Very Discouraged - Send help!

sarahthe1st

This is going to sound dumb probably but I'm on Day 10 of my new 28 day diet (paid for and custom to me) and Day 12 of my 30 day exercise plan.

I weighed in today for the first time in 12 days and lost only 1lb while I was projected to lose a MINIMUM of 1.5 and more likely 2.5lb during that time period. It was super discouraging so my next thought was "dont panic, take your measurements instead". Well turns out my measurements havent changed at ALL anywhere on my body.

I am so discouraged 😞 👎 Obviously change doesn't happen overnight but after nearly 2 weeks I was hoping to see a little bit more to keep me going.

I could really use some encouragement and/or advice!

charlaspies4541

I am beginning week 4 and successfully lost my ten pounds, however last night I was back up 8 pounds. I have decided to weigh myself first thing in the morning from this point on. This morning, I am only up 3 😁 It's madness!

I chalk it up to increasing protein macro and losing track of just how much water I actually drink in a day. I swear I am a fish. But, water causes bloating and/or retention which each can contribute to a fluctuation of 5lbs in one day! I am shocked. First thing, no more 12oz coffees. I must return to 8-10oz. I will try to drink water around my high protein meals and after sweating at the gym and walking. I have a garmin watch and it approximates my water loss to sweat..yep, madness.

My point. We are so in this together and it will make us discouraged. Our journey is the rest of our lives. I am 46 and looking for meaningful changes. I will friend you Oct 1 when I reactivate premium if you like.

AnnPT77

OK, I'm going to be really frank: I think neither of you two - first two replies on this thread - have a clear understanding of how weight loss actually works. Your frustration is related to that non-understanding.

When we need to lose weight, what we really need to lose is bodyfat. The amount of bodyfat we lose (or gain) is a function of how many calories we eat, versus how many calories we burn (in all ways - heartbeat, breathing, digesting, other body stuff, home chores, job activity, exercise, movement of all sorts). Eat more calories than you burn, you gain fat. Eat fewer calories than you burn, you lose fat. Eat about the same number you burn, body fat holds steady.

There are various ways to eat fewer calories than you burn. Most people here count the calories, but that's not the only way. Strategies like low carb, intermittent fasting, paleo, . . . whatever . . . mostly work because they help people limit calories.

Just to complicate matters, human bodies are dynamic. That is, how many calories you eat influences how many calories you burn. In the simplest way of putting it, if you severely under-eat, you get fatigued, move less, burn fewer calories. There are nuances to it, but that's the gist. You want to find the sweet spot where you're burning more calories than you eat, but not tanking your energy level.

Here's the thing: Fat loss is a slow process. Even if losing fat fast, it's a tiny fraction of a pound or kilogram per day, very gradually.

A normal human body is mostly water: Can be 60%+ water, in fact. Part of how healthy bodies stay healthy is via changes in water retention. You work out, your body holds onto some extra water to repair muscles. You're a woman with monthly cycles, your hormones trigger water retention/release at certain points during the month. (Some women only see a new low weight once a month, at a particular point in their cycle, though that isn't the most common pattern!)

You eat more salt than usual - even if a perfectly healthy amount - your body retains some water to balance out your electrolytes, maintain the right levels in your body. You eat more carbs than usual - even if a perfectly healthy amount - your body needs to hold onto a little extra water in order to metabolize them. If you have an injury or illness - even minor - inflammation is part of the recovery process, and that causes some water retention. There's lots more, too. But once the need for the extra water retention is over - varying amounts of time - it'll drop off again.

These water fluctuations are going to be up to several pounds from one day to the next. It's a much bigger swing on the bodyweight scale than the body fat changes. But that's how a healthy body behaves. You shouldn't try to trick it into doing something different. It knows what it's doing. Better idea: Understand that this is so, and don't let it bother you. It's just water, it comes and goes, it's not fat. It's not worth worrying over.

Another factor, within a day or over a few days, is food in your digestive tract that's eventually going to be waste, end up in the toilet. A 200 gram apple in your hand will weigh just is much in your stomach, until it's fully digested and the non-calorie, non-digestible bits leave through the back door. Full digestive transit can take 50+ hours. Food waste, including water that will become sweat or urine, can also vary by several pounds over short time periods. That will also show up on the bodyweight scale. Again, it's not body fat, it's future pee/poo/sweat, so why worry about it?

These bigger fluctuations from water retention and food residue, which amount to several pounds over short time periods, will mask the slower body fat loss on the scale, over short time periods. Expect that, accept that. If you don't try to understand how that works, it'll drive you crazy.

Anyone should be thinking in terms of sticking with a new eating/exercise routine for 4-6 weeks to see the effect on body fat, even if dieting/exercising aggressively . . . and it can take longer than that at a really slow target loss rate. If you're a woman who has monthly cycles, you want to compare your bodyweight at the same relative point in at least two different monthly cycles. Comparing your scale weight those weeks apart gives you at least a shot at understanding your average weekly fat loss.

This is a really good read on the subject:

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

. . . and other MFP-ers discuss their experiences with that in this thread:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10683010/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-fluctuations/p1

I'm 66 now. I was overweight to obese for around 30 years. For the final dozen of those years, I was very active, training hard, even competing as an athlete . . . but I stayed obese. For all of those years, I was eating lots of healthy foods, was vegetarian, etc. . . . but I stayed obese. In 2015, at age 59, I finally accepted reality, and got my calorie intake under control. I didn't change the range of foods I ate, just proportions/frequencies/amounts. I didn't change my exercise routine, it was fine. I lost 50+ pounds in less than a year, down to a healthy weight. Yes, there were multi-pound fluctuations up and down all along the route, but the low weights got lower and so did the high weights, in those fluctuations. I've been at a healthy weight for 6+ years since then, 5'5" now fluctuating still, but in the upper half of the 120s pounds, a good weight for me.

Focus on the fat loss, and do that in terms of average weight changes over a period of multiple weeks. Think more about how to make the process easy and sustainable, rather than trying to make it super fast. A couple of weeks is not an indicator. The process can work, even at an "advanced age" (heh). Heck, I'm even severely hypothyroid, and it still worked.

You can do this. It will be so, so much easier if you have realistic expectations about the process.

88olds

Never use “only” and “lost” in the same sentence. Your plan is working. Don’t go to pieces based on what the calculators and gadgets tell you. The calculations are based on averages and statistics. We really don’t know who many calories we use unless we are hooked up in a lab.

Your brain is trying to wreck you. Personally I think our brains hate weight loss. Don’t let your brain talk you into quitting. Your plan is working, you say so right in your post. You set out to lose weight and you are doing it. But your brain wants to twist things around to make it look like a disaster. Fight back. Refuse to quit. Don’t mess with a plan that is working.

Weight loss is mostly about problem solving and persistence. Stick to your plan so long as you are losing. If you stop losing for a month. That’s right, a month, then make adjustments until you start losing again. That’s adjusting, not dumping your whole plan to chase some other flashy diet. Calorie counting works. But it takes longer than people would like. Just how it is.