How Long To See Weight Loss

[hmcrabtree]

I am a 53 year old female, never overweight until I started fighting it in my 40s. Now I am 5'4" and 213lbs. Was never athletic, but I did dance a lot in teens and twenties, and can walk a 5K. But since the weight gain from a combo depression/sedentary from writing books/age, I'm in bad shape.

Started jogging earlier this month, well jog/walk/jog/walk etc. I can now jog .25 mile which is nothing to howl about but I could not do that at beginning of month, so I see improvement in that already. I do a mile to two miles every other day. Days off is housework, grocery shopping etc. I need to do more but dealing with some shin aches as a beginner. I get between 5,000-8,000 steps per day if this is accurate. For food I have roughly 1100 calories per day. 4 glasses of water a day. No junk food making up the  1100 calories, I limit to protein, some good carbs like a slice of whole grain bread, sometimes carrot, corn, sweet potato, don't really calculate any fat intake, but I avoid using oil when I can.

So three weeks in, I have definitely upped my steps and activity, lowered calories and processed food...and not one pound gone. Is it too early? Am I not doing enough walking or activity? I'd have thought there would be something since the basics are moving more and eating less calories. 

[hmcrabtree]

I forgot to mention, my resting heart rate is in the 60s, but it goes up quickly. When I jog it gets to the 140s or so according to the Fitbit.

Also forgot, am not on antidepressants anymore, I know they can affect weight.

[Dominique]

When "troubleshooting" calories that don’t seem to add up, I usually resort to this online calculator. According to it, your BMR alone would be 1556. Based on your average step count, I would put your activity at "light". With that assumption, your TDEE ("calories burned") would be 2140. How does that compare with what your Fitbit says you burn, in average? More often than not, calories out estimated by Fitbit tend to be on the high side, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Fitbit reported 2500 calories burned or more.

An intake of 1100 calories certainly sounds like very little in the light of your personal data and activity level. How confident are you about the accuracy of your logging? It feels odd you were previously maintaining your weight eating a higher amount of calories from suboptimal sources while being sedentary, and now you’re eating less calories from 100% healthy sources and are more active, you’re also maintaining your weight.

Three weeks should be long enough to see some changes on the scale. One problem with a complete overhaul (changing everything at once) is it makes it difficult to assess the role played by each variable. It can also cause extra stress (a potent inhibitor of weight loss), on top of the inherent stress of undereating, because there are so many things to worry about at once.

I would increase calories to at least BMR level, go easy on the jogging, try to reduce stress and improve sleep (insufficient quality sleep also inhibits weight loss). Also appreciate non-scale victories, like being able to jog.

As to your HR, I see nothing out of the normal in your values: RHR in the 60s is fine, and so is 140 while jogging. You may want to make a mental note of what your current cardio fitness score is, and see how it evolves over time (unfortunately, Fitbit doesn’t keep a history of that particular metric).

[hmcrabtree]

Very confident about logging meals. Most days I plan them out ahead of time and log at once.

I wasn't maintaining the 213 lbs, I have been gaining. Went on an anti-inflammatory diet last year about this time and lost some weight, I was at 190. Then off and sedentary and up to 213 now. 

I only asked a doctor once about this, earlier this year, and received a "you're in perimenopause and it's very hard to lose weight." Nothing else, no ideas. 

I also have a friend who is a psychologist and was complaining to him yesterday, he said that regardless, I am doing good things for my health by eating better and getting more exercise, he said to give it time but don't get discouraged because I am doing good things. So I'll keep going! I may have to do the anti-inflammatory again. It's difficult but it did make me feel better.