Where am I going wrong?

homeedmum

Hi everyone,

Can someone please give me a little guidance as to where I am going wrong. I am nearly 50, 5ft 4 and 17st 7, I have fibromyalgia and PCOS which both make losing weight harder but my weight is barely moving.

Since the lockdown began I have gone from an almost completely sedentary lifestyle to doing a 40 min workout 5 days a week, upping my steps per day from 5000 to 11000, drinking at least a litre and a half of water a day & cutting out all junk food. I am eating around 1200 calories a day apart from over the weekend where I have a treat or two (which I log and I am still in calorie deficit). But in the 9 weeks I have been doing it I have only lost 5lb and a handful of cm.

For the past few days I cut my calories down to 800 a day and it had no effect (I know this is unsustainable but wanted to see if it would do anything).

Is there anything I should be doing that I'm not? Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks in advance

Mithridites

Weight-loss is a marathon, not a sprint. Don’t let Biggest Loser tell you otherwise. 5 pounds over 9 weeks is a sustainable loss, and you’ve probably gained some muscle by changing your sedentary lifestyle. This is the part where you keep doing what you’ve been doing, possibly with small tweaks. Tighten up your logging, so you really know what you’re eating. If you don’t use a kitchen scale, get one. Best weight-loss tool ever. Finally, please don’t go below 1200 calories per day. Very few of us can rock that balding look. Not to mention bones can become brittle, etc. Hang in there. You ARE losing weight.

LivingtheLeanDream

I agree with @mithridites reply.

You are losing, and the amount of loss average indicates you aren't in as much calorie deficit as you think.
Tighten up your logging - are you using a food scale to weigh foods? are you choosing the right entry in the food database? its important to eat a minimum of 1200 calories and even some of those exercise calories can be eaten back too - if you are consistently eating at calorie deficit you will lose. It just takes a lot longer than we think unfortunately.

All the best.
Ruth

netitheyeti

Hey, that's still a decent rate of weightloss! But - if your numbers aren't adding up I'd first double check your logging (make sure you're weighing everything and that the entries you're using are the correct ones), and then paying attention to your exercise calories - those can be overestimated by fitness trackers/mfp which is why some people only eat back 50-75% of them (personally I've discovered I can eat almost 100% of it back, but it varies from person to person). Also, what's the average you end up at, taking into account your weekends? It could be that you're eating enough on the weekends (combined with any exercise calorie inaccuracies) that you're only really in a deficit 5 days a week vs 7 days a week.
I'd also say - it might be possible you're getting some water retention from the new workout routine? Depending on how many weeks it's been... It pretty much always happens to me (I jump up a kg or two if I go from sedentary to reasonably active) and then it evens out after about a month

manyasin

Congrats on the weight loss! I know you may feel disappointed in the amount at the moment, but that comes up to around 0.5lbs lost each week. That's still a consistent weight loss, especially considering you have fibro and PCOS. Like others have said, there's a good chance you've started to gain muscle.
My advice is to just keep going. You've got a good workout routine, and if you're eating the right things and drinking plenty of water, the weight will shift. It might be worth looking over your diet, are you scanning your food in and weighing them? That's the best way to get a close to accurate calorie count. You may need to also increase your calorie intake to around 1600, try putting your stats in a calorie intake calculator and see what they recommend.

homeedmum

Thanks for your replys I will invest in some food scales & tighten my logging especially on the weekends. I will also look at water retention, see if sorting that out helps.

Thanks again

Enna10

Apart from fibro, your description of yourself was me back in January, age, height, weight, pcos, everything. I have my activity set to sedentary and wear a fitbit to capture all steps/exercise. This gives me daily calories of 1280 plus I eat half my exercise calories back, usually in total between 1400-1700 a day. I'm now at over 50lbs lost and feeling much fitter due to the extra exercise.
Eating less is not the answer. Eat well, move more and the weight will come off.
Good luck to you 🙂

tapwaters

Given your PCOS and Fibro, you should work with a doctor for your weight loss and not solely rely on the advice of MFP'ers. Weightloss with PCOS is a complex topic, and not one layman can readily answer for you like the gospel for people without PCOS.

yirara

homeedmum wrote: »

Thanks for your replys I will invest in some food scales & tighten my logging especially on the weekends. I will also look at water retention, see if sorting that out helps.

Thanks again

Great. Other than that: don't sort out water retention. It's how all our bodies work. Don't mess with water. Drink enough will mean you might experience a bit less water retention, but otherwise there's nothing you should be doing, and especially not take waterpills as they are dangerous if not supervised by a doctor. They work by making you pee out electrolytes like magnesium or calcium, both your body replenishes from your bones = hello osteoporosis. Or potassium, which might mess with your heart. Seriously, don.t!

heybales

Your body with diseases is already under a lot of stress.

A diet is a stress. An extreme diet is more of a stress.

What an otherwise healthy body could support as a reasonable rate of loss, would be very unlikely in your case.

And 800 cal eating level is a stress, even if sloppy logging made it 1000 in reality - still way too little.

So you increased your activity level at home, and decreased your eating level - even more.

You increased the deficit. That's more stress.

You are likely increasing cortisol, and from that slowly increasing water weight.
Measurements going down besides just scale weight will show up the fact fat is still being lost.

And ditto's to nothing about water weight to sort out - it was mentioned as a fact to be aware of so you don't read more than you should on scale weight changing.
Step on scale - get reading - drink 16 oz of water - step on scale again - gained 1 lb.
You know in that case it's water weight - well, that happens for several other good reasons.

Stress is not a good reason though - even if body is losing fat weight while gaining stress related water weight - bad state for a body to be in.

Agree you need to tighten up logging, look at how you count exercise calories (but you aren't, are you, they have no bearing on your eating level it sounds like) - and then hit your goal.

And take a reasonable deficit for you, which will be a smaller deficit than someone else could take.

And that's a deficit off total burned in the day.
You do more, you eat more.
You do less, you eat less.

Life lesson right there regarding weight maintenance.
In a diet a tad less in either case.

homeedmum

Thanks a lot everyone, I definitely feel better about how it is going. I will tighten up my logging & just be happy it is moving in the right direction.

Thanks again