Need tips, advice and motivation.

Lumi_1992

Hi guys, so I've been on a long journey, I'm 6ft and was at 19 stone 5 years ago, lost 5 stone, went off the bandwagon for a few years and put one back on and now am determined to lose another 5 to get to my GW

I started again on the 5th of the month at 16 stone, I went down to 15 stone 6 within 4 days ( I expected to lose lots at the start, always happens), but since then rather than stabilizing but still going down, it's stayed the same, and on some days even gone back up and I'm finding it incredibly frustrating when I'm being REALLY good. I'm literally only eating totally clean foods like fruit, veg, eggs, and lean meats and fish and cooking from scratch, also keeping around the 1300 calorie mark, and it's just not budging at all and even went up 4lb within a few days at one point, it's really discouraging and making me feel like I'm working really hard for nothing. I am a teaching assistant at a special needs school and am very active all day, on my feet running around etc so I'd have expected it to come off really easily, it did the previous time when I lost the 4 stone, so I'm not really sure what I'm doing wrong this time, just feel pretty crappy at the moment about it .

I know I shouldn't weigh myself every day but as I learnt before, I find I really go off the rails if I don't keep meticulous track of it and let myself eat junk more often, assuming I've probably lost lots when I haven't always (Case in point) so I personally find I stick to my guns more if I keep daily track of it. I make sure I drink loads of water as well.

Just wondering if anyone has any tips or advice, or is this normal to go through ? I never experienced it when I lost weight before, not to this extent anyway where I remained the same weight for a week, or even gained it. I'm not currently doing a workout plan and am just focussing on my diet at the moment so it can't be excess water from starting exercise or anything either. Just at a bit of a loss really.

Any sort of help or even just kind words to keep me going will be much appreciated !

malibu927

1. Where are you at in your cycle?
2. Are you using a weight tracking app to smooth out fluctuations?

It is very common to not lose/gain for a week. Give it another 1-2 weeks and if you don't start losing again, then you may want to look into your logging.

Lumi_1992

Unfortunately I have very irregular periods so I can never tell >< I had one not long ago so I shouldn't technically be due for another few weeks but it may be another 4 for me XD (I hope that's what you meant by cycle or else I'm very sorry !)

And I'm just using My Fitness Pal, is there any weight tracking app you can recommend ? Glad it's a common thing, I just figure how the hell can I be putting on up to 4lb when I'm BELOW my BMR and eating well.

SueInAz

Let's start off with the fact that what you are eating is far less important than how much you are eating. Eating "clean" (whatever that means to you) is irrelevant to weight loss. You can get fat eating nothing but fruit and veg if you eat too much of them, and you can lose weight eating nothing but sweets and Big Macs if you eat little enough of them, too.

It's really a little soon to tell, because water retention can disguise fat loss over the short term (and there are more things than hard exercise to cause it), but the simple fact is that if you aren't losing weight over the long term then you aren't eating fewer calories than you burn. Your body always knows the truth of what's going on even if your diary doesn't reflect it. So the question becomes why doesn't your diary reflect what your body does? If you can solve that you can get the scale moving in the right direction again.

How are you validating the 1300 calories you are eating every day? Do you use a kitchen scale to weigh almost everything you eat and log everything in your diary? No "cheat" meals or days? Are you logging exercise and eating back those calories? If so, how are you validating those calorie burns?

Lumi_1992

I know that, but eating low fat healthy foods is obviously going to be better for you than takeaways stuffed with saturated fat and sodium. You can't expect to become healthy and fit and lose weight by eating junk food, even if it's still below your BMR.

I'm using My Fitness Pal. I'm scanning the barcode on whatever I eat and I'm weighing out whatever I use, so I'm being pretty meticulous over it all, and I haven't had any cheat days at all since I started, Only one 'off' day last saturday when it was the annual carnival in my town and I had a burger and some chips. I don't log exercise as I don't do any set workouts, I just put myself as having an active lifestyle when you first set up your account as I'm always on my feet.

'Why doesn't my diet reflect what my body does' is exactly what I'm trying to seek help in to see if anyone could offer any advice

SueInAz

Lumi_1992 wrote: »

I know that, but eating low fat healthy foods is obviously going to be better for you than takeaways stuffed with saturated fat and sodium. You can't expect to become healthy and fit and lose weight by eating junk food, even if it's still below your BMR.

I'm using My Fitness Pal. I'm scanning the barcode on whatever I eat and I'm weighing out whatever I use, so I'm being pretty meticulous over it all, and I haven't had any cheat days at all since I started, Only one 'off' day last saturday when it was the annual carnival in my town and I had a burger and some chips. I don't log exercise as I don't do any set workouts, I just put myself as having an active lifestyle when you first set up your account as I'm always on my feet.

'Why doesn't my diet reflect what my body does' is exactly what I'm trying to seek help in to see if anyone could offer any advice

You're asking about losing weight, though, not getting "healthy" and I'm just pointing out the simple facts of it. You'd be surprised how many people come in here with the "I'm eating clean and not losing weight" line with little regard for how much they are eating; as if it didn't matter because they've been told they need to eat "healthy" to lose weight.

It really has not been very long yet. If you're convinced you're doing everything right then just give it more time. It could be a hormone thing causing water retention that is disguising fat loss. I once gained 18 pounds of water in 5 days while I was in the hospital having my appendix out and I barely ate at all over those 5 days. It took about a week after I was discharged but I was down 5 pounds from my pre-hospital weight once all of the water flushed back out.

Lumi_1992

Well I associate losing weight with getting healthy and fit as well, that's the main reason why I'm doing it. Thank you for the advice, actually I read up more about it and tried a 'feeding day' (I know, normally for those building muscle lol) where I overate on my BMR by 400, but not with junk food, and I actually went down 4lb overnight and it kickstarted things for me again, so it's all good again now