Confused about it all

flo_soup76 · June 2020

I apologise first off this is going to be a long post.

I am 44 now and just over 18 stone and I began a weight loss journey almost 15 years ago at 13 stone!!! Since then I have tried (half tried) Slimming World, Weight Watchers, MFP and more recently I joined TEAMRH fitness. I was 16 stone 5 when i joined. I was given a calorie goal of 2500 per day. Anyway, clearly that didn't work and I'm left now wondering what on earth I should do.
Obviously I want to lose weight. I have a few health conditions that do make an impact on how much energy I have on any given day (Hypothyroidism, various anaemias, CFS and Fibromyalgia) I also struggle with binge eating. I have no off switch.
I guess what I'm asking is can you help me. I have really lost my way and I no longer know what I should be doing. I am trapped inside a huge body and desperately unhappy. I just don't know how to change it anymore. What should I be doing can you help me?

sijomial · June 2020

When confused generally the way forward is to simplify things down to the few important issues and don't stress about the minor factors. Namely log your food and drink, on average hit a sensible calorie target.
That your health conditions impact your ability to be more active reinforces you need to concentrate on how much food you eat.

What stopped you eating 2,500 cals on average for an extended period of time?
Seems a reasonable calorie goal for someone your size which should have worked if you could have managed to adhere to it.

flo_soup76 · June 2020

I was hitting it, I think that's where the additional weight has come from? Or maybe I am deluding myself

yirara · June 2020

Have you used a kitchen scale over a longer period of time and weighted everything you ate? Also made sure the database entries you used were correct? If you're uncertain maybe you can open up your diary and we will have a look and comment on how you're doing

flo_soup76 · June 2020

I do weight everything. I dont know what i should be eating.

harper16 · June 2020

flo_soup76 wrote: »

I do weight everything. I dont know what i should be eating.

As long as you are in a calorie deficit you will lose weight. If you are wanting food ideas that might help some of your health issues that be a question for your doctor. Since you mentioned struggling with binge eating have you considered talking with a therapist, or a registered dietian?

yirara · June 2020

I know this might sound harsh, flo_soup, but please bear with me. Remember people want to help you here, ok?

You say you gained from 16.5 stones to 18 stones since trying the last thing. If google is right then that's about 10kg or 22lbs (sorry, stone are too exotic for me). So if you started this on 1 January then you must have eaten about 500 calories daily over your maintenance calories. The thing is: your body just doesn't store food as fat if you're in a calorie deficit. It only does this when you eat too much. If your body would do this if you eat too little then you would basically starve. You can't get nutrition from food, and at the same time store it as fat as that would be double-dipping. You also can't fill up a jerrycan of petrol at a petrol station, put it in the back of your car and drive on that same petrol. Thus something is off. Let us help you find out where the problem lies.

You mention binges: how often do you binge, and how badly? A proper binge can easily wipe out the calorie deficit of a whole week and potentially even lead to weight gain. How often do you binge, and do you still log then? Harper above is right: if you can't stop eating then try to find a therapist.

Also you mention a few health conditions. Do you feel that your thyroid is properly medicated? If not fight it at your gp! I know this is very difficult in the UK as GPs tend to only look at blood results and never test fT3. But if you feel you're tired ask for a levothyroxine increase and go from there.
Also: various anemias should be treated. Iron I suppose, and also vitamin B12? If so you need high dose iron tablets (gentle iron doesn't really help with anemia) or an iron transfusion. If you're not vegan and B12 deficient then the only thing are injections, regularly, and sufficient amounts of folic acid. Might be worth looking for a patient group. There are a few good ones on Facebook, and on healthunlocked. People can give you advice on how to proceed. Getting your health issues under control will mean you'll feel better, and it will be easier to lose weight.

emmabrookes1 · June 2020

Are you in the UK?
If so, I would suggest booking a double appt with your GP to discuss:
Are you adequately medicated for your hypothyroidism?
Are the anaemias a past or current problem, do they require medication? eg ferritin, folate, B12? or a more complex picture requiring haematologist input
What support and information can they give regarding weight loss? Is there a dietician service they can refer you to? Do you need counselling and/or medication to address emotional or mental health issues?

I think it's absolutely brilliant you want to make changes but there are aspects of your situation that mean at a least a medical consultation regarding your health issues would be valuable.

yirara · June 2020

One thing: Forgot what I wrote about finding groups for medical conditions via facebook. There's an awful lot of quackery out there, and many are not UK focussed. Healthunlocked might be the best website at the moment as it's fairly anti-quack, and there are some properly educated people there.

holly8312 · June 2020

flo_soup76 wrote: »

I was given a calorie goal of 2500 per day.

