Help! I'm not losing and frustrated

[wlj]

 Hi All,

 I need some help or thoughts about what is going on.  I am 46. I am active at my job.  I log about 12-15,000 steps a day just at work.  I get up early and work out with light weights and cardio for a half hour a day.  I try to watch what I eat but hey, human so I cheat sometimes.  I was down to 125ish and now I am back up to 130 and pushing 131.  I eat breakfast, lunch and a smaller supper since I am home late.  My meals could be more balanced with more veggies.

Any ideas why weight keeps crawling up. It is upsetting because all the sudden boom 130 like in one week.  Sometimes I think why am I bothering to workout when I am just getting more around the middle where I am fighting so hard to lose it.

Thanks All,

[Dominique]

Welcome to the community, @wlj!

Chances are both 125 and 131 put you in the healthy range for your height (that range is actually quite wide), so maybe you should focus less on the number on the scale and more on your overall health and well-being.

You may want to have a look at Beyond-demotivated-from-not-losing-weight, a topic started by @94slm, who I believe is in a similar situation as you. If you want to use the number on the scale as a progress indicator, check the recommendation for TrendWeight, so as not to be overly obsessed by seemingly random daily fluctuations.

[Daves_Not_Here]

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@wlj wrote:

 Hi All,

 I need some help or thoughts about what is going on.  I am 46. I am active at my job.  I log about 12-15,000 steps a day just at work.  I get up early and work out with light weights and cardio for a half hour a day.  I try to watch what I eat but hey, human so I cheat sometimes.  I was down to 125ish and now I am back up to 130 and pushing 131.  I eat breakfast, lunch and a smaller supper since I am home late.  My meals could be more balanced with more veggies.

Any ideas why weight keeps crawling up. It is upsetting because all the sudden boom 130 like in one week.  Sometimes I think why am I bothering to workout when I am just getting more around the middle where I am fighting so hard to lose it.

Thanks All,

---

@wlj - welcome, and I completely feel your frustration -- I had been at my ideal weight around 170 and, even though I remained physically active and was eating "healthy" food, my weight exploded to 240 (coming back down, thankfully)   Here is what I think is going on:

• As you age, your metabolism goes down, meaning you need to eat less to not gain weight.
• As your fitness improves, the amount of calories you burn for a given amount of exercises goes down, meaning you need to eat less to not gain weight.
• Your appetite and other eating cues don't automatically adjust downward when your calorie requirements decrease, which makes it super easy to overeat.  To gain 5 pounds in 90 days takes less than 200 excess calories per day -- that's nothing.
• You can be very active, maintain your weight, and still accumulate fat.  Richard Simmons was very active and still turned into a blob.  This means you need to eat in such a way as to reduce fat and not muscle (beyond the scope of this answer, but @Dominique, @Baltoscott and others here have good advice on how to do this).

Bottom Line:  As you age and workout at a given activity level, you will need to eat less in order to not gain weight. The good news is you can occasionally indulge as long as your overall consumption matches your requirements.

If you're like me, eating "intuitively" means you will tend to overeat.  My solution is to track what I eat and pick foods that reduce my appetite.  Jury's still out as to whether I can maintain long-term. 

[Baltoscott]

Hi @wlj -- I agree with what @Dominique and @Daves_Not_Here have said so far, especially the last sentence of @Daves_Not_Here's post: 

>> If you're like me, eating "intuitively" means you will tend to overeat.  My solution is to track what I eat and pick foods that reduce my appetite.  Jury's still out as to whether I can maintain long-term. 

Usually when I realize I need to lose weight the very first step is to start writing down everything I eat.  I use MyFitnesPal.  And in the process of losing weight this year, I wound up logging every single day from mid-January until now.  I will probably stop eventually, but for now it reinforces habits I've built up over the year.  Food entry becomes fairly easy after a week or to as you realize you have a lot of the same things over and over and either set them up as favorites or just copy a meal from a prior day and then edit out any differences. 

You mentioned one good eating habit that will make logging easier (if you decide to do it) and will make a transition back to  "intuitive eating" more likely to stick without weight creep:  you said you eat just 3x/day.  I moved to eating 4 fairly large meals/day (from 6+ smallish meals/snacks) in the process of losing weight this year.  The key is to ONLY eat (or drink caloric beverages) during your scheduled mealtimes. No snacks -- not even health ones!  That rule could be applied no matter how many scheduled meals you like to eat, but fewer meals makes logging easier, and you get to eat enough to be close to full a few times/day even when you are cutting calories.  No matter how many meals you schedule, however, eating/drinking only during mealtime eliminates mindless eating, a huge factor in "what's going on?" weight creep.