Why am I not losing weight?

[EdinaTheConfessor]

I lost 7 stone over the last couple of years with mounjaro.
I have been of MJ and maintaining for a few months and then put on 7 lb at Christmas 🙈
I have been trying to shift it since the new year and it’s just not going anywhere.
I thought it would be dead easy as whenever I first start a diet (in the years before MJ) I’ve always been able to shift the first half stone or so dead easily. But that of course was with a much higher starting weight.
I’m 9 stone, I want to get back to 8st 7 which was where I was most of last year. My maintenance calories are pretty low as I have a very sedentary job.
I have calorie counted everything using nutracheck. Every day is coming in below 1000 calories (which really is what I need for a decent deficit) I’m trying to increase protein, I have not touched alcohol, I’ve started running (C25K) and do Pilates 3x weekly.

Why am I not losing weight?

I’m a touch under 5’4 so pretty short.
I am fully aware that I get a bit obsessive, but I have put so much effort (and money!) into getting here, I’m terrified of regaining as I have every over time I have ever lost any decent amount of weight.
9st is absolutely fine, you are right, I am happy with my size and shape, but it is also the absolute maximum I want to be because I know that I as soon as I take my eye off the ball it will creep up (like it did over Christmas) so having that half a stone buffer to give me that wiggle room, for holidays, special occasions etc would just make me feel like I can relax.

‘Since the New year’ is a really short amount of time, it’s 2 weeks so you wouldn’t expect to have lost much of anything during that time, and at the same time you’ve upped your exercise and are probably detoxing from excess salt and alcohol over Xmas. Add in that you don’t have much if any excess weight to lose and any loss is going to be slow and hard to come by.

Make sure you are having your 2lts water a day.
Make an effort to get a decent amount of sleep.
Be mindful of how much salt and carbs you are having as they will cause water retention.
Have rest days between exercise to allow for muscle healing (which causes water retention)
Continue to track calories and ensure you are in a deficit if about 300-500 calories below TDEE
Be patient.

I get you OP. It’s been a battle my whole life. I have to eat under 1000 calories to lose and 1200 a day just to maintain a BMI of 24.8 - all based on my the TDEE calculations.. I’m 4ft 10 and get so irritated with people saying not to be below 1000 when I literally have no choice if I want to lose weight - and trust me I have tried every approach under the sun. As for the obsession - people who have never struggled with weight don’t realise that you literally have to be obsessed or it goes back on. It becomes a life absorbing pain in the arse and once you start dieting there’s no back switch. I’m praying I get to stay on Mounjaro for life because it helps me so much. I’m now in maintenance phase.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I did think about staying on mounjaro, but decided enough was enough when the prices hiked up. Almost regretting that now!
I forgot how shit being hungry is!

You’ve lost a lot of weight on WLI, OP was it in relatively short amount of time? If so, and you said you didn’t exercise, I assume that you must have lost a good amount of muscle mass. It’s costly for the body to maintain tissue that doesn’t get much use so it’s the first to go.

It seems to me that you got yourself to the skinny fat stage and it’s unfortunately not easy to build muscle and remain on extreme diet at the same time, 1000 kcal is not much. Unless you want to specifically build cardiovascular strength I would stop running, brisk walking daily is good enough, and would focus on building strength first. Pilates is good but it won’t give you fast results unless it’s some kind of hardcore reformer programme. Your muscle tissue grows by repairing damage after training, if you are eating in a calorie deficit it’s going to take longer to build muscle. I wouldn’t expect fast results - you will get them but it’s impossible to build when you are lacking building materials, it’s simple physics.