Can anyone help? Nothing seems to be working

From an outsider's perspective, I'm not doubting this guy's credentials or anything, but he's not good at making clear concise arguments on video....and the UM thing would drive me crazy. I made it through 10 minutes of that video. He looks great though, and I did agree with what I got out of that 10 minutes, but I was bored out of my mind. I understand what the OP is saying. I don't think she's trying to criticize, really. IMO.

From an outsider's perspective, I'm not doubting this guy's credentials or anything, but he's not good at making clear concise arguments on video....and the UM thing would drive me crazy. I made it through 10 minutes of that video. He looks great though, and I did agree with what I got out of that 10 minutes, but I was bored out of my mind. I understand what the OP is saying. I don't think she's trying to criticize, really. IMO.

To paraphrase the video

Um, Basically if you eat like 600 calories and do crazy amounts of cardio you body will stop losing weight. So most people will drop their calories more and do more cardio. Their metabolism slows to compensate for eating way less than your BMR. The reason for this is that your body NEEDs those calories just to function. So it will try to use as many as it can by conserving them(slowing metabolism).

If you just start eating your BMR(or close to it) your metabolism will still be slow for awhile and you will store much of the extra calories as fat.

Um, instead of suggests adding 200 calories to what you are eating now for a few weeks(or was it a month). Then add 200 more until you finally reach your BMR.

He believes that if you were eating 600 calories for doing 2 hours cardio a day for 6 months, then it would take 6 months for your metabolism to get back to normal.

Um

Try low/no carb. Get yourself in ketosis by eating 30 gm of carbs of less a day. I bet in two weeks you'll lose those extra pounds. Our body can not store fat without insulin. Your body only secretes insulin in the presents of glucose (all carbs become glucose as it is the only form of energy our cells can use). In the absense of carbohydrates, you're body has no choice but to use fat as energy. Generally eat good proteins and leafy greens. Peanut butter is great when your jonesing for carbs. Give it a shot.

And.................tell yourself constantly that you are losing weight, not that you can't, your body listens to what your brain tells it to do. Also, going off birth control is never a bad idea. Hormones are tricking your body into thinking it's pregnant which is why you don't ovulate. I always gained weight when I took birth control pills.

Pretty much everything in this post is madness, including the absolutely factually wrong nonsense about insulin.

Do some research? I usually like to quote studies, but this was a good layman's terms article. Keeps it simple for the simpleton who thinks things are madness. Gotta KISS for the simpleton.

How Fat is Made

Some of what we eat gets converted to fat. We use fat as energy storage, so we can use it later when we are hungry and there is no food around.

The only way extra food that you eat can be converted to fat is by the use of insulin. Insulin carries the food energy to your fat cells. If there is no insulin present, you can not accumulate fat.

What causes insulin to be created in your body? SUGAR. When sugar gets into your body, your pancreas has to create insulin in order to deal with the sugar. (Humans are not able to deal with ingesting sugar without the use of insulin - that is why diabetics, who are unable to create insulin, have to inject themselves with insulin to deal with the sugar they eat).

Where does the sugar come from? We eat sugar. Sugar, fructose, sucrose - all sugar. Carbohydrates are sugar. Carbohydrates are broken down inside our body into glucose. Glucose is sugar. Sugar calls for insulin. Insulin brings sugar to the fat cells. We get fat.

That is pretty much it. Cut out sugar and carbohydrates, and you lose the fat.

Oh yeah - protein does not get turned to fat. Protein causes very little insulin to be secreted by the pancreas. Eating fat does not cause any insulin to be secreted. Eating fat does not turn into body fat.

Unless, of course, you are eating sugar or carbohydrates with it.

Quick follow-up question for any of you who had advice about watching carbs & sugar based on my diary... I've been working on limiting those, but now I keep going over MFP's protein goal. Is this a problem? I'm guessing it's better to eat less sugar/ fewer carbs even if that means eating too much protein, but I'm not sure.

MFP's protein goal is generally considered to be too low. I think it's 15% by default, right? A lot of us aim for double that amount. I wouldn't worry about going over on your protein.

Get something to track your daily activity like a fitbit or body bug. Then eat 500 calories less than you burn in a day. For example, if you burn 2200 calories in one day (including exercise) you would eat 1700 calories. MFP expects you to eat back your exercise calories. You could also try changing your macros to 30% protein/ 15% fat, watching your sodium (water retention) and drinking A LOT of water (to flush the retention).

