Frustrated - 3 weeks no loss.

Food scale. Really. Treat it like an experiment. Buy a food scale. Keep your receipt. Give it honest effort for four weeks. If you find the food scale helped, win. If not, take it back, but you will have at least eliminated one variable.

Iwantahealthierme30 wrote: »

Thanks for the flowchart which is just about everywhere. I have hypothyroid so it's not that easy.

If you take your medication as prescribed, you're no different from anyone else. It comes down to accurate logging and eating at a deficit.
My cousin is hypothyroid and has sucessfully lost 30 pounds following a few simple rules: Use a digital food scale and weigh all solids, measure all liquids, eat a moderate deficit.

Iwantahealthierme30 wrote: »

How do you guys manage to weigh everything? You can't weigh everything for the rest of your lives. People look at that like a disorder. I rather not stress about it and give myself a disorder on top of depression and things I already have.

I don't weigh everything (I don't weigh when I'm eating out, for example), but keeping a scale on my kitchen counter is easy. It's no harder than using a measuring cup. If I wanted to keep using the kitchen scale as a tool to accurately log, I don't know why I couldn't do that for the rest of my life.

I don't live my life in fear of other people looking at me like I have a disorder. If someone wants to think I have a disorder, that's their business.

It's fine if you don't want to weigh, but I don't think it's necessary to push your concerns or reservations on it onto people who are comfortable using this tool. Maybe it doesn't work for you (although I would recommend you consider not knocking it until you try it), but it does work for some people. I much prefer weighing to trying to figure out why I'm not losing weight, for example.

Another thing: even if you do decide to weigh, it doesn't have to be for the rest of your life. Some people use it as a temporary tool, just like some people using logging as a temporary tool.

Iwantahealthierme30 wrote: »

How do you guys manage to weigh everything? You can't weigh everything for the rest of your lives. People look at that like a disorder. I rather not stress about it and give myself a disorder on top of depression and things I already have.

Something like orthorexia and binge eating were disordered eating patterns that I had. Weighing my food was just a part of being in the kitchen. Takes seconds once you find the right entries, is less mess than measuring cups and spoons for me, and I get to pretend I'm a mad scientist every morning. I can see how it might seem daunting if someone wasn't very comfortable around scales, but to suggest that hundreds of people here trying to help you have some kind of eating disorder because they prefer to streamline their logging instead of mucking about with cups and spoons is rather offensive, isn't it?

janejellyroll wrote: »

toxikon wrote: »

Iwantahealthierme30 wrote: »

How do you guys manage to weigh everything? You can't weigh everything for the rest of your lives. People look at that like a disorder. I rather not stress about it and give myself a disorder on top of depression and things I already have.

Sorry, who are these people judging me for weighing my food? My friends and family don't... not that it would stop me if they did!

I'm not an intuitive eater whatsoever. Whenever I go long periods without weighing my food, my weight creeps back up. So why not just keep regularly weighing my food? As I said, it doesn't take much time at all. In fact, I do weekly meal-preps, so I only need to weigh my portions out once a week.

Seems like you have this weird mental hangup on kitchen scales... I mean, they're just a tool. I use my scale for weighing out my soap-making ingredients too. It's just handy.

Many baking cookbooks recommend using a kitchen scale rather than cups for things like flour. Those authors don't have a disorder (presumably), they just understand that weight is more accurate than measuring cups.

Exactly. I love when websites provide recipes with oz/g. A "cup of flour" can be a huge range, depending on how you scoop it out of the bag. If you want to bake a good cake, weight measurements are the way to go!

Iwantahealthierme30 wrote: »

How do you guys manage to weigh everything? You can't weigh everything for the rest of your lives. People look at that like a disorder. I rather not stress about it and give myself a disorder on top of depression and things I already have.

1. Who said anything about the rest of your life? Weighing takes an extra minute or two, and provides a means to log accurately.
2. It's not a disorder, it's quite simply using the tools of science to achieve a goal.
3. You don't want to stress about weighing, yet you're stressing about 3 weeks and not losing.

Weight loss is simple science (CICO) Calories in vs calories out. If you consume less than your body burns, you will lose weight. We understand you have a medical condition, and it is easily regulated with medication.

Ultimately, it's your choice how you do your thing, and we are all offering solid advice on how to help you achieve your goals.

Weighing my portions helped me learn what an actual portion of food really looks like. I still use the scale for stuff I make at home since it's so easy anyway, but I'm much better at eyeballing portions when I'm out thanks to the time I spent logging accurately. And I stress way less about my diet now that I know my numbers are right.

If you aren't using a scale, you are probably eating more than you think. If you don't want to use a scale for whatever reason, lower your calorie total a little to make up for the innacuracies you are probably logging and eventually you should hit a number that works. Understand that to eat 1800 cals you may need to log only 1400 without a food scale (that's how off I was back when I didn't weigh).

Even if you only use it for a few weeks, at least it will shine a light on where you are missing calories and what you can do to fix it.

1) You're not taking your prescribed medication consistantly
2) You've stopped exercising, which helps increase your deficit
3) Your not weighing your food, thereby don't actually have an accurate idea of your calorie consumption

These are the issues you need to address to see the scale moving again.

Iwantahealthierme30 wrote: »

How do you guys manage to weigh everything? You can't weigh everything for the rest of your lives. People look at that like a disorder. I rather not stress about it and give myself a disorder on top of depression and things I already have.

I use online banking and a spreadsheet to account for my money. They are tools I use, nearly daily, to keep me on course (and out of the hole). I fail to see how a kitchen scale is so different. I budget my calories very much like I budget my money. Exact same concept.

I completely understand your frustration. I have had my thyroid gland destroyed via radioactive iodine. I have to take a supplement daily. First, have you visited your physician recently to make sure your TSH checked? Are you on generic or brand name replacement therapy? I had an old thyroid guru (that's what I called him) tell me the generic is not easily absorbed by the body like the brand name. I take only the brand name (yes it costs more, hopefully you have insurance that helps cover the cost) and have had steady TSH levels.

Second, the advise you have received on here regarding meals and caloric intake is great. But having a sluggish metabolism (due to being hypothyroid), it is very important that you workout 5 days a week. I would do cardio 3 times a week and do weights the other 2. You need to build muscle to boost your metabolism that will burn fat.

Don't give up. You met a bump in the road. Adjusting things should give your body the jolt it needs.