Diary feedback and my impatience!

flissy5

Hi My Fitness Pals.

In April 2014 I had a minor health scare (high blood pressure) and so I have changed the way that I eat, and have successfully lost 17lbs. Starting weight 171lbs - current weight 154 lbs. Yay for me. I am a 5ft 2inches tall and 33 year old Female. My diary is open.

Since August, I have failed to lose any weight. A 4 month plateau. I've probably gained and lost around 3lbs a couple of times. Now, I totally understand the science, I'm obviously eating too many calories, or not expending enough to maintain a deficit. I weigh 90% of my food, and if I don't weigh/eat out I try to over-count, or do exercise to counterbalance.

I need help to get those last 14 lbs off - my goal being 140lbs - and a healthy BMI (which I know isn't a good measure blah blah) but my doctor wants this!

I have had a problem with my foot, which means that I'm not able to exercise as normal - even Yoga hurts it - I am seeking professional help with this so I will hopefully be back exercising soon. I still walk 3 miles a day on average - to and from work - and I have recently started running again with mixed results. Until my foot is fixed then I am trying to lose weight through diet and am struggling.

Would anyone like to look at my diary and then grant me the infinite wisdom of the forum? Ideas, motivation and compliments are all welcome!

I aim to net between 1200 and 1300 calories a day, and I've found that this is OK on a day to day basis, but sometimes I do have a day or so where I net 1600-1700. I'd guess that my maintenance must be somewhere near 1300 calories. Over the last couple of weeks I've started to do 5:2 fasting, eating between 500 and 600 calories once or twice a week. This seems to have had some results as I think I've lost a couple of lbs that I'd gained at the beginning of November.

Should I just be more patient, should 1200 - 1300 calories see me (very) slowly lose weight? I'm not sure I could function on much less that 1200. Would people recommend cutting my calories further?

Do people think that 5:2 is a good idea?

I'm in this for the long term, but I would like to be able to see some progress towards my goal. Every time I dip below 154 lbs something seems to go wrong and I end up gaining back 3lbs. What's that all about! I suppose I need to keep going!

Thanks in advance
Flissy

Cobourg

keep going remember your weight can fluctuate with water retention etc. have you had your thyroid checked?

flissy5

I had a lot of blood tests earlier this year, I'm not sure if they checked Thyroid function, but everything was normal.

I forgot to say, by august, and at 154lbs I was given the all clear for hypertension (High BP).

Liftng4Lis

I always go back 3 weeks when I look at a diary. Yours was over one day, followed by three of nothing so I stopped looking. Start logging, eat in a deficit and you will lose.

flissy5

Hi Liz. I did stop logging for a few days - but I've logged quite consistently since May.

kissesdahling

I agree that it's important to test thyroid or any other medical reasons to see why you're not losing weight at the right rate. Also, maybe you're taking some medication that could prevent weight loss. In my personal experience, medical reasons (illness, medication, malfunctioning body systems) are the only reason why the calorie in/calorie out system doesn't work. I couldn't understand why I wasn't not only losing weight, but gaining large amounts extremely rapidly considering I religiously ate 1200 calories a day. For me, it was steroids for lupus. It took a LONG TIME for the medicine to get out of my system; only when it did, did the standard calorie in/calorie out formula that works for everyone else started working for me.

Also, you say that you think your maintenance must be around 1300? I suggest doing actual calculations. I'm not the expert on that, but there are SO MANY people here who are really savvy at that sort of thing and can help you figure out exactly what your maintenance is. I was surprised to find my maintenance calories were WAY HIGHER than I thought. When I started eating closer to 1400-1600 calories instead of 1200, I lost weight a lot quicker. Apparently my body needed the energy. I suspect the little boost in calories allowed me to naturally move around more during the day. (It should be noted that, like you, I have medical issues that prevent me from exercising regularly at the moment. However, I exercise when I can and I do try to walk as much as I'm able.)

Hopefully between checking on the medical stuff AND properly calculating your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure), you're able to figure it all out. (Again, there are so many people here knowledgeable on TDEE.)

Liftng4Lis

flissy5 wrote: »

Hi Liz. I did stop logging for a few days - but I've logged quite consistently since May.

Okay, I looked at the first week in Oct. and then the first week in Sept. There are quite a few days where you're over. When you have so little to lose, your logging has to be tight (it bites, I know). You can do this!

acogg

Long term weight loss is extremely frustrating. Yes, keep going because you are learning new habits that you will have to maintain forever. 5:2 is fine if you are comfortable with it. I do see a problem with only measuring 90% of your food. How do you know you are measuring 90% without measuring 100%? You could be taking in 50% of your calories with the 10% of your unmeasured food. You must account for everything in order for the weight loss math to work.

melaniecheeks

I'm a follower of the 5:2 approach, but you need to give it 4-6 weeks to really see any effects. And they will be slow.

flissy5

Thanks for all the advice. I know that I just need to tighten up the measuring and plan for eating out better.

melaniecheeks - I like the 5:2 and have done it in the past, I'm happy to wait for results as fasting makes me feel great!

