Why can't I lose any weight? :-(

[Panscrub]

I'm 5ft 10 and a year ago I weighed 10stone.

I was happy with this.

Then I moved in with my partner, he's a keen cook and always made big portions. Plus we got into the habit of drinking and take-aways 3/4 times a week and before I knew it, I'd put on over a stone.

I currently weigh 11st 4lbs.

I'm really not happy with this but nothing I do seems to work. I've cut out the drink and take aways, I switched to brown bread, I drink lots of water, cut out sweets ... my weight just will not budge.

I'm exercising 4 times a week too.

When I was 10 stone I was eating smaller meals but lots of junk. For instance, a packet of crisps for my breakfast etc and I lost more weight like that than I am now eating healthy.

It's really starting to get me down

Has anyone else experienced this? what can I do?

i would keep a diary of the food you eat each day and at the end of the week look at exactly what you have eaten. you may be able to see from that where you are going wrong. i did this and discovered i ate far too much cheese, and other fattening things. i eat smaller portions of what i want but add lots of veg or salad. i eat alot of chicken instead of red meat and eating fish also good for a diet.

Also what exercises are you doing? it could be that you are substituting fat for muscle which is heavier.

The reason you are not losing weight is due to your previous diet of junk - packet of crisps for breakfast etc. Now your body is getting real food and oh my goodness it needs to hold onto this as you put it into starvation previuosly so it better hold onto the food cos this may happen again...

Now you want to lose weight - so your body is saying - hay no we don't know how far you may try to starve me.

Up the walking - its good fat burning

up the vegtable intake and water

up the resistence training, weights, kettlebells and body pump type stuff try three times a week allowing a day of rest inbetween

see how that works

I don't really know what the "right" weight for a woman who is 5 ft 10, but if you go on the NHS website, under tools, there is a BMI calculator which can tell you if your current weight is healthy or not. There are loads of other stuff on there too, certainly worth a look
I think Ivy may have a point though about your body enjoying the nutritional benefits it's getting from your food now, rather than before...have you noticed any other differences, like better energy levels, skin looking healthier etc? Are your clothes feeling looser, or do you generally just feel better in yoursefl (until you look at the scales?)
I would follow DLI's adviced and keep a food diary, to see exactly what you are eating'/drinking

nutritional benefits - that wasn't the takeaways though - which will contain very very high levels of unsoubale fat - which is also really difficult to shift.

5f10 at 11st4 is not overweight - but if you feel uncomfortable being that weight then it is not unsae to lose weight or build muscle.

Building muscle will take some time though, it isn't a quick process though not that slow either if the desire is there.

Thanks for the advise everyone.

I have a perfect example of my crazy body today.

I have been eating healthy for the past 2 weeks and have very slowly put weight on! For instance, in a day I would eat:

A bowl of shreddies with a glass of orange juice.

A piece of fruit

A low fat yogurt

A salmon/tuna wholemeal wrap with salad for lunch.

A low fat tea (chicken and veg for instance)

A couple of low fat crackerbreads for supper.

Water throughout the day.

--

I ended up putting ON 2lbs. (11st. 6lbs)

Yesterday I was totally fed up and just 'gave up'. Yesterday I ate:

A packet of crisps for breakfast with a cup of coffee.

4 biscuits

A few chocolates

More coffee

A tin of soup with some naan bread

Another packet of crisps

More chocolates

More coffee

A can of redbull

and then on the evening I drank 3 bottles of lager. Went out for an 'all you can eat' chinese buffet and had two more halfs of lager in there ....

And guess what....this morning I have lost 2lbs and weigh 11st 3lbs which is the lowest I've been for weeks

Actually, on the subject of nutrition ...

I went to my grandads last week. He's very blunt and if he thinks you have put on weight, he will just come out and say "why, you're getting fat!" etc!!

So I was expecting some comments about my weight.

Anyway, he sat looking at me for a few seconds and then said "you look different ..." (I thought 'here it comes, I'm fat ...')

He then said "have you had your face done?"

I said "what do you mean??"

and he said "you look so healthy! your skin is pefect, you look younger or something ... I thought maybe you'd been to one of these spa things?"

my grandad never compliments unless he REALLY means it!

So I suppose dispite the weight, the food must be doing me some good.

I'm kind of torn between going for weight loss or looking healthy as it seems I can't do both

Of course you can do both! Regardless of weightloss, do you really want to be filling your body with that kind of crap every day? If I were you I'd try cutting out some of the low fat stuff to be honest- I know that my skin glows when I eat plenty of good fats. Also be aware that fruit and juice have lots of sugar in them. And don't expect results overnight. Stop weighing every day for a start.

You don't lose and gain weight as the reseult of whatever you ate yesterday. The body has huge weight fluctuations every days - can be several pounds and it's to do with water retention and other issues as well.

Also if you are doing that much exercising don't forget that muscle weighs more than fat.

If I were you I would go for healthy eating and portion control. Plus upping water intake, which ironically, helps stop water retention. (Don't overdo it though)

And ditch the low-fat products - in order to make them low-fat they are filled with crap sugars. Just eat normal real food.

Ok, I'll try it.

How often should you weight yourself?

What foods should I avoid? potatoes/bread etc?

Once a week. And if you can't stop yourself weighing every day, bear in mind that it is not necessarily a true picture of the general trend.

I know, it's ridiculous. I'm on there every morning and I get depressed if it goes up a few pound from the day before. Will put the scales in the cupboard out of sight I think.

Yes go on how your clothes feel. It's a better gauge.

Panscrub - weigh yourslef every morning - if you want to, but make sure two things

you must weigh before anything is eaten and naked, after your first wee of the morning

Then if you are doing it every morning make sure you dont miss a morning and keep a note of every weight. You will then realise that your weight alters through the month.

How your clothes feel is not a good indication if they have just been washed - as they naturally expand as you wear the same clothes.

Don't avoid food that is natural, byt that I mean not made up into something else - whole fruit whole vegtables

avoid processed foods, cakes sugary foods

Panscrub

My comments on your sample day would be that your breakfast is full of sugar (shreddies and orange juice) you would probably feel better with porridge and semi skimmed milk.

The salmon wrap and salad at lunchtime is only a good option if you made it, otherwise again it can hide a lot of fat and sugar

And I would get rid of the nightime snack altogether, you don't need it, but if you really need something then I would have some oatcakes with houmou.

Good luck

Porridege made with water and a banana ontop or mashed in - long time fill up or one poached egg on on one slice of wholemeal bread

Fish cooked in the oven and flaked up and served with couscous and vegtables

Grilled chicken with vegtables and a couple of new potato

snack : carrot and celery with a chopped apple

It took a year, 365 days , 52 weeks to put this weight on, you were not able to eat enough to put the weight on any quicker and it will take time to make it dissapear