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ScoobySnax
New Member
| Joined: | 28 January 2012 |
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| Posts: | 2 |
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Posted: 28 January 2012 06:26 pm |
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I'm a 5'4" female who is 22 years old. In high school, my weight got up to about 165 pounds, and through calorie counting and a slight increase in physical activity, I managed to get my weight down to the low 120's within about 6 months with very little difficulty. Then, when I went to college, an erratic lifestyle caused me to essentially re-gain all the weight I had lost in high school. Now, I am out of college and wanted to re-lose the weight. For the first six weeks, I lost 9 pounds with very little difficulty. However, I have been stuck at 148 for the past month, regardless of how much I exercise or how little I eat. Even after reducing my calorie intake from 1300 to around 1000 calories a day, and walking for an extra hour every day, my weight does not change.
Currently, I'm eating around 1000-1200 calories a day (I naturally have a slow metabolism and little appetite), and I do 30 minutes of cardio, and 30 minutes of strength training three times a week. I weigh myself at the same time every day, under the same conditions, and my weight doesn't even change a fraction of a pound. I realize that my metabolism could have slowed because I'm older, and I already lost a lot of weight and the yo-yo effect could be adding to the difficulty. Another factor is that I'm now on an oral contraceptive (ortho tricyclen lo) that I had not been taking in high school. All of this seems hard to believe, though, considering the ease with which I lost the first 9 pounds.
I don't know what else to try outside of an extreme/starvation diet. Unfortunately, I work in a lab and don't have time to be hungry. Is there anything else I can try? Should I just give up on weight loss and focus on maintaining my current weight?
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Nir
Senior Administrator
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Posted: 29 January 2012 08:46 pm |
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I wouldn't feel comfortable recommending you eat less than 1100, and even at 1200 I'd be expecting you to lose 1lb per week - even without exercising.
Ask yourself about how accurately you are counting your calories. Some mistakes relate to eating calorie-dense foods and using rough approximations like "a slice", "a scoop" or using volume measurements. Weight measurements are more accurate for calorie-dense foods (things that don't fall into the "vegetable", "fruit", "beans" categories). You could be 50% off.
Also ask yourself if you're counting everything or whether you're putting in little bites of things that are so little that you don't have the time to count them (including splashes, dashes, sauces, bites, free samples etc. They add up.
Don't declare a plateau or declare defeat too early. Sometimes your weight stabalises for some weeks (whether 4 or 6 or 8) and then continues to move. Patience and persistence are required. Happened to me recently (I was 'stuck' at 122lb) - in my case I wasn't planning to change anything as a result but I did become accepting of the "I guess nothing else will happen" - but things started moving again after a few weeks!
Definitely don't settle for overweight.
Above I was suggesting that you might in fact be eating at maintenance (which is about 1700 for you). Of course if you really have been eating too little, you may benefit from a very short 'diet break', say up to one week of eating at 1700, before resuming a calorie deficit.
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ScoobySnax
New Member
| Joined: | 28 January 2012 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 2 |
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Posted: 3 February 2012 04:20 am |
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Thank you for your reply. I do take nibbling and picking into account, and for that reason, I usually refrain from doing that.
In an effort to avoid vague measurements, a lot of the food I eat comes in specified quantities (such as a package of yogurt, pre-sliced bread, or a granola bar). When I do have to measure things like tablespoons and stuff, i use something designed to measure volume.
Here is an example of how I count food (calorie information comes from the nutrition info on the package).
Food for a typical day:
Breakfast
2 packages of instant oatmeal (fruit flavored)-240 calories
Lunch:
2 slices of wheat bread-120 calories
1 slice of cheese-80 Calories
1 package of apple sauce-80 calories
Snack:
Luna Protein Bar-170 Calories
Dinner:
4 pieces of vegetarian chicken nuggets-190 calories
1/2 bag of steamed veggies-60 calories
1 package of low fat yogurt with fruit-80 calories
total: 1020 calories
Am I not counting correctly? Is the nutrition information on the packaging misleading?
This is enough food for me to get through my day feeling satisfied, which leads me to wonder if maybe I just naturally have a slower metabolism.
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Nir
Senior Administrator
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Posted: 3 February 2012 06:05 pm |
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In an effort to avoid vague measurements, a lot of the food I eat comes in specified quantities (such as a package of yogurt, pre-sliced bread, or a granola bar)
To respond directly to your question, when I was counting calories (I have now stopped) I used to weigh those items that came in "standard packages" and it was a revelation - a large degree of variability. I'm talking here about thing like slices of bread, pre-packaged chocolate bars etc. Memorably I once weighed a pre-packaged sering of breakfast cereal marked as 35g and it weighed 45g so obviously contained 28% more calories than advertised.
However let's say that you seem to have a basic awareness of what you are eating and I would not necessarily want to encourage anyone to be as obsessive as I was in terms of exactness-of-calorie-counting.
Have you given any thought to the suggestion of eating at maintenance for a week, as a "diet break"? (or putting it another way - have there recently been any "diet breaks" in your schedule - holidays, birthdays etc.)
