Time to give up?

ninerbuff

90% of the time I've run into this with a new client, I found out it's mostly inconsistency and lack of sleep that seem to be the most glaring issues.

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

zorander6

Stress affects your bodies ability to process foods as well as the mentality of "I should just give up." If you must give something up, give up giving up. You'll have days/weeks where progress may not be measurable but look towards the end goal and not where you are at. Find ways to reduce your stress levels if at all possible.

A one day "pity party" won't kill you if you really need it. Just don't let it go more than one day and turn into an all the time pity party. Treat yourself and find something that makes you happy and relaxed. Go to a local shelter for example and pet the dogs/cats/iguana's whatever.

Keep your carbs and intake reasonable. You should be the tortoise, not the hare in this race. Slow and steady wins this race.

85Cardinals

Winston Churchill didn't let Britain give up when the Nazis were bombing London every night, and the world was saved as a result. So no, don't give up. Try some different things, this weight loss stuff ain't black magic. A richer healthier life could be waiting for you, but not if you quit now.

ugofatcat

I am sorry you are feeling so down on yourself. Weight loss is so hard and slow, I can see why you feel like giving up.

The one thing I want to stress with MyFitness Pal or any "diet" is you must do it forever or it will stop working. If you don't feel like MyFitness Pal is realistic for you, maybe look into a new plan or more sustainable way of eating.

Instead of trying to stick to 1,300-1,500 calories, why not just eat like you always do, just weight and track? Do this for a month and see if there is anything sabotaging you. Then, just shave off 300-500 calories of a typical day and see what happens.

Your weight will fluctuate by 5 pounds every day, so 3-4 pounds a month is excellent progress.

About your question about just "giving up", I think everyone reaches a point where they know if they want to lose more they have to work harder, and they may not be willing to do that. You have to decide if you are ok with where you are at, or if you are willing to put in the work forever.

Losing weight is hard. Maintain weight is hard. Being overweight is hard. Choose you hard.

sllm1

To me, giving up = gaining it back. I just try to make my "plan" sustainable so that I can continue it forever. I lose VERY slowly at this point, but at least I'm headed in the right direction.

I would also tighten up logging and have fun with the new food scale.

jordyngiulio

@ninerbuff mentioned sleep in his response and I have to second that one. It's only an anecdotal example, but I know that when I'm not getting enough sleep I will see little to no change in the scale, regardless of how hard I'm hitting it. After I take a weekend (or honestly sometimes it'll take me a whole week) to get a full nights sleep for multiple nights in a row, I'll see a substantial whoosh on the scale. Sometimes even as much as 5 pounds.

hollen_carol

ugofatcat wrote: »

I am sorry you are feeling so down on yourself. Weight loss is so hard and slow, I can see why you feel like giving up.

The one thing I want to stress with MyFitness Pal or any "diet" is you must do it forever or it will stop working. If you don't feel like MyFitness Pal is realistic for you, maybe look into a new plan or more sustainable way of eating.

Instead of trying to stick to 1,300-1,500 calories, why not just eat like you always do, just weight and track? Do this for a month and see if there is anything sabotaging you. Then, just shave off 300-500 calories of a typical day and see what happens.

Your weight will fluctuate by 5 pounds every day, so 3-4 pounds a month is excellent progress.

About your question about just "giving up", I think everyone reaches a point where they know if they want to lose more they have to work harder, and they may not be willing to do that. You have to decide if you are ok with where you are at, or if you are willing to put in the work forever.

Losing weight is hard. Maintain weight is hard. Being overweight is hard. Choose you hard.

I Love the advice above given to you! The last line in that post is the absolute truth of the matter.

SusanMFindlay

darciew2 wrote: »

Is there a point when you just stop trying to lose weight and say f*** it, this is my body??

5'8" and 193 pounds with a lot of muscle. Also a LOT of stress. I stay between 1300-1500 most day. Generally low carb. Excersize regularly. In the last 4 months I have only lost 7 pounds and then gained back 2. REALLY frustrated. Have even been trying medically supervised low carb. All my labs like thyroid come back normal. Any thoughts??

There is a point, but I don't think you're there yet.

Your goal of 1300-1500 calories is likely too low for your size. (Unless you're really really inactive.)

What happens when you set too low of a calorie goal is that your body starts to subconsciously "trick" you into eating more by doing things like underestimating portion sizes, forgetting to log little things, etc. So, you wind up actually eating more than if you'd set a more conservative calorie goal. Not weighing absolutely everything makes it easier for this to happen. It also tries t conserve energy by making you move less, lowering your natural calorie burn.

So, I plugged your stats into scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/, guessing an age of 30. If you're older, the numbers will be slightly lower. If you're younger, they'll be slightly higher.

Your BMR is about 1660 cals/day. That's the calories you would burn in a coma. I generally consider that the lower limit for a reasonable calorie goal (though there are a few people who would have to be exceptions to that due to medical conditions or extremely sedentary lives).

If you're sedentary, you ought to be burning about 2000 cals/day. If you're active than that, increase that number by about 100 cals/day for every mile (2,000 steps) you walk beyond the first two miles (4,000 steps).

You're into the "overweight" range (i.e. not obese) so you probably shouldn't be aiming to lose more than 1 pound/week. Your best calorie goal will be ~500 cals/day less than you are burning. So, if you're really truly sedentary, that's 1500 cals/day. But I think I see you log exercise on my newsfeed, so it should probably actually be 1500 cals/day plus calories burned from exercise (or some reasonable fraction thereof - say 75% - to allow for MFP overestimating burn).

I agree with the poster above about you needing a "diet break" before you readjust your calorie goal and start again. I also agree with the posters above about weighing all your food (and was glad to read that you were getting a scale). My numbers only work when intake is accurate.

Have you considered getting a pedometer to get a better estimate of your daily activity level?

saishyamk

I'm not sure if you're already doing this, but taking a break is important. I agree with one of the comments above, that if you just eat more than your daily intake when you hit a plateau, scale starts dropping again. I'm speaking from personal experience.

If you're already doing this, may be get an RMR to see if your metabolism is out of whack. If that is the case, you need to fix it before you put in anymore effort on dieting.

Good luck and never give up!

darciew2

Thank you all for the great advice. I am not sedentary by any means. I am a massage therapist so on my feet and moving all day. I am starting today with putting a lot of stuff into place thank you again.