Not losing weight. What am I doing wrong?

[Tin-Tin-1972]

Hey everyone.

So. I have T2 Diabetes. I'm 18 Stone (252lb) and until 4 weeks ago averaged around 3000 steps a day.

I have started a job as an Amazon driver, more for the exercise than the money, as I know I have to do something and I can't afford gym. I hate the job, but I like looking at my watch at the end of the day and seeing 14K+ steps and seeing in the app that i have done over 12Km and have been in the fat burning zones for 2 hours +. 

My body hurts at the end of my 10 hour shift, my knees especially as I have early arthritis but the movement is recommended to help with that too so I expect the pain and I manage it with Ibruprofen 4 tablets every 3 hours - *Note I take an additional tabled on prescription that allows such high dosages of Ibruprofen and stops any type of internal bleeding stomach so I dont have to worry about side effects).

For food, I take 3 bananas and 4 apples. No carbs. No sneaky fatty treats. No sweets. I have a packet of love hearts for diabetic emergencies but have not needed it. For drinks, I get through 6 litres of tap water per day + half a litre of tea in a big go cup that i drink in the morning. Plain water, no juices. No sugar in my tea either and a tiny drop of milk.

Even drinking all that water I tend to pee only a small amount, and even even then only once in my whole shift - into a 6pint milk bottle in the back of the van. Measured its around 200ml (yes I measure how much comes out as well as goes in). I only poop once every 3 days -  I dont measure that though.

I get home around 8.30pm. I dont have any food prepared for me as the rest of my family eat early. My partner and my children are all normal weight and very athletic so fatty stodgy food, or pre-processed food is rare in the house. I tend to have a couple of poached eggs on toast or toasted cheese sandwich. I am always exhausted and dont want to go to bed on a full stomach as it's then just empty calories. I get to bed for 11pm and up again 7am. So sleep is around 7.5 hours. The amount I pee when i get home is pretty much measure for measure for the 1 Milky Coffee, 1 Tea and 1 Hot Milk before bed. I have drunk no alcohol since starting the job.

I am well under my 2500 calories. I think I may even be just or even below 1500 calories a day. My days off I keep to the same regime except for exercise as I want to give my knees and ankles time to recover.

Now here is the kicker. I HAVE NOT LOST A SINGLE POUND! Nothing. 
I dont know why. When delivering for the first 5 or 6 hours I try to speed walk or half jog to peoples houses before exhaustion sets in and I am practically hobbling.

I know my fitness has massively improveved. Thats beyond doubt.

But why wont my body lose weight!!

Please help.

[Glenda]

I added up the calories in the food  you said you eat.  The total was only 1,081 calories a day.  At 252 pounds your maintenance # of calories is about 2,520 calories so you should be "saving" at least 1,400 a day to cause a weight loss.  (Which is way more than anyone recommends. )   Are you  counting accurately.    You should be losing more than a pound every 3 days seems to me.   I  know very little about the subject but I read that we all eat the same weight of food every day no matter how many calories are in it.   I suggest you stop eating all that fruit and eat something that might be more filling and satisfying.   Maybe try some oatmeal made with a double amount of water cooked twice as long just for a start of your day??  

[dorisKu]

Let me first say, I wish you well in your new lifestyle to lose weight.  However, you write I take 3 bananas and 4 apples with you. "No carbs". Did you know that apples have each 28-33 grams of carbs and bananas 27-31 carbs? The average carbohydrate recommended for men on a 2,000 calorie diet is 225-325.  So calculating your apples/bananas you are eating 225 approx carbs. The sugar content in bananas is pretty high.

Eating at a late hour may also be contributing to holding onto weight and not to mention the bread. I myself choose to eat any bread early in the day to work it off. Perhaps you can make the time to prepare some healthy meals in advance and store them in the fridge. Protein like chicken or turkey and lots of vegetables like broccoli, asparagus, tomatoes, green beans, chopped bok choy, or romaine lettuce. Cheese contains lots of sodium and will retain water! 

