Why am I not losing more weight?

[WhatamIdoingwrong]

Hi all,
I am hoping that someone can help me speed up my weight loss. I am 46 years old and I have yo yo dieted for the last 25 years.

Generally speaking I gain weight in winter and lose it each spring. BUT, this spring weight loss is so hard and slow. In the past weight loss has been purely through diet and it has always been successful, losing about 3lb per week.

This year I just can't shift the weight. I am cutting more and more calories (around 800 per day now) and I have even started to exercise! I alternate 30 mins cardio with 30 mins resistance work Monday to Friday and an hour of combined gym work Sat and Sun.

So Ladies, Is it my age, have I finally buggered up my metabolism so that I am destined to be a porker for ever or do you have any ideas that might help?????

what Are you eating

what type of food

(I just CAN'T leave these weight loss threads alone...)

Your metabolism will be shot completely after 25 years of this, and a starvation diet of 800 calories a day. Up the calories and the weight will start to shift. To have lost 3lbs a week you either must have been doing somehting pretty drastic or have had a lot to lose in the first place.

3lb a week was too much and is unrealistic. Aim for 1lb a week - agree with eating more.

How much do you have to lose - any chance you're supposed to be the weight you are and that the weight you're trying to reach is too little for a middle aged woman?

Cyb, No bread, pasta, rice, cakes bickies etc. Lots of fruit and salad stuff, Crispbreads lean meat, prawns etc. Very small amounts of potato. Only processed stuff is v low fat laughing cow and some low cal tinned soups.

HSOM, I am afraid that you may be right about the metabolism. TBH I don't think I dare eat more. My weight is varying wildly as it is. One day last week I gained 4lb over night (confirmed on 2 sets of scales) and that was without "cheating". Please don't think that I am being negative about your advice - It is very kind of you to reply.

Do you have other issues abvout your eating? What you are on is a starvation diet and it's very worrying that you can't entertain the thought eating more. Forgive the question, I'm in my twenties and clueless abpout such things, but could it be a menopause thing?

you also need to only weigh yourself once a week - weight varies wildly over the week with water retention and hormonal changes - are you menopausal?

I'm peri-menopausal and my weight yo-yo's over the day but I do lose weight week-to-week.

I am 5'8" and weigh 13 stone - so definately
need to lose weight. I am usually a summer weight of around 11 stone.

Oh God. I am fat, middle aged, menopausal and I have an eating disorder!!! Where is the wine and the chocolate?

I'm not saying you gave an eating disorder. More that your relationshiop with food doesn't seem healthy at all. To reguarly lose and gain the same 2 stone, something is going wrong, and your body is telling you it's had enough of the starvation 'solution'. I would hazard a guess that your weight gain in winter is as a direct result of starving yourself every summer. And hence, the vicious cicrle is born.

your body is struggling hard to keep the weight on, your body is slwoing its matabolism down to counteract the meager amount of food you are giving it and then on top of the meager food you are makingyour body work evwen harder - you are being cruel to your body and it is trying hard to battle against you.

try eating three to five smallish sized meals a day, change your routine at the gym so your body gets a change and doesn't get used to what you are doing - as again if you keep doing the smae routin your body will get used to it and coast to save fuel, our body is really good at saving fuel and over thousands of years and droughts has perfect it well

if you are using a gym see if they have a body pump class and do that every other day for a while but you really must eat much healthier and up your food intake and eat good foods stuff, fish vegtables avacado nuts without salt for exanple brazil nuts two per day and almonds 5 per day

be kind to your body and it will be kind back

i eat far far more than you do and weigh over 3 stone less but do more resistance and eat more food along with a lot of cycling for pleasure - try spin

oh and i weigh myself much more than once a week and exspecially after exersise to count my fluid loss to see what i should be driniking before the gym to make sure i have enough fluid to keep going

weigh yourself to see what effect fluid and food does that is fine

I could weep it is so hard. When I read stuff like "It is easy, just eat less and move more" I just want to scream.

Thanks RR, Unfortunately I only have time to exercise before work and the Gym doesn't hold classes at 6am! I will try to book a session with a trainer to mix things up a bit though.

it is a load of crap the eat less and move more, but then the diet industry and the articles about diets are mostly crap that the western world bit into and beleive.

today there is an article in one of the broadsheets about fat turning into muscle and this was from a so called expert

The Dukan diet guy says you woudl ahve to eat an extra 18,000 cals to really gain 4 lbs overnight so its excess water retention. drink more, eat less salty stuff is his advice and cut back on alcohol.

Also not sure how you gain weight in winter ...are you hibernating? Do you intentionally gain weight when its cold, or does it just seem to happen, like its kind of inevitable? Because I dont know anyone else who that happens to

if you could break this circle you would be in with a fighting chance

its your fluid levels that are going up and down. I put on 6lbs overnight last weekend.

You are not eating enough. But if you are eating a lot of fruit you are probably still taking in enough carbs to keep your weight stable.

Drop the fruit and have more green veg and salads instead. And eat more protein; three times a day!!

Hello again. I got distracted by family stuff last night.

Cyb, I never intend to gain weight in winter but I do hate the cold and grey days and I eat for comfort and warmth. It sort of feels neccessary and yes, in a way, inevitable.Oh and I drink wine in winter too. Winter without red wine would be horrible!

I don't drink at all at the moment so that isn't affecting weightloss. I do drink a lot of coffee though. (Please let me keep the coffee!)

I do realise that I need to stop the yo yoing but I would like to stop when I am slimmer and stay like that rather than stop now and be fat and unhappy for ever.

Ms Boogie - do I really have to feel bad about fruit too? Fruit was one of the few foods that I enjoy without feeling guilty.

Seriously, how long have you been eating just 800 calories at day & exercising each day?

8 weeks

you need to up your calory intake by about 400 cals a day.

this site

and

this site

has good tips and can help you count your calories/exercise/give you an idea of what your daily intake should be..

Try to eat a varied diet, the reality is that there's no right answer, although faddy diets like atkins/lighter life/any diet that requires you to also take supplements are not good for you, and while many of them have short term results, in the long term you will just gain more weight than you already lost.

Fat doesn't turn to muscle, but muscle does burn more calories than fat, so if you are doing some resistance work then you will build muscle which in turn will help you burn fat.

However it's also worth remembering that muslce is heavier than fat, so if you are working out then it's possible to lose inches without necessarily losing weight.

Look carefully at what you're eating, and drinking. You should be drinking at least two litres of water a day, and sorry, but you need to cut the cafeen as it will make you retain water.

If you don't have time to work out at the jym after work then think about getting an exercise dvd, or one of

these

That will help you shift the inches off your stomach if nothing else, and it's something you can do just watching tv or whatever.

no, of course you don't have to feel bad about fruit but if you eat a lot of carbs its harder to lose weight, especially if you eat carbs and fat together.

The problem is that when you restrict your intake as much as you are, your body will try every trick in the book to get you to eat carbs for energy and maintain your body fat levels.

apparently the brain needs 500 calories a day to fuel it, so you would only be leaving 300 a day for everything else!

My body just seems to be defying science at the moment.
If all of this is true - and I am sure that you are right - Why am I still able to keep going, running round after my family, doing the housework, doing an active, full time job
etc without feeling faint or ill? And still not losing weight!
Where is my body getting its energy from if not from food or body fat?

Perhaps it is my brain that is missing out Ms B?