I can't lose weight

Makapakka

I've been trying for so long. I've been going to a personal trainer about 4 months now. I know I've built muscle but I'm 104kg. I'm only 5 ft 4 and a female. It's too much. My clothes still don't fit, I hate my stomach, I just want to weigh less. I eat less than 2000 calories a day. Some days I eat more but not a lot. I just don't know what else to do. My meals are healthy, my snacks are mostly healthy, I don't drink soda, I dont smoke. I walk everywhere. I am fed up. What am I doing wrong?

sReq | uTeK

Makapakka wrote: »

I've been trying for so long. I've been going to a personal trainer about 4 months now. I know I've built muscle but I'm 104kg. I'm only 5 ft 4 and a female. It's too much. My clothes still don't fit, I hate my stomach, I just want to weigh less. I eat less than 2000 calories a day. Some days I eat more but not a lot. I just don't know what else to do. My meals are healthy, my snacks are mostly healthy, I don't drink soda, I dont smoke. I walk everywhere. I am fed up. What am I doing wrong?

Changing your trainer would be a good start. Have you iterated to him it's not muscle you want and actually weight loss.

Weight loss is something you want to do gradually, aim for a pound a week over 12 weeks. Cardio and light weights along with a healthy lifestyle, cut out sugars, salts and processed food along with a shed load of carbs.

Eating 5/6 small meals and snacks a day is significantly better than 2-3 times a day, you will increase your metabolism significantly allowing you to burn the fat easier.

Makapakka

Makapakka wrote: »

I've been trying for so long. I've been going to a personal trainer about 4 months now. I know I've built muscle but I'm 104kg. I'm only 5 ft 4 and a female. It's too much. My clothes still don't fit, I hate my stomach, I just want to weigh less. I eat less than 2000 calories a day. Some days I eat more but not a lot. I just don't know what else to do. My meals are healthy, my snacks are mostly healthy, I don't drink soda, I dont smoke. I walk everywhere. I am fed up. What am I doing wrong?

How much did you weigh 4 months ago?

I'm open to correction here but for your height and gender 2000 calories a day is maintenance mode, as in not losing and not gaining. You say you eat less than 2000 a day, but how much less than 2000 a day are you eating. Also how much more do you eat on the days you eat more than 2000?

Put it like this, if you consume 1900 calories a day 6 days a week, and one day a week you eat 2600 calories, then over the course of a week, you're weight will stay exactly the same.

You say your snack are healthy. What do you usually have as a snack and how often do you snack?

Pterosaur

Are you sure you are eating less than 2000 calories a day.

You have calculated this? using the labels on food, weighing food, and looking up nutritional values online in the absense of labels?

If not then this needs to be calculated, it can add up so fast.

Cake Man

sReq | uTeK wrote: »

Changing your trainer would be a good start. Have you iterated to him it's not muscle you want and actually weight loss.

Weight loss is something you want to do gradually, aim for a pound a week over 12 weeks. Cardio and light weights along with a healthy lifestyle, cut out sugars, salts and processed food along with a shed load of carbs.

Eating 5/6 small meals and snacks a day is significantly better than 2-3 times a day, you will increase your metabolism significantly allowing you to burn the fat easier.

Some awful advice there between demonising carbs and perpetuating the myth of meal frequency = "keeping metabolism going" which just isn't true. Doesn't matter when you eat, your body has no concept of day/night. All that matters is the total amount of calories consumed over the course of the day. Carbs don't make you put on weight, excess calories make you put on weight.
Also, why light weights? Grand when starting out but progressive overload (i.e. lifting heavier as you are getting stronger) is required to start seeing results.


OP, all well and good saying you eat healthy but that in itself means nothing. If you are still eating more calories than what your body needs, you will put on weight no matter how "healthy" it is. You could gain weight by eating nothing but salads, fruit and veg if you ate at a calorie surplus.
You need to work out your TDEE (google TDEE calculator). Eat a little bit less than that which will mean tracking calories - use myfitnesspal or another calorie tracking app. Otherwise you've no idea how much you are consuming and if you say you're not losing, then it simply means you're not in a calorie deficit (i.e. still eating too much). No other way.

