Lost 23 pounds in 6 months, have slowly gained for 10 months

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Dawnnauman

3:30 pm
19 Mar 15
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I am at a loss. I had wonderful success with this plan for the first 6 months. I lost 23 pounds and was feeling better. In the last ten months, I have slowly regained 8 of those pounds and I haven’t changed anything from the first 6 months. It now appears I need to stay on this eating plan to keep from gaining more than a pound a month? My BMI is 35. I definitely have weight to lose. I track my food on ALL days and I am within the guidelines for my TDEE and my fast days. I am discouraged, because I thought I had found a real solution to years of yo yo dieting. It is almost as if my body has gotten used to the eating plan and this is now my new normal. I can’t even imagine how frequently I would have to fast in order to lose weight, if fasting twice a week is necessary to keep from gaining more than what i am gaining. That is right, I am currently gaining weight on this plan. I play tennis on weekends, log 20 miles of running and walking each week and take hot yoga twice a week. I have posted before and received a lot of ‘hang in there’, but I’m coming up on 10 months of a scale moving in the wrong direction.

annette52

5:55 pm
19 Mar 15
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I do wonder if you are heavier because you have built more muscle from running 20 miles a week? The question is, I suppose, are you slimmer? As muscle is less dense than fat, you should be slimmer. Has you waist(around the belly button)measurement decreased?

Rather than worry about the BMI, the new thought is that the waist measurement should be less than half the height.Has that figure reduced?

Have you reduced your TDEE in line with every lb lost? Are you including alcohol in the TDEE calculations?

Sorry for the inquisition. I am racking my brains!

Amazon

6:27 pm
19 Mar 15
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The only way to lose weight is to consume less calories than you need.
As Annette says, if you’ve lost 23 lbs your TDEE should have reduced as your lighter body requires less calories.
Are you tracking what you eat on non fast days?

I disagree that the exercise you do would have contributed to your weight gain although it might have contributed to slowing down the rate of loss.

If there is no chance that you are consuming too many calories, it might be worth checking that there is no underlying medical condition that is contributing

PaulAndCarol

2:02 pm
22 Mar 15
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We found that we lost about 1 lb per week initially but eventually it slowed down as we approached what our bodies considered a ‘minimum’ fat level. My weight is edging up very slowly – indicating that my body thought I had lost too much fat.
If you exercise a lot – swimming and running – you will be burning a lot of fat during that exercise and your body will decide it needs a good reserve of fat to fuel your activity. Your body might decide you need more fat (for your exercise) than you would like in order to look slim.

Dawnnauman

3:59 pm
24 Mar 15
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I think I’m caught in some kind of fat trap.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/magazine/tara-parker-pope-fat-trap.html?_r=0

I am still considered obese by any doctor so I have plenty to lose, but I cannot seem to lose on this plan. And I’m afraid to go off it because if I am on the plan and am gaining about a pound a month, I cannot fathom how much I would gain while not being on it. I’m just quite disappointed because I felt it was so manageable compared to diets I have been on in the past. I appreciate there are benefits to this diet other than weightloss. I just thought I’d finally found something to help me get to a healthier weight. Clothes are becoming a bit tight, I am worried that the clothes I gave away (I lost about 2 sizes) will be needed again. 🙁

nagerob

8:51 am
14 Apr 15
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Hi Dawnnauman. I’m not exactly in the same position, but I was about a year ago. I had lost almost 50lbs over 2 years (male, almost 50) through exercise (bike, gym, running) and strict calorie logging (myfitnesspal app). Then I had to almost completely stop exercising due to a back injury and despite continuing to religiously log calories, I couldn’t stop putting on a pound or two each month until I’d gained back 25 lbs. During that time I found a few things helped.

1) You havn’t failed until you give up. 2) Work out what is really relevant *for you*. All diets/exercise and recommended daily consumption figures are generic but some will suit your body better than others 3) Keep looking for options/alternatives. I replaced the gym/bike/run with swimming and walking (it didn’t work). But eventually I found the 5:2 diet and I’m losing 2 or 3 lbs a month again 4) Instead of getting annoyed/disappointed (i.e. having an opinion of any shape) that I SHOULDN’T have to work so hard to lose weight or whatever… just shrug and say – “oh well, this is the physiology I got”. There are any number of people who would be happy with what I got.

I think I’m going to be in your position at some point in the not too distant future. A lot of the things in the NYTimes article ring a bell with me. E.g. when I was biking hard, i should have been burning at least 12 cals/min but over time I felt that *for me* was over-optimistic. Same for running. The comment about needing to be “hyper-vigilant” is one I can relate to.

Some time ago I saw a documentary that made the point that a number of fat-cells get laid down at our highest weight. After we diet the body tries to “re-fill” those cells. It might be wrong or right, but it seems to fit what happens to me. E.g. any slip-up; having a pizza or a whole easter egg, will cost me 3 or 4 pounds on the scale a few days later. As mentioned. my opinion about that is neither here nor there. It just is the way it is.

So any positive news? Well, I find that “eating clean” comes much easier to me after 3 years of watching my diet. Some foods are proportionally worse *for me* e.g. wheat but once you learn that you feel better. I havn’t ever hit my “goal” weight (my BMI is still >30), but I keep reminding myself that being halfway there is actually great. And coffee is almost zero calories! (Yay!)

Sorry for being so long-winded (and I really do use a lot of brackets… don’t I).

nagerob

8:57 am
14 Apr 15
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…and one last thing. All calories are NOT created equal. Not for me anyway. 500 calories of rye-crackers and 500 calories of chocolate muffin do not result in the same weight loss/gain. It took me almost 6 months to admit to myself that calorie-logging is not the whole story.

_deleted account

12:59 pm
14 Apr 15
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Hi Dawn, Maybe all your exercise is making you hungrier and you are actually eating more calories to compensate. Remember that the TDEE calculator takes into account your activity level when it computes your TDEE. Don’t add in calories to compensate for those supposedly burned off from the exercise.

If that’s not it, have you had your thyroid checked?

Keep us posted if you figure it out.