I must be doing something wrong

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I must be doing something wrong

This topic contains 6 replies, has 2 voices, and was last updated by  Onca 9 years, 8 months ago.

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  • Hi everybody

    I’m 30 years old, 1.72 m tall and currently weigh 76 kg. I would like to loose the extra weight I gained during Christmas. It’s really hard for me to loose or even maintain my weight, as I take medications which as a side effect slow down my metabolism. Therefore, I usually try to only eat about 1500 kcal. I also tried various types of sports, but first of all, I didn’t loose weight, second sport somewhat makes me depressed.
    5:2 sounded like an excellent way to loose some of the weight without going crazy, so I started it one month ago. I fast Monday and Friday, eating mostly vegetables, fruits and some proteins (yoghurt, fish, chicken). I drink tea with sweetener, no sugar (as I also usually do). During no fasting days,I really like to eat nice things, but I never overeat but rather have the impression that I eat less than before, but enjoy it more.
    At first,I was super happy with the 5:2 method, because I lost 2kg within the first two weeks. But suddenly, I was back on my “normal” weight. During the last 2 weeks,I didn’t loose a single gram. This really frustrates me and makes me wonder if my body simply adjusts to the two days with less input by slowing down the methabolism even more.

    Any ideas?
    Thanks, Onca

    Hi Onca and welcome:

    The average weight loss on 5:2 is about a pound a week. If you have not lost any weight in 4 weeks, you are probably eating too many calories. I note you are not giving any ‘calorie counts’ of how much you are eating on either your diet or non diet days. Don’t worry about your ‘metabolism’ – it is not being changed by the diet.

    I suggest that you compute your TDEE (the following link – number 4 – will tell you about TDEE) and count every calorie you eat for one diet day and two non diet days. This will probably answer your question of what are you doing wrong. Here is some TDEE and additional information: https://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/the-basics-for-newbies-your-questions-answered/

    Good Luck!

    Thanks a lot for your answer!
    It seems as if my basic TDEE for my age, weight and size is 1647 kcal, and given my (low) level of activity, I burn around 2388 kcal per day. To me, this seems way too much. I used to eat about 1800-2000 kcal a day, tracking my meals using a diary and counting calories. And I still had a hard time keeping my body weight. Currently, I barely eat 1800-2000 kcal on non-fast days and on fast days, I try to stay below 500 kcal, which usually consist of no breakfast, salad for lunch and a vegetable soup for dinner. So, if I eat at least 300 kcal less than I should on normal days, and around 1500 on fast days, this should sum up to about 4500 kcal per week. The weight lost during the last month, but not regaining it therefore seems kind of reasonable.
    I guess I’ll just keep going. I’m a person with a serious lack of patience 😉 Maybe I should also measure my waist instead of my weight, who knows. Also, I currently weigh myself every day, but that may be stupid, as some fluctuation is natural and may sometimes be rather depressing. It’s just too tempting, wanting to see quick results. But 5:2 is not ment to work that way (for good reasons, I must say).
    Thanks also for the link to all the information. I will read them carefully. For example, I also observed some headackes lately, so I’m glad to know that it’s because of the dieting.

    Hi Onca:

    “It seems as if my basic TDEE for my age, weight and size is 1647 kcal, and given my (low) level of activity, I burn around 2388 kcal per day.”

    I don’t understand – your TDEE includes activity. Could you please explain where you got your two very different numbers?

    I did that on a German page and it seems as if the first number is the same for every level of activity, meaning that this is the amount of calories the body uses per se. The other number includes the level of activity, so I basically got two numbers out of the calculation. But as I said, I think 2300 is too much.

    Onca:

    Go to the top of this page in ‘How It Works’ and fill in the TDEE calculator blanks. That would allow us to be on the same page for TDEE purposes.

    Ok, it says 1829 kcal. That sounds more reasonable.

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