Makapakka

I've calculated my tdee before and it's out me at around 2400 calories for maintenance but I think that's because I'm putting my weight in at 104kg. Do I enter the weight I wish to be? It's all so confusing.

Yes I use my fitness pal all the time and weigh and scan a lot of foods. I find it hard to be consistent though and I think this is causing my body to just hang on to the fat because it doesn't know which way to go any more

Alf Veedersane

Makapakka wrote: »

I've calculated my tdee before and it's out me at around 2400 calories for maintenance but I think that's because I'm putting my weight in at 104kg. Do I enter the weight I wish to be? It's all so confusing.

Enter the weight you are. Your needs will be higher at a heavier weight.

Consistency will help. And if you're consistently averaging 2,000 calories a day and the scales isn't moving down, then drop your intake a little more and see if/how the numbers change.

A calculated TDEE isn't going to be an exact figure but a decent approximation so you won't know for sure until you monitor your intake and observe what, if any, changes there are and amend your intake depending on those changes.

Tombo2001

Disclaimer - I can only say what I would do, not if this works for you.

Personally, I've never counted calories in my life; I would feel that doing so would set off too many negative thoughts.

In simple terms:
Diet - you know what good food is; you know what crap food is......you are an adult and how your diet is balanced between the two.

Exercise - it needs to be about routine and incorporating exercise into your daily life so that you almost don't even think about it. The most obvious example would be - can you cycle to work.

After that, the easiest form of exercise to incorporate into your daily life is running. To compare - Personal trainer and all that - you pack your bag, you leave your house, you get to the gym, you put on your gear......its like 45 mins in before you even start doing any exercise. So much hassle for so little return.

Running - you put on your gear, you step out the door and exercise begins straight away.

In the exercise 'pyramid' - walking is at the bottom, slow running is in the middle, and fast running is at the top. Run 6 times a week and you will see multiple multiple benefits that go far beyond weight loss.

pinkypinky

How often are you exercising? How many times a week are you seeing the trainer?

Perhaps post up a sample day's food too. It might need some tweaking.

bladespin

Makapakka wrote: »

I eat less than 2000 calories a day. Some days I eat more but not a lot.

What's your height and age? What sort of training are you performing? Just 'having' a PT won't loose you any weight, it's the nutrition and training that'll do it.

In simple terms:

Diet - you know what good food is; you know what crap food is......you are an adult and how your diet is balanced between the two.

Thats far too simplistic a view. How do you define good food? Non-processed? Low in calories? If the OP or anyone for that matter, switched to only eating fresh fruit and vegetables, they would still put on weight if they are consuming more calories than their body needs in the course of a day.

Psychologeeee

Would it be worth logging a week of food on My Fitness Pal using your food scales etc at home, just to check how things average out over a week?

bladespin

Psychologeeee wrote:

Would it be worth logging a week of food on My Fitness Pal using your food scales etc at home, just to check how things average out over a week?

Very, just understanding what you're putting into your body could be the key, it's incredibly easy to underestimate calories, particularly in 'healthy' foods.

Zillah

Makapakka wrote: »

I find it hard to be consistent though and I think this is causing my body to just hang on to the fat because it doesn't know which way to go any more

This is not how the body works. If you are eating fewer calories than you need then your body will take them from bodyfat (first choice), muscle (second choice), and finally organs (last choice - happens during literal starvation).

The body will not 'hang on to' fat. You die if you don't have energy to run the body, it's getting the calories somewhere. If you're not losing fat then your total calorie intake is too high. You're very likely entering optimistic calorie counts, underestimating portions, turning a blind eye to the extra snacks or portions here or there, etc.

It's been shown again and again that people (especially overweight people) eat far more food than they think they do. There is no secret answer, no special plan or solution you need: you're still eating too much. Cut out the snacks, have smaller portions, make your meals include more fresh veg and less of everything else. Make sure you get plenty of protein and fiber.

It might sound demotivating to say "eat less", but it's good news in my book. There's nothing wrong with you, you don't need to follow a special programme; what you need to do is entirely in your control, you just need to be more disciplined and honest with yourself.

Mellor

sReq | uTeK wrote: »

Changing your trainer would be a good start. Have you iterated to him it's not muscle you want and actually weight loss.

I'm sure the PR knows what her goals are. There's no way he'd mistakenly have her bulking at 104kg. And her diet approach reflects that.

