Weight loss is stuck

[Humbugthecat]

I have 5st to lose. I started in March & lost 20lbs in 1st 3 months. In the last 7 months I’ve lost between 3-6lbs. I’m doing exactly the same as in the beginning- calorie counting 1500 and walking 3-5 miles and weekly PT. Obviously not been on target all the time as had holiday. Can anyone help please and explain what’s going on with my body

[TheAwfulToad Visitor]

There's nothing 'going on' as such. Your body is doing exactly what it's supposed to do.

It's normal to lose a modest amount of weight during the first few weeks of a calorie-limited diet, while your body catches up with the fact that your food is being restricted. It will then go into "famine mode", conserving your bodyfat in order to keep you alive until the "famine" abates. When you start eating normally again, it will put all that fat back again (possibly with a bit extra) so that it can be confident of repeating the same trick the next time there's a famine.

This is why caloric restriction results in a "yo-yo" dieting pattern. Weight comes off. Weight goes on again.

Excuse the anthropomorphic characterization of a mechanical process, but it makes the explanation straightforward!

What you need to do is start eating proper food, and eating enough of it. When your body is food-secure, and receiving healthy food at each meal, it will discard fat. There's a bit of a learning curve involved here: I'm sure others will chime in.

[TheTabbyCat Administrator 16kg in reply to TheAwfulToad]

Tat, thank you for such a clear explanation.

[N-o-r-d-i Maintainer 64kg in reply to TheAwfulToad]

I’ve picked a calorie limit based on BMR for my heathy weight. My flawed thinking at the time was that if I teach myself to eat the right amount of food, then weight should be reducing until I reach the healthy weight and then stay there while I add extra calories for exercising and so on.

I don’t think that was right 🙂 and I wouldn’t do it the same way now, if I were to go back in time. However, my weight loss didn’t slow down after a few weeks, as so many people who prefer other methods state.

I stuck to the same limit since July last year and I’ve lost a lot (over 62 kg to be precise). Granted, I don’t just count calories - I watch and choose what I eat and I also introduced Time Restricted Eating in the end of summer this year.

So from my personal experience - counting calories is not enough for weight loss, but also - reducing calories does not automatically mean that the weight loss will stop.

Whatever the method of losing weight - hardly any of us can go back to their ‘normal’ after losing weight, because our previous ‘normal’ is what most likely caused the weight problem to start with.

[TheTabbyCat Administrator 16kg]

Hi Humbugthecat and welcome back to the forum. When we begin to lose weight the lbs seem to drop off, then we can plateau and weight loss stalls.

May I suggest that you read these links. I've just chosen these 2 for you but there's lots of information to be had in the Pinned Posts.

healthunlocked.com/weight-l...

healthunlocked.com/nhsweigh...

When I began my weight loss journey,I found that using the Daily Diary and a weekly Weigh In to be very useful. There's lots of tips and support there.

I suspect you may not be eating enough with 1500 calories. Please run your height/weight age etc through the NHS site so that you calculate your BMI and from there obtain a personalized calorie range.

healthunlocked.com/api/redi...

Good luck.🍀

[Lytham 3 stone]

Hello, would you like to join us on our weigh in? Here's the link, I hope to see you there! x

healthunlocked.com/weight-l...