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I am an absolute failure. I have not lost 1 inch.
GiftedHealth
Posts: 266 Member
I am so angry aggravated and defeated. I have not lost one freaking inch since I’ve been watching my calories not one freaking inch. I’m stuck in a 38. I’m so sick of this.
1
Replies
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How long have you been "watching" your calories?1
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For months2
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I'm sorry for you. It must be very frustrating. You don't say if you have lost pounds, just said you haven't lost inches. Have you lost weight? What is your calorie limit for the day? What is your TDEE? What is your exercise load? Or how many steps do you walk a day?What is your calorie deficit? Have you been weighing and measuring your food and entering it all in? Have you been tracking your exercise? If you don't know some of this, it might help to purchase a wearable fitness tracker that syncs with myfitnesspal, there are many available and many are inexpensive. That would give you some statistics to help you understand what you need to do to lose weight, if that is the problem. If it is inches (which usually comes as well with losing weight but maybe that is more your issue) there may be others who can advise you on toning exercises1
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If your purpose in posting was just to vent some stress, that's absolutely understandable, and I do understand how frustrating that would be, especially if doing some quite difficult things to try to get smaller.
If you'd like some help figuring out what to tweak in your approach to maybe get results you like better, answering some of the questions in the post above would help us help you. In my experience, people here really do sincerely try to help others succeed.
One thing I do want to say, because I'm concerned: I absolutely can understand some negative feelings in this situation, but you are absolutely not "a failure", if you ask me. Trying to lose weight or inches isn't a character test, not getting the results we want isn't a moral failure, and I think you should be giving yourself credit for working at this, even if the results so far haven't been what you'd hoped. None of this is a measure of our worth as a human being.
Losing weight/inches can be complicated. It can require patience, persistence, maybe shifts in tactics before finding the right plan. You're working at it. That's a good thing, a big deal. I'd say: Give yourself some credit, give yourself some grace.
Best wishes going forward!8 -
On the plus side... it doesn't sound as if you've GAINED inches either. So, presumably, this is at the very least HALF good!
A funny story is how hard it is for someone to make sure that they have a non extendable tape placed consistently around a particular part of their anatomy without error, slippage, having the tape end up sagging or not sagging when it is behind their back and otherwise.... well... consistently measuring themselves!
I can tell you that I most certainly didn't manage that because by the time I had found my bottom rib and the top of my illiac bone and marked with a marker the midpoint between the two and tracked down a non expandable tape I could never figure out if I was supposed to inhale, exhale, do a small inhale or a large exhale and yes the differences were most certainly in the half inch to an inch especially when the tape was not 100% parallel to the ground in the back.
And as far as thighs and sagging buttocks go or belly buttons... well. They are stories all by themselves.
So yeah. In the end it made more sense TO ME to just hop on the scale daily and hope that the smoothing created by a weight trend app would give me a good indication of whether my general weight level was going up or down over time periods in the month range as opposed to considering results in the day to day range.
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GiftedHealth wrote: »For months
OK, so 4 weeks ago you were despairing, and posted saying you were only eating at a little bit of a deficit. When you posted then, you'd been tracking calories for 38 days. You got some REALLY good advice, and you took that advice on board, accepting that you were eating at maintenance.
SO it's only been 4 weeks since you got that advice, realised you were eating at maintenance. What have you done since then to tighten up your eating and logging and ensuring you're at a deficit?
Hon, you have a long history on MFP of despair and doom when you don't see drastic results in short periods of time. You also seem to bounce around from idea to idea, looking for the magic bullet. The magic is time, and consistency.6 -
patriciafoley1 wrote: »I'm sorry for you. It must be very frustrating. You don't say if you have lost pounds, just said you haven't lost inches. Have you lost weight? What is your calorie limit for the day? What is your TDEE? What is your exercise load? Or how many steps do you walk a day?What is your calorie deficit? Have you been weighing and measuring your food and entering it all in? Have you been tracking your exercise? If you don't know some of this, it might help to purchase a wearable fitness tracker that syncs with myfitnesspal, there are many available and many are inexpensive. That would give you some statistics to help you understand what you need to do to lose weight, if that is the problem. If it is inches (which usually comes as well with losing weight but maybe that is more your issue) there may be others who can advise you on toning exercises
I did start doing toning exercises and I was very encouraged because I felt tight in my abdomen. I let that slide for a few days but I’m gonna start taking that up again. I just can’t stand not fitting into my work clothes correctly. I wanna go from a 38 to a 34 and it just seems to be at a stand still. I will start the toning exercises again.
As for regular exercises, I barely go to the gym. I should.
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If your purpose in posting was just to vent some stress, that's absolutely understandable, and I do understand how frustrating that would be, especially if doing some quite difficult things to try to get smaller.
