Do you think our bodies have an 'ideal' weight?

Options
fairysalad
fairysalad Posts: 4 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hello. 😊 I'm a longtime MFP user and lurker, and have spent a lot of time learning from the posts in these forums. I started logging back in 2016, after I left an active job and 'suddenly' found I had gone from 10 stone to 12. I was wary of starting calorie counting due to eating disorders in my teens and early twenties, but found it actually really helped my relationship with food. I dropped the attitude that food can be 'good' or 'bad', and just ate what I liked, within my calorie budget. Started exercising, generally a very positive experience, feeling healthier and happier in my 30s than I ever had at a younger age.

Last year I went through some illness and a brief hospital stay. Before I was ill I had got to 9 st 7 lbs, and was maintaining & happy at that weight. By the time I was well again my weight had dropped to 8 st 7 lbs in a short amount of time, and I was fairly concerned at how low that was. So for the first time in years, I set MFP to 'gain', with the aim of getting back to my pre-illness weight. Once I got to 9 St, however, I found I really liked the way my body looked and figured I would try and maintain here.

For the life of me, I CANNOT stay at this weight. I am currently fluctuating between 9st 4 lbs and 9 St 10 lbs. So I set to lose at 0.5lbs a week at sedentary, and eat back my exercise calories. But for the first time in years I cannot for the life of me stay in this calorie budget (around 1350 + exercise calories). I'm exhibiting binge eating behaviour, which has never really been an issue (prior eating disorder was undereating), and tend to level out around 1800-2100 calories a day.

What I am wondering is, is my body trying to tell me something? Is a 9st goal simply too low for me? Is the calorie deficit too harsh, and can trying to stay at a lower than healthy weight trigger over-eating? I'm hoping I don't come across incredibly ignorant here, this is a new issue for me and I'm not sure if it is because of something I am doing wrong, or whether this is just a new behaviour I need to be a bit more disciplined about. I thought I was being sensible with my goal/calorie budget as it is within healthy BMI and not more than an intended 0.5lb a week loss. But perhaps the goal is simply too low for me?

To try give a full picture, I am a 5 ft 7 woman about to turn 35, currently 9 St 4lb- 9st 10 lb. I tend to reach 10000 steps a day, sometimes much more, sometimes less when my body is tired or I am ill. I consider a 'good' week to be around 91000 steps, and a 'bad' one to be around 50000 steps. I also do 45 mins cardio with Boogie Bounce (trampolining), 1 hour yoga and 1 hour swimming a week. Aiming for 1350 calories + exercise calories a day, ending up around 2000.

Any advice is welcome, apologies if I have missed a similar topic that has been previously posted.

Replies

  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,992 Member
    edited March 2020
    Options
    I heard something on a pod cast the other day (sorry, cannot remember which one) that it is not our weight that is set but our habits.

    That said, I'm your height and 9 stone (126 pounds) would be WAY too low for me. Whether it is also too low for you depends on how you are built.

    I have a large frame http://www.myfooddiary.com/Resources/frame_size_calculator.asp and the only time I've had a BMI as low as 24 was after 6 weeks of undereating and overexercising during boot camp. (When I first arrived there, I had to get boots and hats from the men's side of the uniforms room because there weren't any big enough in women's. At 5'6.5", I'm not especially tall. I've always had a hard time buying bracelets. I wear men's shoes as often as I can get away with it.)

    (This calculator may be inaccurate for people considerably overweight. I still had a large frame when I had a BMI of 24 when I was in the military.)
  • susanpiper57
    susanpiper57 Posts: 213 Member
    Options
    I'm 5'1, 37, and fairly active. 125 lbs right now but working on losing a few. I struggle with anything under 1800 calories, fwiw. I am by no means a nutritionist or trainer, but in my personal experience, I find myself at a "comfy" weight that is in the healthy zone but a little more than I would like, and I have to work pretty hard to lose weight. Once I lose the weight though, I don't have much trouble maintaining. We are all different, so I don't know if this is helpful to you. If you truly feel that you need to lose a few pounds, you may have to work harder, but it also sounds like your body has gone through a lot lately with illness and such, and maybe you might be better off maintaining for a while. Stay healthy!
  • fairysalad
    fairysalad Posts: 4 Member
    Options
    Thank you both for taking the time to reply. 😊

    @scarlett_k I've been wondering if my calories are too restricted, but I did use all the TDEE calculators etc, and exercise is measured by my fitbit, which I have heard tends to be over-generous rather than the other way? It might be time to just maintain regardless. When I came out of hospital I had next to no appetite, so it's possible it is entirely unrealistic a calorie budget.

