Time to give up..?

This topic contains 6 replies, has 5 voices, and was last updated by hermajtomomi 10 years, 7 months ago.

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Lulutiger

2:05 am
6 Apr 14
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Hi everyone,

I’ve been doing the 5:2 diet for nearly a year (11 months). I have stuck to the 500 cals or less on fast days. On other days I track that I’m staying under my calorie allowance. I tried not eating until lunch and I have a fairly active job (lot of standing, walking, up and down stairs).

Initially when starting the diet I did lose some weight, about 4 kilos. I felt that I had found the answer but then the weight stalled, then starting creeping up again. Now I don’t know what to eat and when. I find I eat less than when I started the diet. I feel nauseous and bloated often and really down that I can’t succeed where so many others can.

I can’t see the point of continuing unless I’ve overlooked something or anyone has further suggestions..?
Btw- I do have some health issues: hypothyroidism, pernicious anaemia, chronic migraines.

Louise

simcoeluv

2:38 am
6 Apr 14
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Hi:

Well, you can give up and go back to your old way of eating. I guess you gained weight doing that, but it is comfortable.

Otherwise, it sounds like you are eating too many calories. I would suggest you actually count calories for a week and see how many you are eating.

It might answer why you are not losing.

Good Luck!

franfit

3:28 am
6 Apr 14
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Lulutiger, it sounds like it’s time for a visit to the doctor, if you’re feeling nauseated and bloated and (it sounds like) depressed, while coping with multiple medical problems.

As pedestrian as it sounds, the cause of not losing weight usually comes down to too many calories and/or not enough activity. It is frightfully easy to overestimate how active we are and underestimate how much we eat. Many people recommend setting your TDEE at one activity level lower than what you think it is for this reason. For those of us who need only about 1500 calories or less per day to maintain our weight, it’s hard to lose weight, because it just isn’t that much food. Even cutting back to 500 calories 2 days a week means that we’re only shorting ourselves 2000 calories per week, which would result in losing just over half a pound a week on average. So there’s not a lot of room for error in the other calculations.

Four devices have helped me lose weight with 5:2:
A digital scale for checking my portion sizes in grams at least some of the time.
A calculator for adding up the calories of *all* the ingredients in a recipe.
A pedometer for tracking how much daily activity I’m *really* getting.
And of course my computer, for the forum, researching the calorie content of foods, and educating myself about weight loss in general.

Doing a whole lot more walking than I used to do is also helping. 10,000 steps is almost an hour and a half of walking for me. To fit it into my day on at least some days, I have begun walking for transportation part of the time. I’m also learning about HIT.

Making small changes in how I do the plan when I start to get frustrated, bored or restless means I don’t quit, I change. I might try a new recipe, or get a new cookbook, or a new pan that will make it easier for me to make different kinds of dishes; I might decide to allow myself 600 calories on fasting days to make it easier; I switched from eating breakfast to not eating breakfast on fast days to (vastly) increase my options for dinner; I added a third “half-fasting” day each week when I allow myself 800 calories.

There are several different ways to do intermittent fasting, if that is the weight loss method that you think is most likely to work for you. You could try a different one. Or try a different weight loss method altogether. Maybe something else would suit you better.

Oftentimes medical problems make it both more difficult and more important to lose weight. That’s the boat I’m in. I’m happy that 5:2 is working for me; I hope that you can find a way to make it work for you, or find something else that does.

Lulutiger

3:55 am
6 Apr 14
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Thanks for the ideas.
I will see the dr again soon, although it’s not usually a helpful exercise. I don’t like taking anti depressants as you tend to gain weight on those.
I was a fanatic calorie counter for a long time annd have dropped off lately so I can try that again. My tdee at sedentary is 22oo and bmr is 1600. My bmi is 32. I try and stick to 1500-1600 cals but I’ll check and see if I’ve gone awry.
In terms of activity, have worn a pedometer and know that I do 10, 000 steps or more a day – I’m a prinary school teacher and hardly sit down all day.

franfit

11:48 am
6 Apr 14
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Lulutiger, it sounds like you’ve been making a lot of efforts for not much in the way of results, I would feel discouraged, too. Hopefully the doc would at least check your thyroid hormones in this scenario and offer cognitive therapy as an alternative to medication. Pushing antidepressants when we’re already overweight does seem especially counterproductive. I’m trying to wrack my brains for one that doesn’t have weight gain as a side effect; not all of them do for everyone; bupropion seems to cause less weight gain than most — sometimes it’s even associated with weight loss; not everyone gains weight on all of them, but if the only way to find out is to try, that’s no fun when you already struggle with weight.

SAMM

2:17 pm
6 Apr 14
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My guess would be strength training. As your body is already accustomed to a high N.E.A.T. To get your exercise boost you may need to something different than repetitive motion. The first 30lbs of weightloss is typically much quicker. I go with 4:3 for weight loss . I look at my calories over a whole week . This isn’t advice it’s just what I do.
Since I want to weigh 175lbs. I basically consume 1750 calories a day over a whole week.
12,250 over seven days I take out 1000 from fasting days. I change up my exercise . If I eat a lot which sometime I do I exercise to raise my body temperature as to metabolize it. Hmm that’s what I used to do to lose fat at about 2lbs a week. However I couldn’t keep it off. Intermittent fasting is has seemed to keep it off a year after starting. I mean to say I didn’t rebound with dramatic weight gain after intermittent fasting.

Other than medical issues which I may not have opinion. based on info in your post is that your body is accustomed to being on your feet. Putting TDEE slightly higher. Being on your feet may not be giving the the same fat burning response as taking a very brisk walk for an hour after work. Or doing HIIT 3 days a week. Or going 4:3. If I were in your shoes? I would go all vegetables for carbs on fasting days instead of fruits or grains. Not all carbs are the same. Best wishes!

hermajtomomi

3:40 pm
6 Apr 14
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lulu, I can quite understand why you want to give up. It sounds as though you have tried very hard but to no avail. So frustrating! I’m sure at least part of the reason lies in your various health issues, not helped by the doc ladling out anti-depressants. Why do the medics want to shovel pharmaceuticals down our throats after we reach a certain age? I can’t help but think that much of it is about ass-covering and box-ticking!

I have only relatively minor health issues which have vastly improved since embarking on 5:2, BP down to between 115 and 129/64, cholesterol down to 4.8 and blood glucose 5.3 although despite two diabetic parents it has never been any higher. BUT it has taken me a very long time to lose weight and I was stuck on a plateau for 5 months. My total loss for 14 months was around 9 kilos (a little under 20 lbs).

In the last month or so, I’m not sure why, but I’ve found I can’t face carbs before the evening. For years now I’ve found breakfast impossible, apart from tea with semi-skimmed milk, and lunch on non-fast days used to be a sandwich filled with lean protein and salad leaves. Suddenly such midday meals started to leave me feeling over-stuffed and sick. So I now eat the filling, minus the bread. Easy enough as I work from home and prepare my own lunch so nothing is wasted. Result: the weight has started slowly but surely to slip away and I’ve lost 2 more kilos (4.4 lbs) in about 4 weeks. Which for me is incredibly fast.

Could it be worth your while to try watching the carbs – at least the starchy ones – on both fast and non-fast days? You’ll still be left with a wide choice of good, tasty stuff to eat. You may even be able to afford the occasional modest treat on non-fast days without overstepping your calorie allowance.

Good luck. No one could blame you for giving up. But some of the ideas from fellow posters might just help you to hang on in there.