I have told myself the same kinda thing so many times. In the end, alot of it is denial. Somehow I thought it made me feel better to convince myself that I was eating so many less calories than I actually was-but self sabotage can only take me to bad places.
Unless you are measuring or weighing foods religiously and not ever taking cheat days or meals, it is VERY easy to incorrectly estimate yourself right into no weight loss (or even a gain).
If you hate salads, don't eat them! It will only make you miserable. And frankly, alot of people mistakenly think that a salad is always a healthy choice. If you're eating plain lettuce with a miniscule amount of healthy oils, that's one thing. Once you add stuff to make it taste good-dressing, croutons, cheese, bacos, etc. you may as well have eaten a big ole cheeseburger.
My insulin resistance does make it harder for me to lose weight, but I've done it several times over. My problem is keeping it off-and here's why....I can't just cut back a little. I can't trust myself to estimate, or even remember everything I ate because I have such a dysfunctional relationship with food.
I will think I am eating normally, but in reality I "forgot" the nibbles and snacks I grazed on throughout the day so when I track everything else it is inaccurate. I'll tell myself that all I ate was a serving size of chips or whatever, when in reality I reached my hand into the bag enough for 4 servings. I literally have to count chips, put them on a plate, put the bag away, and journal it before I eat it so I don't conveniently forget.
That said, there are some conditions that would make you test normally yet still wreak havoc on a diet plan, one of them being PCOS (like me). Thyroid tests fine, and unless you happen to hit the needle on the proper days in your cycle your hormones can test ok too. Even with a medical condition, it can ALWAYS be done-worst case scenario you would just lose slower. Sometimes a medication might help. Oddly enough, alot of these conditions improve themselves by losing weight-the heavier I am, the worse my PCOS symptoms are-including the IR.
I don't take any meds for my PCOS. The normal 3500 calories to gain or lose a pound doesn't apply to me. I have wasted so many negative emotions on that injustice-why do I have to be the one who can gain 20 pounds in a month without batting an eye, while my husband can eat 3 times what I did and not gain an ounce? It's not fair, and that just effing sucks.
But that mentality-me or anyone else feeling sorry for me doesn't help or change a thing. I had to stop making excuses and feeling like I could just be miserable and starve myself to the goal and then go right back to eating how I wanted to.
Find a healthy limit and stick to it, no matter what the scale says. Don't give up! You CAN do this!
I totally agree with doing some exercise or becoming more active with day to day activities.
I find weight loss incredibly difficult without exercise, whether its cardio or walking a lot or giving the house a good tidy. I think it helps my mindset, makes me feel happier and thus not wanting to overeat and really keeps your metabolism where it should be. We are not designed to be sedentary
Just to add my 2 cents about salads, I can't stand lettuce and other typical leafy salads, I find them awkward to eat and so blah. So I just cut up things like sweetcorn, onion, cucumber, carrot with low fat honey mustard. You can eat it with a spoon and it feels much more hearty
Perhaps you could write down a list of healthy and low calorie foods you like, then create some meal plans using them. Don't be too restrictive to begin with.
I really would avoid a diet that only allows 500-700 calories a day. Suggesting that is ridiculous and irresponsible. I'm hoping you do find some good advice here, possibly with starting to exercise (find something that you enjoy doing or you won't do it), meeting with a nutritionist or a doctor (one who doesn't prescribe drugs for the problem, but helps you come up with a healthy plan that applies to you and only you). Good luck. You CAN do this.
I really would avoid a diet that only allows 500-700 calories a day. Suggesting that is ridiculous and irresponsible.
Go tell that to the thousands of people who have followed any form of PSMF successfully. You can start right here.
Why do you think it is rediculous and irresponsible? It's not sustainable as I mentioned. It should not be undertaken without a Dr's blessing as I mentioned.
Normally I'd concur that calories that low are untenable and unhealthy. John did say under the care of a doctor, though--and doctors do sometimes prescribe unsustainable diets of various types to get weight off quickly.
The bigger question is whether anyone who isn't in dire straits health-wise needs to lose quickly. Weight loss doesn't have to be slow to be effective, but nor should anyone who's not in imminent peril feel that sense of desperation to "OMG get the weight off NOW NOW NOW!" That kind of mind-set leads to inevitable disappointment when the body says "Nope, losing a pound a week is enough for me no matter how much you cry."