Makapakka wrote: »

I've calculated my tdee before and it's out me at around 2400 calories for maintenance but I think that's because I'm putting my weight in at 104kg. Do I enter the weight I wish to be? It's all so confusing.

I'd be surprised if your TDEE was as high as 2400. Unless you are very active in your day job. I work out your sedantry TDEE as 2000. Gym work might bring that up to 2100.
I'd be targeting 1600 calories per day.

fleet

If i ate 2400 calories a day I'd be putting on weight, and I'm male and rather taller

I'm no nationalist but you're probably looking at 1400 to 1500 to see any loss.

The gym won't make much difference to weight loss itself. A couple of hundred calories per session depending on what you're doing. It'll mostly help with fitness and ensuring you keep the muscle tone.

RoisinClare6

Are you sure that's not just for maintenance? I just calculated my own there and it said 2094 cals to maintain, 1594 came per day to lose!

SozBbz

OP I really think you're over eating. Try MFP to work out those calories again because as someone who is 5 inches taller than you, 2000 would be about maintenance for me.

Unless you are literally on your feet running around all day every day, class yourself as lightly active only. Don't give yourself extra calories for exercise as we all tend to over estimate how much we've burned, so better just avoided.

I also followed Slimming World a while back (and still do sometimes if I don't have the time/patience to calorie count on a given day) which actually instilled great practices in me (its a very healthy plan once you don't fall into the muller light/mugshot trap and just concentrate on cooking your meals from scratch with a balance between carbs, lean meats and plenty of veg). I once recorded my entire week on SW in MFP and on average I was eating 1600 calories per day, so theres no magic to it, its really just calorie counting without realizing

At my current weight I can eat between 1500-1800 calories a day and lose 1-1.5lbs a week respectively according to MFP. I really think the numbers you've provided cannot possibly be right, and the fact that you're putting on weight only reinforces that.

I went to a trainer before who gave me a huge list of things to exclude from my diet (wheat, dairy, alcohol, root vegetables, any processed food) and even though I stuck to it like a mad woman for the 8 week programme and trained 3/4 times per week I only lost 7lbs and honestly I was devistated - my results didnt seem to match the massive effort I'd put in. In hindsight however, there was zero talk about portion control/calorie deficit so even though I felt I was massivly restricting myself, I was actually doing other things which were sabotaging my progress, for example part of the plan was to drink the juice of 2 lemons followed by 1tbsp of organic cold pressed olive oil as soon as I woke up. Looking back I feel this was absolute nonsense, yet I was convinced I was being so heathly and "detoxing" (utter nonsense). I was also freepouring olive oil on salads, frying steak in whatever random amount of butter etc etc. I still use both butter and olive oil now, but I watch quantities.

There are plenty of trainers out there who give some pretty ropey advice. The simple truth is you need a calorie deficit, regardless of whatever plan you use to achieve that.

harr

Would definitely be thinking about changing your trainer and changing to one who can do your dietary needs ..weekly weigh ins work for me as they keep me motivated not everyone agrees with weighing in..
I would agree with everyone here that your calorie intake seems high.
For me maintenance is 2300 and about 1800 to lose weight.
Get your diet in order and mix up the cardio and weights and don't eat or add the calories you burn in gym to daily calorie intake...as someone said it's not rocket science burn more calories than you consume and you will shift the weight even without a gym or personal trainer, yes it will take a lot longer by diet alone but the weight will drop..

tedpan

"Loose" is not the right word. She wants to lose weight.

Try to cut out as many processed foods as possible too. I lost 25KGs by cutting out fizzy drinks, chocolate and bread completely. I now eat salads and juice as much as possible. It will be tough, but only you will know if you're being bold. Took me six months, I go up and down a kilo or too but now I'm happy with my weight and now know which foods are affecting me. I also don't drink alcohol which really helps, there's so many calories in spirits and beer that lots of people forget about.

BrokenArrows

Its good that you're exercising and trying to keep in control of your diet but if you're not losing weight then the answer is simple. You are still eating too much. You could spend all day sitting on the couch but lose weight if your calorie intake was correct.

Keep up the exercise but reduce your calorie intake.
You may be miscalculating what you are eating or simply ignoring certain snacks throughout the day.