As for a  substitute instead of all the fruit, try counting out a reasonable number of seeds/nuts. Lower fruits like berries are low in sugar/carbs. Try some packages of Beef Jerky perhaps for a snack. Also try sticking it out to eat only 3 meals a day, if you can with T2, try Intermittent fasting 16/8, works very well for some, allowing all those calories eaten the day before to be utilized before eating again. 

Lastly, it would be ideal if you counted all the calories you are eating during your day on one of the programs that shows every detail of carbs, sugar, etc.

Best Regards

D.

[Heybales]

"I am always exhausted and dont want to go to bed on a full stomach as it's then just empty calories."

Why is it empty calories - your body still digests the food in your stomach even if horizontal and gets nutrients from it, and of course the calories, which the body needs too. There's nothing magical that happens eating right before bed, most people eat dinner and sit around afterwards - almost the same level of activity.

Sounds like 4 wks starting this job and activity level - if joints hurt are mostly likely inflamed - that's added water weight.

If getting hot doing it compared to prior not doing much - blood volume increases to carry more fluids for sweating - that's added water weight.

If out of shape and this is pretty intense - then more of primary fuel source carbs with attached water - that's added water weight.

From your description - sounds like badly undereating, and probably terrible recovery from your activity level.

Don't worry - if you don't find a way to make it reasonable and recover - your body will force it on you - sick, injured, worse - that'll make you slow down!

Got a few concepts wrong it sounds like from the terms you are using:

Eating fat doesn't make you fat, eating more calories than you burn does.

Some fat is essential, and helps carry some vitamins.

Fruit is high carbs, at least it has nutrients compared to say soda..

There's nothing wrong with carbs if you are this active even if T2D, inability for insulin to send them to storage won't matter much since you are using them right then.

You mention steps in the day, but not how many calories Fitbit is estimating you burned in a day. You have nothing to do math with.

The fact you have data on what zone the HR is in sounds like you or the Fitbit are starting an exercise workout for logging, unless you mean you are just looking at the daily graph and not for a workout.

Because a workout used for that type of daily activity - where it's using HR-based calculations - will be inflated calorie burn from reality.

Better would be the normal steps giving a distance - and then mass and distance and time are very accurate calorie burn.

So don't start a workout for work.

So it's not what you are eating in total without other data - it's what you are eating in comparison to what you are burning that matters, and how much you have to lose.

And you sound like you are still taking a huge deficit even if the daily burn is inflated.

How tall are you? because that weight if tall may be close to a healthy goal weight. Then again could be shorter and it is indeed overweight by plenty.

Your deficit amount should be reasonable to the amount you have to lose or it will causes stress - how much you got until healthy weight?

Speaking of stress, which you are getting from this work, and I think undereating by too much - stress increases cortisol, that increases retained water, that increases weight.

So you could easily be losing fat weight still, and if you measured several spots see decreases there - but scale weight is the same.

Of course the body in this stressed out state is not good - it will adapt to what it can - so pay attention to more hair loss, or fingernails breaking easily.

Are you logging that food you eat?

If you need to bring your food - pretty easy to pre-log by weighing what you are bringing even for accuracy.

[emili]

Not to pile on, but as a diabetic, you can't eat that much fruit. You just can't. All that sugar and carb is why you haven't needed your emergency candy even with all your activity. Pooping- you are eating bananas and cheese- all the fiber in the apple, can't break through. You need to redo your food. I can't speak for the peeing- I would expect with that much liquid you would be, so there is some retention going on somewhere. You said your fitness has improved, which is amazing - celebrate the win!! Now, change your nutrition and you will see all kinds of results. 

[LionLady]

LEAN PROTEIN for breakfast - chicken breast, turkey, even tuna. Ease off the fruit and keep drinking water. If you can pack/carry fruit, you could just as easily take along a fresh green pepper cut into strips or some carrots. Easy to mindlessly munch and provides nutrition without sugars. Eat more of your calories early in the day, and just have an herbal tea at bedtime.