    @kshama2001 that was very interesting, thank you. The calculator puts me at a thin frame. I tend to lose from my face and upper body first so at 8.7 I looked really emaciated. At 9st my face looked fine, but I have to admit my boobs were non existant. 😂 I never had a 'thing' about being under 130 lbs before, so perhaps I just need to accept that there's nothing wrong with where I am. I have been mildly concerned that dropping so low last year reawakened some dormant little unhealthy weight desires in my head. I'd really shifted to wanting to be fit rather than thing prior to that, so perhaps I need a perspective shift back to that again!
  • lgfrie
    lgfrie Posts: 1,449 Member
    Options
    Like @kshama2001 I too am a believer that the thing that is "set" is habits, not weight.

    Otherwise there'd be no logical way to explain the fact that millions and millions of people lose weight and stay there, or gain weight and stay there. True, there are many who don't maintain a new weight, but the lack of consistency in results across dieters just goes to show that it's about habits. In my estimation, some people develop new habits to support their lower (or higher) weight level; many don't and return to whatever weight they were at.

    I read an entire book about "set point theory". 400 pages or thereabouts. Insulin and hormones. The hypothesis being, in a nutshell, that powerful physio-chemical processes are at work to (basically) manipulate the brain (you) into eating how much the body wants you to eat, by creating irresistible hunger signals.

    When I got done with it, I decided the whole theory was someplace in between a convoluted explanation for why some people have trouble maintaining a weight loss, and total *kitten*. Probably the latter.

    Clearly there are people -- many, many, many people -- who learn and implement new behaviors, such as an exercise regimen, learning to cook right, controlling their bingey urges, etc., who do not have a "set point". And there are many people who get to their goal weight, celebrate with a big binge-fest, and that marks day 1 of the reversal of their weight loss because they never get back to the behaviors that got them to the new weight level. In either case it's either new habits or return to old habits that explains things. The notion that the human body has some hidden internal fixed vision of how much it should weigh, and prods and manipulates the person to eat more so it can get back to that weight after a loss, just doesn't really make a lot of sense.

    Anyways, a fluctuation within a 6 pound range is not only normal, it'd be hard to avoid it. My normal weight range - doing nothing different than eating at my 750 calorie deficit versus eating at maintenance - is 5 pounds. Meaning, I can be anywhere in a 5 pound range before even changing something up like time of day for weighing, too much/too little liquid one day, etc. I have a "lowest" end of the range, which is the lowest my weight can possibly go until I lose the next pound of fat, and that is achievable only through perfect deficit eating, exercise, and low sodium. Any deviation from perfection puts me up into that 5 pound range. It sounds like you're more or less in the same camp. Your 9 st 4 is the lowest you can go if you do everything right, and 9 st 10 is probably for when you're not 100 % dialed in the previous day with dieting, or ate later at night, or a dozen other things that can affect scale weight.
  • fairysalad
    fairysalad Posts: 4 Member
    Options
    susanpiper57 wrote: »
    I'm 5'1, 37, and fairly active. 125 lbs right now but working on losing a few. I struggle with anything under 1800 calories, fwiw. I am by no means a nutritionist or trainer, but in my personal experience, I find myself at a "comfy" weight that is in the healthy zone but a little more than I would like, and I have to work pretty hard to lose weight. Once I lose the weight though, I don't have much trouble maintaining. We are all different, so I don't know if this is helpful to you. If you truly feel that you need to lose a few pounds, you may have to work harder, but it also sounds like your body has gone through a lot lately with illness and such, and maybe you might be better off maintaining for a while. Stay healthy!

    That is very helpful, thank you. It is so fascinating to me how different our body requirements are, and where we lie comfortably! I honestly have no idea whether I would be classed as active or not, which is why I set at sedentary and eat calories back. But, my gut says you are probably right about my body perhaps needing time to repair and be healthy even if I do feel well again.
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,342 Member
    Options
    @Igfrie so well put! >>: 'Your 9 st 4 is the lowest you can go if you do everything right, and 9 st 10 is probably for when you're not 100 % dialed in the previous day with dieting, or ate later at night, or a dozen other things that can affect scale weight.'
  • cupcakesandproteinshakes
    cupcakesandproteinshakes Posts: 1,096 Member
    Options
    fairysalad wrote: »
    Thank you both for taking the time to reply. 😊

    @scarlett_k I've been wondering if my calories are too restricted, but I did use all the TDEE calculators etc, and exercise is measured by my fitbit, which I have heard tends to be over-generous rather than the other way? It might be time to just maintain regardless. When I came out of hospital I had next to no appetite, so it's possible it is entirely unrealistic a calorie budget.

