Don't understand why I'm not losing weight

suziecue66

Thank you everybody for your comments and advice. here is my plan:

Up my protein - based on advice I should be eating 161g protein a day - going to work on this
Lower Carbs - will work on this - hopefully a few small changes will reduce my carbs, i.e. quinoa not rice or gluten free pasta
Exercise - bought 30DS on Thursday - will start it next week and see if that makes a difference
Calories eaten - will try to hit a minimum of my BMR each day after exercise - will go and reset my daily calories to 1600 (scary figure took me a moment to type that!)
Weights - I have been doing a bit with weights, nothing I would consider major however so I will try to increase the level of weights I am doing.
I already drink in excess of my 8 glasses of water each day so not much to change on that one
Forgot to add that I am not going to eat back any exercise cals either for a little while now that I have upped my daily cals to 1600

If anyone can see any glaring mistakes in my plan then please shout up and let me know.

thank you again for stopping by and reading my post and giving me advice :-)

It's not 1g protein per pound of total body weight BUT 1g protein per pound lean mass. You are 161 pounds, assuming you have 100 pounds lean mass (muscle) you would have 100g protein. You could have a bit more but 100g should be enough.

Princess_Sameen

Introduce weight training to your fitness schedule and also why are you eating back your exercise calories? I think this maybe why you gained, I have a dietitian and she has never suggested to eat my calories back.

velvetkat

I also agree that you need to up your protein. I looked over your diary and I am by no means an expert or a nutritionist I just know what worked for me. I cut out processed foods which I see you dont have much at all of(Super job there!) I cut down on sodium and your diary shows you stay well under but some of you items you have no sodium count and I know cookies have sodium so be sure to pick the correct nutritional info when adding to your diary! You are drinking your water (great job there!!)
I see you are counting Sat Fat instead of Fat grams. and if you are over you Sat fat I am thinking(I may be wrong here and Im sure someone will correct me) that then your fat grams may be over also. Ok on occasion for sure just not all the time!
The carbs are high in my opinion. Some people( my sister is one) gains weight when her carbs are too high. Me Im the opposite and I tend to lose weight on my high carb days when I am doing carb cycling. maybe you are one that gains or doesnt lose when the carbs are high,. Not sure but I think carbs tend to hold water and if you are drinking all your water like you should then maybe one reason for lack of weight loss is the carbs and water BUT dont stop the water just reduce the carbs. slowly at first til you get to a more manageable level.

Just putting this next item out there as I saw others post on this. Age is no excuse for the lack of weight loss. I am 54 years old and when I was 53 I lost 100lbs. Dont think it took me any longer than anyone else to lose that weight. Took me 10 months. At an older age we just have to have more determination as we dont have as much time left to get this lifestyle change done so we can enjoy it!

Keep up the great job and slowly tweak your diet and you should get that weight off!!!

KGFitnessGuru

Hello, if you would like I could message you with my diet that worked in the past that I lost over 40 pounds with to see if that works for you.

huntindawg1962

I would concur with the couple posts that talk about adding in some resistance training to your workout - the 30DS will add some variety for you too. If you are doing 1 hr per day of the same activity - its great you are moving around - but vary it up a bit. Anything moving will help burn calories but an hour a day of the same (including swimming for the person that posted that) may be taking you from fat burn mode into "conditioning or training" mode whereby your body is getting used to the activity and starting to figure out how to expend LESS energy in the process, not more.

SuffolkSally

Sorry if I've missed something - but if your activity level is set to lightly active, I would have thought that included your daily walk? So if you're adding it as excercise as well, then you're double counting and your calories calculation won't be right. I'm no expert as fairly new and still figuring it out, but I'd I've thought either set to sedentary (office job) and log excercise, or lightly active but then only log formal excercise such as gym work or hikes. Plus I only eat half my MFP excercise cals back simply because MFP way overestimates the burn. I wonder if this might be your stumbling block.

Must be very frustrating when you are doing so well with your diet! (although I do agree with others about upping protein. And the trouble with processed stuff is all the sodium, which can make you retain water)

TinnedTuna

You can have a perfectly balanced diet without fruit. What does Jenny say ?

Sugars from fruit are sugars and carbohydrates just like any other.

Society may have glorified some foods and demonised others, in doing so we got a massive obesity problem. Go figure.

I don't think any of use are on here trying to lose weight because "we ate to much fruit"

Lozze

You can have a perfectly balanced diet without fruit. What does Jenny say ?

You can. But if you're cutting them out because of 'sugars' then you are being silly. Sugars are not the devil. Fat is not the devil. Carbs are not the devil. All can be eaten in moderation.

