Is it possible my body doesn't want to lose more?

jrochest

middlehaitch wrote: »

jrochest wrote: »

ladyhusker39 wrote: »

I'm always baffled by the lengths some people will go to in order to not take responsibility for their choices.

My food diary is public; you can see every choice I make, because I log everything I eat. I'm keeping it below 1200, ideally below 1000.

What you can't see is that my weight loss is slowing, after 10 weeks, to a minimal amount, and at 175 I'm still 30 pounds above a BMI of 20, and 40-50 pounds over what I'd like to end up at (and where I've been before). So what that implies is that I'll have to drop well below 800 calories a day? 600 calories a day? to get to a healthy weight? I mean, I can do that, and I've done it before, in some cases for months at a time -- like I say, I'm old -- but I'm damned if I'll be able to live on that for the rest of my life...

I've not had this problem prior to this period of dieting, so I'm assuming it's age.

Age has nothing to do with it. MFP takes this into account so your calorie goal will be appropriate for your weight, height, and age.

The biggest influence in weight loss when older is lack of movement (we do slow down as we age), which in turn drops our muscle mass. This can lead to a lower BMR than someone 20 years younger (50-100 cals per decade). But again MFP has taken this into account.

Make sure you are active (MFP sedentary is office type work, housework, and expects 3500 steps) and doing some type of resistance training to preserve muscle.

I looked at your diary. You are logging everything but, you are not using a digital food scale and a number of your entries may be inaccurate. For single ingredient food use the USDA data base. For packaged foods, including single serving items and slices of bread, weight them then compare against the package info, or scan the info into MFP and weigh.

Get a scale and weigh every single thing that passes your lips. Measuring cups and spoons for liquids. You will get much better results.

Not sure of your age, but if you are in the menopause range it would be worth having a full checkup and blood work done if you, once you have tightened up your logging, are not losing on at least 1200 cals plus exercise.

(Make sure you have the correct goal. For 30 lbs a loss of 1 lbs a week is appropriate, you could start (for a short time) at 1.5 if you had 50 to lose)

All people have a slightly different BMR than the calculators estimate, but barring a medical problem you should lose at a higher intake than your logging is showing.

(I am old, so I do understand that you don't get the calories you would have when you were 20, unless you move as much, and have the muscles, of a 20yo)

Cheers, h.

All excellent advice, and quite true.

I'm 57. Well past menopause, which I assume is part of the reason. 5'4.5". I insist on the .5.

Am actually using a digital scale, and measuring cups and spoons -- I'm an old WW person so it's second nature. I measure all things except unadorned veggies, which I eyeball. I figure the difference b/w a cup and a half of salad greens and two cups of salad greens is minimal. I weigh in ounces, for the meats, as they're usually listed in ounces rather than grams; measuring apples and oranges in grams is also a bit hapless as I can't find listings for them in grams .

I am resolutely inactive -- am going to start up the C25K once marking is done. But even without regular exercise it's pretty obvious that I'm damned close to my much-too-low TDEE. Which, as I say, sucks; weight loss will be much slower than I expected and may slow to a nothing at all much sooner than I expected, at which point I have some choices to make -- as Yoni Freedhoff says, you're going to achieve the healthiest life you can enjoy.