Can't loose weight even with diet and exercise!

MegaMooseEsq

That sounds like a very restrictive diet - do you like eating that way? Do you eat that way when family comes to visit, or when you go out with friends, or when you've had a bad day? On your birthday and on weekends? Do you see yourself eating that way for the rest of your life, or are you hoping to get the weight off and then go back to "real food"? I'd recommend you take a deep breath and slow down. Buy a food scale and start eating "normal" - whatever that means to you. Track your calories and your weight. Figure out how many calories maintains your current weight, and then start making small, sustainable changes. Learn what foods fill you up and what foods leave you wanting more. Don't eat boiled eggs and salads unless you LIKE eating boiled eggs and salad. And until you've figured out your calorie intake and how to get a deficit rolling, put the exercise on the back burner. Exercise is excellent and can be a great supplement to weight loss, but I think people who think of exercise as tool number one and diet as tool number two are setting themselves up for disappointment. Exercise because it's good for you and makes you feel good. Eat less to lose weight.

AnnPT77

anahdz2013 wrote: »

Hello yes I have been logging in my meals I get frustrated sometimes and stop. I am only able to exercise three times a week because I work 12 hour shift's three other days of the week. I am at 5'3 and 170 pounds right now and My goal is to be 135 to 140 pounds. And example of what I eat in a day is two boiled eggs in the morning with a cup of coffee with Stevia. Then at lunchtime I eat a salad with boiled chicken breast. For dinner I eattwo more boiled eggs and a half a cup of oatmeal. For snacks in between meals are usually eat either apples a little container of organic hummus with snap peas or a banana. My exercise consist of using a maxi climber in which i burn 750 cal in 50 minutes then I do 10 minutes of ab work. What am I doing wrong?

Sadly, I'm very skeptical about that calorie burn. Are you getting that from the maxi climber readout?

My spin class bike gave me a reading the other day of 617 calories (45 minute class, very intense). My heart rate monitor said 258 calories, and MFP's exercise database said around 300.

Both of the latter know my body weight (120s at 5'5"), and my HRM knows my actual resting & tested max rates. I'm pretty sure the HRM and MFP are in the ballpark, and the machine is wildly, crazily off in some distant county.

When I was around your current weight, my HRM gave me more like 350-400 calories for the spin class. Spin is not the only thing I do (I row boats and machines, ride a bike, lift, swim . . . I literally can't think of any exercise I could've done that would've gotten me anything like 750 calories for 50 minutes at 170 pounds. On a guess, half that might be realistic. Even steady energetic shoveling of heavy, wet snow only got me around 400 or so calories per hour.

Exercise like that is still worth doing, though! It preserves muscle, burns calories, and makes you stronger/fitter.

Others have given you good advice about logging consistently and accurately for a while, to see where you are. Even if you go over goal some days, log it anyway, even if you have to do some estimating. The data is useful to know what's really going on, without assumptions or wishful thinking.

Wishing you improved results!

bagge72

Nykkismommy21 wrote: »

62apples wrote: »

Yes, I can help you...

Doctors (and people in general) do NOT understand there are some people that cannot lose weight through calorie restriction. I have that problem. When I would finally prove to the doctors that I was not over eating, they would simply say that they did not know how to help me. I had a business partner that thought my week at her house was her opportunity to prove that I was overeating. She wrote down everything edible in her home. At the end of the week, in amazement, she said that I ate less than her. She was 5 foot tall and I was 5 foot 10 inches tall. A kaiser doctor made me increase my calories because I was very tired. That doctor told me that I would die still fat and never lose a pound in the process.
I have now found something that works. It is a combo of 1700 calories and 30 carbs. From my heaviest to now, I am down 43 pounds. I do have lymphedema which makes water weight a problem.

Write to me and I will talk with you. I am not a doctor and will only tell you what foods to try. Everybody told me to eat less and exercise more. That does not work for me.

I completely believe you. I have even mentioned this before. Some people do excel with extra calories, I dont know why ,I cant explain it ,but I know its true. I am not one of these people, I lose weight by eating less and moving more, however, I notice that after I eat more calories once or twice a week ,not junk food though, it gives me a little kick and then I lose like whoosh 2-3 lbs. Some things just are. Cue the woos lol.

I feel like the people that excel with more calories actually start accurately logging their calories. They think they are upping their calories, and were guestimating their calories when they thought they were eating 1200. Most likely they weren't logging correctly, and now that they are, they are losing weight.

CSARdiver

Desdemonad wrote: »

Be sure to get your thyroid gland tested. If it is underactive you will never lose weight. Also some medications cause weight gain or difficulties in losing, so check that our too.

Thyroid impacts Resting Energy Expenditure by ~5%.

I lost 60 lbs in a year when I first joined MFP and had a total thyroidectomy.

CSARdiver

Noel_57 wrote: »

CSARdiver wrote: »

Thyroid impacts Resting Energy Expenditure by ~5%.

I lost 60 lbs in a year when I first joined MFP and had a total thyroidectomy.

Thank you for your insight on this. I always suspected it.
Too many people here blame their thyroid for being overweight, when it's actually something more obvious.

There have been a number of peer reviewed studies conducted on this now. Note this is the most extreme case going from a treated patient to untreated (commonly done prior to full body scan to detect cancer recurrence).

I manage a metabolics lab and did a series of tests in November 2016 where I went off Synthroid for 60 days and found the largest drop in REE at day 38 was 5.6% from my baseline at day 0.

aeloine

kshama2001 wrote: »

aeloine wrote: »

OP has left the building!

It's been less than two hours on a work day. Many forums are not nearly as active as MFP, and OPs don't realize they will get answers so quickly.

I did rush to say that, but OP hadn't responded in about 14 hours and it was OP's only post. I'm very happy that OP came back and it's resulted in this insightful discussion. Hopefully OP will get the answers she was looking for.