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I joined this community years ago, but have long since lost my account info. So here I am on a new one.

I've been having SO much trouble with my weight. I know everyone does, but I just can't figure out the problem. I've been seeing a doctor for about two months now for weight loss. He's an actual MD, but he deals in alternative medicine. He's had me on supplements for my thyroid, adrenals, and hormones. But nothing is working. If anything I've GAINED a pound or two. I don't know if my problem is my eating habits or my exercise habits. Any help would be appreciated. I'll list my supplements in case it helps.

Nature Thyroid - thyroid support
AdrenaSense - feeds and heals adrenals (herbal mix)
K-Min - diatomaceous earth for digestive detox
EstroDIM - blocks estradiol
saffron - decreases appetite and weight, helps depression
Myomin - Chinese herbal mix to balance hormones and block estradiol
Bioidentical progesterone cream (NOT from horse urine)
Green Coffee Extract - prevents blood sugar crash after meals
Transglucosidase - Converts starch to fiber

I also take a B12, a hair, skin, and nails supplement, and one for bone health. Yah, it seems like a lot but it's not really. Just kinda pricey. He also has me on HCG, though I'm almost done with it. No idea if he will put me back on it or not. And no, he said I didn't have to follow the "diet plan" for it. But something is wrong, and I have no idea what. Please help. :(

Have you been counting calories throughout your weight gain to see any trends? I'd recommend signing up for something like myfitnesspal.com to get an idea of how many calories you are eating.

Well you haven't told us anything about your diet or exercise program.

But what i'd do is ditch all those supplements. Sounds like you are being taken to the cleaners financially.

Take oroxin for your thyroid. If your thyroid is stabilised that's the not the problem. I take the synthetic hormone. I have absolutely no problem with it. My mother takes the natural one and i think she is taking too much of it because she is very very skinny and is showing premature osteoporosis. But that's not to say that should be the case for anyone else. She's just clearly not getting her hormones tested.

If anything you could be insulin resistant but your doctor should be able to tell you that. and if that's the case none of those other things are going to fix it.

Read the articles on the website nutrition wonderland for seratonin, leptin, insulin and others if you find them interesting.

Also i recommend the book The Don't go Hungry Diet by Dr Amanda Sainsbury- Salis. I don't follow her program to the letter (which is basically IE) but the concepts she discusses (famine reaction, set-point and the fat break) are useful and i believe correct. Her program is based on what science knows about the hormone leptin which is the hungry hormone. She is one of these scientists herself. There is an argument or belief among many scientists in the field that the reason most people can't sustain weightloss or keep it off is because of the hormone leptin. An explanation in her book gives a solution which i found completely convincing and i'm working with it.

Eating and exercise habits.. Not very good. I don't snack a lot, but I don't eat too healthy in general. I can't cook very well so I can't make my own meals very well. I tend to rely on microwavable stuff. I also don't drink much soda. Maybe one can a month, at the most. And it's always stevia soda. I also use either stevia or monk fruit sweetener in my coffee and tea. And most of my tea is caffeine-free herbal. I'm pants at trying to keep track of what I eat. Or at least the measuring part. I can't eyeball stuff at all. And if I make up a salad, how to you figure out the calories of all the stuff in it? So I never bothered with the whole measuring thing.

As for exercise... I'm also pants at that too. I did some today. About half an hour of Just Dance! on the Wii. I know it's not much but it's something I can do.

Well if you are doing microwavable stuff, are you doing things like microwave meals? Those have calorie counts on them.

And calorie counters keep records of what you eat. It isn't hard to add ingredients of a salad or stuff you eat. You can add recipes and things that you eat regularly are good. For pre-packaged stuff, it is even easier.

I highly recommend getting a calorie baseline by counting calories for at least a week to see where you are at. Once you know where you are at, then you can improve.