One thing I have regularly seen people ignore is their tea and coffee intake per day.

A regular coffee with milk and sugar has around 70-100 calories. Tea is around 50-60 i think.

Personally i drink about 5 cups of coffee a day which means im consuming 350-500 calories of purely coffee. Thats 500 calories of **** im drinking but my lifestyle is active and it doesnt impact me. Just something to pay attention to.

alanog1

2000 calories is quite low for 104kg Female, I am probably going to be burned at the stake here but I'd say up your calories slightly

harr

alanog1 wrote: »

2000 calories is quite low for 104kg Female, I am probably going to be burned at the stake here but I'd say up your calories slightly

Thats 2000 calories if she is counting everything she eats ,that 2000 could be higher depending on how well she is counting.
She isn't losing weight by eating 2000kcal so suggesting upping Is probably not the best move yet or at least till she figures out why the weight isn't falling ...

derb12

OP, what's your dress size and has that changed at all?
To be honest, I'm curious about the 104kg figure as I am a lot taller than you, trying to lose weight also but I'm 72kg.
Agree with all the others who say to lower calories by the way. I can't seem to lose weight ever without regular moderate exercise to help things along - 8k walk or a 30min slow run. But I've found intensive exercise to be counterproductive as I am just ravenous afterwards and find it harder to resist the munchies.

MPFGLB

My friend lost weight by

1. Cut all processed foods and takeaways
2. Cutting all sugar ...except occasional bar of dark chocolate, fruit ,honey, biscuit
3. Cutting down carbs (wholegrain unrefined) to 2 meals a day at breakfast/lunchtime, dinner is meat/fish & veg only with occasional glass of wine.
4. Doing HITT at the gym for 20 mins , 3 times a week ... Doing weight training for an hour 3 times ...so 3 gym trips a week for 1.5 hours....Walking on other days plus some home yoga by video
5. Sleeping 8 hours a night ...best slimming tip because when we are tired we can overeat


The above is not easy and took her a while to get going plus she has fallen off the wagon a few times but always gets back on the next day ...so far in 12 weeks she has lost 20 kilos. Her starting base was 112 Kilos

Mellor

alanog1 wrote: »

2000 calories is quite low for 104kg Female, I am probably going to be burned at the stake here but I'd say up your calories slightly

2000 cals isn't low for sedantry female tbh.
There's a difference in BMR depending on bodyfat levels.

If she isn't losing weight, then she almost certainly isnt eating too little.
The issue is that she isn't consistent, by her own admission.

Makapakka

Thanks for all the input. I definitely think ita a calorie consumption issue.. I'm currently in cbt for food issues too so trying to work through that too.. I have bad days and good days.. but just have to be consistent in my behaviours..

MPFGLB

Its not really for alot of people about the calorie count or the exercise ...its more about this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66cYcSak6nE

syntheticjunk

MPFGLB wrote: »

My friend lost weight by

1. Cut all processed foods and takeaways
2. Cutting all sugar ...except occasional bar of dark chocolate, fruit ,honey, biscuit
3. Cutting down carbs (wholegrain unrefined) to 2 meals a day at breakfast/lunchtime, dinner is meat/fish & veg only with occasional glass of wine.
4. Doing HITT at the gym for 20 mins , 3 times a week ... Doing weight training for an hour 3 times ...so 3 gym trips a week for 1.5 hours....Walking on other days plus some home yoga by video
5. Sleeping 8 hours a night ...best slimming tip because when we are tired we can overeat


The above is not easy and took her a while to get going plus she has fallen off the wagon a few times but always gets back on the next day ...so far in 12 weeks she has lost 20 kilos. Her starting base was 112 Kilos

Did exactly the same. Cooking all my food at home and no gym. Running once a week. Lost 14kg in 6 weeks.

Richard Hillman

Firstly, dump your personal trainer.

Secondly, a root and branch review of what you are eating for meals and importantly what time you are eating your meals. Set your meal plan, note how much of your meal are carbs, proteins, fibres etc. Then the next week completely change one of your 3 daily meals. If your lunch is carb heavy, move to something else for a week, see if it works but leave the other meals. You want to know which meal of the 3 is doing the damage.