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Sassykat
Distinguished Member
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Posted: 3 February 2012 09:55 pm |
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I think it's hard to count calories precisely. Even looking up foods on the internet will give various numbers for a specific food. I still find counting calories to work better for me than doing a strict diet.
Nir gave you some very good advice, but I do think you are right to be suspicious of the hormones. When your hormones are out of balance it can be extremely frustrating to try and lose weight. Personally (and you didn't ask for my opinion) I don't think anything that messes with a person's hormones is safe. But I also understand that we have to make what choice is right for us at different points in our lives and circumstances change.
One scenario is when estrogen is too high the thyroid doesn't work as well. (In a woman's case.)
I can totally relate to your struggling to lose weight with hormones being off. That's practically been the story of my life ever since I had a tubal ligation.
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aethlefirth
New Member
| Joined: | 6 February 2012 |
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| Posts: | 49 |
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Posted: 6 February 2012 12:13 pm |
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simple way to start losing excess fat and not struggle with hunger is to look at your carb?sugar intake.
i gaurantee that if you lower your carb/sugar intake you will see imediate improvement and weight loss,you will also not be starving hungry.
calorie control diets do not will not and have never worked for the long term,if you have a problem with fat storage it is always carb/sugar related it is simple anatomy.
ever wondered why all the people who talk about calorie control and eat less do more are skinny well its cos they have in almost all cases been skinny their entire lives these are called ectomorphs and they are very free with advice,unfortunately unless you have had weight problems you cannot understand what it feels like.
i used every diet under the sun and and i got very fat and very ill and could never really lose the weight,not only that but everytime i did put weight back on it brought lots of pals with it. last year i was 20st and couldnt get up stairs cos my knee blew out,now ive lost over 5st am never hungry but i dont eat sugar or carbs other than veg and salad,it is a lifestyle and i couldnt imagine spending every day counting the calories which lets face it is a pointless task since you can never be accurate!
live like we were evolved to eat clean real food avoid grains and sugar and you will live a long happy slim life!
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aethlefirth
New Member
| Joined: | 6 February 2012 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 49 |
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Posted: 6 February 2012 12:16 pm |
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Sassykat wrote: I think it's hard to count calories precisely. Even looking up foods on the internet will give various numbers for a specific food. I still find counting calories to work better for me than doing a strict diet.
Nir gave you some very good advice, but I do think you are right to be suspicious of the hormones. When your hormones are out of balance it can be extremely frustrating to try and lose weight. Personally (and you didn't ask for my opinion) I don't think anything that messes with a person's hormones is safe. But I also understand that we have to make what choice is right for us at different points in our lives and circumstances change.
One scenario is when estrogen is too high the thyroid doesn't work as well. (In a woman's case.)
I can totally relate to your struggling to lose weight with hormones being off. That's practically been the story of my life ever since I had a tubal ligation.
hormones can be stopped in their traks by the over poduction of other hormones like Insulin,since high carb/sugar diets promote vast amounts of insulin production its hard for the human body to cope with.
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aethlefirth
New Member
| Joined: | 6 February 2012 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 49 |
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Posted: 6 February 2012 12:24 pm |
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ScoobySnax wrote: I'm a 5'4" female who is 22 years old. In high school, my weight got up to about 165 pounds, and through calorie counting and a slight increase in physical activity, I managed to get my weight down to the low 120's within about 6 months with very little difficulty. Then, when I went to college, an erratic lifestyle caused me to essentially re-gain all the weight I had lost in high school. Now, I am out of college and wanted to re-lose the weight. For the first six weeks, I lost 9 pounds with very little difficulty. However, I have been stuck at 148 for the past month, regardless of how much I exercise or how little I eat. Even after reducing my calorie intake from 1300 to around 1000 calories a day, and walking for an extra hour every day, my weight does not change.
Currently, I'm eating around 1000-1200 calories a day (I naturally have a slow metabolism and little appetite), and I do 30 minutes of cardio, and 30 minutes of strength training three times a week. I weigh myself at the same time every day, under the same conditions, and my weight doesn't even change a fraction of a pound. I realize that my metabolism could have slowed because I'm older, and I already lost a lot of weight and the yo-yo effect could be adding to the difficulty. Another factor is that I'm now on an oral contraceptive (ortho tricyclen lo) that I had not been taking in high school. All of this seems hard to believe, though, considering the ease with which I lost the first 9 pounds.
I don't know what else to try outside of an extreme/starvation diet. Unfortunately, I work in a lab and don't have time to be hungry. Is there anything else I can try? Should I just give up on weight loss and focus on maintaining my current weight?
the sad part about this story is that the more you head towards the goal the further you get away from it.
you lower your calories and your body lowers its metabolism, so if you need 1800 calories a day and then you cut 500 you would have a deficit of 500 so you get to lose weight right? Wrong! you have a 500 calorie deficit from diet plus whatever you are burning through exercise say another 500.
now you have dropped your calories by 1000 but your body clever bugger that it is slows your metabolism to cope and you stop losing weight and if you are still losing a tiny bit it is normally muscle.
dropping calories just wont work in the long run and we have no idea the long term damage of constant starvation on muscle and bone health.
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