Yah, packaged stuff is easy. It's more...other things. Like back to the salad. How do I tell how much lettuce I use? How much cucumber? How much cheese? Etc.. I don't want to have to weight things. Or am I thinking too much into this.

Well you estimate as best you can. For vegetables, it really won't matter much if you eat 1 cup or 4 cups, its not a lot of calories. I'd focus on the more caloric items and again estimate. If you want to lose weight, you will need to change what you are doing now and I think it is a good idea just to see where you are at and see where you can make changes.

What i do is measure it by the cup.

OK here's some advice about cooking easy meals and measuring out portions.
I really think you need to want to take this on if you want to lose the weight and keep it off and be healthy. so its worth learning how to do this properly. but no one expects you to get it right within a week.

It takes time to learn how to cook and manage food well.

For all my vegie measurements that i want i use a cup. So buy a set of plastic measuring cups and spoons they are really useful for cooking as well.

You should be aiming for 2.5 to 3 cups of vegetables per day. And about 5 different types. A serve of lettuce of leafy vegies is half a cup. But more is fine.

I don't measure tomato, i just say one tomato. In fact i don't measure my vegies anymore but you should to start with to get a sense of what's about right.

I measure milk by the cup and yoghurt.
Cheese should be weighed. About 30grams is an ideal serve but you will get away with more than that in the beginning.

Also consider buying yourself some digital kitchen scales. They should be good quality so ask around and don't buy the first thing you see. They can be expensive so be careful you don't want to break the bank.

Cooking:
Start with some recipe books. Get yourself one or two good books. You might want to ask some title advice from book shop people or others here.

People like Delia Smith, is good for basic anglo food.
Buy a nice mediterranean or french, italian , greek or spanish book. Mediterranean is fantastic especially french. Don't go for fancy restaurant food. Look for traditional recipes. The word is often on the cover but try to get a book written by some with a background in the culture.

Gradually build a small library of cook books. Small! And avoid books about cakes and pastries and tarts.
Look for a nice vegetable book
a salad book
fish and seafood

Try your hand at learning to cook some basic things like bread, or pasta, or other things you have never ever considered before. Its fun and interesting to learn how to make these things that take a bit of extra time. Mostly i only do them once but i am always glad of the experience. Same goes for lots of interesting asian dishes.

The french are very good with soups.

So its good to learn to cook with recipes when you are not much good at cooking. But there is also an art to picking a recipe so that's one reason why i suggest not just picking anything online. Lots of recipes are very ordinary and disappointing.
Go for traditional fare.

Don't spend too much money on kitchen equipment at the start. You want wooden spoons, egg flip, whisk, decent chopping knife, a small food processor of some sort can do things like pesto which are hard to do with a bamix, a ba-mix for soups and fine chopping. Two or three saucepans with lid, i use a pressure cooker for my dried bean and lentil dishes and soups. A solid base fry pan, measuring jug, chopping board, some dried herbs, some spices - whole are better, a coffee grinding machine to grind up spices or a pestle and mortar, some baking dishes.

Have fun.

When I used to calorie count a scale was the most important tool I've ever owned. I would measure everything in grams. When I made the transition out of calorie counting I stopped measuring raw veggies, the calorie count was so low that I didn't want to restrict myself. So I'd just use one whole head of romaine, half a cucumber, half an avocado, one whole carrot. I did however measure out the dressing and whatever protein was going in there.

These supplements you are taking sound very strange to me. How does one convert starch into fiber? I've never heard of this type of alternative medicine. If you are open to alternative health you may want to seek out an accredited homeopath, osteopath and/or accupuncturist. I'm weary of anyone that tries to sell me supplements. So you've tried it, it hasn't worked so what more reason do you need to stop?