There are incredibly few people who literally cannot lose weight. They do exist--just as this lady can't gain weight--but it is so rare that these people wind up in medical testing facilities and on news shows raising awareness about their conditions.
Have you gotten a truly thorough battery of tests performed? There could be something going on that is making it really difficult for you to lose--thyroid insufficiency, PCOS, some other less well-known glandular disorder--and finding it could be the key that unlocks your weight loss. I know you mentioned having been tested in the past, but maybe it's time to re-check; you should have the full range of thyroid tests done if you haven't already.
I'm not a salad-lover either and consider them the dietary equivalent of packing styrofoam--useful space-fillers that I move out of the way first before getting to the interesting stuff in the box. So don't eat salads! They aren't an essential tool for weight loss. There are other, tastier ways of getting in your vegetables and fiber. Try a vegetable-rich curry or stir-fry. Use a lot of greenery on your sandwich. Puree vegetables to mix into meat loaves and meatballs to provide bulk and nutrition without racking up calories.
I'm sorry you feel so discouraged. I hope that you find the method that works for you sooner rather than later. Sometimes it takes a long time searching for answers before you find one, and I hope your answer is just around the corner.
I've been on countless 500 calorie diets and other vlcd's (verly low calorie diets) with my Doctors' blessings, and I still wouldn't recommend them. I strongly believe that crash dieting on vcld's decimates metabolism, especially over time. I suspect it's the vlcd's that are responsible for the fact that I'm losing 1 or 2 lbs a month at a calorie level on which I once consistently lost 5-8 lbs per week.
My metabolism didn't suddently shut down. I didn't go from losing 8 pounds per week to 1 lb per month overnight. My metabolism eroded over time, and I'm convinced it's because of the crash dieting.
I'm convinced of this because when I finally gave up crash dieting, my metabolism stabilized. It didn't continue to crash downward. If only I had learned that before (or even just after) my first vlcd.
If you have a slow metabolism, the last think I'd recommend is a vlcd. I think too much muscle is lost along with the fat, and also that there's too much risk of the metabolic "errosion" I experienced all of my life.
Not to mention that vlcd's become "addictive." Even when I knew the crash diets were damaging, not helping my metabolism, I couldn't give them up, because they were the only way I could experience "acceptable" weight loss. "Acceptable" by my unrealistic expectations and that of our culture. All my life I thought that if you're not losing 2 lbs a week, you're failing. If you're not losing 1 lb a week, you're failing miserably and you might as well quit.
Thank God I learned to change my belief system, because I'm not sure that any of my 90 lbs lost has come off in less than a week. How much do I suck for losing an average of 1 pound or less per month.
I firmly believe that the only reason "this time" has been successful, is because I refused to use a vlcd to get here. If I had tried to lose this weight with another vlcd, I know I would have only ended up caught in the same cycle that resulted in weight gain, not loss. I know this because of the hundreds of times that's exactly what happened.
I'm having to "trick" my mind and body into losing weight by doing it "backwards." Making healthy changes that are manageable and trusting that the weight loss will eventually catch up. The first two years of trying, I didn't even loss a single pound. I just managed to keep off the 20 lbs I lost incedentally to sleep apnea treatment (it was the first time I had ever lost weight without effort or even my knowledge). But keeping of 20 lbs for two years was somthing I had never done before. So even while it was "failing at weight loss," it was also succeeding at weight loss and weight maintenance in a way I never had before.
I strongly suggest using a food, mood, and health symptom journal, weighing your food, and recording every bite.
Even if you're recording religiously, it is amazingly easy to "undo" even a month's progress with only one uncounted day. So it is very important to make your experiments LONG ones. You can't tell if a plan is working or not until you've adhered to it religiously AND have kept it up for three months.
Yep, I said three months. Most people decide after one or two weeks that a plan "isn't working" if they haven't lost any weight yet. Body's don't always work on a weekly schedule and it can take several weeks to see results on the scale. It's not unusual, and yet it is unusual for people to stay on a diet if they haven't lost any weight in the last three weeks.
I learned this when trying to get weight off of a fat cat we adopted. I figured since we'd be in absolute charge of her food, it would be easy to get the weight off her. It hasn't been. She lost a little weight, but the less we fed her, the less she moved. And she was so hungry she'd not just beg and yowl, she'd resort to eating non-food items that were dangerous (chewing on wood and plastic...).
