Thread: Help me to not give up! Please!

Okay. So I started. I did really well.

Started at 233 lbs on January 11th.
Weighed in January 16th - 226.6.

THEN I went to a family dinner and overate really bad food. Fine, I though. Not a worry. I can get rid of it. It's just a blip.

Since then I started exercise. At least one hour, at least 6 days a week. And I feel like I can feel myself getting a bit smaller... waist moving in, a little from the chin... clothes a little loser. Movement a little easier. That kind of thing.

But the scales are going UP!!

Now, I am doing a lot of things that work the thighs, and putting some resistance work in there as well with bands, so i know I will be building muscle where previously there would have been literally nothing... but I've been gaining again for the last little while, and now I'm back up to 228.4 lbs.

WHY?! I'm eating well... vegetable and kidney bean stew for dinner most days, lean meat or fish salad for lunch, fruit for breakfast and snacks, drinking lots of water and green tea... I'm hardly ever going over 1500 calories a day and never below 1200...

HELP! I feel like it's all pointless.

Get the tape measure out if you can see yourself losing inches then don't let the scales upset you!! They will start heading downhill again soon!!

Dear Whelpling,

You are doing really well. So dust yourself off and have a re-think.

It's a little unclear - are you up 2 pounds or 7lbs? That could be muscle.

The Alizonne clinic checks all clients' BMR (basal metabolic rate) when they start. I've heard that some clients have BMRs of 1,400 or lower. So it's possible that 1,500 may be too many. Alternatively, and I realise this isnt very helpful to offer a complete contradiction, your body may have decided it's being starved.

My suggestions are:
- to replace the fruit with small 100-150 snacks protein snacks. the protein will rev up yr metabolism.
- replace yr veg and bean stew with more protein and low calorie veg such as broccoli and fennel
-reduce exercising to 3 days a week and walk on other days.

Some other ideas:
- weigh everything and calculate it for 5 -7 days. Even tomatoes etc. Just a few underestimates could make the difference.
- If you have diet sodas, eliminate them, as some bodies seem to respond to the sweetening.
- measure yourself. Fitday.com allows you to track measurements. You may be loosing inches if its muscle. It's american but also has a good calorie tracker too.
- consider doing Slimming World or something that appeals on line to get a proven system.

Maybe others can also assist. I do hope you find a way to get back onto a system that works for you.

Ali

Thank you for the replies.

Legomom - I will get a measuring tape first thing tomorrow! I'm really motivated (and demotivated, as you can tell), by results or lack of. Thanks.

Ali - thank you for your post. I'm up from my initial week's loss by only 2lbs. A little less maybe. Now that I think of it that way, and consider the weekend I had, that's not as bad as I'd thought.

I've been trying to use fruit as snacks for fiber - I recently gave up smoking, so I need all the help I can get in that regard (sorry for too much info!), and I'm gluten intolerant, so I'm adjusting to what grain products I can use etc. Should I change over to protein still?

The stew is basically cabbage, carrots, onion, leek, broccoli, kidney beans and a few skin-on baby new potatoes boiled up together. Is this bad you think?

And what's the reason for reducing exercise to 3 days instead of 6? I am varying my exercise, doing a different routine (from several DVDs) every day. But do you think I could be overdoing it and aking my body say 'no' to weight loss?

I think I will do what you said with weighing and calculating too. I don't want to do slimming world of weight watchers, because I need something that will teach me to eat healthily so that i get to a point where putting naturally healthy food into my mouth at a rate that's not excessive comes naturally and doesn't leave me feeling restricted. I've been overweight since I was a child and never really actually put a lot of prolonged effort into losing. So it's an education!

Thanks!!

I wonder if you arent just building muscle. Weight loss may be lower but more sustainable.

What about hanging out wth the calorie counters? They might have good stuff to teach you. I also suspect if you havent been weighing and measuring you will be higher on calories than you think, even with the veggie stew. I don't know enough about nutrition to comment on yr stew. The ingredients sound good!

I lost on Paleo eating before I decided I wanted to acelerate. Google it. Mark's Daily Apple, PaleoNu and Low Carb Winning in Sweden | Dietdoctor.com are good starting places. I recommend keeping an eye on portion sizes and not going overboard on fat! It's low carb and very healthy. Lots of inspirational stories.

Have fun and stay in touch!

Ali

Originally Posted by AliGal

I wonder if you arent just building muscle. Weight loss may be lower but more sustainable.

That would be nice! haha.

Thank you for your help.

The scales didn't go up today. But they only went down by 0.2. Fingers crossed!

Finished up at 225.2. So an overall loss. Crisis over! Phew!

Sorry but you do not build muscle in a couple of weeks - it takes months of intensive weight training before you could build muscle to the extent that it might affect losses. If you are new to exercise, and it sounds like you have suddenly gone exercise mad (too much imho) then it is more likely to be your muscles retaining fluid to repair themselves. it is very common when people start exercising to see them gain because they are not drinking enough water. But this resolves itself in a few weeks and then you start to see the benefit.

Good luck! x