Here's something I don't understand.

I found a website (Calories Per Hour if anyone's interested) that has an activities calculator for all kinds of physical things people do in their daily lives, including the kinds of things I do at work. I put in what I did on Friday and how long I spent doing each thing.

Total calories burned at work on Friday: 1319.

And Friday was a relatively slow day.

So at work everyday I burn approximately the same amount of calories (1341) as I would if I ran for three hours everyday. This calorie burn is in addition to any other activity I get in my daily life including planned exercise. When those activities are added in my daily calorie burn is well over 2000 calories.

So even with my average daily intake of between 1500 and 1800 calories I should be losing weight at a nice steady clip.

Except I'm not.

I've learned two things. One, it's no wonder that I'm having a hard time lowering my calories on workdays. And two, my system must really be screwed up.

Our bodies aren't clean math equations, despite what Jillian and Bob (or countless books, say). They have different metabolisms, cling to fat or muscle for different reasons, do weird things.

Your system is totally normal. In its own wacky way.

I agree with Seagirl. But I also think those calorie-burning estimates are not accurate. What myplate says I burn is sometimes hundreds of calories different from my what heart-rate monitor says. In all likelihood, neither is correct.

Also, when you do the same activity over and over, your body gets more efficient at that activity, and you burn fewer and fewer calories. Those websites don't account for that -- they tell you the same number whether it's the first time you've done an activity or the 1,000th.

I can't remember if I replied to your post about your co-worker, but your description of how you feel when you don't eat regularly make me think blood sugar issues. Have you had your blood sugar tested? You sound hypoglycemic to me. I don't know much about blood sugar but if yours it out of whack it could be contributing to your challenges (and definitely making you feel crappy when you don't eat).

those calculators are meaningless.

Why are they meaningless? How do you count the calories you burn?

Well I can't afford a heartrate monitor so online calculators are the only way I have of having a rough idea of what I am burning. I do realize they are not altogether accurate for everybody, but with all the moving around I do I should be burning something even if the true total is half of what the calculator says. But that plus my BMR should still be putting me in a deficit.

I haven't had my blood sugar tested ( between doctors right now) but I don't think I'm hypoglycemic because if I was I'd get just as hungry on weekends and I'm not. On weekends it's no struggle at all to keep my calories down.

I wish I could just stay home for a month so I could keep the calories low and drop the weight. Since that's not an option I'm almost ready to give up but I'm afraid that I'll gain back the weight I've lost if I do that. As long as I'm trying to lose I know I won't gain.

Besides if I give up I'll feel even more like a failure than I already do.

I don't calculate the calories I burn.

I tend to agree it's fairly meaningless to try to do this, because our bodies adjust. We also tend to forget we burn tons of calories sitting on our couch and sleeping and being really sedentary - and those calculators do not subtract out at rest calorie burn. So while we say you burn 100 calories a mile running, something like 50 calories is how much you'd burn just sitting on your couch. So really it's only an extra 50, not an extra 100.

I don't recall what you do for work and how long you have been doing it - but chances are, your body has adapted and while your metabolism may be higher from it, I don't think you can count something you do every day like that as exercise. You can certainly consider yourself highly active and eat more calories, but I wouldn't try to figure out how many you are burning from that activity.

Take me for example, I walk to work and around the city most days. While this keeps me active, it's not the same as someone else who just started walking because I've been doing it for 3 years. My body is used to it and sees it as part of my daily routine.

Personally, I've never seen any weightloss from exercise other than the times I have weight lifted continuously for months. And this includes swimming 3 hours a day when I competed, running 5 miles a day, walking 5 miles a day and just general "going to the gym" stuff. I have NEVER in my life lost weight from exercise alone - other than building muscle by lifting weights regularly for months. And even then, I only lost a few lbs without doing anything about my eating.

I don't subscribe to the "calories in = calories out" mentality. I just don't think it's that easy. While I count calories and fine it useful to know how much I am eating, I know that my body will adapt and adjust as I eat less, just like it adjusted when I ate more. Because I started calorie counting I was eating 2500 - 3500 calories a day, which according to those calculators meant I should have been gaining, but I wasn't.

Why don't you give up trying to lose the last 5 pounds. Give up trying to make your body so something it doesn't want to do. Give up having 5 pounds be what your energy goes towards. Give up feeling like a failure because of the make up of your body. Give up wasting one more second of your life worrying about this.

Exercise and activity affects your blood sugar needs as well. If you watch a Broncos game, you see Jay Cutler testing his blood sugar between series (he's a diabetic).

Because I'm short and five pounds on me is like twenty pounds on you. Would you want to give up and stop trying when you were twenty pounds away from goal?

I didn't think so.

If those 20 pounds were making me miserable and feeling like a failure and consuming a significant portion of my life and energy?

Yes, I would seek help as to why I was focusing on that and let it go.

The number on the scale is pretty much the least important thing to me.

I hope you find the resolution you are looking for.

Magrat-
lets cut to the chase.
Despite however many calories we feel we are owed, despite how active we think we are, if you are not losing fat, you are not in a caloric deficit. I dont care if your eating 1000 cals a day--- i dont care if your exercising or working intensly for 8 hours a day.

If you arent losing fat, you arent in a deficit. PERIOD.

Therefore, you have two options---> eat less food, even though you experience physical discomfort from not eating enough at work already

or accept your weight, and eat enough to fuel your body and feel better while at work.

We can come up with all the excuses and reasons and complaints in the world, but thats what it boils down too.

It sounds like youve been dieting down for a really long time (years? if i remember reading correctly)

You are probably desperately in need of a refeed...an extended diet break where you eat at maintenance or above.

Sadly, even though you really arent eating a whole lot, since youve been dieting so long, what you are eating NOW, appears to have become your maintenance.
it sux.

You can take an extended diet break and refeed your body, and try to raise your metabolism and daily burn a little,
or you can LOWER your cals even more, and deal with feeling like crap, to lose the last 5.
Or you can keep spinning your wheels for ANOTHER 2 or 3 years.

Giving up and accepting my weight is absolutely positively not an option right now. I turn 50 next month and I need to lose the weight before menopause hits and weight loss becomes completely impossible instead of just extremely difficult.

I agree that I need to drop the calories. Right now I think I'm just going to cut all my meals in half and see what happens. If that doesn't work I may have to move on to eating two meals a day or fasting once a week, probably on Saturdays.

I have four strikes against me in terms of losing weight: I'm short, I'm female, I'm close to goal and I'm older. I hope not but I have a nagging suspicion that my weight loss calorie level is going to be around 900 calories or maybe even less.