Lifting for Liz - yep, I do go over 1300 quite a lot, and back then I was eating more as I was exercising more. I will try and reign it in and stick with it.

flissy5

acogg - I guessed at 90% - I log as much as I can, when I eat at friends, and when I eat out etc, but I find that I can't weigh those foods and so I can't say that I weigh 100% of the time.

I sometimes feel like I'm turning into a hermit, staying at home and weighing tiny quantities of cheese and chicken into a small bowl.

flissy5

kisseddahling - I have calculated my TDEE (lightly active, 1972) and BMR (1461), but I've found that eating approximately 1300 (with some days over) means that I maintain.

sodakat

flissy5 wrote: »

kisseddahling - I have calculated my TDEE (lightly active, 1972) and BMR (1461), but I've found that eating approximately 1300 (with some days over) means that I maintain.

Calculating your TDEE from a website chart isn't the same as calculating it from your own diet. But, the only way you can calculate it from your diet is if you accurately weigh all foods and accurately log all foods, generally for a week.

The basic formula is (total calories consumed for 7 days + (pounds lost X 3500) ) divided by 7 = average daily TDEE.

But, if you know you've been over in sodium before you start this week-long very accurate "test" and stay at or below sodium and drink lots of water during the week-long "test" then some of the pounds "lost" will be water weight. That could skew the TDEE number.

If you make an effort to get rid of the water weight for a few days before starting the week long test by drinking lots of water and watching your sodium intake you can more accurately track true weight loss. This would mean that the whole TDEE experiment would take about 10 days. For me, staying 100 percent on track for 10 days in a row is kind of tough!

acogg

The final pounds are the most difficult. Only you can decide if it's worth the effort. Something that helped me was to strive to eat 10 grams of protein per 100 calories. I didn't always achieve my goal, but the closer I was the more satisfied I felt. That goal also helped me to focus on something other than calories. I made it a game. I pre-logged every day and ate purposely, trading out low protein foods for higher protein food.

ninerbuff

The main issue I see here is lack of consistency with intake. Till you get that squared away, you'll progress very slowly. You're not at a plateau with weight loss ( a plateau is 6 weeks or more of no weight movement IF one is consistent with deficit and/or exercise), you're just not being consistent enough to see desired results.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

OrangeBabelfish

Now, I'm by now means claiming to be an expert otherwise I'd have lost all my weight by now, but to me it looks like you may be underestimating what you eat....

There are regular entries of quick add calories, which give no indication of what you have eaten. If you are not sure, enter it in and find the highest calorie option for something similar and enter that. I.e. if I have something in a restaurant, I enter the dish, find one that is listed that is similar and just enter that. I'd rather overestimate than underestimate.

Also, there are regular bits - 0.13 portion of a slice? How is that calculated?

For me, eating less carbs and more protein worked, as well as cutting down, but not excluding, sugar.

I would also be very hesitant to use other people's "homemade" recipes. If you homemake it, stick it in the recipe calculator and weigh it. You don't know what other people stick in theirs so it could be wildly off. Homemade chicken soup could be anything from 100 to 400 calories for a bowl, for example, so with a small target you can see how it is *very* easy to go wildly off plan.

And lastly, boring as it is.... weigh weigh weigh everything. If you've not got much to lose, even slight underestimations can put you from a deficit into maintenance.

OrangeBabelfish

acogg wrote: »

The final pounds are the most difficult. Only you can decide if it's worth the effort. Something that helped me was to strive to eat 10 grams of protein per 100 calories. I didn't always achieve my goal, but the closer I was the more satisfied I felt. That goal also helped me to focus on something other than calories. I made it a game. I pre-logged every day and ate purposely, trading out low protein foods for higher protein food.

And 100x this. I plan most of my meals out for the whole week, to see how much calories I have to play with for snacks, how my calories are divided in terms of carbs/fat/protein or how many I need to burn to even out at a MFP average of 1000 net calories (eating about 1300-1400, burning 300-400 a day according to MFP, which means in reality I'm on about 1200 as they overestimate burn)

Lounmoun

I know you are asking about diet but just thought I'd mention that you can do chair workouts until your foot is better. There are some on You Tube. Jessica Smith has one.

flissy5

Thanks for all the feedback. I don't have time right now to respond to everyone. But it's really useful and I am inspired to get back into a deficit/

I guess I know deep down that I have to become more consistent but it's really not in my nature. I'm a spontaneous type. I'm not sure I want to stop being like that so I guess I'm just going to have to persevere and try my best.

OrangeBabelfish - 0.125 of a portion is 1/8th of a whole - so I used .13 so that I would be over estimating after I'd cut the tart into 8 for a dinner party.

Yes I am guilty of adding a few hundred calories here and there, but that's generally something homemade by someone else, or something where I've looked in the database and not found anything that matches. I always over enter on these.

flissy5

Thanks Lounmoun.