If you'd like some help figuring out what to tweak in your approach to maybe get results you like better, answering some of the questions in the post above would help us help you. In my experience, people here really do sincerely try to help others succeed.
One thing I do want to say, because I'm concerned: I absolutely can understand some negative feelings in this situation, but you are absolutely not "a failure", if you ask me. Trying to lose weight or inches isn't a character test, not getting the results we want isn't a moral failure, and I think you should be giving yourself credit for working at this, even if the results so far haven't been what you'd hoped. None of this is a measure of our worth as a human being.
Losing weight/inches can be complicated. It can require patience, persistence, maybe shifts in tactics before finding the right plan. You're working at it. That's a good thing, a big deal. I'd say: Give yourself some credit, give yourself some grace.
Best wishes going forward!
Thank you for your support. I really have to learn how to correctly weigh my food. For the most part it’s a guessing game with me. I just wanna get back down to 34 inch waist. I want to get from 198 to 165 again. I don’t know why this is not happening. This is just absolutely torturing me.
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Someone mentioned a tracker to track how much my movement is during the day. That’s a good idea. I should get one.0
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GiftedHealth wrote: »Someone mentioned a tracker to track how much my movement is during the day. That’s a good idea. I should get one.
What the others said: you're just jumping onto something new. A tracker does not do anything for you, other than give you a number. A number that is an estimate and that is only as realistic or bad as the algorithm used and as your body works. Like: if it uses heart rate for calorie estimates and you happen to have a naturally higher heartrate, or POTs then you'd get crazy calorie burns on the device that don't exist in reality. I'm not sure whether a tracker really is a good idea for you as you'd just get desperate within a few days again. Focus on what's important: track with a scale for 4-6 weeks, every day, and then see what your weight is doing. Keep it simple, not add more clutter.5 -
Time to start putting everything on a digital food scale (peeled banana, dry pasta, cheese, grapes, yummy slice of sourdough from a publix loaf) and develop long term patience rather than come up with brand new ideas all the time!5
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GiftedHealth wrote: »If your purpose in posting was just to vent some stress, that's absolutely understandable, and I do understand how frustrating that would be, especially if doing some quite difficult things to try to get smaller.
If you'd like some help figuring out what to tweak in your approach to maybe get results you like better, answering some of the questions in the post above would help us help you. In my experience, people here really do sincerely try to help others succeed.
One thing I do want to say, because I'm concerned: I absolutely can understand some negative feelings in this situation, but you are absolutely not "a failure", if you ask me. Trying to lose weight or inches isn't a character test, not getting the results we want isn't a moral failure, and I think you should be giving yourself credit for working at this, even if the results so far haven't been what you'd hoped. None of this is a measure of our worth as a human being.
Losing weight/inches can be complicated. It can require patience, persistence, maybe shifts in tactics before finding the right plan. You're working at it. That's a good thing, a big deal. I'd say: Give yourself some credit, give yourself some grace.
Best wishes going forward!
Thank you for your support. I really have to learn how to correctly weigh my food. For the most part it’s a guessing game with me. I just wanna get back down to 34 inch waist. I want to get from 198 to 165 again. I don’t know why this is not happening. This is just absolutely torturing me.
At the risk of being brutally frank:
No, "this" is not torturing you. You are torturing yourself about this.
I believe very strongly that in any situation we don't like, we need to focus on the parts of the situation we can control, or at minimum influence to some extent.
I'm not saying it's necessarily easy, because it certainly isn't, but one thing we absolutely control in any situation is our own mindset and attitude about it.
You also control things others have commented on: What you eat and drink, what you weigh on a food scale, what you log in your food diary . . . and how you react both emotionally and in a practical sense to the multi-week results that result from all of that.3 -
GiftedHealth wrote: »Thank you for your support. I really have to learn how to correctly weigh my food. For the most part it’s a guessing game with me. I just wanna get back down to 34 inch waist. I want to get from 198 to 165 again. I don’t know why this is not happening. This is just absolutely torturing me.
I use both an activity tracker and a food scale. Based on your posts in this thread, I would recommend you start with a food scale since that really is fundamental. I prefer a digital scale that you can zero with a weight on it and can toggle among different measures (ounce, gram, fluid ounce). All this makes it easy (for home prepared food anyway). You simply put your bowl or plate on the scale then zero it so it weighs whatever you put on the plate. You can zero between each item you plate. There are a couple of bonuses to this: 1- you train your eyes to see what different portion sizes look like on your plate and 2- you can use the same scale and technique to follow recipes that list ingredients by weight and 3 - you don't get measuring cups and spoons dirty so less clean up. A nondigital kitchen scale works too, I just find a digital food scale easier to use and read.
