Guidance Needed

I feel like this particular period of time has been hard. We've been in quarantine and in winter. But, spring is coming, the light is returning, the quarantine will hopefully lift, and we will all be able to be more active and social in the near future! I got to jog in shorts yesterday! This is giving me hope as I battle my winter weight bump.

My suggestion with your diary is to use the password feature and share it only with people who are really helpful. I've seen a lot of negativity. I agree with @MaltedTea (as usual) that finding a nutritionist is a good idea. You can share exclusively with them, for example, or anyone you choose.

Best of luck!

Oneka5 wrote: »

Lietchi wrote: »

You don't seem to be weighing any of your foods, all I see is foods in numbers of servings, slices, units, tablespoons...
And the foods like 'tuna salad' and 'cauliflower rice chicken casserole', are these recipes you've created yourself based on the weights of the individual ingredients you used? Or using generic entries you found in the databse?
I would start there, you may be consuming more calories than you think.

Yeah I guess I haven't had issues before so I haven't thought much about how I measure. When I meal prep next, I will weigh the food instead bc I have seen in the forums that it is a difference. Thanks! And yes those recipes are what I created. and I realize I could be off so I try to not eat all my calories or eat my fitness calories. just leaving some room for error.

If you under-fuel exercise, it can be counter-productive for weight loss, let alone health.

Underfueled exercise can have multiple negative effects.

One is that fatigue - possibly subtle fatigue - increases and bleeds calorie burn out of daily life (more resting, less movement (even things like fidgeting), slower hair/nails growth, maybe feeling cold more often . . . ).

Another it that exercise is a beneficial physical stress, within reason . . . but still a stressor. Stress in our lives is cumulative, across both physical and psychological stressors. A calorie deficit (at all) is a physical stress (a big one is a big stress, of course), exercise is a physical stress (and more exercise is more stress, so it can go beyond beneficial), and those add on to other stresses from job, home life, sub-ideal nutrition, pandemic, finances, or anything else. High stress can increase the probability of creeping water weight increase, and that water weight can hide fat loss on the bodyweight scale. How is your cumulative stress level?

Also, I believe that our bodies are good at adapting to the things we train them to do, via repetition. Are you training your body to thrive, or are you persuading it that it's in a time of famine and it should limp along spending the minimum of calories to keep you alive and moving? (Hunger is not a good indicator of where we are on that spectrum, IME as someone who accidentally under-ate for a short time.) It's possible for you to reduce your calorie needs, which will slow your weight loss, by training your body to expect famine conditions.

You've increased your exercise. If you're not eating back any exercise calories, I'd encourage you to reconsider whether that's still a good idea. For health-risk reasons, I think it's sensible to lose weight more slowly as goal gets closer.

I don't think any of what I'm saying is the pure and only reason you're not seeing weight loss now. The food-logging side is worth tightening down, and may shed light on the situation. But as you get closer to goal, managing all the factors carefully is going to be a help in making progress, especially in a slow-loss scenario (and help you create a good on-ramp to successful long-term maintenance through sustainable, healthy habits).

The things I mention can certainly be muddying the waters as you try to figure out what's going on.

Wishing you success!