How tall are you? If very short, 2500 calories per day could be a little high for you, even at a higher weight.

flo_soup76 · June 2020

harper16 wrote: »

flo_soup76 wrote: »

I do weight everything. I dont know what i should be eating.

As long as you are in a calorie deficit you will lose weight. If you are wanting food ideas that might help some of your health issues that be a question for your doctor. Since you mentioned struggling with binge eating have you considered talking with a therapist, or a registered dietian?

I have attended one for a year who told me to stop dieting.

flo_soup76 · June 2020

holly8312 wrote: »

flo_soup76 wrote: »

I was given a calorie goal of 2500 per day.

How tall are you? If very short, 2500 calories per day could be a little high for you, even at a higher weight.

5 foot 4

flo_soup76 · June 2020

emmabrookes1 wrote: »

Are you in the UK?
If so, I would suggest booking a double appt with your GP to discuss:
Are you adequately medicated for your hypothyroidism?
Are the anaemias a past or current problem, do they require medication? eg ferritin, folate, B12? or a more complex picture requiring haematologist input
What support and information can they give regarding weight loss? Is there a dietician service they can refer you to? Do you need counselling and/or medication to address emotional or mental health issues?

I think it's absolutely brilliant you want to make changes but there are aspects of your situation that mean at a least a medical consultation regarding your health issues would be valuable.

No support at all from GP. I am medicated but have still ongoing issues. Regularly have injections and meds for b12, folic acid and iron. Had counselling for the binge eating, their response was to stop dieting. I am trapped inside this body

and I dont seem to be able to do anything. I have a terrible relationship with food, in fact I despise it. Meal planning usually draws blanks.

janejellyroll · June 2020

flo_soup76 wrote: »

emmabrookes1 wrote: »

Are you in the UK?
If so, I would suggest booking a double appt with your GP to discuss:
Are you adequately medicated for your hypothyroidism?
Are the anaemias a past or current problem, do they require medication? eg ferritin, folate, B12? or a more complex picture requiring haematologist input
What support and information can they give regarding weight loss? Is there a dietician service they can refer you to? Do you need counselling and/or medication to address emotional or mental health issues?

I think it's absolutely brilliant you want to make changes but there are aspects of your situation that mean at a least a medical consultation regarding your health issues would be valuable.

No support at all from GP. I am medicated but have still ongoing issues. Regularly have injections and meds for b12, folic acid and iron. Had counselling for the binge eating, their response was to stop dieting. I am trapped inside this body and I dont seem to be able to do anything. I have a terrible relationship with food, in fact I despise it. Meal planning usually draws blanks.

There are therapists who are qualified and willing to work with ED patients who have weight loss as a goal. I think it would be worth locating one. When it comes to therapy, goals should be created together by patient and therapist. It shouldn't be a situation where you feel like you feel obligated to accept a single therapist's opinion of what the best option for you is. You're allowed to have input. It's your life.

harper16 · June 2020

flo_soup76 wrote: »

emmabrookes1 wrote: »

Are you in the UK?
If so, I would suggest booking a double appt with your GP to discuss:
Are you adequately medicated for your hypothyroidism?
Are the anaemias a past or current problem, do they require medication? eg ferritin, folate, B12? or a more complex picture requiring haematologist input
What support and information can they give regarding weight loss? Is there a dietician service they can refer you to? Do you need counselling and/or medication to address emotional or mental health issues?

I think it's absolutely brilliant you want to make changes but there are aspects of your situation that mean at a least a medical consultation regarding your health issues would be valuable.

No support at all from GP. I am medicated but have still ongoing issues. Regularly have injections and meds for b12, folic acid and iron. Had counselling for the binge eating, their response was to stop dieting. I am trapped inside this body and I dont seem to be able to do anything. I have a terrible relationship with food, in fact I despise it. Meal planning usually draws blanks.

I'm sorry that you aren't getting support from your doctor, or from the counselor you saw. Horrible advice to simply tell you to stop dieting. Is there anyway you can talk with someone else, or at least meet with a registered dietian?

yirara · June 2020

Treatment for things such as thyroid, iron and B12 deficiency is ridiculously bad in the UK. Suffering from all three I know this too well (I live elsewhere now). I usually got what I wanted, but I've never been so sick that I could not fight for myself. But that's why I suggested joining a patient group online. They might have some advice for you.

Ok, so you are 5.4 feet, that's 164cm? Weight is around 110kg? then I get maintenance calories of around 2200 calories per day provided you're sedentary. 2500 calories per day would see you gain weight in that case. Can you explain where the 2500 comes from? Is this from MFP or somewhere else?