An activity tracker is obviously more expensive (a food scale may cost $10 or less on sale). It doesn't really do much for you diet wise and that is really core to what you are working on. It is still a great tool for seeing how active or inactive you really are and giving you actionable information to improve on it. I think it fits into the nice to have not need to have category. If it motivates you to move more, that's great. My concern is just from your post that accurate food logging and mental mindset are probably the things that will make the biggest difference at least initially.3 -
I like the commenter who pointed out your language. “I am a failure” is unnecessary. “My current strategies for guessing my total calories has failed” is accurate.3
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When I get home I will start to get serious with the advice on this thread. See you soon. Thanks everyone.4
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GiftedHealth wrote: »When I get home I will start to get serious with the advice on this thread. See you soon. Thanks everyone.
Please do keep on posting! We're here to help even though it might sometimes sound a bit harsh. You got this ❤️2 -
At first I thought Alatariel75 was being a bit harsh, then I looked up your recent discussions. It looks like you rejoined the discussion community in January. That’s only 6 weeks. On average, a person who is at a caloric deficit will lose between a half and two pounds per week. It seems like you are not being very accurate with your food logging, so let’s say you are at the half pound a week. That would be three pounds. You know spot reducing is not possible. So, those three pounds are going to be spread all over your body. Although, it is possible to lose an inch in six weeks, it is not possible at such a small caloric deficit.
You need consistency and time. My suggestions:
Break your goals into smaller more achievable milestones.
Track your intake accurately. And completely. Every bite, taste, sip
Go for a walk everyday
Drink two glasses of water before every meal
Stick to it — this is a journey
This next one is going to be difficult — change your mindset — focus on what’s good
I also have 30 pounds to lose. I call it my Covid + menopause weight. I restarted tracking my food in January. It is slow going, I’m targeting a half pound per week. I’d like to lose it faster than that, but that rate is what is working for me right now. I know it took me four years to gain this weight and I’m not going to lose it overnight. 60 weeks (yes, that is 14 months!) is how long it will likely take me. I’m ok with that because I’m tracking my weight, my food and doing monthly photos in my ‘target’ outfit.
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I also use an activity tracker and a food scale. I found them both invaluable. Sure I go through stalls in weight loss, where the scale may not move for a week or two, and it's frustrating. I don't really track inches except by clothes that don't fit anymore. But I've lost almost 40 pounds since October using a food scale, a fitbit and counting my calories and walking. A lot. So I do recommend them. I can't speak to not losing inches because I'm not concentrating on that. But I have gone from obese to almost ideal weight (13 pounds to go before I hit that goal). And I'm old, short, post menopausal and walking, right now, is pretty much my only exercise as I fell on the ice a few weeks ago, jammed my shoulder and still can't raise my arm above my waist very well. That doesn't mean scales and trackers are a guarantee, nor that the calories burned as indicated by the tracker, not even the calories taken in, indicated by the scale will be 100% accurate. In fact, it's a given they probably aren't, but they give a ball park. And I never eat most of my exercise calories back to allow for a cushion for inaccuracy.
Anyway, I hope you find something that works for you.2 -
When I get my head screwed on straight, I am going to start a new positive strong thread, where I am confused and where I am not doing things right with calories exercise and weighting food1
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patriciafoley1 wrote: »I also use an activity tracker and a food scale. I found them both invaluable. Sure I go through stalls in weight loss, where the scale may not move for a week or two, and it's frustrating. I don't really track inches except by clothes that don't fit anymore. But I've lost almost 40 pounds since October using a food scale, a fitbit and counting my calories and walking. A lot. So I do recommend them. I can't speak to not losing inches because I'm not concentrating on that. But I have gone from obese to almost ideal weight (13 pounds to go before I hit that goal). And I'm old, short, post menopausal and walking, right now, is pretty much my only exercise as I fell on the ice a few weeks ago, jammed my shoulder and still can't raise my arm above my waist very well. That doesn't mean scales and trackers are a guarantee, nor that the calories burned as indicated by the tracker, not even the calories taken in, indicated by the scale will be 100% accurate. In fact, it's a given they probably aren't, but they give a ball park. And I never eat most of my exercise calories back to allow for a cushion for inaccuracy.
Anyway, I hope you find something that works for you.
Wow, your post is so encouraging to me. 40 pounds since October? That’s just beautiful! I’m 64 and I’m at a standstill. Your post is really encouraging to me. I know I have to start using an electronic scale and I have one. I just never really learned how to use it.