When someone says something like "I don't want to have to..." it leads me to think that there are certain things you are unwilling to do. That's fine, we all have limits and boundaries. But exercise, nutrition and good health are not to be taken for granted. I do not count calories or weigh my food or even restrict my eating with a diet. But I'm very conscious of what I eat because I want to be healthy. I guess you could say I practice moderation and portion control. But nothing good comes from "I don't wanna" in fact it can really hold you back. Instead of thinking of what you don't want to do think about the people who might have the misfortune of not being able to do something you take for granted. Such as:

I don't wanna exercise - think of someone who may have lost the use of their legs and wishes they could exercise!

I don't have time to exercise - there is someone much busier than you on a treadmill right now

Anyway, these are the types of things I think about to keep in a good positive mental direction. We move to live, enjoy it while you can. You don't have to do formal exercise or go to a gym to be healthy and active. Take a walk, take every opportunity you have to walk, plan activities outside with friends, find something you enjoy and get to it. This CAN be fun.

Phone and iPad apps like LoseIt have a barcode scanner that lets you scan a microwave meal and bring in all the nutritional data, which saves a LOT of typing. The database is pretty big and it doesn't do a bad job. :)

Transglucosidase is basically an enzyme that stop the flood of glucose after eating a starchy meal. So it limits how much starch is made into sugar, and instead tells the body to convert it into prebiotic fiber.

But anyway, I think I MAY have found part of the problem. I'm consuming more calories than I thought I was. At least on some days. Like yesterday I had a Big Mac with a medium fry. Not something I have all the time, but that was a lot more caloric than I thought. Even if it's not 100% accurate, I guess keeping track of my food is something I may need to do.

Well I think keeping track of your food at least for a short while gives you an idea of your problem areas. There is nothing wrong with consuming frozen meals if it works for you. For many that consume fast food, they often downgrade to something less caloric like instead of a Big Mac and medium fry, how about a hamburger (no mayo, mustard instead) and a small fry? Progress, not perfection will help you and you can tweak as you go along.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prebiotic_(nutrition)

IN other words a weightloss drug. Personally i think you are flushing your money down the loo. According to the wiki article, it might not be doing what it claims to do. There doesn't seem to be enough studies done on this stuff yet.

I don't see much on the net of any meaning about trans.... At least not on page 1 of google. Nothing that tells me anything i can understand or that i would consider trustworthy. I certainly wouldn't be buying it on amazon.

This is a bit of a divergence from the original post, but I looked up transglucosidase out of curiosity and found a recent study out of Japan - the conclusion was that taking this enzyme decreased blood glucose levels and prevented body weight gain in type-2 diabetics by "inducing the production of oligosaccharides in the alimentary tract and modulating gut microbiota composition."

Transglucosidase improves the gut microbiota profile of type 2 diabetes mellitus patients: a randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled study

The study did not include a lot of people but it is intriguing. From the Discussion section:

I find the relationship between obesity and bacteria in the digestive system fascinating. I will be looking into this topic more :)

To the OP: Do you have type-2 diabetes or pre-diabetes? Here is an older study that suggests transglucosidase doesn't do much for healthy people but does have a beneficial effect for those with impaired glucose tolerance ("pre-diabetes").

A Novel Strategy in Production of Oligosaccharides in Digestive Tract: Prevention of Postprandial Hyperglycemia and Hyperinsulinemia

I'm pretty sure I don't have diabetes, though I'm at risk for it. My maternal grandmother had it. I don't know anything else, as that's all that was included in the adoption papers. As for pre-diabetes, I don't know. I sometimes have blood sugar issues, but that's only if I don't eat or drink anything for a while. Then I tend to get hypoglycemic until I eat something. But it doesn't happen often. If there is a way to test if I am pre-diabetic I will see about getting tested when I have the money. But as of right now, I think I'm pretty normal with the occasional low points now and then.

And you should talk to a lady I work with. She thinks almost EVERYTHING wrong with people stems from digestive issues one way or the other.

With all due respect, if you don't want to weigh your food and monitor your calorie intake, then you don't really want to lose weight all that much. Because monitoring your calorie intake is 90% of weight loss. Going to see a doctor for some fancy, trendy supplements is NOT a quick fix; it's just a waste of time and money.

