At a crossroads

[princessandy]

Hi, the good news first! I have lost 32 lb since about the middle of January, first with slimming world for a couple of months and about 8 weeks ago I finished with them and signed up for this 12 week plan. However in the first week I got distracted with a low carb diet and love the style of eating but apart from a fantastic loss of 8lb over the first two weeks I have only maintained for the last 4 weeks. I am getting anxious that I am putting a great deal of effort in and I have has lots of other benefits health wise the bottom line is losing weight which isn't happening. I feel I need to change again and perhaps not follow any slimming climbs or fads and just concentrate on simple changes. I am nervous about my willpower!! Has anyone been down a similar path to this and got any advice please?

[sueper]

Hi princessandy, well done on your weight loss so far. I have not be down the same road but very much doing my own thing. I don't yet count calories but I am becoming more calorie aware. I expect to have to switch this up at some point when my loss plateaus.

There is so much advice out there on all sorts of diets and lifestyles to follow but for me it is simply cutting down, mainly on snacking and portion sizes. And it is working so far. I want to be able to maintain this long term so what I eat must fit in with my lifestyle and what I like to eat - I am a very fussy eater. I think with fad diets where you are cutting out too much of what you like it is easy for fall off the wagon and go back to your old eating habits. I can honestly say that now I can barely remember what my old eating habits were, although I presume similar to what they are now but with just less food, cake and chocolate (but by no means none).

I think willpower comes with time. I have had to gradually reduce my snacking, replacing bars of chocolate etc with fruit and fat free yoghurts. It is working for me finally but I would say it has taken me 3 months to get to the point where I am no longer prowling around the kitchen looking for food.

Good luck with the next stage in your weight loss journey

[princessandy in reply to sueper]

Thank you for the advice, I just need to get my head sorted I think!!

[princessandy]

Thanks for your imput, in terms of food everything fresh, lots of veg, meat, eggs and fish and probably no more than 30 gm carb per day. I enjoy everything I am eating and the effort I was talking about to keep going is things like preparing two different meals most nights, we eat out quite a lot and it is difficult sometimes as we are a very carb orientated nation! I have had a lot of health benefits ie water retention under control, blood pressure better, eczema better. I mustn't forget that I have averaged a one pound loss per week since the beginning of the year also. Perhaps it's just my head I need to get right, or experiment with some small changes. It's just that after 4 weeks at the end of March with no weight loss I changed from Slimming World and now it's happened again with low carbing my brain expects a weight loss because I am a results orientated person and get frustrated when I feel I am doing the right things and the scales aren't moving. I suspect I need to chill out and stop worrying! I retired in November last year and I set myself the goal of losing 5 stone this year.

[lizmaxwell in reply to princessandy]

Know the feeling when you have been losing and suddenly it stops. I am in that position myself. I have lost 4 stone since before xmas but have been stuck like you for about a month.

I am partially disabled( road accident some years ago ) and so my lifestyle is very sedentary. In my case i think that this is my problem. However dont know whether it is good or bad but i am about to go on holiday. Hoping that the extra activity will help....I know holdays not traditionally a good time to lose but am so concerned about putting it back I think that will be at the back of my mind all the time. Luckily won't be tempted by alcohol as don't drink.....nothing against it lol but because of the pain meds i am on it makes me feel really yuck. Were you losing on slimming world because i always found in the past that i lost on that as long as i avoided the green days me and carbs do not get on well together.

I know it sounds patronising but could your portion sizes have been creeping up ? I have a collection of plastic pots that i use when trying to be very good -not bought ones but things like yogurt pots that have I filled with various foods and then marked eg for dry and cooked pasta etc when i have weighed them. Could you take a bit more exercise - 20 minutes really brisk walking every day, might just be enough to kick start things off again.

Sometimes it might just something small eg i got into the habit of having 2 big yogurts after my evening meal . I really like jelly with fruit in so now have cut out one of the yogurts and have 1 with a big bowl of sugar free jelly and that really keeps me going until breakfast the next day.

Best of luck, don't despair look on the bright side at least you are not gaining.

Ps Last thought if you are exercising you might increasing your muscle density and that heavy. They say you should measure yourself as well as weighing as you might still be getting trimmer but not necessarily lighter.