Beyond demotivated from not losing weight

[94slm]

I started my weight loss journey on the 14th August of this year, where I weighed 10 stone 3 pounds (143 pounds). Within a week of eating healthily I dropped to around 9 stone 10 pounds (136 pounds). At this point I started a "bootcamp" which involved 3 exercise classes a week. These classes are quite intense and involve the likes of circuit training, boxing, metafit and do incorporate weights sometimes, i.e. deadlifts, kettle bell swings etc in the morning at 6.15am which surely creates a good afterburner throughout the day as well. Most of it is interval training. 

I dropped to 9 stone 9 pounds (135 pounds) and literally stayed at that weight for around 6 weeks. I was eating 1,360 cals a day on average at first, I then put it up to 1,480 average a day and at this time I was burning an average of 16,000 cals a week. That is a huge deficit.

I realised I probably wasn't eating enough. So I put my calories up to around 1800 and I did actually lose around 4-5 pounds. I weighed in at 9 stone 7.2 on 12th October then by the 15th October I weighed 9 stone 4.6. But then I continued to stay the same for WEEKS AGAIN. Bearing in mind I also do a lot of walking. I walk on average 50 miles a week just to get my steps up. Maybe not as many as most people but I probably walk on average 16,000 steps a day and have done for the past 2 months. Yet I am still staying the same. In fact some days I go up to 9 stone 6/9 stone 5. But my lowest weight will not go past 9 stone 4. 

Why the heck am I not losing any weight? I am in a deficit every single day. My weekly calorie burn is still 16,000. I weigh my food out to the last gram. I do at least 3 workouts a week, sometimes I even go for a run on the nights that I haven't done a work out, or I go to a trampoline fitness class. I eat a lot of protein. Some days even 150 grams worth. Without fail every day my Fitbit suggests I am in a deficit. I have had it drummed into me that this is all that matters. So why is it not working for me? Just makes me feel like a failure and I have made barely any progress in 3 months. I am beginning to wonder why I bother.

Very demotivating to see others around me doing a lot less and getting better results.

By the way I have a Fitbit Blaze which measures my heart rate. For example my resting heart rate today is 57bpm and I did a workout yesterday whereby at the highest my heart rate reached 187bpm and was an average go 143bpm.

[Esya]

First of all congratz on the weight loss so far! That is a nice achievement to begin with.

The truth is, your calories deficit might be different than your fitbit is telling you. It can only estimate it for you using mathematical algorithms, but we are all a bit different. Also depending if you have a heart rate enabled fitbit or not they use different information to work with to estimate the calories burned. Heartrate enabled fitbit devices tend to overestimate the amount of calories burned. I strongly suggest to create a free account at trendweight.com. You can link your fitbit account to it and then it will plot your weight with a trendline. What it will also do, is tell you your current calories deficit based on the weight change. Sounds to me that in your case you might want to increase your calories deficit a little more than fitbit is telling you.

[94slm]

Thank you for the information, very useful and I will have a look at that website. However if what you say is true and the Fitbit is incorrectly calculating my calories burned then I’m extremely disappointed in the product. 

You dont expect to pay £180 to be given the wrong information as it just makes the product pointless. Might have to directly contact Fitbit about this. 

[Dominique]

What was the baseline of your activity and of your eating prior to Aug. 14? It seems you have changed so many variables at once it’s difficult to determine their respective impacts. Let’s start with eating: you said one week of eating healthily caused an initial loss of 7 pounds. It’s almost certain a weekly loss of 7 pounds was caused by something else, and that a large part of it was water weight. It’s just not possible to create a caloric deficit that would lead to such a loss in one week. Merely switching from eating junk food or a poor diet to eating "healthily" doesn’t automatically cause weight loss.

You mention you are taking three classes of very intense exercise, that require you to wake up very early, on top of which you are getting a lot of steps (16k per day is indeed a lot). What I see here (potentially) is cause for stress (if all this is newly added activity), with perhaps an impact on sleep (at what time do you need to wake up in order to be at the gym at 6.15pm). Chronic stress and sleep restriction can both lead to permanently elevated cortisol, which in turn hinders weight loss. My suggestion would be to take it easier for a while, increase your activity gradually, make sure stress is under control and get enough quality sleep.