Get a food scale and some measuring cups. You will probably get a big wake-up call on how much you are actually eating (your Big Mac post is a good example), but you cannot keep the blinders on about your calorie intake and still hope to lose any weight. If you really want to do it, it WILL involve actual work on your part, not just popping pills and looking for some medical condition as an excuse.

Good luck.

I am a firm believer in natural medicine but shame on this physician for putting you on so many supplements, even HCG, without you even doing the basic fundamentals of eating less.

What you are doing is like sealing a cabin window on the Titanic while ignoring that long gash across the boat. You CANNOT solve this by eating too much food.

You say your diet isn't great. That is your answer. I recommend a digital scale and start counting properly, you really need to get an understanding of food portions.

I know you don't want to track what you eat - but do you hate tracking so much that you want to continue maintaining or gaining?

You can name all the supplements in the world but you aren't going to lose if you don't start eating a lot less. End of. No exceptions.

It's not so much calorie counting in general. I started doing that yesterday on Livestrong. It's more... How to put it... Like measuring my cereal in one cup. My milk in another. Then you have to figure out the sugar before you combine them all. Then if you want, say, a PBJ you have to get out spoons to measure the peanut butter and the jelly. I can't see myself doing that all the time.

And before anyone says I don't really want to lose weight, YES I do. I'm just going to try to eyeball things as best I can. It may not be 100% accurate, but it should be really close.

And how there can be so many calories in two tablespoons of peanut butter, I will never know. :P *silly rhetorical question*

You don't have to measure things or count calories. Doing so might teach you a lot about yourself and not just about peanut butter, but it's amazing how easy to put in twice as much oil or butter than we intend to. Measuring by eyeballing is risky because your eyeball is not at all accurate. I found it to be cumbersome too but I found an easier way. Let's say I wanted to count your cereal, milk, and sugar (yikes, sugar?? really?)

Ok on my scale I'd place a bowl and zero out the count. In goes the cereal, write down how many grams it is. Zero out the count and add the milk in grams. Zero out the count again and add your sugar. No cups, tablespoons, or "eyeballing" necessary. It is possible to become super quick with this, this is how I made up all my plates - zero out the previous item and add the next item.

But really, it isn't necessary to count or track or measure anything if you don't want to. I don't, not at all, I just practice moderation and portion control and I'm fine, losing and content. But whatever you choose to do you will have to put in some type of effort. It sounds like you're asking "how can I get better results without having to put any effort in at all?" You can't run a marathon if you're not willing to take a few steps.

You can definitely eyeball things and be successful, but not at first. How can you eyeball 4 ounces of chicken when you don't even know what 4 ounces of chicken looks like?

Anything new can seem cumbersome at first, that's part of the learning process. Weighing accurately (and with a scale for solids; you should only use the cups and tablespoons for liquids) is the only way to know for sure what you're eating. Nobody said you have to do it for the rest of your life. But you'll need to do it for a little while if you want any clue as to how much you're eating.

I don't use sugar. :P It was just part of the example.

And I DO know to put effort in. I was more confused as to why I wasn't losing when my doctor said I should be easily. But I kinda answered my own question, I guess, just by looking at what I ate yesterday. I honestly didn't think I was eating that much stuff. I mean I know fast food isn't good for you. I guess I just didn't realize how bad.

Ahhh, new question came up. How do you calorie count if the food you have doesn't have nutritional info? I have some Amish-made cheese that doesn't have any. It's natural, 2-year aged cheddar. Just use something similar on the website and go with that?

If you are using a website like myfitnesspal, then I'd look up cheddar cheese. There won't be much variation between cheddars. If you are doing it by hand, then calorieking.com, nutrientdata.com and other websites will have calories.

