Cant seem to lose weight!

Question
Hi, I am 28 years old and have been overweight most of my life. I did lose some weight about 10 years ago and actually reached an ideal weight for my size--I'm 5ft 7in. However, the weight fell off through no real intervention from me (no dieting or anything), it just happened. I then went on hormonal birth control and gradually piled on about 100lbs in 2-3 years, lost half of that after stopping birth control and have been this weight for about 7 years now. I'm 210 lbs. I've discovered that regardless of what I eat, it stays the same. Unforunately, I also found out the hard way that regardless of what I do to try and lose it, it also stays the same!! :-( I finally went to the Dr's today for issues concerning anovulation and mentioned my weight, but he just kind of laughed at me and all but accused me of lying! I explained that I had decided to lose weight and had changed my eating habits to healthier foods, no junk, or sweets (I don't even care for them that much anyways and would occasionally treat myself once a week to a bit of chocolate, if that!) and I started an exercise regime of dancing in the mornings and walking 2 miles a day in the evenings or jumping on the trampoline. I did this for 6 weeks, hopped on the scales and saw that I had lost 1lb. I got so angry that I gave up then and there! Considering my weight, I had been expecting a little more significant weight loss. Maybe 5-10lbs for the first month as I know that overweight people tend to drop a lot more weight on the start of a diet and then go down to a normal 1-2lbs per week. My Dr gave me a lecture on having 'too high' expectations and basically told me it was unreasonable to expect up to 10lbs of weight loss in 6 weeks! He then said that I must be consuming the same amount of calories in "healthy food" as I was in normal food and that exercise was more of a long term weight loss aid. The gist of it was, he just didn't believe me. I don't care, to be honest. I was counting on that first weight loss boost to encourage me to stick to eating healthier and exercising, as I do love savoury foods and I love to cook. However, my train of thought was: why make myself eat food and do strenuous exercise that I don't enjoy in the slightest for a measley 1lb weight loss, when I can eat the foods that I DO enjoy and not gain any weight? I am wanting to lose weight, but at that rate, it would take me 5 years to lose what I need and it would be a very miserable 5 years indeed! I am not wanting a quick fix, or fad diets, but I do want to see a bit of a result so that I can have some enjoyment out of it and some encouragement. My dr grudgingly agreed to refer me to a dietician and mentioned weight loss drugs, which I DONT want, so any advice would be gratefully accepted!

Thank you!

Answer
Hi Sarah

I don't know if you've ever heard of our 'weight set-point'?   It's a theory that our weight adjusts itself to maintain a weight at which it is comfortable. There's been plenty of research done to show that our set point can be changed - and many research studies have found that most overweight people don't lose weight permanently.  So your set-point may well be playing a part in this.

Secondly, it's no use doing exercise if you're hating it.  But it really is good to try and live a more active lifestlye for multiple health reasons.  In fact there is plenty research that says you can be healthy at every size so long as you maintain fitness.  So what I'd suggest is that you find what exercise you can enjoy and start slowly and build up so that it is psychologically and mentally easy for you to do.  There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that my body (and mind) work vastly better, and that I feel loads healthier when I'm active.  Take a quick read at: http://www.ditch-diets-live-light.com/exercise-fun.html for ways to make an active lifestyle fun and enjoyable.

Don't focus on losing weight, focus on gaining health and allow losing weight (if that happens) to be a bonus and my 5c worth on the diet drugs is "don't do them".  They're the best way to promote yo-yo dieting.  You can read more about how that happens at http://www.ditch-diets-live-light.com/regaining-weight.html

I don't think it's a bad idea though to see a dietician - and to check out just how healthy your diet really is.  So often little things have snuck in that are sabotaging us.  And why not pop along to the ditch diets website and sign up for our free healthy weight loss e.course .... all done the natural way.

Good luck
Cari  

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