Weight just will not shift.

peweuk · February 2015

I am a 64 year old male and currently weigh 110 kg (240lbs) - having put on 20kg (44lbs) slowly over the last 4 years.

Last summer I decided to watch what I ate and try to control my weight, and then after Christmas decided to diet and monitor my intake too.

According to various calculators (including MFP) for my gender, age, weight, height and lifestyle I should be burning between 2200 and 2400 calories per day. To get back to my original weight I decided to try and loose between 0.5kg and 1kg per week - so set my daily intake to suit at between 1300 and 1800 per day - based on the lower requirement for the normal daily burning rate.

Here we are 29 days later and the results are really disappointing.

From my spreadsheet, using 2,200 normal daily requirement, I should have burned 63,800 calories over 29 days. I have consumed 43,422 (1497 daily) which is a total of 20,377 calories less.

As 0.45kg (1lb) is equivalent to 3500 calories, based on the figure of 20,377 calories I should have theoretically lost 2.6kg (5.8lb) by now - but today my weight is still 110kg - NO CHANGE - and no, my scales are not stuck

Ok so I realize there is nothing scientific about weight loss, metabolic rate and the relationship between them.
However, based on these figures I would have expected to see at least some reduction in my weight over the last 29 days and cannot figure out why it remains static - unless my metabolic rate is exceptionally low with a daily burn rate of no more than 1500 calories, which is most unlikely.

As I am totally stumped I would be interested to hear any thoughts from anyone who may have some knowledge/information which could enlighten me to what my problem could be with possible solutions, or alternatively suggest what steps I could take to try and identify where the problem lies.

TIA

futuremanda · February 2015

Do you weigh your food with a kitchen scale?

Do you eat a lot of salt? (It can mask weight loss via water retention)

Did you start a new exercise program, or go up in intensity recently (within the last month)? (This can also cause water retention)

Do you log *everything*, even when you go over?

How often do you weigh yourself? Weight fluctuates a lot day to day and even hour to hour, so if you weighed yourself once at the beginning of the month, and once today, well, today you might just be holding onto water, waste, etc.

Also, as an aside, 1300 -- if you're weighing and logging *very accurately*, meaning you REALLY are eating that, is probably too low for you. I'd say more 1500 to 1800.

These will all hopefully be really helpful:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1296011/calorie-counting-101

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10012907/logging-accuracy-consistency-and-youre-probably-eating-more-than-you-think

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjKPIcI51lU

http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/why-cant-i-lose-weight/

peweuk · February 2015

futuremanda wrote: »

Do you weigh your food with a kitchen scale?

Do you eat a lot of salt? (It can mask weight loss via water retention)

Did you start a new exercise program, or go up in intensity recently (within the last month)? (This can also cause water retention)

Do you log *everything*, even when you go over?

How often do you weigh yourself? Weight fluctuates a lot day to day and even hour to hour, so if you weighed yourself once at the beginning of the month, and once today, well, today you might just be holding onto water, waste, etc.

Also, as an aside, 1300 -- if you're weighing and logging *very accurately*, meaning you REALLY are eating that, is probably too low for you. I'd say more 1500 to 1800.

These will all hopefully be really helpful:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1296011/calorie-counting-101

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10012907/logging-accuracy-consistency-and-youre-probably-eating-more-than-you-think

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjKPIcI51lU

http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/why-cant-i-lose-weight/

Thanks for the reply FM.

- I do weigh everything
- I don't eat a lot of salt.
- I haven't changed my activity in any way
- I log everything (this and the weighing and packet checking drives my other half nuts

)
- I weigh myself every three to four days and at the same time each day - ie just before evening meal.
- although my target was 1340, my actual 'average' actual intake (over the 29 days) is 1497

Thanks for the thoughts/questions and the links.
I have already done an extensive amount of research/reading and so far nothing has identified a route to a solution - but I will have a look at the links you provided just in case.

Thanks again for your contribution.

Dragn77 · February 2015

Are you drinking enough water? I find that just by drinking water and changing nothing else, I will drop weight. And by the same token, if Im eating right and not drinking enough water, I will stay the same and / or put weight back on (as I did this past week)

It goes along with the sodium intake thing...plus also, it takes time for the body to adjust and start showing the fruits of your labor, so to speak. I personally, lose weight fast to start, then after the first week or two, it goes painfully slow. For others..theres no change for a long time, then all of a sudden, a drop almost as if the body is like...oh wait, Ive been meaning to do this LoL

beefcake_4000 · February 2015

cut out the carbs . drop potatoes pasta rice and bread and you should be good to go. also watch how much fats and oils you use in cooking, i myself used way more oil than i thought. im telling you though replace the high on carb items listed above and replace them with veggies and you should begin to drop the weight.

erickirb · February 2015

beefcake_4000 wrote: »

cut out the carbs . drop potatoes pasta rice and bread and you should be good to go. also watch how much fats and oils you use in cooking, i myself used way more oil than i thought. im telling you though replace the high on carb items listed above and replace them with veggies and you should begin to drop the weight.

