Weight up 6lbs despite diet and exercise changes after fatty liver scan

[Racheyroo1974]

Can anyone give me advice or had a similar situation. I had a scan in January and was told I had a mild fatty liver. I have cut out all processed foods ,sugar and now eating all fish veg and grains. I was nearly 14stone. My weight has come down and i was so happy.When i was weighed by Doctor on Feb 28th i was 12 stone 2 .Today after my HRT check up i weighed 12stone 8. Im so upset because Ive tried so hard and stuck to my new diet. I have upped my exercise do you think this could be a reason Ive put 6lbs back on? Any advice welcome. Not sure what to do next

Are you in a calorie deficit?

Well done on your healthy diet! It could be that your body is adjusting to the extra exercise and your weight may settle back down over the next couple of weeks. Do your clothes feel tighter?

Are you sure you weren’t 13st 2 in Feb? Coming from 14st to just over 12 is a huge loss from Jan to Feb.

Were you weighed on the same scales? Wearing similar clothes? Had you had a big breakfast or a lot of water? Were you at a different place in your menstrual cycle? Had you recently had a poo? Weight does fluctuate a lot for a number of reasons, and 14st to 12st 8 is still a great loss so don’t be disheartened. I’d keep doing what you do and weigh again in a few weeks.

same scales?
same clothes?
food/drink before?
heavy exercise the day before?

I was 14 stone end of nov and had lost a bit of weight because of pain on myside which turned out to be stress. Always wear same clothes to doctors and they were same scales. Just had porridge for breakfast and Tuna salad for lunch before weigh in.

Looser if anything and my waist 'shape' is appearing again

My weight went up about 7 pounds when I started exercising seriously again recently. I lost it all and a couple of pounds more a couple of weeks later so I’m thinking it wasn’t real weight. Maybe water retention or hormonal fluctuations. Might be the same for you?

I used to think that anyone who ate well and exercised was unlikely to be overweight. I never said anything or fatshamed anyone, but I am embarrassed about my lack of understanding-plenty of people who eat lots of junk are slim, and vice-versa. While we see unexpected weight loss as a red-flag, malabsorption can cause the opposite. Are you having lots of loose, undigested stools? Back and stomach pain? Tiredness, anaemia on blood test? I'd see the GP straight away.

Oooh i really hope so. Thats made me feel.better !

No none of these. Had a lot of blood tests back in January and had an ultrasound too.

When did you start the HRT?

I went up 2 cup sizes within a couple of weeks after starting HRT recently

Water retention

When I was taking the progesterone tablets I used to have really big swings in weight. That evened out a bit when I switched to a mirena instead.

Started HRT 4 years ago

I've been reading Tim Spector and the most important thing I've read is that everyone reacts differently to food. I have lost weight but don't know why exactly as I have done various things. I cannot say why I lost the weight. I have cut out UPFs including crisps and biscuits, eat very little sugar, eat a lot of fermented foods, have a savoury breakfast with no cereals, do not generally eat between 7pm and 10am, try to eat 30 plants a week. I think there are many things to try to shift the weight.

I think my only watch out is that while I think most of Tim Spector's advice isn't bad, there's not good evidence yet that the alarmism on UPFs is based in anything other than the macronutrients they contain (i.e. they're often high in fat, sugar, salt and simple carbs and low in fibre and protein). While I also eat a varied diet of plants (which that has good evidence behind it) sometimes it's hard to tell whether the claims made by Spector, Zoe et al are anything more than stuff we've known for quite a long time. They often overstate things based on poor or non published research.

That said fi you're eating a vast array of vegetables, you then struggle to eat many UPFs if you're only eating when you're hungry so it's all good advice. I just wouldn't lose sleep about whether some wholemeal pasta or ready cooked lentils in a plastic pouch is UPF or not.

This is the key. Track all calories, including drinks, sauces, cooking oils etc. It soon adds up and is quite the eye opener, but has helped me get into some good (maintainable) habits.

I can't remember if I posted on this thread or another about this but just be aware that calories of foods can (legally) be 20% inaccurate and the methods used don't always correlate with how the body treats the food. E.g. there is a good paper about how ground and whole almonds are treated differently and the latter can remain undigested to a degree. Same with resistant starch. Cooked, cooled, high amylose carbohydrates will then partially convert to resistant starch that acts in your body like fibre and is undigested. Also there are seasonality quirks where food which is stored changes, sugar might increase or decrease depending what it is.

So you have to accept that there are huge inaccuracies in food calorie measurement and emerging science on it all.

That said I did follow a CCD when I was about 22 and it worked back then albeit it takes a lot of discipline and makes eating out harder (unless it's a chain because they now have to publish calories BUT be aware that various investigations (below is one) have found they're WAY out.

Restaurant calorie counts are wide of the mark - Foodservice Footprint

Sometimes of course there will be underestimates and overestimates and sometimes it's not going to matter so much but for those using calories, I just thought I'd share. I suppose it's much like using weight as a tracker of fat loss. It's not always showing fat loss at all but as a crude measure to track (and you need something to do so) then it's possibly better than nothing. But if you find that nothing is budging and you regularly eat certain foods, it might be worth checking whether the calorie count on the pack or online matches other similar counts. I found an Aldi pack recently where the count was obviously about half what it should be. It was blatantly wrong as it was a minimally processed food so easy to check. I must drop them an email on that.