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GiftedHealth wrote: »patriciafoley1 wrote: »I also use an activity tracker and a food scale. I found them both invaluable. Sure I go through stalls in weight loss, where the scale may not move for a week or two, and it's frustrating. I don't really track inches except by clothes that don't fit anymore. But I've lost almost 40 pounds since October using a food scale, a fitbit and counting my calories and walking. A lot. So I do recommend them. I can't speak to not losing inches because I'm not concentrating on that. But I have gone from obese to almost ideal weight (13 pounds to go before I hit that goal). And I'm old, short, post menopausal and walking, right now, is pretty much my only exercise as I fell on the ice a few weeks ago, jammed my shoulder and still can't raise my arm above my waist very well. That doesn't mean scales and trackers are a guarantee, nor that the calories burned as indicated by the tracker, not even the calories taken in, indicated by the scale will be 100% accurate. In fact, it's a given they probably aren't, but they give a ball park. And I never eat most of my exercise calories back to allow for a cushion for inaccuracy.
Anyway, I hope you find something that works for you.
Wow, your post is so encouraging to me. 40 pounds since October? That’s just beautiful! I’m 64 and I’m at a standstill. Your post is really encouraging to me. I know I have to start using an electronic scale and I have one. I just never really learned how to use it.
Getting to know how to use your scale, using it all the time, and tracking accurately is going to be your biggest and best friend. Honestly, I really feel for you, and I don't know what changes you did make in the last 4 weeks, but if you'd taken the using a scale advice you were given then and implemented it, you might not be here having another breakdown now. I say this not to be mean, but as a text based grabbing you by the shoulders and giving you a good shake and telling you - Stop. Breathe. Relax.
You seem to bounce around from idea and plan like a bouncy ball, emotionally escalating when you don't see immediate results, but not really engaging with anything well enough, or long enough, to have it show results.
Search up some videos on YouTube on how to weigh your food accurately, using your scale. I promise that if you can use this forum, you can use your scale!!
This thread has some really helpful info, give it a read: https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1296011/calorie-counting-101/p1
Read these for information about logging accurately:
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1234699/logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide/p1
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10012907/logging-accuracy-consistency-and-youre-probably-eating-more-than-you-think/p1
And STAY CALM. You are doing yourself NO favours by spinning into a shame spiral every few weeks. The process works, but you need to learn it, implement it and trust it.4 -
Thank you for your support. I really have to learn how to correctly weigh my food. For the most part it’s a guessing game with me.
I think this is crux of your problem - too much guessing and not accurate weighing/ logging.2 -
I have a Cuisaid AccuWeigh ProDigital scale. I’ll start learning how to use it correctly.1
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I looked up your scale. There are only three buttons.
1) on the bottom of the device is a selection to choose the unit of measurement. You need to decide if you want to weigh in grams or ounces, then make that selection.
2) on - off —> hopefully, that’s pretty self explanatory.
3) Tare —> the tare buttons allows you to zero out the scale between additions. For example, say you are having granola and yogurt for breakfast, you’d use it like this:
A) Turn on the scale
B )Put a bowl on the scale
C) Click Tare —> now the scale will show 0 weight
D) Put in the bowl whatever you want to weigh. In my example the granola. This scale will show the weight of that item —> log this food amount in MFP diary
E) Click Tare —> now the scale will show 0 weight
F) Put in the bowl the second food you want to weigh. In my example the yogurt. The scale will show the weight of that item. —> log this food amount in MFP diary
It is just that simple. I do it every morning for my breakfast. It does not take any longer than just putting the food directly in the bowl and I get he benefit of ensuring I’m eating the amount I want to eat.
To make it as easy as possible, we leave our food scale on the kitchen counter.
Let us know if you need further help on how to use the scale.7 -
You wrote "Wow, your post is so encouraging to me. 40 pounds since October? That’s just beautiful! I’m 64 and I’m at a standstill."
I am 68, soon to be 69 in a few months. So it can be done. Also, I don't have the ability to go to the gym as I live on top of an ice covered mountain. The only real walking I can get is inside (apart from very careful trips outside with crampons on my feet to feed birds). So you don't need a gym or be discouraged by inclement weather. Just a personal scale, a food scale and enough space to walk around the room can get you on your way. (Edited to add:: a tracker can help you by counting steps for you and giving you calories burned.)
Perhaps you want to join the challenge "Just give ten days" for encouragement.
Here's my stats for the last few days
2/19 w 160.4, steps 21,530, calories eaten 1034, calories burned 2566
2/20 w 160.2, steps 23,622, calories eaten 1004, calories burned 2634
2/21 w 158.6, steps 21,292, calories eaten 1077, calories burned 2537, Met my mini goal of160 today next mini goal 157
2/22 w 158.6, steps 24,112, calories eaten 1043, calories burned 2702
2/23 w 158.6, steps 21,926, calories eaten 1235, calories burned 2832
2/24 w 157.62
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