Alternative to weight loss surgery?
jesika0731
Posts: 22 Member
I weigh 302 and 5'7. Down 41 lbs since January.
This journey has been so irritating! I started with 1200 calories per day but after a 3 week plateau in June changed to 1600 calories to better match by current weight. I even started walking a mile a day on my lunch break. It's been about a month and not much weight change. Is my body broken from going up and down 100 lbs over and over throughout my life? Or is there something else I can do to "shock" by body/metabolism without having weight loss surgery? If people that had weight loss surgery have very minimal calories after surgery why can't I follow the diet without my body think it's starving? I just don't know what else to do!
This journey has been so irritating! I started with 1200 calories per day but after a 3 week plateau in June changed to 1600 calories to better match by current weight. I even started walking a mile a day on my lunch break. It's been about a month and not much weight change. Is my body broken from going up and down 100 lbs over and over throughout my life? Or is there something else I can do to "shock" by body/metabolism without having weight loss surgery? If people that had weight loss surgery have very minimal calories after surgery why can't I follow the diet without my body think it's starving? I just don't know what else to do!
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Replies
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How are you measuring your food intake?6
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How's your logging? Are you using your food scale for ALL solids? Measuring cups/spoons for ALL liquids? Using the recipe builder? Using accurate entries? Being realistic with exercise calories? Logging everything that passes your l lips? Etc?7
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Look up "whooshes and squishy fat" - it explains why there are plateaus and will help you not worry about them.5
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estherdragonbat wrote: »How are you measuring your food intake?Ready2Rock206 wrote: »How's your logging? Are you using your food scale for ALL solids? Measuring cups/spoons for ALL liquids? Using the recipe builder? Using accurate entries? Being realistic with exercise calories? Logging everything that passes your l lips? Etc?
I don't measure but gauge and count everything.
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jesika0731 wrote: »estherdragonbat wrote: »How are you measuring your food intake?Ready2Rock206 wrote: »How's your logging? Are you using your food scale for ALL solids? Measuring cups/spoons for ALL liquids? Using the recipe builder? Using accurate entries? Being realistic with exercise calories? Logging everything that passes your l lips? Etc?
I don't measure but gauge and count everything.
How do you mean?1 -
If by gauge you mean eyeballing it, you are probably not really consuming 1600 calories. Try a scale. There are very good ones on Amazon for not much money, that's where I got mine.
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jesika0731 wrote: »estherdragonbat wrote: »How are you measuring your food intake?Ready2Rock206 wrote: »How's your logging? Are you using your food scale for ALL solids? Measuring cups/spoons for ALL liquids? Using the recipe builder? Using accurate entries? Being realistic with exercise calories? Logging everything that passes your l lips? Etc?
I don't measure but gauge and count everything.
You're probably eating a lot more calories than you think. If you don't want to be accurate with your logging the other option is to drop your calorie goal since you wouldn't be eating that low of calories anyway.8 -
estherdragonbat wrote: »jesika0731 wrote: »estherdragonbat wrote: »How are you measuring your food intake?Ready2Rock206 wrote: »How's your logging? Are you using your food scale for ALL solids? Measuring cups/spoons for ALL liquids? Using the recipe builder? Using accurate entries? Being realistic with exercise calories? Logging everything that passes your l lips? Etc?
I don't measure but gauge and count everything.
How do you mean?rheddmobile wrote: »If by gauge you mean eyeballing it, you are probably not really consuming 1600 calories. Try a scale. There are very good ones on Amazon for not much money, that's where I got mine.
Well, the only thing I don't measure is meat. Everything else is exact or close to. I usually log 6-10 oz of meat and figure it's a pretty good guestimate.
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Have you thought about ending your eating day early?7
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If you are not weighing everything you eat then I guarantee you are eating more than you think. I am 5'3" and went from 258lbs to 158 lbs over the past 13 months just weighing all my food and walking, nothing more. My average calories are 1500-1700 per day depending on how much walking I do. I weigh everything I eat though. I weigh the sugar I put in my coffee, the oil I used to cook my food, even vegetables. That is the only thing I recommend to do. I used to eyeball my foods, but got so frustrated with no progress. My weight didn't start to come off until I got more accurate with my logging.28
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Try adding HIIT to your routine - there's some evidence it improves metabolism, and regardless it will improve your fitness. There's also evidence that changing up exercise routines is more effective for burning calories, since your body gets more efficient at exercises as it gets used to them.
However, I still think your issue is most likely one of measuring. Cooking oils and other high density foods such as condiments are easy to underestimate. If you try weighing everything for two weeks I'm betting you will see a loss.5 -
Ugh I guess I'll try measuring7
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Do you measure and count your fluids as well? I've run into a few people this last couple months that are weighing their food accurately and still leveled off for extended periods of time. They were not measuring some drinks such as home made coffee with flavoring or milk / creamers not being counted. It all adds up.5
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jesika0731 wrote: »Ugh I guess I'll try measuring
Not measuring. Weighing.
Buy a food scale, weigh everything solid you plan on eating, and then log that using accurate database entries.
I would bet a good amount of $$ you are eating far more than you think you are.
Give it a try for a few weeks and let us know how it goes!