I'm assuming you're refering to Jenny Craig? They tell me to eat them. I don't follow their advice 100% however and my main reason for using them is for the meals. It depends what consultant I have which determines the advice I get. And none of them have degrees (neither do I) It's all based on JC training. Which sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. (for example one consultant told me that there was no way I would lose weight eating a toastie a day for breakfast and really should look at eating their breakfast again. My response? Can you explain how I've lost 32kg eating a toastie a day?) They are there ultimately to sell a product.

geri1955

Are u eating enough? Sometimes u have to switch the exerise up,sounds like ur burning about 500 cals a day! I go from walking to strength training to many dvd workouts! I didnt see ur diary but sounds like your storing fat and not eating enough,try eating your exercise cals for a week and see if that helps and switch up ur exercises! I do biggest loser powerwalk and chris powell weight loss addition,along with leslie sansone and jillian michaels,switching back and forth! Dont give up just try different things! Have you had ur thyroid checked? If not do so cuz a sluggish thyroid will not let u lose either!!! Good luck on ur journey!

yarwell

I don't think any of use are on here trying to lose weight because "we ate to much fruit"

Me neither, but I wouldn't rule it out. Gallons of fruit juice are just gallons of sugar solution.

Watch www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHwk4JQQRmI for example ;-)

The lady in question has a high carb intake, just suggesting ways to reduce it. Fruit's out of season anyway.

snookumss

it may be sodium as well. You may also be gaining muscle... just relax

Lozze

Me neither, but I wouldn't rule it out. Gallons of fruit juice are just gallons of sugar solution.

If we're talking about fruit juice I agree with you. Any more than a glass a day is too much. But that's because they ADD sugar to fruit juice. You might as well be drinking a glass of Coke.

Fruit juice doesn't equal fruit.

yarwell

But if you're cutting them out because of 'sugars' then you are being silly.

I don't want an excess of carbs / sugars, I do eat berries which are much lower in these things, but for example one banana would be about half my daily carbs and as they have 93% of their calories from carbs they don't fit with the balance I'm looking for.

Commercial diet companies do tend to have one focus, I suspect the consultants are on commission or making a markup on the products in many cases.

Lozze

Commercial diet companies do tend to have one focus, I suspect the consultants are on commission or making a markup on the products in many cases.

Yup, keeping you on their programs I'm starting to wind down my involvement with JC because I don't want to be on them for the rest of my life. So breakfast I'm fine with. Starting to incorporate my own lunches and dinners too.

yarwell

Fruit juice without added sugar is still full of carbohydrates and sugars, maybe you have a blind spot.

One large orange - 17g of sugar (184g fruit)

Orange juice, unsweetened, canned - 1 cup - 22g of sugar (249g juice)

so it's a bit more dilute in the fruit, but it's the same thing.

beckajw

your carbs o protein ratios aren't good

your protein intake is ok for your size / gender but you are a carbohydrate addict

Just another example of how the low fat eating and exercise mantra doesn't work, sadly.

Change the low fat skinny versions of things to the full fat ones, eat less of them, lose the fruits (sugar in disguise) and avoid potato/pasta/crisps/chips/sweets/cake/chocolate.

Do NOT lose the fruit. That is a ridiculous suggestion.

Lozze

Fruit juice without added sugar is still full of carbohydrates and sugars, maybe you have a blind spot.

One large orange - 17g of sugar (184g fruit)

Orange juice, unsweetened, canned - 1 cup - 22g of sugar (249g juice)

so it's a bit more dilute in the fruit, but it's the same thing.

Fruit doesn't equal fruit juice. There is NOTHING wrong with eating fruit and it is part of a well balanced diet. If you want to cut out this important part of your diet that's your loss.But it is terrible advice.

yarwell

LOL at the sugar addicts and their fruit. Bit like talking to scientologists about depression.

The facts :-

Unsweetened orange juice, not from concentrate, 10.6 grams sugar per 100ml
Coca cola regular, 10.6 grams sugar per 100ml
Orange whole fruit 8.6 grams per 100g

yarwell

Fruit doesn't equal fruit juice

There's a bit more fibre in the whole fruit, but most of the nutrition is in the juice.

Did you read the numbers ? what's the big difference between fruit and fruit juice ?

yarwell

Let's try apples instead :-

Whole apple, braeburn, 11.8g sugar per 100g. 15.7g per typical 133g apple.

Unsweetened pressed apple juice, not from concentrate, 11.9g per 100 ml.

Little bit more protein in the apple, and a couple of grams of fibre. The food value's in the juice and low and behold it comes out when you squeeze them.