OP...you are taking an extremely aggressive approach to weight loss with a mere 20 Lbs to lose. You aren't regularly even netting to the 1,200 calories (eating back exercise)...if you were doing that, it would still be aggressive for the amount of weight you have to lose. Basically your body is say, "FU...I don't have fat stores to burn like that" and is just slowing your metabolism to compensate. With only 20 Lbs to lose you should be shooting for 1/2-1 Lb per week weight loss and your body will respond much better. It sounds like you've been doing this for awhile, so it may take your body some time (4-6 wks or so).

Reset to lose 1/2 to 1 Lb per week at most. When you get withing 10 Lbs you should definitely be going at 1/2 Lb per week and no faster to avoid what is happening now.

MFP uses the RDA which is meant for mostly sedentary adults maintaining weight. People who are losing weight or exercising a lot need more. 1.2-2 g per kg bodyweight is your range to preserve lean mass.

You might want to hire a personal trainer---..................................... that knows what they are doing. Sometimes you aren't getting enough nutrition or sometimes you may not be exercising properly or hard enough. It is truly a science to getting in shape. Some people do it without any problem but for others who have weight to lose in tough spots or just not motivated enough to release the proper energy could be a problem.


You can try some great free warm up exercises here and that may help you as well

http://www.isefitness.com/exercises/total-body-exercises/warm-exercises-cardio

Quick follow-up question for any of you who had advice about watching carbs & sugar based on my diary... I've been working on limiting those, but now I keep going over MFP's protein goal. Is this a problem? I'm guessing it's better to eat less sugar/ fewer carbs even if that means eating too much protein, but I'm not sure.

Absolutely not. Your protein goal is actually pretty low. I'd recommend you up from 15% and 25% and treat it as a minimum. I'd say do 40/25/35 carbs/protein fat. Even better would be 35/30/35 if you're lifting weights.

Ideally you want to meet or exceed your protein goal, meet or exceed your fat goal, and hit or stay under your carb goal. Protein is important for repairing muscle, fat is important for health and feeling full, and carbs are just sorta there to make up the rest of the calories.

If you look at all of the diaries of the people on this site that have your ideal body, you'll see that most of them are eating 100 - 200 g of protein a day.

Okay, I thought it would be something like this. Out of curiosity, where do you—or MyFitnessPal's guided goals, for that matter—get these percentages? Is there a "golden ratio" for weight loss? Is there a good ratio for young women? For semi-vegetarians (I don't eat much meat)? Keeping in mind that I am not seeking any extremes (sorry, no super low/zero carb diets for me), how do you arrive at the best goals/minimums?

(For that matter, where does MFP get its other goals... Sodium/sugar limits, for example? Should I be changing these from their guided #s too?)

I might try 50/20/30 for a few days, if that makes sense, then see if I can get to 40/25/35, since it will take some adjustments to get carbs 15% lower than I've been doing, and then even lower if I start lifting... Does that seem ok?

Oh, and I did look at getting some sort of fitness tracker at this point... What would be the main benefit—accurately tracking your calories burned from normal daily activity?

I use the guided goals first to see how many calories I should eat, I then do the custom goals to adjust the percentages. I try to do 40/40/20 which is 40% Protein, 40% carbs and 20% Fat. 35/35/30 may also work.

To make this simple, eat closer to you BMR and up your protein intake, do weight training.

I'm camping onto this post as it seems to fit my situation and the responses are sincere. Ther e are multiple reasons to choose from in my weight loss failure. I lost about 8 pounds in six months. Protein shakes, minimal exercise, watching calories/carbs as I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes and placed on Metformin. Since January I lose and gain the same three pounds. It is very discouraging. True I am older - 72, but it's just a number or so I thought. I eat about 1200-1500 calories . Not exercising, I would like to eat about 1100-1200 calories and exercise a minimum of 3 times a week. But I end up eating about the same calories 1200 a day, I've tried the protein drinks but now just the thought is unappetizing. Basically I get discourage in about a week or two when there is no obvious weight loss and give up in being disciplined. I see these posts of 15-91 pound loss and wonder where they got the plan and the discipline to make it work.:drinker:

Just looking at your diary for one day, a lot of things don't make sense. Two servings of chicken for 70 cal? That is about two ounces, not two servings. The same for chocolate dipped bananas: 70 calories is a little more than half a banana, without any chocolate, how could it be two servings?

I live in the area so I'll send you the info for my nutritionist. She is based out of Denver and awesome. But my instinct is that you are just eating way too many carbs. I know not everyone agrees and there are lots of opinions, but I don't think you can lose weight if you are eating way more carbs than fat and protein. I think your ratio should be flipped to incorporate more protein and healthy fats and less carbs.

Just my $.02.