Problematic Knee

lasthidingplace wrote: »

I'm getting really fed up with this now; has anyone gone through the same? Is it that I just need to keep with the exercise to strengthen my thighs and hamstring? Or am I just a broken mess, destined to be overweight forever?

It's neither, it's that you need to go to an orthopedist and get whatever is going on diagnosed. Popping (or rather, crepitus - I'm not sure if that's what you mean by popping - or do you mean subluxing which is a different thing that I also have experience with) with no pain isn't really much to worry about. It's when pain occurs that it's worth a diagnosis or an attempt at one (or multiple attempts).

But yes - I have a lot of experience with knee issues, none of which has to do with my weigh, and the end result meant surgery and massive amounts of physical therapy. In my case at least one knee would have needed surgery regardless because of congenital issues that likely predisposed me to an injury which then wasn't treated well (which is to say, no physical therapy was involved) and it all snowballed from there.

"And weight loss has little to do with exercise? OK...."
About zero actually if you use this tool as designed as you eat back your exercise calories.
For my fat 20 years I exercised a hell of a lot, I was that fit but fat person. But I ate enough food to offset my exercise.

"If it's just calorie deficit, then I should have been losing eight for ages as I'm 99% of the time always under 2000. Just nothing is happening, and I've been 15 stone for about a year now."
The ONE THING you need to lose fat/ lose weight is a calorie deficit - best guess is you are eating more than you think.
If you haven't lost weight in a year then you must realise you haven't actually been in a deficit.
Log your food consistently and accurately and the problem will probably reveal itself. A food scale helps enormously to reveal actual portion sizes versus estimated.

"Just as an aside; there isn't pain most of the time, and as briefly mentioned I've had this issue for as long as I remember, usually once a year it'll flair up and then it's gone again with no issues the rest of the time."
It's unlikely to fix itself. Excess weight might be aggravating it but you need to find the root cause.

lasthidingplace wrote: »

Is it possible to have a calorie deficit but the TYPE of calories you are eating are just bad?

I'm just confused; I've been using Samsung Health to log my eating and I'm always under at the end of the day, so I'm not sure what's going wrong.

There are no "types of calories" - they are simply a unit of energy measurement. Like all units they are identical. Don't conflate different kinds of foods (true) with different calories (false).
You can eat a healthy diet and lose, maintain or gain weight and it's your calorie balance that determines the outcome.

Your app is giving you an estimate and clearly not a good one.

lasthidingplace wrote: »

But if exercise burns calories, how does that not help weight loss? In the very least, I would expect over time my flabby belly to disappear - that would be enough

If you were eating at a level which would have you maintaining weight beforehand, and exercise brought you into a deficit then you'd lose weight.

If you're not in a deficit, you will not lose weight regardless of exercise. People do tend to vastly overestimate how much they burn via exercise, and I'm pretty sure that I read somewhere before about a study showing people subconsciously eat more after taking up a new exercise routine too, hence why exercise alone often doesn't result in weight loss.

lasthidingplace wrote: »

No, not really; most of my calories come from lunch time, which is typically stuff I can scan in from Tesco (sandwich, drink, grapes etc). My partner has usually made dinner already when I come home, so it's just estimation for that.

Estimations can vary so dramatically. It's why when I want to lose weight that I often have a hard time if I'm not tracking somewhat. I underestimate portions and how many calories is in stuff very dramatically. I made this meal recently that I've made several times before, I did a few things along to way to reduce the calorie content and my portion size was more reasonable than it would've been before tracking. 1300 calories, in one meal, and that's being less generous than usual.

What I'd suggest is track your intake fully for a week or two and see how progress goes. No estimations, everything logged, with scales. It doesn't mean you have to do that every time going forward if you don't want to, but it'll give you a clearer picture of if your estimates were accurate or not.

lasthidingplace wrote: »

Is it possible to have a calorie deficit but the TYPE of calories you are eating are just bad?.

No. You do need to be very sure of your measurements of both intake and output though.