I second @Esya’s suggestion to have a look at the longer term trend. If you are entering your weigh-ins in your Fitbit account (or are using a smart scale that can automatically sync to it), TrendWeight is indeed an excellent tool. You may also want to add other ways to measure your progress, like body measurements, how your clothes fit etc.

The good thing is you are in no rush: since you’re already under 140 pounds, it’s not like you need to lose 50+ or 100+. You could very well reach your goal in 6-12 months by making incremental changes/improvements to your diet and your exercising.

[Esya]

---

@94slm wrote:

Thank you for the information, very useful and I will have a look at that website. However if what you say is true and the Fitbit is incorrectly calculating my calories burned then I’m extremely disappointed in the product. 

You dont expect to pay £180 to be given the wrong information as it just makes the product pointless. Might have to directly contact Fitbit about this. 

---

You can still use the Fitbit as a great tool for your weight loss journey and it is not pointless. Everything is just an estimation, also the calories consumed, but that does not mean we cannot use those tools towards our advantage. By watching your weight trend and logging your calories burned and consumed you establish a baseline (you should have a similar weight for almost a month now). Then based on that you can decide to increase your calories deficit to a bit larger than your fitbit is reporting. But because you have the numbers you know what works for you. Try not to make changes too often (seeing you are a woman preferrably every 4 weeks as our weight also swings with our hormonal cycle) and then you can see what the impact of the changes are on your weight. Re-evaluate every 4 weeks and adjust where needed.

[94slm]

---

@Dominique wrote:

What was the baseline of your activity and of your eating prior to Aug. 14? It seems you have changed so many variables at once it’s difficult to determine their respective impacts. Let’s start with eating: you said one week of eating healthily caused an initial loss of 7 pounds. It’s almost certain a weekly loss of 7 pounds was caused by something else, and that a large part of it was water weight. It’s just not possible to create a caloric deficit that would lead to such a loss in one week. Merely switching from eating junk food or a poor diet to eating "healthily" doesn’t automatically cause weight loss.

You mention you are taking three classes of very intense exercise, that require you to wake up very early, on top of which you are getting a lot of steps (16k per day is indeed a lot). What I see here (potentially) is cause for stress (if all this is newly added activity), with perhaps an impact on sleep (at what time do you need to wake up in order to be at the gym at 6.15pm). Chronic stress and sleep restriction can both lead to permanently elevated cortisol, which in turn hinders weight loss. My suggestion would be to take it easier for a while, increase your activity gradually, make sure stress is under control and get enough quality sleep.

I second @Esya’s suggestion to have a look at the longer term trend. If you are entering your weigh-ins in your Fitbit account (or are using a smart scale that can automatically sync to it), TrendWeight is indeed an excellent tool. You may also want to add other ways to measure your progress, like body measurements, how your clothes fit etc.

The good thing is you are in no rush: since you’re already under 140 pounds, it’s not like you need to lose 50+ or 100+. You could very well reach your goal in 6-12 months by making incremental changes/improvements to your diet and your exercising.

I just ate what I wanted and didn't do much of anything exercise-wise before that date. I do agree it was most likely water weight that caused the initial decrease. 

I am getting enough sleep I believe, I get on average 7 hours per night. I just go to sleep quite early so that I am up in time for the classes. 

I really appreciate your advice, I think I need to be more patient and maybe not put so much pressure on myself. Thank you for your answer.

[94slm]

---

@Esya wrote:

---

@94slm wrote:

Thank you for the information, very useful and I will have a look at that website. However if what you say is true and the Fitbit is incorrectly calculating my calories burned then I’m extremely disappointed in the product. 

You dont expect to pay £180 to be given the wrong information as it just makes the product pointless. Might have to directly contact Fitbit about this. 

---

You can still use the Fitbit as a great tool for your weight loss journey and it is not pointless. Everything is just an estimation, also the calories consumed, but that does not mean we cannot use those tools towards our advantage. By watching your weight trend and logging your calories burned and consumed you establish a baseline (you should have a similar weight for almost a month now). Then based on that you can decide to increase your calories deficit to a bit larger than your fitbit is reporting. But because you have the numbers you know what works for you. Try not to make changes too often (seeing you are a woman preferrably every 4 weeks as our weight also swings with our hormonal cycle) and then you can see what the impact of the changes are on your weight. Re-evaluate every 4 weeks and adjust where needed.

