Feeling SO disheartened. Any advice much appreciated :)

[CerriesM]

Hey everyone! 

I'm feeling so disheartened today, and I'd be immensely grateful for any advice. 

I am a 34 year old female weighing approx 294.5 lbs (21st 0.5lbs). 

I am 5'7".

My goal weight is around 11 stone, meaning I have around 140 lbs to lose. 

My aim is to do this in a healthy, sustainable way. I am not interested in losing weight overnight - this is about health and wellbeing as much as it is about losing weight. I'm interested in a whole, clean diet - nothing fancy like keto or paleo etc. 

With that said, I'm confused and frustrated. 

For the last few years, I've been going to Slimming World. The most I've lost is around half a stone, then I end up putting it back on again. I work for myself (behind a computer screen most of the day), so would class myself as being sedentary.

Just over a week ago, I purchased my FitBit Versa. 

Rather than follow the SW plan, I've been tracking everything I eat, and educating myself on macros. 

I have been using the Under/Over/In Zone meter to make decisions on whether I should eat something or not, and have been careful to make sure there is a 500-1000 deficit each day. 

I've also increased my protein intake, which I didn't realise was really low (I think previously my diet was very carb-high). 

I joined the gym last week, and have been working out every day since. It's not much - around 30-40 mins each day - but I've done a lot more this week in terms of exercise than I have done in years.

I weighed in at Slimming World this morning - 2.5lbs ON. 

Part of me did expect that. My body must be in some kind of shock with such big changes (in both my diet and exercise levels), and it wouldn't surprise me if this was mostly water retention.

But then I spoke to a friend, who said I'm probably consuming too many calories each day (even when my in/out meter on FitBit is telling me I'm 'in the zone'). 

I'm SO confused. 

I now don't know whether I'm eating too much, even though the app seems to be telling me I'm good. 

I don't know whether I should be aiming for a certain amount of calories. 

Or - is my FitBit giving me inaccurate information?

Ugh I'm so sorry for the rant, guys. I really REALLY would appreciate any insights anyone else has. 

Have a wonderful day!

C ❤️ 

[SunsetRunner]

It is possible Fitbit may be off on your calorie estimation but the fact that you are doing more exercise and have increased your protein may be the culprit. You can retain more water when starting a new exercise routine. The extra weight should level back out after some time. Most of that weight is likely water weight but you could now be gaining muscle if you are doing weight training along with the added protein. People who are new to weight training or took a break from weight training can build muscle faster than usual. I wouldn’t worry about it yet. It’s just too soon to tell.

[Dominique · Accepted solution]

You’re getting many things right:

• you realize losing weight is more about eating than exercising
• you acknowledge your weight loss will take time
• you understand calories matter (calories in vs. calories out)
• you understand macros also matter
• you appear to reject extreme diets and favour sensible eating principles 

In other words, you’re definitely on the right track and shouldn’t quit because the start of your journey isn’t going exactly according to plans.

Your Fitbit is a fine tool that you can certainly use to your advantage in many ways. However, it also has its limitations and you shouldn’t blindly trust the calories it says you are burning. Estimating energy expenditure with a fitness tracker (no matter how smart it is) isn’t exact science, there’s a margin of error. Many people will tell you it is not uncommon for your Fitbit to overestimate your energy expenditure, maybe by 15-20% or even more. The good news is your Fitbit won’t randomly overestimate your calories by 15% one day and underestimate them by 10% the next day. Whichever way it is inaccurate, it will likely be so consistently over time.

Let’s say your aim is to lose 1 pound per week, which implies a 500 calories deficit and let’s say you suspect your Fitbit overestimate your calories burned by 500 calories: choose a plan that has you lose 2 pounds per week (1000 calories deficit), understanding the real number / your goal will "only" be half that.

What you could also do is get a "second opinion" about your energy expenditure by using an online calculator such as this one. You can use your average step count as a proxy in order to determine which of the five standard activity levels applies to you. For instance, if you’re hitting 10k in average, I would say it would put you somewhere between lightly and moderately active.

Just don’t get discouraged, you can do it!

[CerriesM]

@SunsetRunner Thank you so much for your thoughts! 

I'm not doing weight training just yet - just cardio (although I have a goal planning session with the instructor on Friday, so I'll be following their guidance on weight training).

I think you're right - it's just too soon to tell ❤️ 

[CerriesM]

@Dominique Thank you so much!

I really appreciate the time you took to share your thoughts with me 🙂 

Yes you're right - I have no interest whatsoever in extreme diets. I'm looking to adopt a healthier lifestyle...for life 🙂 I'm fully prepared for this journey to be a long one, and I'm ok with that 🙂 

That's a really good point about the Fitbit potentially overestimating my expenditure. I have been wondering whether that was the case. 

I have been basing my eating from the under/over metre in the app - so it's possible that when it says 'under', I've eaten more - when in reality, maybe I didn't actually burn those calories. 

Dominique - I hope you don't mind me asking (you're clearly knowledgeable in this field, and I'd be so grateful for your perspective!) - how do you use your Fitbit? Do you use it primarily to track your steps? Estimate of calories burned? Exercise logging?

I'm just curious, because I guess I want to figure out what I can reliably use my Versa for in terms of - as you say - using it to its best advantage.

