Looking for some insight

JMR010805

I have been really concentrating on healthy eating and exercise since March. I usually eat no more than 1200 calories per day. Go to the gym 4 days per week doing 45 minutes of cardio for a calorie burn of a minimum of 450. Then I do some weight lifting after that. (I also stand all day long!) I lost 25 lbs in three months but have recently gained 7 and I'm still doing what I have been doing. I did have a bout with sepsis about 6 weeks ago and that put me down for a few weeks but I was back at it as soon as I could and worked my way up to where I was before. My Dr wants me to lose another 20 lbs to get at a healthy BMI. My problem is, I don't really know what else I can do to help the weight come off. I'm at my time limit as far as exercising goes and I know I shouldn't go any lower on calories. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can make this happen? TIA!!

LyndaBSS

Do you weigh everything you eat? Are your measurements and entries correct?

I imagine you were treated at a hospital for the sepsis and on a saline drip?

NovusDies

JMR010805 wrote: »

I have been really concentrating on healthy eating and exercise since March. I usually eat no more than 1200 calories per day. Go to the gym 4 days per week doing 45 minutes of cardio for a calorie burn of a minimum of 450. Then I do some weight lifting after that. (I also stand all day long!) I lost 25 lbs in three months but have recently gained 7 and I'm still doing what I have been doing. I did have a bout with sepsis about 6 weeks ago and that put me down for a few weeks but I was back at it as soon as I could and worked my way up to where I was before. My Dr wants me to lose another 20 lbs to get at a healthy BMI. My problem is, I don't really know what else I can do to help the weight come off. I'm at my time limit as far as exercising goes and I know I shouldn't go any lower on calories. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can make this happen? TIA!!

If you recently gained weight did it happen over just a few days? If so, it is water retention not fat weight gain and you just have to be patient and wait for it to naturally recede.

If you are eating 1200 calories AND exercising you are eating too little though. If you lost 20 pounds in 90 days your rate of loss is 1.94 pounds per week which is too aggressive for someone who only had 40 pounds to lose. You need to be eating about 1650 calories per day to achieve 1 pound per week loss and preparing to drop that to .5lb per week in about 10 more pounds of loss.

Read this:

https://www.aworkoutroutine.com/1200-calorie-diet/

And about the scale and weight fluctuations read this:

http://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations/

Jthanmyfitnesspal

That bout of sepsis sounds troubling and may have serious consequences for your metabolism for some time. If you have medical advice to lose weight, then you should warrant a referral to a nutritionist. (This is for US-style medicine, if you're elsewhere, things could be different.) A good nutritionist can be extremely helpful.

Best of luck!

Jthanmyfitnesspal

That bout of sepsis sounds troubling and may have serious consequences for your metabolism for some time. If you have medical advice to lose weight, then you should warrant a referral to a nutritionist. (This is for US-style medicine, if you're elsewhere, things could be different.) A good nutritionist can be extremely helpful.

Best of luck!

JMR010805

Thank you all for your responses! I will take it all into consideration and hopefully I will see some results with these changes, and perhaps a nutritionist as well. I don't weigh everything I eat but I do record everything and count calories, perhaps I'm overestimating.

This is my fifth time having sepsis, and it has messed with my metabolism every time; thanks for reminding me of that! Every time it is the same thing, hospitalized with iv fluids and multiple boluses of antibiotics pumped in, then oral antibiotics for some time after that.

I will get through this and be stronger for it!

Emmapatterson1729

No more than 1200 calories with that much exercise is a recipe for disaster.

I posted my story on here in this forum "Under 1200 for weight loss" about gaining weight eating under 1200 and daily exercise, which turned out to be heart failure (water retention--started out gaining just a few pounds, then a few more, then woke up suffocated by 100 lbs gained water retention literally overnight).

Increase calories and eat back most of the exercise calories. Being thinner is not worth dying for. No one thinks it can happen to them, I didn't...I thought I was healthy.

AnnPT77

JMR010805 wrote: »

Thank you all for your responses! I will take it all into consideration and hopefully I will see some results with these changes, and perhaps a nutritionist as well. I don't weigh everything I eat but I do record everything and count calories, perhaps I'm overestimating.

This is my fifth time having sepsis, and it has messed with my metabolism every time; thanks for reminding me of that! Every time it is the same thing, hospitalized with iv fluids and multiple boluses of antibiotics pumped in, then oral antibiotics for some time after that.

I will get through this and be stronger for it!

If you're in the US, I'd suggest a registered dietitian (RD) rather than a nutritionist. In most places, registered dietitian = someone with a college degree in a relevant field; nutritionist = someone who decided to print business cards calling themself a nutritionist (if you're lucky, might have a certificate from short-term education, but some of the places issuing those certificates . . . aren't very science-based). Ask your doctor for a referral to an RD.

BTW: You mention 450 calories for 45 minutes of exercise. Are you eating back those exercise calories, and if so, how are you estimating them? I don't know your bodyweight, but I gather you're female . . . 450 would be quite a high calorie total for 45 minutes of exercise. It's not impossible, but it's on the high side.

Best wishes!