    @kshama2001 that was very interesting, thank you. The calculator puts me at a thin frame. I tend to lose from my face and upper body first so at 8.7 I looked really emaciated. At 9st my face looked fine, but I have to admit my boobs were non existant. 😂 I never had a 'thing' about being under 130 lbs before, so perhaps I just need to accept that there's nothing wrong with where I am. I have been mildly concerned that dropping so low last year reawakened some dormant little unhealthy weight desires in my head. I'd really shifted to wanting to be fit rather than thing prior to that, so perhaps I need a perspective shift back to that again!

    I think if you are worried about a possible eating disorder type behaviour re emerging then it might b worth getting referred to a specialist team. It sounds like you are in the uk. If you are in London, the maudsley has a good ED programme. Meantime I wouldn’t aim to lose any more weight.
  • bmeadows380
    bmeadows380 Posts: 2,981 Member
    Options
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    I heard something on a pod cast the other day (sorry, cannot remember which one) that it is not our weight that is set but our habits.

    That said, I'm your height and 9 stone (126 pounds) would be WAY too low for me. Whether it is also too low for you depends on how you are built.

    I have a large frame http://www.myfooddiary.com/Resources/frame_size_calculator.asp and the only time I've had a BMI as low as 24 was after 6 weeks of undereating and overexercising during boot camp. (When I first arrived there, I had to get boots and hats from the men's side of the uniforms room because there weren't any big enough in women's. At 5'6.5", I'm not especially tall. I've always had a hard time buying bracelets. I wear men's shoes as often as I can get away with it.)

    (This calculator may be inaccurate for people considerably overweight. I still had a large frame when I had a BMI of 24 when I was in the military.)

    @kshama2001 thank you for that link! I had always thought I had a broad frame (I wear a women's 11W shoe in the US and I too can't buy bracelets and use men's shoes as much as possible), so its nice to confirm it. Though I'm still obese, which may be throwing off the measurements.
  • MelanieCN77
    MelanieCN77 Posts: 4,047 Member
    Options
    It's not hard to see how sustained habits and choices would lead to a mathematically predictable weight for a given person. It's all just numbers - manipulate the equation and you get the expected result. It's just a question of where on the spectrum your perceived effort in maintaining the equation falls. Your food and lifestyle choices make you a certain weight. If you want that to be higher or lower then some effort is going to be required.
  • NovusDies
    NovusDies Posts: 8,940 Member
    Options
    fairysalad wrote: »
    susanpiper57 wrote: »
    I'm 5'1, 37, and fairly active. 125 lbs right now but working on losing a few. I struggle with anything under 1800 calories, fwiw. I am by no means a nutritionist or trainer, but in my personal experience, I find myself at a "comfy" weight that is in the healthy zone but a little more than I would like, and I have to work pretty hard to lose weight. Once I lose the weight though, I don't have much trouble maintaining. We are all different, so I don't know if this is helpful to you. If you truly feel that you need to lose a few pounds, you may have to work harder, but it also sounds like your body has gone through a lot lately with illness and such, and maybe you might be better off maintaining for a while. Stay healthy!

    That is very helpful, thank you. It is so fascinating to me how different our body requirements are, and where we lie comfortably! I honestly have no idea whether I would be classed as active or not, which is why I set at sedentary and eat calories back. But, my gut says you are probably right about my body perhaps needing time to repair and be healthy even if I do feel well again.

    If you are hitting 10k steps a day you are active.

    I had a surgery last year that required a lot of healing. While I had already decided to eat maintenance I was still hungry which for me is unusual. My hunger signals are often too soft spoken if not silent unless things go too far and then they are screaming banshees. However, while I was recovering they seemed to guide me to eat more and it made sense because maintenance is higher when your body heals.

    I would also suggest maintenance for maybe 60 more days. After that you might consider what I did to get back into losing. I started with 1 day in a mild deficit and then the next at maintenance. I evaluated how I felt and how hungry I was to either step back or take another step forward which was 2 days in a deficit followed by 1 day at maintenance. I went forward and back a few times until I felt good with 5 days in a deficit and the weekends at maintenance. Then I knew I was ready. I did it this way because I was never 100 percent sure when the healing would be done. A lot of stuff is going on below the surface.
  • fairysalad
    fairysalad Posts: 4 Member
    Options
    Thank you all for your input, it's so helpful. I think something I hadn't considered was habits I might have developed while trying to put weight back on after the hospital. Because I've always found cutting calories/maintaining pretty easy, I was just focusing on the fact that it suddenly felt more difficult, and not that having had to change the way I ate may have had some residual effect!

    And, also really not considering just how long the healing process might take. I have noticed that although I'm well again, my skin has been taking longer to heal from scrapes and bruises, and I get colds more often than I used to. Will take on board the suggestions of sticking at maintenance. The desire to be 9st is just a vanity thing really, and health is what is important.

    Thanks all. 😊

Categories