Thank you so much in advance! ❤️ 

[Dominique]

@CerriesM: there are many ways one can use a Fitbit, so the way I use mine is just one possibility. I’ve gravitated in the Fitbit orbit for almost six years now, so the excitement of novelty has faded and I don’t spend my time exploring all the fancy features Fitbit offers. The main metrics I follow are steps and calories burned, as they are good indicators of my overall activity. When calories are around 2000, I know it has been a slow day, when they’re at 3000 or more, it has been a very active day for me; when they’re around 2500, it’s a normal day. Step-wise, I try to hit 90-100k at the weekly level, and if possible to hit 10k every day. I don’t track my intake, not with Fitbit. nor with MyFitnessPal. Never have and probably never will. Doesn’t mean I’m not aware of what and how much I eat, quite the opposite! But weighing daily (I bought a Fitbit Aria three months after my tracker, and that has been one of the best decisions I’ve made) provides the feedback I need, albeit with a delay. Other than that, I do keep an eye on resting heart rate and cardio fitness score, but these are not things I can have a direct impact on. My main goals are related to health, fitness and body composition, so weight management for me is mostly "yo-yo dieting" within a relatively narrow range (10-15 pounds), i.e. alternating cutting phases (in which the focus is on losing fat) and bulking phases (in which it is on gaining muscle).

As you said yourself, you have been doing this for a very short time. One thing you should consider as a woman is the impact of your hormonal cycle on weight: ideally you would be comparing weigh-ins at the same time in your cycle. In practice, this means looking at averages over time, rather than day-to-day weigh-ins that will fluctuate primarily due to changes in water weight.

I’d like to point you to a couple of resources I’ve found useful. One is the Losing All Your Weight at Once video by Dr. Mike Israetel. The other are a couple of e-books on nutrition (with the same Mikael Israetel as one of the co-authors) mentioned in this older topic. It’s not going to be ground-breaking stuff for you, as you’ve already been educating yourself on nutrition and you have realistic expectations with regards to the time needed for your weight loss, but it could serve as a way to reinforce the belief you’re doing the right things.

[Dominique]

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@CerriesM wrote:

how do you use your Fitbit? [...] Exercise logging? 

---

I forgot to address this one. I do tend to log my daily walks, weight lifting sessions and other activities that last for more than half-an-hour or so (for instance, 35 minutes of snow removal this morning). However, I don’t feel it’s a must. It’s more a way to get "nice to know" data. Whether or not you log an exercise doesn’t change the underlying activity detected by your Fitbit (or if it does, probably not by much). So it’s really up to you. Sometimes, I start logging an activity, but forget to stop it. That happened yesterday with a walk that I stopped a good two hours after I had returned from it. With the Ionic and its built-in GPS, that sucked a lot of battery. Since your Versa is brand new, you’re probably more thrilled than me by the possibility to compare various activities and their respective impact on energy expenditure, active minutes etc.

[Gimpycat]

Calorie counting is truly not the best approach to weight loss. Most people who engage in this approach simply regain the weight at some point, because, if they're not careful, persistent calorie reduction will simply reset their metabolism to require fewer total calories.

Weight loss is more about insulin levels, hormones, and metabolic balance, which are also the culprits when it comes to constant hunger. You might start by reading The Obesity Code by Jason Fung. And as opposed to carefully counting calories, start by eliminating added sugar and grain products, eliminating snacking and alcohol, and reducing the window in which you eat to a few hours a day. All this works like a charm. I lost over 50 lbs of fat last year and have kept it off.

[Dominique]

The "best" approach is the one that works for you. Just because counting calories doesn’t work optimally for you doesn’t mean it couldn’t work for someone else. Take the case of community member @JimC_99, who wrote he’s been tracking his calories in/out and his weight for about 46 weeks. Check his TrendWeight: can you say counting calories wasn’t a good approach for him? Does that mean he’s not adopted some of your approaches, like reducing consumption of alcohol and sugar? Maybe not. These approaches don’t need to be mutually exclusive. It’s possible to lose weight by counting calories and by not counting them, by eating fewer meals and by eating frequent meals, by eating a high-fat/low-carb diet and by eating a low-fat/high-carb diet etc. We just have to find what floats our respective boats, and it’s not a one-size-fits-all.

[JimmyJimmy]

I think you're on the right track.  I've been very successfull long term (last 10 months lost 60 pounds) by eating 1000 calories less than I burn per the fitbit system.  Based on simple calorie deficit divided by 3500 calories per pound it should have been an even bigger loss but I'm happy.  The estimates on consumption and on burn may not be exact but over time you can learn what deficit yields the loss you're looking for per day (on average). 

A couple of times I've seen a huge unexpected gain in my weight in a short time period.  It seems to correlate (for me) with high salt intakes that lead to water retention.  If you're salt sensitive this is important to watch and fitbit is a great tool for it.

Don't be discouraged by the bumps in the road.  Three steps forward and two steps back still equals one step forward.  It's about the long term.  I don't think of the process as a diet for a while but as a permanent strategy. I hope it works for you.  It sure has for me.  Patience with occasional tweaks to your plan really pays off over time.  Give it at least a month for meaningful feedback.