I agree with Nelie. The difference between this cheddar cheese and that isn't going to be the difference between losing weight and not losing weight.

As to not wanting to measure your food, this deliberate reluctance on your part to have a go is going to cause you problems. YOu can nip it in the bud now or muddle on for a long long time.

The thing is when you want to achieve something, whatever it is, and everyone's telling you, 'this part is pretty essential', and you say, ' no i don't want to do that, i don't even want to try', then you are not giving yourself the smallest chance to achieve what you say you want.

e.g. your a kid at school and you want to go to uni but you don't want to do any homework. Well, unless you are a very bright child, you aren't going to get to uni. End of story. Same here with losing weight.

Measuring stuff really isn't hard. Its only your mental position that's hard. You should just let go and try it. Let go the resistance and the resentment. Life will be better.

As to the peanut butter question, fat has more than twice as many calories as carbohydrates and proteins. That's why there are so many calories in 2 tbsp of peanut butter, butter, oil, and so on. A lot of takeaway is made with a lot of fat. When i fry stuff at home, i use a lot less oil than is used in eateries. The reason they use a lot is because fat makes food more flavourful. I'm not saying fat is bad. But we do need to monitor our fat intake and try to choose better quality fats. I think it was in the don't go hungry diet book that i read more about fats that i didn't really know before. You can find out on the internet no doubt. So read up on the problems with industrially made vegetable oils and transfats. if you understand how food is made and why some of it is problematic and unhealthy, you might be more inclined to make better choices and eat less of the bad stuff.

Emma i found that article but i only read the abstract. As the wiki article seems to suggests that study isn't really sufficient for the claims being made for the stuff as Anne-marie says. But then, i am not in a position to be able to assess the usefulness of that study. Note in the wiki study, all the comments about "citation needed" unsubstantiated assertions e.g. in "says who".

People selling supplements like Anne marie's doctor will be inclined to pick up on any half baked assertions and push them on their patients because they make money from people buying those things and if there's any chance that the patient will benefit, they would prefer to take that chance rather educate their patients to take the more boring path which sounds a little less glamourous and earns them nothing.

Amariel, if you really hate the concept of the weighing and tracking (I get it, but it sure does work), you can try what I did for a while - just eat 1/4 - 1/3 less of everything. Stop before you get to the amount you always used to eat, unless it's a non-starchy vegetable, in which case, go nuts. Take a noticeably smaller portion from the serving dish. Use a smaller plate. It's techniques I learned in WW and still fall back on first. It's portion control for the extremely lazy (me). :D

Hello Amariel1981. It's is awesome that you want to be healthier! So far the advice that everyone has given is great.
But I feel the need to reiterate the concern that you are focusing far too much on supplements as if the problem with your weight is something outside of your own control. This is both self-defeating and a symptom of possibly being in some denial.
You have control!
There are tons of ways to lose weight, low carb, cut out sugars, etc etc. All the diets that follow one or more of these types of guidelines really amount to one BIG thing:
They will ALL result in a calorie deficit if followed properly.

It is just that eating more/less of a particular type of food sometimes makes it easier to handle the blood sugar lows and highs throughout the day.

So, you don't need to over complicate this. Try using a calorie program online to estimate how many calories you need to eat per day to maintain your current weight. And then use it to estimate how many calories per day you need to eat in order to maintain your goal weight. And shoot to eat a little lower than that.
Eat what you want as long as you stay at or under those calories.

It is THAT simple.

It helps to be mindful not to create to many sugar spikes throughout the day with your choices but it is not necessary for weight loss. Try to keep in mind nutrition slowly incorporating healthier foods as you go is best.

But to start... JUST EAT LESS CALORIES. And be patient both with the scale and yourself. Eating less is a mental/emotional struggle for most.

No supplements, no reasoning with glucose blockers, no thinking that there is something inherently wrong with you or your metabolism. It's ridiculous and I am willing to bet money that there is isn't.

Keep positive!