---

Thank you for your response, going forward I will try to stick at the same deficit for a longer period of time so that I can see a true representation. I appreciate your advice.

[Dominique · Accepted solution]

---

@94slm wrote:

---

I think I need to be more patient and maybe not put so much pressure on myself.

---

Yes, I think it’s a good idea to take your time and don’t expect too much too soon (slow and steady wins the race, as they say). Trust the process: if you now eat a better diet and are more active, at some point you will reap the benefits compared to the previous situation where you ate a suboptimal diet and were less active.

If you check my TrendWeight (as stated earlier, most valuable tool), you will see it has taken me 10 months to go from 67.5 to 60.2 kg (148.5 to 133 lbs):

There has been ups and downs (especially with the actual weigh-ins, grey curve), so not fully linear (weight loss seldom is), but I’m getting where I want to be.

If motivation is an issue for you, you may want to report about your progress (or lack thereof) in the Weekly Weigh In topic. It’s super-long, but anyone can jump in at any time. I’ve personally found it great for accountability, motivation and peer support. That one is on-going, but there are also similar topics that are close-ended, for instance the Halloween to Winter Holidays Challenge.

[94slm]

---

@Dominique wrote:

---

@94slm wrote:

---

I think I need to be more patient and maybe not put so much pressure on myself.

---

Yes, I think it’s a good idea to take your time and don’t expect too much too soon (slow and steady wins the race, as they say). Trust the process: if you now eat a better diet and are more active, at some point you will reap the benefits compared to the previous situation where you ate a suboptimal diet and were less active.

If you check my TrendWeight (as stated earlier, most valuable tool), you will see it has taken me 10 months to go from 67.5 to 60.2 kg (148.5 to 133 lbs):

There has been ups and downs (especially with the actual weigh-ins, grey curve), so not fully linear (weight loss seldom is), but I’m getting where I want to be.

If motivation is an issue for you, you may want to report about your progress (or lack thereof) in the Weekly Weigh In topic. It’s super-long, but anyone can jump in at any time. I’ve personally found it great for accountability, motivation and peer support. That one is on-going, but there are also similar topics that are close-ended, for instance the Halloween to Winter Holidays Challenge.

---

Thanks for sharing your TrendWeight graph with me - it's very useful to see how you progressed over time since you are a very similar weight to me. You have encouraged me to be positive again and I now feel more prepared to be in this for the long run! Thank you.

[BodyBeheld]

Hi. 

I like what everyone else had to say. 

I think being patient is important. And always be on the lookout for over-training, over-stressing. I'm a hug fan of using heart rate variability (HRV) as well as heart rate. This is an amazing tool that is way under-utilized. 

You do need a better heart rate monitor to do it....so that's an extra cost. I like the Polar H10 bluetooth chest monitor. Nothing against Fitbit but a chest monitor is always more accurate than a wrist one (at least with the tech we have now). 

With that you can download the free Elite HRV app (and there are other ones, that's just the one I use). And take your daily HRV in the AM, before you get up. After a week or so it will find your average HRV and then it will give you a rating on your stress levels. 

HRV measures the balance of the autonomic nervous system (fight or flight vs rest and digest). If you are over-training, not sleeping enough, have too much inflammation, or are simply stressed out, the HRV will do down. You can that way monitor your stress level and see if you should take a rest or go easy some days. 

There are a lot of studies correlating lower HRV with obesity and weight gain. 

Of course this is just one piece but I think it's an important one. 

All the talk of caloric deficit is somewhat simplified. 

Really it comes down to NOT just how many calories you take in and how many calories you use, but also how efficient your metabolism is. And your metabolism is affected by stress, blood sugar, sleep, hormones, inflammation, etc. 

[DanielleinDC]

Something else to consider: Are your clothes fitting more loosely? If you're gaining muscle and losing fat, you won't necessarily see the scale move much because a pound of muscle takes up less than a pound of fat. My weight fluctuates around a certain mark, but my clothes are fitting a lot more loosely.

[94slm]

---

@BodyBeheld wrote:

Hi. 

I like what everyone else had to say. 