Importantly, the time you are eating. If you eating dinner later than 7-8pm then you are not going to burn those calories before you go to bed.

Excercise after your meal not before it. You can excercise harder and gain superior fitness to excercise even more harder.

In terms of pure excercise weight loss. High Cardio is the only option. If you're breathing heavily you are burning calories. Walks are ok but they need to be long walks.

Weights and toning excercises are useless to you right now, it is pure hard cardio that is needed.

Cheat Days are ridiculous. Do not even dream of having a cheat day or meal. No rewards until you are happy with your body shape.

To keep it simple. Carbs before excercise for energy, proteins for recovery, fibre to keep you full. If you are not breathing heavily, you are not losing weight.

OmegaGene

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117864794#Comment_117864794

4 years too late lol

akelly02

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117922596#Comment_117922596

And **** advice aswell

OmegaGene

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117922685#Comment_117922685

Yep

Richard Hillman

I have no idea how that popped up on my timeline. Bugs with the new site

senioritamau

https://shrinke.me/R8Vubx

senioritamau

https://shrinke.me/R8Vubx

Losing weight fast is possible.

JesseA

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2057762551/i-cant-lose-weight

It will take time. Keep doing what you are upto for now. Just to add, you can try to make some changes in your dinner. I went from 163 pounds to 140 pounds just by making changes in my dinner. I opted for a diet that is enriched with therapeutic herbs and spices such as Ashwagandha, Gotu kola, Turmeric etc. I found on iahas.com and that has really helped me, especially if I eat it 2 hours before my bedtime. So yes dinner is the most important food of the day and taking it early and light help you accelerate weight loss

JesseA

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118034562#Comment_118034562

It will take time. Keep doing what you are upto for now. Just to add, you can try to make some changes in your dinner. I went from 163 pounds to 140 pounds just by making changes in my dinner. I opted for a diet that is enriched with therapeutic herbs and spices such as Ashwagandha, Gotu kola, Turmeric etc. I found on iahas.com and that has really helped me, especially if I eat it 2 hours before my bedtime. So yes dinner is the most important food of the day and taking it early and light help you accelerate weight loss

Worztron

By far, my greatest success at losing weight and more importantly, keeping it off, was adopting a vegan/plant-based diet. 💡

GoogleBot

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118052085#Comment_118052085

Wouldn't work for everyone, specially elderly overweight.

GoogleBot

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118051664#Comment_118051664

For average person after 40s eating 10-12 hours before bed is the most beneficial.

Worztron

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118066269#Comment_118066269

"It is the position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that appropriately planned vegetarian, including vegan, diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits for the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. These diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, adolescence, older adulthood, and for athletes."

GoogleBot

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118078191#Comment_118078191

Agree with that. However two things we should address.

As we age bile and enzyme production declines as result many elderly people suffering from malnutrition despite having adequate diet.

Most vitamins in vegetables are precursors and have to be activated by enzymes before being available and since elderly people already suffering with enzymes and bile decline I don't see how vegetarian diet alone can fulfill nutritional demands.

Worztron

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118079797#Comment_118079797

But it does say "These diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle...". Perhaps supplements or other measure can be taken to deal with any bile/enzyme issue?

GoogleBot

We are talking about elderly overweight right?

GoogleBot

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118093007#Comment_118093007

So you only accept vegetarian diet as benchmark and everything else should be dealt with supplements and what not?

Wondering if supplements are food based where did they come from?

KurtBarlow

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2057762551/i-cant-lose-weight

How many calories are you actually eating ? you said less than 2000 well 1950 is too much food for you especially if your very over weight . Post up a typical days eating for you

Worztron

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118093499#Comment_118093499

Well in the context of my quote, no. But given that this a weight loss thread, sure, take it as ow elderly folk.

Worztron

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118094021#Comment_118094021

I'd be more in favor of a vegan diet. I just put it out there if supplements could solve the bile/enzyme in older folk. We can agree to disagree by all means. The supplements would be synthetically-based, I presume.

GoogleBot

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118102475#Comment_118102475

Syntethic versions have side effects. And I am not sure at older age you want to experiment with anything. Unfortunately most commercially grown veg lower nutrient dence due to soil depletion.

bladespin

Yes, the eat less and do more methods work great 😉 and they’re free!