs in a month when I started cycling daily, it was insane!) so maybe you have actually lost weight, but it just isn't showing on the scales yet.

In terms of protein, I'm vegetarian and most of my protein comes from eggs, tofu/seitan, greek yogurt/quark/cottage cheese, edamame spaghetti, soy mince and beans/pulses. I do use protein powder sometimes too (the vegan one from MyProtein, whey protein isn't as nice) but I know a lot of people don't like those.

@MildredTheOctopus thank you. I need to expand my protein sources for sure.
I have started about 5-6 weeks ago but not doing much weights yet, I thought weight gain was mainly due to building up muscles, didn’t know walking also contributed to that?

Sorry to hijack this thread but can anyone explain how you can calorie count homemade meals that are part of the family dinner, for example? Or any homemade meal, to be honest. Thanks.

I thought weight gain was mainly due to building up muscles, didn’t know walking also contributed to that?

It doesn't really. Unless you're hiking up mountains. Just ordinary everyday ambling about isn't going to build up muscle (exception being if you're starting from a base of absolutely zero exercise and muscle mass, I guess)

@Croissantsfordinner From my understanding, any exercise that makes your muscles sore can make them retain water while they heal, so if the walking makes you achy, then it could be part of the issue. I was more thinking about the gym sessions though, depending on what you're doing there. The only way to really tell is to keep going though, as annoying as that may be!

No, you won't be building muscles. It's very difficult for women to build new muscle, you need to be hardcore weight training and eating a specific diet to facilitate it. You won't gain much muscle from going to the gym.

We do this fairly easily. Let’s take the example of a chicken curry and rice meal.

Weight out the rice before it goes into the cooker, then divide up by number of people eating it. Chicken - uses an entire pack of X grams of chicken which clear states the calorie information - divide by number of folks. Frylight spray. 1 onion. Do not count dry powder spices. We don’t use pre packed sauces.

Spaghetti and meatballs - weigh out the dry spaghetti, meatballs info is on the pack, can of tomatoes, 1 onion, don’t count the frylight or stock cube or dried herbs. If using jar of sauce info is on the jar.

Yes as the other pp said you can weight and measure everything before cooking. When not doing that I also find it easy to just measure with the cup unit and then enter n of cups I have eaten on myfitnesspal

I just wanted to post an update in case this is useful to other users for motivation. I have kept going with the above plan (bar sometimes I cannot make it to the gym) and have so far lost 0.65 stone (4kg). I am very happy to see the number drop on the scale and do not feel deprived at all. I am not in a rush to lose weight by a certain date so I’d rather continue like this as it’s sustainable and something I feel I can keep up in the long run. I hope to lose another 0.6 stone at least, let’s see

Congrats @Croissantsfordinner well done!

I’m new to the thread and have very similar stats to ones set out in your OP. 5ft 2 and hovering around the 65Kg/ 10stone 5 mark give or take a few pounds. I’m also hoping to get down to about 9stone 4 in a sensible and sustainable manner.

My next milestone I’m aiming for will be to get below 10 stone by end of next month.

Your exercise and diet plan sounded very reasonable, so I’m not surprised you’re losing weight as long as you’re mostly consistent.

I have an ongoing leg injury and WFH so I do about 5-8k steps daily and occasionally do dumbbells weights although I’m naturally quite muscly so I usually just do YouTube body weight exercises.

I’m thinking of starting the gym again twice a week. I’ve cut down massively on UPFs and eat so much more fruit, veg and lean meat and fish. I went from takeaways multiple times a week (yes multiple!) to about once every 3 months (apart from if I’m travelling for and staying in a hotel myself ).

@walkitoff Just to give you some encouragement - I started off at 10stone 5lbs (5'3 height) on 3 January and have been loosing v slowly as I'm eating around 1400cals. I weighted in at 9st 1lb this morning - It's taken a while but it's been manageable, I've not been hungry and my diet has improved enormously.

@Scarecrow2016

Ah yes that’s encouraging.
Hopefully I’ll be around 9 stone five months down the road if not before.

1400 cals sounds very manageable. Are you doing any exercise /walking too?

@walkitoff v little exercise. Some days 2k steps. Couple of days 8k. I need to do more.