I think being patient is important. And always be on the lookout for over-training, over-stressing. I'm a hug fan of using heart rate variability (HRV) as well as heart rate. This is an amazing tool that is way under-utilized. 

You do need a better heart rate monitor to do it....so that's an extra cost. I like the Polar H10 bluetooth chest monitor. Nothing against Fitbit but a chest monitor is always more accurate than a wrist one (at least with the tech we have now). 

With that you can download the free Elite HRV app (and there are other ones, that's just the one I use). And take your daily HRV in the AM, before you get up. After a week or so it will find your average HRV and then it will give you a rating on your stress levels. 

HRV measures the balance of the autonomic nervous system (fight or flight vs rest and digest). If you are over-training, not sleeping enough, have too much inflammation, or are simply stressed out, the HRV will do down. You can that way monitor your stress level and see if you should take a rest or go easy some days. 

There are a lot of studies correlating lower HRV with obesity and weight gain. 

Of course this is just one piece but I think it's an important one. 

All the talk of caloric deficit is somewhat simplified. 

Really it comes down to NOT just how many calories you take in and how many calories you use, but also how efficient your metabolism is. And your metabolism is affected by stress, blood sugar, sleep, hormones, inflammation, etc. 

---

Thank you for the information, I've never heard of using HRV before and it sounds interesting. I think that's something I may have to look to using in the future - it would be useful to know when my body is in need of a rest! Thanks for the recommendation of the Polar H10, I will have a look.

[94slm]

---

@DanielleinDC wrote:

Something else to consider: Are your clothes fitting more loosely? If you're gaining muscle and losing fat, you won't necessarily see the scale move much because a pound of muscle takes up less than a pound of fat. My weight fluctuates around a certain mark, but my clothes are fitting a lot more loosely.

---

I have been taking measurements and I can say that yes they have decreased. Think it's time to stop focusing on the scales so much but it's difficult when I know I still have excess weight to lose!

[94slm]

---

@Dominique wrote:

---

@94slm wrote:

---

I think I need to be more patient and maybe not put so much pressure on myself.

---

Yes, I think it’s a good idea to take your time and don’t expect too much too soon (slow and steady wins the race, as they say). Trust the process: if you now eat a better diet and are more active, at some point you will reap the benefits compared to the previous situation where you ate a suboptimal diet and were less active.

If you check my TrendWeight (as stated earlier, most valuable tool), you will see it has taken me 10 months to go from 67.5 to 60.2 kg (148.5 to 133 lbs):

There has been ups and downs (especially with the actual weigh-ins, grey curve), so not fully linear (weight loss seldom is), but I’m getting where I want to be.

If motivation is an issue for you, you may want to report about your progress (or lack thereof) in the Weekly Weigh In topic. It’s super-long, but anyone can jump in at any time. I’ve personally found it great for accountability, motivation and peer support. That one is on-going, but there are also similar topics that are close-ended, for instance the Halloween to Winter Holidays Challenge.

---

Just by way of an update, I want to thank you for introducing me to TrendWeight. It has been so good for my motivation and makes sense to track weight as an average over time rather than focus on it by day or week. Here is my graph, I'm extremely happy with the progress I've been making. Thank you so much to you and @Esya!

[Dominique]

Great to hear you have found TrendWeight of use! As you probably can guess, the more actual data points (black dots on the graph) TW has, the more accurate the trendline will be, as it won’t have to rely on extrapolation (grey dots on the graph). You can weigh daily, but focus on the red trendline instead of the day’s value (which may fluctuate up or down, for a number of reasons). 

[Esya]

---

@Dominiquewrote:

Great to hear you have found TrendWeight of use! As you probably can guess, the more actual data points (black dots on the graph) TW has, the more accurate the trendline will be, as it won’t have to rely on extrapolation (grey dots on the graph). You can weigh daily, but focus on the red trendline instead of the day’s value (which may fluctuate up or down, for a number of reasons). 

---

Just because I am such a geek with a technical background, those grey dots are interpolations instead of extrapolations 😉 . For the rest you are fully correct.

[Esya]

@94slm

That graph is trending down really nicely 😄

[Dominique]

Thanks for correcting me, @Esya! I’ll have to get familiar with the difference between inter- and extrapolation!