Hi Jc4Mee,

Actually, I haven't lost anything at all--if I don't count my typical +/- 4 #s variations. I do also have the issue that if I exercise it becomes harder to lose. Right now I'm really stiff from a couple harder workouts so it 'looks' like I've gained 3#s in the last 5 days. I know it's just the water retention from sore muscles and Tylenol, but it's annoying all the same. However, exercise is my lifeline for sleep and stress reduction so I'm not going to stop.

Honestly, I don't know how I could eat much better than I do without doing something quite radical. I spent 5 years figuring out some food allergies so I'm now what my husband calls a 'special ed' eater--I need to know exactly what's in my food if at all possible and I try very hard to stick to simple, pure food sources verified Gluten, Dairy & Soy free. I saw a nutritionist along the way and I do work hard to meet the goals of 20g of protein at each meal and 2 snacks with 10g of protein. I don't eat fast food, I don't eat much 'junk', I eat lots of home-cooked, high veggie content food.

This, however, makes counting calories a good bit harder as I need to enter every recipe exactly and know exactly how many portions I'll get out of what I've cooked--really before I've cooked it or fully portioned it. It's WAY easier to count calories if you are just reading the numbers off of a label. I suspect that this is one of my stumbling blocks with figuring out weight loss. When I lost 65#s on Weight Watchers I always had a pre-packaged lunch and much more of my food came with a label on it, heat & serve.

My only other known challenge is that since I'm having trouble sleeping and I do have days where I'm at work in the afternoon 'eating to stay awake'. For me that means a worst case scenario of eating rice cakes and raw almonds, but eating nonetheless. If I've realized that I'm going to feel that way I'll bring cut raw veggies to fill that niche.

A couple of times in the past few years I've hit some kind of 'sweet spot' where my body will just decide to lose weight. I don't feel like I'm doing anything differently but I'll start losing ~1#/wk. It will last until I get a food allergy exposure or some other life disruption. Then, nothing. Just haven't been able to recapture that magic.

Hi Nillalis,

I guess I'm kind of skeptical about anyone reading this and 'fixing' the problem. I'm more curious what you are doing that has worked for you--particularly if you have had problems losing weight. How did you figure out what worked?

For the record I'm 51, 5'5" and weigh 156#s, 140#s is acceptably thin for me so I don't have a lot to lose. I tore the meniscus in my left knee about 2 years ago and I've not been able to keep off some weight gain, up from mid 140s to mid 150s.. My body really likes mid 150s but now that jogging is not an option and menopause is a factor I'm seeing that I want to gain weight again.

I sit at work, although I have a reminder that goes off every 30 minutes for some kind of stretch or exercise. I wear a FitBit and it tracks all steps, not just the formal 'walks'. FitBit talks to MFP which then estimates calorie burn based on a sedentary lifestyle, base 1200 calories per day. I do 30 minutes of basic calisthenics via Daily Burn 6 days/week (squats, lunges, planks, etc.) which I do not 'log' but FitBit counts any steps. If I'm not at work, I try to keep moving: gardening, being outdoors, housework, playing with dogs, etc. When I do a fitness analysis I rank in the top 10% for my age.

I'm also not in the middle of the bell curve of adult women. I've had weight problems since I was in early childhood--when I ranked in the bottom 10% of fitness for my age. I also was constantly sick, apparently due to food allergies that I didn't figure out until I was in my 40s. Prior to figuring that out my weight was a constant challenge and at one point got up to low 200#s. I still have a digestive system that doesn't work well, a body that is a challenge to manage. (And, yes, I do lots of things to try to make that work better.)

I'm trying to see if I can get back to a lower weight without locking myself down to 1300 calories per day--there have been a few moments in the past that I have managed that for a brief few weeks. If I dial back the calories that far I do lose weight, but it seems to be because I don't exercise--loss of muscle. When I start working out it just comes right back. And if I want to sleep these days, I have to move.

Cheers!

I do feel that finding some way to increase my metabolism is critical. From my present perspective, getting my body to be happy enough to do that is the challenge.

Here's the hit list for improving your metabolism from Web MD:

Do weight training (check -- doing that)
Do sprints/high intensity exercise (can try to do this cycling, when I try this on the treadmill my knee gets annoyed)
Get plenty of sleep (this is just inaccessible for me right now, maybe in a few years...)
Eat often (check!)
Eat well (check!)
Stay cold--burn more calories in cold environment (Did I mention menopause? My sweaters are very lonely right now)
Be active when you can (Check!)

However....

I am wondering if my body is always trying to pack on the pounds because I don't digest food well. Even though I get enough calories--hence weight loss is hard--maybe my body never digests things well enough so it isn't getting enough of all the stuff it needs (whacked out theory #497, thank you very much). I went out and got some digestive enzymes at lunch because my stomach wasn't feeling well and it seems to have improved my afternoon. I'm going to give those a try for a bit and see if that helps.

Novelty fact: One of the times that I managed to lose weight was right after a friend conned me into doing a 'cleanse' that included digestive enzymes, fiber and the usual clay. Since I eat rather oddly I didn't need to make any other changes in my diet to conform to the cleanse program. At the time I had been working with a personal trainer for 12 weeks and to my annoyance had not lost any weight, gained about 5 pounds. Oddly on the second week of the cleanse and for a few weeks after I was losing 1#/wk. Unfortunately subsequent attempts with a cleanse seemed to always divert into severe digestive distress due to some allergic reaction. In the end I chalked it up to just 'it took 12 weeks to get to the point where I had enough lean body mass to burn calories'. But the weight loss didn't last more than 4-5 weeks and then I was back to pounding iron with no weight loss. Not too long after that I had a job change and couldn't keep the trainer or the intense workout schedule. Life happens.

Susan,

What exercise do you do and what is your daily calorie goal?