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Target and Walmart sell kitchen scales that measure in grams for about 20-25 dollars.
https://www.target.com/s?searchTerm=kitchen scale&category=0|All|matchallpartial|all+categories4 -
When I bought a digital scale at Target, I realized how off I was on some things. For example, 1/2 cup (62 grams) of one brand of icecream is 110 calories. I was using a measuring cup. When I weighed it, what I thought was 1/2 of a cup weighed closer to 80 grams. My estimates with meat were way off too. I think a food scale helps.6
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Do you measure and count your fluids as well? I've run into a few people this last couple months that are weighing their food accurately and still leveled off for extended periods of time. They were not measuring some drinks such as home made coffee with flavoring or milk / creamers not being counted. It all adds up.
I don't drink anything but water and Diet Coke :P
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jesika0731 wrote: »estherdragonbat wrote: »How are you measuring your food intake?Ready2Rock206 wrote: »How's your logging? Are you using your food scale for ALL solids? Measuring cups/spoons for ALL liquids? Using the recipe builder? Using accurate entries? Being realistic with exercise calories? Logging everything that passes your l lips? Etc?
I don't measure but gauge and count everything.
That's why you are stalled. You are not eating at a deficit.
Buy a scale. Don't "shock" your body.6 -
Your 'high calorie meals' (which you're really supposed to plan for so they fit in your calories) might be wiping off your deficit too. If you're not losing, you're just eating too much.5
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Diet and sport:)
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I use a scale for almost everything, including liquids. A lot of times, weighing is just easier and spares a dirty dish. Honey is a good example. Trying to measure it accurately in a spoon is a pain in the neck whereas using a squirt bottle and squeezing it in on the scale is easy and doesn't dirty a measuring spoon. Most labels give the gram weight as well as volume measurements so it's easy to use grams as a measurement. Why dirty a cup measure for dry cereal when pouring it directly from the box into the bowl on the scale is just as easy?5
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Yeah, don't give up.
I didn't like how small one ounce of cheese was...or how little a tablespoon of peanut butter was - by weight. My level tablespoon of butter was more like 22g instead of 14g. Those kind of little mistakes add up.
I also agree that a "high calorie meal" can wipe out the whole weeks worth of eating at your calorie goal.
If you aren't losing weight, you're simply eating too much.
Congratulations on your 41 pounds loss! That's amazing! You don't need a dangerous surgery. Stick with us, you're well on your way.
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cmriverside wrote: »Yeah, don't give up.
I didn't like how small one ounce of cheese was...or how little a tablespoon of peanut butter was - by weight. My level tablespoon of butter was more like 22g instead of 14g. Those kind of little mistakes add up.
I also agree that a "high calorie meal" can wipe out the whole weeks worth of eating at your calorie goal.
If you aren't losing weight, you're simply eating too much.
Congratulations on your 41 pounds loss! That's amazing! You don't need a dangerous surgery. Stick with us, you're well on your way.
Thank you so much!
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kcn2bluesky wrote: »jesika0731 wrote: »Ugh I guess I'll try measuring
Not measuring. Weighing.
Buy a food scale, weigh everything solid you plan on eating, and then log that using accurate database entries.
I would bet a good amount of $$ you are eating far more than you think you are.
Give it a try for a few weeks and let us know how it goes!
Lol, I felt the same way. I was using measuring cups and serving sizes to count. When I got a scale I realized that I was eating more than twice as much as I thought!4 -
You'll get there, but you need to go for consistency and accuracy.
The phase of this process where you start weighing portions and finding out what a correct portion looks like and how much you've been overeating is hard, eye-opening and absolutely necessary. Too many people skip it and go straight to "calorie counting doesn't work for me" and look for all sorts of fad solutions.
Don't be one of those people. Take the hard road, face the truth about portion sizes, and you'll be one of the few that successfully loses weight in the end.9 -
cmriverside wrote: »Yeah, don't give up.
I didn't like how small one ounce of cheese was...or how little a tablespoon of peanut butter was - by weight. My level tablespoon of butter was more like 22g instead of 14g. Those kind of little mistakes add up.
I also agree that a "high calorie meal" can wipe out the whole weeks worth of eating at your calorie goal.
If you aren't losing weight, you're simply eating too much.
Congratulations on your 41 pounds loss! That's amazing! You don't need a dangerous surgery. Stick with us, you're well on your way.
@jesika0731 This little estimating mistake with the butter above alone resulted in 72 calories extra. Imagine you do that a few time per day, every day.
But yes, you can do it! I'm glad you asked these questions. That's the way to go
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cmriverside wrote: »Yeah, don't give up.
I didn't like how small one ounce of cheese was...or how little a tablespoon of peanut butter was - by weight. My level tablespoon of butter was more like 22g instead of 14g. Those kind of little mistakes add up.
I also agree that a "high calorie meal" can wipe out the whole weeks worth of eating at your calorie goal.
If you aren't losing weight, you're simply eating too much.
Congratulations on your 41 pounds loss! That's amazing! You don't need a dangerous surgery. Stick with us, you're well on your way.
I was so delusional about peanut butter...thank goodness for my scale to bring some reality to my consumption!
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jesika0731 wrote: »estherdragonbat wrote: »How are you measuring your food intake?Ready2Rock206 wrote: »How's your logging? Are you using your food scale for ALL solids? Measuring cups/spoons for ALL liquids? Using the recipe builder? Using accurate entries? Being realistic with exercise calories? Logging everything that passes your l lips? Etc?
I don't measure but gauge and count everything.
A food scale will be a game changer for you.
eta: I'm several years into maintenance and I STILL use my food scale every.single.day. It's one of the most important tools in my weight management arsenal 7 -
You should be lifting weights too, not just walking for cardio.0
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