Been calorie counting for 3.5wks and am exactly the same weight every single day!

[Firefly45]

Started calorie counting 3
5wks ago. I use an app. I am eating so much less than I was.
I appreciate that people may say I am not recording exactly or maybe not quite measuring correctly but surely if I am eating so much less and more healthy something should shift!
(Cut out processed shit, sweets, biscuits, crisps, cakes, having smaller portions of everything).

My clothes feel no different and only measured last week so no change there.

I keep telling myself to keep going and eventually body will catch up?

Do you think this is true? Scales dont move up or down just exact same weight every day.
(Its not the Scales cos DH is going up and down on them)

Should I just keep on doing what im doing?

That poster wasn't counting calories

All bodies are different and it doesn't matter if you'd maintain on that number, OP should be losing weight. This is very silly advice.

@Woompund what's your advice?

From the sounds of it I think you’ve been massively underestimating your calories which unfortunately is extremely easy to do. At your height and weight on those calories you should be in almost a 1lb deficit per week.

I know it will feel unfair because you’ve decreased portion sizes and are still only maintaining but I would work really hard at meticulously measuring everything. Ensure your food scales are working correctly, use measuring jugs and measuring spoons until you can learn weight by eye. Measure everything from the milk in your tea to the condiments that you use on your food.

Also packaging can be very misleading. Always look to calculate per 100g/ml instead of “serving suggestions” because a lot of people think that a serving suggestion is actually the same as the whole pack of something and it’s very often not.

My best advice to you is to not lower your calories any more than 1600 but actually eat that amount, use a TDEE calculator and be really honest with the amount of exercise that you do and deduct from there. Although it’s good to be mindful of what you’re eating cutting out whole food groups like carbs really aren’t the way forward, it just creates disordered eating. Potatoes are one of the foods with the highest levels of satiation which means they will leave you feeling fuller for longer. The issue people have is that they combine them with lots of butter and milk which racks up calories. Make sure you also incorporate the odd treat into your calorie allowance because if you go cold turkey it will feel miserable and be unsustainable. It takes 3500 calories on top of your maintenance calories to gain 1lb of fat so even if you do splurge and accidentally eat slightly over your calories on the odd day then it’s not going to be the end of the world.

Try and incorporate lots of protein and fibre into your diet. Protein helps fill you up and has the least amount of calories per gram and fibre slows down digestion which also keeps you full. Beans, lentils and chickpeas are great sources of fibre and getting your RDA of fibre is very difficult without them. If you like milk then I’d suggest getting the Arla best of both or B.O.B milk. Their skimmed tastes like semi-skimmed for a lot less calories. If like me you love cheese, grate it. It goes much further and makes you feel like you’ve had more. Raspberries have one of the highest amount of fibre per cup fruit-wise and for 80g you get 5g of fibre. If for example you were to pair 80g of raspberries, I microwave frozen ones and blitz them because I hate the texture or fruit and add to low fat Greek yoghurt with a tea spoon of chia seeds for 10g of fibre and it’s much lower calorie than store bought yoghurts. That may be of no use to you whatsoever but it’s what has helped me.

If you eat a meal that is dense in carbohydrates then you will gain a lot of water for your body to help break them down so the scales can inaccurately fluctuate and a lot of people believe they have put on fat instead of just water weight gain which is temporary. You also retain water in the week/few days leading up to your period and whilst you’re on your period. Don’t be discouraged by these two situations. Always remember that 3500 extra cals to one pound of fat measurement, it really helps keep you level-headed when you know you’ve eaten well but the scales don’t show it.

Most importantly be kind to yourself. It’s not a race, it’s a journey to a healthier you for life and it doesn’t matter if it takes a year or more to achieve, being healthy and having good habits will carry you for the rest of your days.

OP if you have an Apple Watch or other fitness tracker, you can download the below app, link up the app to the device, set your goals, and then there’s no messing around with TDEE’s - it will do it all for you and if you expend less energy one day it adjusts the calories you can eat - expend way more on another, again ig adjusts the calories you can eat. I love this app - it’s far easier than the ever popular MFP and I was having great success on it.

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/calorie-counter/id444924121?ppid=2fda4f65-beee-4989-9a3d-fa0bfa396e18

If she's not losing weight then she's probably not tracking properly and eating more than she acknowledges. My advice is review tracking and ensure everything is weighted and measured accurately.

Why is it silly? Maybe she needs less calories? Otherwise she would already be losing.

It's silly to say what your body would need to lose weight when your body is different to hers, obviously!

Ok. It's quite common for people to refer to their own experience when commenting though. I wasn't saying 'everyone maintains on xyz'. Maybe I should've stated my weight and height for more context but I didn't.

I wouldn't call it 'silly'. But again that's just my opinion. Thanks for your opinion though.

It might actually be what you're eating, and when, someone up thread mentioned the blood sugar diet, cutting carbs, and IF, if you can. It jolts things along and helps with autophagy.

weigh and measure everything you eat and drink and log calories correctly use tdee calculator to work out how many calories you are eating. To notice a difference at 16 stone you’d need to lose 3 stone for it to show, be realistic it’ll be 4-6 months before anyone would notice.

I am taller than you and only lose weight if I eat 1000 calories or fewer. And I do lots of exercise.

Try a week of cutting your calories further.