That will not make a difference. It is CICO. He may lose water weight at first by cutting carbs due to reduced glycogen stores, but it will not be fat.

And fat is healthy and essential, you should not be lower than 20-25% cals from fat, as they help vitamin absorption, digestive tract health among other things.

Out_of_Bubblegum · February 2015

4 weeks and no loss - I feel your pain. I just went through a 4 week stall... fortunately I broke out of it before I got TOO frustrated.

Assuming your logging is as tight as you say, you will break out of the stall... You can't beat the laws of physics, and water weight will only hold out for so long before it gives up and shows a loss on the scale.

If you want to help nudge the process - increase your physical activity without eating the exercise cals back. Even if it's just 2km walking/day, that's going to have a significant impact over time (start slow and easy.. work up to more over time).

aboldish22 · February 2015

1300 calories is insanely low. There is a thing called metabolic adaptation or metabolic crashing where your metabolism will adapt to the low amount of caloric intake and in a sense just lose its caloric burning effect in order to keep you from starvation. Theres tons of information on it if you wanted to look it up.

Ive seen plenty of people slowly increase their calories after being in an extreme deficit like 1200-1500 calories and gain weight. Their metabolic rate then increases and allows you to diet at higher calories with better results(In my opinion its much easier to diet at a higher amount of calories).

futuremanda · February 2015

Well at least you know you're doing the right things!

I would say keep at it. Give it another week or two and it may come off in kind of a whoosh. I have had this happen, but for me, it's always related to upping my exercise by a lot. I lost 4 lbs overnight two days ago. /shrugs

My only other suggestions:

- start weighing yourself every day, so you can get a better idea of what your body tends to do day to day
- weigh in the morning, before food, after using the toilet, without clothes

You'll still get fluctuations, but it may minimize them / give you more data on them. That is, if it wouldn't drive you crazy to do so.

rachelem89 · February 2015

You may be insulin resistant. If you tend to get the majority of your calories from carbs (including lots of fruit) and you are insulin resistant then this may be why you are not losing weight. I had this problem when following a low fat, low calorie diet. I never realised that a lot of 'diet' products are low fat,but theyre usually loaded with sugar. I struggled to lose weight, even with being 10stone overweight. I started to cut back on my sugar intake and my carbs in general and I've now lost 6 stone in 11 months. I have started upping my fat intake (yes, increase!) which has increased my weight loss to around 2-3lbs a week now which I'm chuffed with. I'm happier, my skin and hair are in amazing condition and I'm losing bodyfat and retaining lean mass by doing a bodypump class 3-4 times a week. My sugar intake is now 20g a WEEK. I keep my carbs to under 30g a day. Google LCHF dieting, I can thoroughly recommend it. Best of luck x

peweuk · February 2015

Thank you all for the comments - certainly a lot to think about.

I'm sorry not to have come back sooner, but for some reason I do not receive post notifications.

Let me try to answer some of the comments in order.

Dragn:
I probably don't drink as much water as I should, and only yesterday decided to make a conscious effort to drink more (maybe 8 glasses a day in future).
Here's hoping that that may stimulate the body to respond.

beefcake:
Although I do eat carbs, I don't eat an excessive amount (at least I don't think so), maybe potatoes once a week and rice maybe twice a week.
My wife does all the cooking (shame on me) and she never uses fat and as little oil as possible on the odd occasion when it is needed.

bwmalone:
I certainly hope that something breaks soon - weight-loss wise.
I am somewhat restricted to what exercise I can undertake as I do suffer from COPD and to exacerbate the problems that causes me I have had foot problems for the last 2 years. Having just recently recovered from operations on both feet I should now be able to start taking long vigorous walks and/or light bicycle rides again in the next couple of weeks which will hopefully help.

aboldish:
I am aware of the 'starvation' syndrome but thanks for pointing it out anyway.
The problem is that wherever you look opinions as to what level of calorie intake that this will kick in at varies dramatically - most sources suggest between 1000 and 1200 per day.
The general consensus seems to be that my BMR falls between 1950 and 2050 calories per day, and with my current sedentary lifestyle that I would burn about 300 - 500 more calories per day.
Wishing to lose 0.5 to 1 kg per week (which most sources suggest as being acceptable rates) I need to reduce my calorie intake by up to 1000 per day - resulting in a suggested intake of between 1250 and 1500. It was the MFP calculator here that came up with 1340.
My average over the last 29 days has been 1,497.

futuremanda:
I hope you are right and thanks for the encouraging words.

rachelem:
I recently had a checkup with the doctor and they did a full blood test which included tests for diabetes.
I am not sure if insulin resistance would show up but I'll check further.
I don't buy special diet foods and my intake of carbs and sugar is not in excess of the daily recommended level on any given day - although I do try to keep it below where possible.

Thanks to all of you for your responses, and feel free to chip in again if anything else springs to mind.
In the meantime I will persevere and hopefully upping my water intake and beginning my walking/cycling soon will result in me having some good news soon

Weight just will not shift.

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