HELP! Low carb/low cal but no weight loss

If you're gaining weight, then you're eating more than you burn. Get a digital food scale and weigh everything you eat—even packaged foods.

The Sexypants post should be required reading: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants

If you open up your food diary, others can see where you might make modifications to what you are doing already. I was eating low cal(under 1000) and exercising daily and saw no loss and other people gave me some very good recommendations.

I know losing weight and looking better are important to many of us but how do you feel forgoing the junk? Are you feeling better? Sleeping better? Skin? Are your clothes fitting better? Because those are all good things too.

Eat more!!! It sounds like you are starving yourself and your body is holding on to everything it can because of it.

facepalm

Eat more!!! It sounds like you are starving yourself and your body is holding on to everything it can because of it.

^^^NO!^^^

No one needs to see your diary to tell you if you have gained weight then you are eating in a surplus. If you were truly in a deficit you would be losing weight. Either you are eating more than you think, burning less than you think or a combination of the two, you just have to figure out which one, but I can assure you it isn't because your body is "holding on to everything it can" because you're starving it. Sorry it doesn't work that way...

Water weight.

I just don't trust the home scales. I imagine the ones that are more accurate also cost a lot more.

No two scales will ever weigh the same. The idea is to weigh yourself once a week at the same time of day, under the same conditions (clothes, food, water, urine & stool), then look for a downward trend.

If your weight trends up, you're eating too much. If your weight stays the same, you're eating your maintenance calories (aka TDEE, or total daily energy expenditure). If your weight trends down, then you're eating less than you're burning.

Easy peasy.

You gain weight by eating more than you burn. Are you trying to soothe your grief with food?

I don't really see any scenario in which it's healthy to not eat for days at a time, or consume less than 500 calories in a day. Is this diet based on a doctor's advice or anything like that?

When you don't eat enough calories for your body to keep running it goes into starvation mode. Stores everything you eat as fat because it doesn't know when it's going to eat again. Find out your basal metabolic rate. And don't eat beyond that, exercise at least 3/4 Times a week and you should see some loss. Good luck!!

(Hugs) I'm sorry for your loss and wish you well.

I don't really see any scenario in which it's healthy to not eat for days at a time, or consume less than 500 calories in a day. Is this diet based on a doctor's advice or anything like that?

i definitely think you need to be eating way more than this!!

First of all, don't believe the people that start screaming "starvation mode". That is a myth. If starvation mode was real (burning only muscle, hanging on to fat by conserving every calorie ingested), then there would be no such thing as starvation in the world. Tell that to the people of Africa, India, and those that went through the Holocaust. You mean those walking skeletons were still fat? Hardly.

Secondly, I've eaten that little on a zero/low carb diet, and if I failed to exercise, I failed to lose. If you are logging everything you eat accurately, weighing/measuring everything, and most importantly, being honest with yourself about everything you are eating, then that part is done. You need to start exercising. To burn through 500 calories of what you've eaten, you need to walk for about 2 hours per day at 3-3.5 mph. That's a pretty good clip. Exercise accounts for very few calories burned. You need to exercise a LOT to burn off what you eat. That leaves your base metabolism to burn off the rest.

Now, let's talk metabolism. Are you diabetic? Do you have low thyroid function? Those things will cause you to hang onto weight. Have you had a metabolic workup done at the doctor? Maybe they can pinpoint what's going wrong with you hormonally. If you just see a general practitioner, make an appointment with an endocrinologist or bariatric specialist to see if they can pinpoint what's up. You should be dropping weight like it's nobody's business even without exercise on a low carb diet (provided it's truly low carb--meaning no more than 20gm of carbs per day)

Third, and most important, with that kind of edema I'd be more concerned about a number of serious health problems, beginning with your heart. It sounds like the beginnings of congestive heart failure (the inability of the heart to pump effectively, causing fluid to back up), or, and I hate to say it, coupled with the anorexia (lack of appetite) it also sounds like cancer. Ascites is when fluid builds up between the tissues. That comes on in late stage cancer, and you don't necessarily have to have any other symptoms. How is your urine output? There's also a chance you're in kidney failure. Low carb/high protein diets are very, very hard on the kidneys. You absolutely must be drinking lots (upwards of a half to one gallon a day) of water when on a low carb/high protein diet. Far more than the average person needs. I'd get back to your doctor immediately and have a more thorough check-up, but if that was a thorough check-up, then I'd find another doctor and get a second opinion.

Thank you everyone. Okay; thyroid test were said to be okay, I'm drinking 135+water per day; should I up that? And no, eating under 500 isn't doc recommended but I thought I needed to cut what is recommended in half? Like now, FP tells me I need a net of 1390 calories to lose 5 lbs per week and reach my goal weight of 130. To me that means I should consume half or no more than 700. It's cutting it in half creating a deficit? Plus, I can't eat if I'm not hungry and since I'm an empty nester I don't have to cook. If I get hungry and I don't eat within the next 30 minutes or so, the hunger goes away and I wont eat until the next day and it starts all over again. Sometimes I try to plan ahead and make a good amount of tuna salad. I like salad but lettuce goes bad so fast so I might send for a side salad from McD's and often can make two salads from it. I've read you need to eat to lose so I'm open to any and all quick and easy recipe ideas. Thanks again guys and I really thank you for the condolences.:flowerforyou: You're the best. I know you all are going to help me get through this. Just wish I'd posted sooner.

Don't cut it in half. Eat what it tells you. Eating too little can be just as bad for your health as eating to much. There is already a calorie deficit taken into account with the 1390 calories that MFP suggests you eat.

A salad can be a quick healthy option.

I like to use:
- Spinach
- Chicken (you can buy pre-cut/cooked chicken strips that just have to microwaved a few seconds)
- shredded cheese (full fat kind)
- sliced almonds
- full fat dressing (whatever fits my mood)

Make crock pot meals, portion them out and freeze them. Then when your ready to eat, just throw it in the microwave.