It made me realize that my metabolism had done something similar to me. The less I ate, the less I moved. So I had to find a calorie level that allowed me to feel decent enough to move as much as I could, and yet allowed me to make some progress with my weight. For me, that balance is very slow weight loss, because when I decrease my calories more than a few hundred under what I am eating currently, it gets incredibly difficult to battle hunger, pain, fatigue and my autoimmune issues. If I cut too low, I get sick. And when I get sick, it's even harder to stay on plan (and even if I do, I end up unable to do even ordinary activities, so I burn fewer calories).
It was really hard to find what worked, and it took two years to do it. I'm not saying you'll have to work at this for two years before seeing results, but I am saying that you can't judge a food plan unless you've been on it for three months. Precise recording is essential, even when you're off plan (perhaps especially when you're off plan).
Even if you're not sure what the calorie count is, record everything as best you can. You will start to see patterns that will help you learn which changes work best for you.
Don't convince yourself that losing slowly at first means you'll only lose slower later. That's a myth. I'm losing faster than when I started, so that is possible.
I second the posters that say set NON-Scale goals, I've plateaud since february, and its now april, I was hoping I would be 300 by my birthday but its just not something I was in the right mind set to manage.
Now I KNOW my problem is my diet, I keep making excuses and not following a strictly healthy diet. Despite that I am at least able to hold onto self pride in my workouts, and improving physical strength/cardio capacity, while I might not be losing weight, this is keeping me from GAINING weight.
I think while its important to keep an eye on your weight to make sure you are not gaining. If you set non-scale goals in addition then you won't be as likely to despair when the scale sticks for a while. At least that is how it works for me...
I believe JohnP's intention (And correct me if I am wrong) Was that a very low calorie diet would provide fairly instant results and perhaps show the OP that weight loss is possible for her, and it would then provide the motivation to continue with whatever eating plan suits her.
How long have you been doing this plan? and it looks like by your ticker you've lost 18 lbs...
Do you have a list/example of what you are eating in a day?
I agree. You've lost 18 pounds, you can lose weight.
Kaplods, always thoughtful and informative. I have had the IP diet recommended by doctors but I don't do protein shakes well since I got my gallbladder removed. The other VLCDs that the doctors do are acceptable for 2 reasons: 1) they medically supervise your health (heart, liver, etc.), 2) if you don't lose weight on a VLCD the doctor puts you on, you generally need to be checked for a metabolic problem(which isn't as common as people think but it can happen). The thing is that these aren't sustainable and you still have to learn to eat healthfully as part of your lifestyle to maintain a loss. It's all about finding the right tools for the job.
I start out alright, but about 30 lbs in I manage to cheat and sabotage my progress.
Then I had the Lap Band done. Lost 55 lbs in 5 months. I realized that I couldn't eat a LOT of food, but I could eat a small amount of BAD food. FAIL.
I started the Ideal Protein diet August 3, 2010 and as of April 6, 2011 I've lost 110 lbs. I love this diet! I'm not hungry due to the amount of vegetables I have to eat every day. The scale going down is all the motivation I need to keep going!
Best wishes to everyone out here who is attempting and/or continuing to lose weight. It is a daily battle, but we can win!
18 lbs is great!! Dont for a moment forget that you HAVE lost weight, you can do this for sure.
Spring time in Winnipeg is great for getting out with lots to see. There are tons of walking tours, the Forks has a lovely river walk that I've always enjoyed, St Vital park, even corydon ave is a nice place to walk around and before you know it you've seen so much and it's been a whole afternoon.
feel free to PM me anytime if you want some support, but please dont give up, you really can do this!!!
I believe JohnP's intention (And correct me if I am wrong) Was that a very low calorie diet would provide fairly instant results and perhaps show the OP that weight loss is possible for her, and it would then provide the motivation to continue with whatever eating plan suits her.
That is correct. If the OP is being genuine in her belief that she can't lose weight than that belief most be shattered. I'm not a fan of PSMF in general for a variety of reasons but they work and done correctly they're perfectly safe.
I'm hoping you do find some good advice here, possibly with starting to exercise (find something that you enjoy doing or you won't do it), meeting with a nutritionist or a doctor (one who doesn't prescribe drugs for the problem, but helps you come up with a healthy plan that applies to you and only you). Good luck. You CAN do this.