If I got it wrong: Maybe your therapist isn't quite so wrong. Eat at maintenance for a while and use the settings that MFP gives you. Make sure you're weighing everything that has calories on a digital scale and make sure you chose correct database entries. When you cook food then log all separate ingredients. See how you feel with that and if you can keep those binges under control. If you binge just accept it, and also log what you binge. If this works for a while then set yourself a very moderate weightloss goal. Start with the lowest you can set MFP to. Yes, weight loss will be slow, but you know what: losing slower is better than trying too much and gaining it all back, and then some. Slow and steady, and building a healthy relationship with food is more important than to lose all the weight now.

vggb · June 2020

I am 5'3" and just personal experience, I would gain on 2500 calories/day.

I like to eat simple, no in depth planning or fixing so I eat a lot of raw veggies and fruit, salad out of a bag with a balsamic vinegar, very little to no bread and don't use boxed meal preps.

For protein I eat poached eggs, Greek yogurt, chicken, lean ground turkey, lean ground beef and oven fried fish.

I don't use added salt or sugar. I drink black coffee in the morning and water for the rest of the day.

It took some getting used to but it's just so easy now. Anyway, just a simple idea for you to find a starting point.

vggb · June 2020

oh and I don't eat dairy anymore, doctor thing.

emmabrookes1 · June 2020

it seems you could maybe benefit from constructing a list of breakfasts, lunches and dinners that fit into your daily cal count. This avoids having to think about the cals on a daily basis, do the weighing and adding etc.
Eg out of 2200 daily calories you could have 6-700 cals per meal (or divide up however you wish eg smaller meals leaving some cals for snacks)
You could do this just as a planning exercise and potentially have a very small repeating rotation of dishes if that helps. This would mean you wouldn't have to count things every day and could help you feel less like you're 'on a diet' and feel deprived. you could tell yourself it's just a new schedule, a new routine, nothing to stress about.
You could use ready meals + microwave veg/bagged salad; beans on toast + yoghurt + banana; don't feel that you're condemned to failure because you're not feeling inspired about food right now.

briscogun · June 2020

flo_soup76 wrote: »

Had counselling for the binge eating, their response was to stop dieting.

harper16 wrote: »

I'm sorry that you aren't getting support from your doctor, or from the counselor you saw. Horrible advice to simply tell you to stop dieting. Is there anyway you can talk with someone else, or at least meet with a registered dietian?

In the counselors defense, if their job was to stop the binge eating, then removing the restrictive part of the diet (eating at a deficit) would help do that. Some people struggle with the restrictions of eating at a deficit and after a few days/weeks go off the rails and binge. Start eating at a deficit again, the whole cycle repeats. They weren't trying to help with weight loss just stop the binge eating.

I would think that finding a good therapist that can help with both the need to lose weight and address the tendency to binge would be your best bet. I'm assuming that this would require being not so aggressive with your weight loss to prevent any desire to binge, so it would be a balancing act for sure. I know others on this site have had different challenges to overcome and have been successful so it can be done!

Good luck!

heybales · June 2020

OP - When that eating goal was given to you, did you tell them you planned on doing some level of weekly exercise?

Did you do the amount you told them you planned on doing?

Almost all other methods of weight control use TDEE weekly estimates averaged out daily - so exercise would have been included.

The problem as many discover there that if the workouts aren't done - you don't lose weight, or it's much slower than you thought and people wonder why because they don't understand the whole concept.

That's why MFP doesn't include exercise until actually done - teaching a better life lesson about weight management.
You do more you eat more. You do less you eat less.

So to briscogun's point that they probably were attempting maintenance first - if you didn't do the workouts you'd actually gain weight.

I'll add too that many with underlying medical conditions already have a stressed body - and a diet to some degree is an extra stress on the body depending on how big a deficit you attempt to make it. More stress not good.
What other people with average healthy bodies can find as a reasonable deficit for weight loss will not be the case for you. You'll have to go slower for the loss.
Which means less margin for error when it comes time to diet for weight loss again.

ETA:
Looking at the program you joined that gave you the 2500 - I'll bet it was TDEE method.
And they gave you a workout plan since they appear to be trainers.
So they expected certain amount of exercise - did you do that much?

https://teamrhfitness.com/

How long were you doing that before you decided it wasn't working - your timeline info is lacking.

ETA2:
Your stats in TDEE calc with 5 hours of exercise a week (not unreasonable) and 500 cal deficit would give a 2500 eating goal.

Fail the exercise and there is your 500 surplus for weight gain.
Several ways this goes that 2500 was reasonable on info they were given.

Confused about it all

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