Help me loose weight!

[KAM9]

I’ve been trying to lose weight for what feels like forever but I’ve been super strict since the start of lockdown last year. My start weight was 13.7 and at my lowest I got to 12.9. I’ve been working out 6 days a week religiously with the Insanity workout as well as walking between 5000-10000 steps a day depending on the weather outside. 

But on top of this I’ve been calorie counting using MFP. It put my target at 1200 calories a day and at first it helped a little but I plateaued almost as soon as I got to 13 stone. I count EVERYTHING and I mean that. Milk in my tea. Weigh my ketchup. Garlic granules. You name it I scan it and make sure I’m under. I drink about 4 pints of water a day also. 

Around August someone suggested I’m having too little calories, so I upped it to 1400 for 2 months and just gained it all back. Even with the workout and water and weighing EVERYTHING. 

I just can’t seem to shake the weight though. I’m now stuck constantly bouncing between 12.10 and 13.2 every day. Im really at my wits end with this and don’t know what to do. I want to get to 9.7 (which was my weight 6 years ago before I started putting weight on) but I feel like it’s impossible. 

Please someone give me some genuine suggestions that could help and don’t just berate me about what I’m doing wrong cause I’m at the point where I just want to give up. 

Moderator edit:  updated subject for clarity

[Glenda]

@KAM9,  One thing everyone needs to know who "diets" with a much  reduced number of calories is that you can't suddenly go back to a "normal" number without gaining all the weight back.  Whether you were successful at losing or not the calories must be added back by increasing the calories 200 a day for a couple of days to let the body adjust to the increase with you not gaining.  Then add another 200 for another 2 days etc.    I'm sorry you are having disappointing results.    All the studies show that people who begin exercise programs to lose weight tend to eat more and don't lose weight.  In any case for the long term view  I think the Insanity workout doesn't sound like something anyone could continue for long.  It would be better if you could find a way to enjoy a modest amount of exercise just for your health.  I don't like any kind of exercise but I've been reading on my treadmill every day for decades.  Maybe dancing to a video is something you could enjoy??   I admire you for trying anyway.  Best wishes.

[BASILCHIVES]

I have been where you are and I suggest you go see a registered dietician, bring in a few weeks of your food log and exercise notes.     

[Glenda]

 CalorieCalculator.net will ask your gender , age , weight, height, activity and tell you the right number of calories.   You didn't add too many and shouldn't have gained unless it was just too much for your height etc.  

[JuanFitbit]

Hi everyone. 

Adding to the suggestions above, I'll recommend you (if possible) to have a talk with a medical, nutritional or exercise specialist. They can check your body information (eg, metabolism, etc.) and recommend you a specific diet for your case. 

Remember that every body is different, and what might have helped some, might not help you. 

The other recommendation is consistency! This is the key for everything. If you are writing down everything you eat, your weight and more info, keep doing so. These notes can help your specialist figuring out, what would be the best for you. 

See you around

[Heybales]

Fat is neither lost or gained fast.

Let's pretend 1200 really was your daily burn, and were eating that much, maintaining weight.

If you ate 200 extra calories, it would take you 17 days to slowly gain 1 lb of fat.

Reread that.

You said 2 months to "gain it all back" after eating 1400, how many lbs is that?

Does the math work out?

Do you know the difference between slow fat weight changes, and fast water weight changes?

Assuming you really care to lose fat weight?

Insanity workouts are high carb burn - guess what the body wants to store more of to do those workouts well?

Carbs store in muscles with attached water - you're finally feeding the body what it is wanting, and will of course increase water weight.

I'm also betting you have no idea how good those workouts could be - because if you really are that active and only truly eating 1200 - they are bad.

Besides weighing your food which is good, do you confirm the labels are correct?

Because you mentioned scanning - and manufactures are forever keeping the same SKU code but changing recipes and the nutrition label changes.

Besides the fact the first entry for a SKU was user submitted - ever noticed how many errors there are even when people probably had the label right in front of them? Really sad people are that prone to error.

I'm betting you are eating decently more than 1200.

I'm betting you are decently burning less than Fitbit is estimating.

The walking could be very accurate if you have confirmed it's getting the distance correct by walking a known distance.

If it's wrong, that many steps daily could leave you with big inaccuracy.

Also, Insanity is a very HR variable workout for which HR-calculated calorie burn (it's math, not measuring calorie burn) will be inflated. If you did a lot of it - you could have badly inflated daily calorie burn.

And lastly - I'm betting you did undereat by an amount that your body was not happy with at first - and it has adapted by now to stop or slow down the stress somewhat. Workouts not really as intense even though it feels like it.

Is it winter where you are? Trouble keeping as warm now compared to before diet? Hair and nails growing slower? Worse symptoms perhaps?

Just as vitamin and mineral deficiency can take a little while to show up as symptoms, so also caloric deficiency that is too great.

And just as it can take awhile to get out of bad effects of lack of vitamins or minerals (some effects people are stuck with actually), it can take awhile to get out of undereating too much.

Metabolic Adaptation, Adaptive Thermogenesis - basically your body slows down to burn less, so your undereating so much isn't as bad.

Body will still gain stress water weight, it'll still burn fat - but it's in a very bad state when this happens.

It's why eating 200 more was recommended - many people find their workouts improve and burn more, they move more daily - spontaneous daily movement, their body is willing to burn more on upkeep.

And they drop stress water weight, and burn more overall.

But depending on how stressed the body is - it can take awhile - studies have shown a year or more if really extreme, or months if in a study being measured out the wahzoo.

Don't give up - but you have so much stress coming through your message, it's probably time for a diet break, a reset, a refeed.

You may think you aren't in a diet since not losing weight, so how are you supposed to come out of one - by slowly eating more and recognizing the difference between water and fat weight gain.

Spend a week to confirm your logging is accurate for labels, not just scanning and weighing (which is great step weighing food).

Then eat 100 extra daily, probably protein since I doubt you are getting enough in with all those workouts, even if they are mediocre right now compared to what they could be.

Confirm distance walked for a known mile or kilometer is correct - make the pace average daily though, not exercise level pace, it will seem slow - but that is more accurate.

Observe how energetic you are outside of exercise and going for walks, note changes as you eat a tad more.

Your Fitbit tweaked and used correctly can still have better chance of helping. But eating the bare minimum for a sedentary woman when you are anything but sedentary will give minimum results.