Why can't I lose weight?

MovingForwards

Here is an example of my day for you:

Get up/ready for work from 7am.

Prepare smoothie (strawberries x4, 100g fat free natural yoghurt, 200ml skimmed milk - blended together and taken in shaker bottle to work)

8.30 get to work, start to drink smoothie and take meds. (Under 200 cal)

10.30 snack have banana. ( About 150 cal)

11.30 snack eat grapes. ( Can't think of Cal's off top of my head)

1pm finish work, home at 1.30.

2-3pm lunch boiled egg (sometimes fish instead), cucumber, 4 cherry tomatoes, 1 or 2 celery sticks, sometimes a teaspoon of creamy or low fat slaw. (Under 200 cal)

6pm dinner Thai curry with a bit of rice, or meat, veg and noodles. (500-700)

8pm snack of 2 toast (56 cal a slice) with butter, or melon or pineapple depending on what I have in the house.

I'm trying to shift 5 stone and a bit taller than you, but with chronic pain and mobility issues)

I used to take the dog out for a pee break, then built up to 10 mins walk, now I aim for 20 mins, yesterday I did an hour in the park.

I walk round work as nothing is close to my desk.

I don't count steps, it never worked for me.

Originally I aimed for 1200 cal, but now I aim for 1150 cal a day, if I go a couple of hundred over I don't fret as I have days I don't meet my target.

The day before I plan each meal and snack, so I know where I have wiggle room. If I know I'm having a bigger lunch, I cut back on dinner, having a bigger dinner I cut back on evening snack / take some off lunch.

I've weighed myself but lost nothing in two weeks, but hold on, I must have as the most uncomfortable item of clothing for a woman is actually no longer uncomfortable

It takes time, you have to want to do it. You have to read up and see what works for you.

Are you trying to follow a specific diet, assuming you are based on your new breakfast, if so, post up the details and we can see where to offer guidance.

calleyw

The basic thing is you are not in a calorie deficit. Need to be doing 10-15K steps a day.


I would recommend if you are on face book looking at Team RH. For a small charge they will give you support and set your calories, exercise videos etc. Heads up he is very blunt and does swear.


Yours


Calley x

asajj

Yazmina wrote: »

Cutting out the chapattis and white rice didn't change anything though. ☹️ We often eat steamed plantains as an alternative, just not this week. I still haven't lost weight.

Well you are not very active - as pointed out below you need to increase your activity. You also need to give time - not sure how long you have been trying to be fair.

Yazmina

I`ve been trying for about six years. I did go down to 72kg for a while but I don't know how. Moving Forward's example looks great, but I'd be hungry all the time, hence the pretzels. I need something to snack on besides fruit and 'nutrition' bars. I'm not on a specific diet I'm just trying to make changes that I hope I can stick to.

Camster

I've recently been trying the 5:2 diet, where you eat reasonably normally for five days, but two days a week you limit your calorie intake to 500 calories for a woman and 600 for a man.

I was a bit skeptical about it, but I've lost 4lbs since starting it two weeks ago. Not a dramatic loss, but I'm happy if it continues at this rate.

Carrot007

Some thoughts from someone who was over 16 stone a few years back and is now under 12 (which is pretty much right for 5'10'').


Excercise/Activity. You should do these as they are good for you. However they are of no consequence to weight loss. In fact most people rewards themseves with something after excersice and then wonder why they still gain more weight, so it can in fact be a bad thing.


As modern research is starting to suggest weight loss can be hard for a lot of people and your body will work agaianst you. The answer is eat even less. Maybe even 1000 (k)calories a day for 6 months.


Do not "diet", make permanant changes to your eating habits. Temporary changes will reverse once you go back.


Eat whatever you like (food type not quantity!). Nothing is bad. Yes you probably need to calorie count, but most people often eat the same things so you can just do it roughly after a while. However do ensure a good balanced nutrition if you want to be healtly as well! Do not buy anything low fat or otherwise interfered with in order to make it "good" for you! Beyond the fact fat is good for you and research shows that eating too little will make you retain weight and sugar is the bad thing, you will not enjoy it and probably just encourage a "day day".



Speakg of which, do not use a "bad day" as an excuse to have a bad week and start again. In fact do not use having something excessive as an excuse to have a day day.


Research has also shown that having a longer fasting period is good as well so skip breakfast and no eating after dinner will help.


Probably other things I forget too.

Sea_Shell

As someone above pointed out, 1 lb of fat = 3500 calories.

Roughly, brisk walking/running 1 mile burns 100 calories (at 10st). So the scary maths is that you need to do 35 miles to burn off 1lb!!!

Alternatively, every 100 calories you can cut out, is a mile you don't have to do??

Their are some good activity calorie counters and BMR calculators, worth a Google to get "your numbers" as the above will change from person to person.

MovingForwards

But your 'snacking' is where part of the problem falls.

The examples I gave can be bulked up.

The smoothie - add oats, a pear or other fruit and it will still be under 250cals.

Lunch, do a bigger salad.

Dinner is quite a lot of food hence the wiggle room on calories.

Snacks can be carrots with salt and pepper sprinkled on. Or make your own low calorie munchies. Have seeds and some nuts to nibble on.

Think about what is causing you to want snacks, is it boredom? Stress? Habbit?

In February my food intake was a litre of milkshake and two buttered fruit scones for breakfast, a chocolate bar and crisps for snacks, 2 cheese sandwiches for lunch, chocolate and crisps for afternoon snacks, dinner was curry / pizza / loads of meat / rice whatever I wanted, snacks was ice cream / biscuits / chocolate / cake whatever I wanted. Liquids were cans of pop at work and bottles of pop at home.

I changed my mindset to make this work for me.

No-one is forcing you to lose weight.

As you are seeing your current eating means nothing is changing for you.

Your only other option is keep eating how you are but exercise is gym/ dance classes / keep fit classes / swimming / walking.

Now is the perfect time to change eating habits and exercise routine as we are starting to have nice weather.

Alisha2008

Excercise is good for you, but the only way to lose weight is through diet. I would cut carbs and try fasting (5:2 or 16 hours a day, I find this last one easier and I've seen good results).

charlotte1994

I would get rid of things like subway and dried fruit, dried fruit might as well be sweets, it's basically just sugar and has hardly any nutritional value. Fresh fruit is always better. For the most part you're actually eating well! I would suggest cutting down on portions though. It sounds silly byt honestly using smaller plates really helps me!

Dinner: 2x baked skinless chicken thigh & medium jacket potato. Low fat cheese, two small blobs of mozzarella, baked beans. Ran out of veg.

270 calories in the chicken alone + around 194 cals for the potato + we will guess at 60cals for the cheese and 70cals for the mozzaerlla, + 162 cals for half a can of beans = total of 756 calories. It's not bad, but if you just 1 chicken though (or none at all) and just had jacket, beans + veg it would be more like 400 cals, but still filling from the potato.


Losing weight is hard, but you will get there. You are walking, but you need to get your heart rate pumping to be in the fat burn zone. I would suggest buying some dumbbells and maybe doing a home work out if you're short on time! Weights are the best for fat burning