Nothing seems to work for me

A

ahammad

New member
Excuse the rant, I'm just here to vent.

I seem to have been cursed with the terrible body type. At first I didn't let that push me away from a good lifestyle. I started eating healthy foods and lowering my calorie intake. I also started excercising 4 times a week (nothing hardcore, 30 min of cardio and weights). I persisted for 2 whole months, and lost about 3 pounds. Needless to say, that is quite depressing and useless. I worked my butt off for almost no results.

I slipped after that. Couldn't take this any further. I became unhappy and somewhat depressed, thinking that I'm cursed to be overweight for the rest of my life. I'm only 22 and about 270 lbs at this point. It really is quite terrible.

I just started again because I can't let myself cross over to the 280 lbs mark. I've reduced my calorie intake to about 2k a day (down from what I estimate to be 3.5k or more), and the fats by quite a bit. I have a pretty consistent diet, just because I don't have time to start exploring other options. For breakfast, some oatmeal and skim milk and a cup of coffee. Lunch consists of a grilled chicken breast (well as grilled as you can make it on a frying pan with no oil) and grilled/steamed vegetables. Dinner is either a repeat of my lunch with an addition of some brown rice (and swithcing chicken for fish), or a footlong turkey sub with mustard and lots of veggies. I want to make my own food, but sometimes I finish work really late and I'm not in the mood to make anything. In between meals, I usually eat apples (2 or so a day) and fruit youghurt (2 a day). Occasionally I drink some unsweetened green tea after lunch.

Occasionally I drink some diet soda, but I'm not a big fan of the diet taste, so I skip out altogether. This is a complete transformation of what my diet used to be like. It is so much healthier and a lot less than what it used to be, so I should see some results right?

Wrong. Again. I've also been excercising 4 times a week again. Same routine, 30 minutes cardio and some light weight lifting. I'd like to do more cardio but I injured my knee several years ago in a skiing incident, and I cannot put excessive pressure on it. I'm also boycotting elevators (I live on the 7th floor, and work on the 6th floor)...every little bit counts...

It has been a little over 3 weeks that I'm doing this with no slip ups. No results at all. I know I shouldn't have rediculous expectations, but 3 weeks and nothing, even with a completely different lifestyle? It's rediculous. Maybe I have an actual medical reason that I don't know about. Some sort of deficiency or something.

I'm hoping I don't slip up again after this. It's very hard to do it when you see no difference in weight. The logic that I see is that if I work extra hard to lose weight and I don't, then what's the point? I know there may be other advantages, but I don't really care for them, because I don't see them directly.

/rant
 
I'm fairly confident that my diet consists of about 2k calories a day. I measured it the first few days and since then, the food that I eat hasn't changed much.
 
How did you measure it? Did you weigh your food and record every single thing that passed your lips, solid and liquid?

Also, how you eat M-Th is exactly how you eat F-Su?
 
That's pretty much what I do. Weigh everything or read off the packaging labels for frozen stuff. For liquids, I measure the milk I have for breakfast, but not the coffee or the green tea. I drink a standard sized mug.

I don't know what you mean by M-Th and F-Su to be honest. Can you please explain it to me?

Cheers
 
Oh now I see what that means.

I do eat the same types and amounts of food, but the times that I eat vary. I wake up a lot later (ie 11 instead of 7), which essentially shifts my meals forward. Also, some things switch from lunch to dinner or breakfast. For example the vegetables I usually have for lunch get moved earlier in the day. Not exactly with the breakfast, but soon after.

I must admit though, two weeks ago I did eat a bigger portion on Saturday because I had some friends over. It was still nutritious healthy stuff, just slightly more of it. To be more specific I had 2 chicken breasts for dinner instead of the usual 1.
 
I looked through that thread. I'm fairly certain that I'm measuring correctly. I know you heard that before but I'll remeasure everything to make sure.

Also you mentioned to the other person something about caloric intake for weight maintenance. What would it be for a 22 year old male that weighs 270?
 
I listed all the possibilities in that thread, from easiest to toughest to solve. Go down the list and troubleshoot your problem step by step. Worst case scenario you have to get blood work done to rule out or identify something going on metabolically.

A guy that big, moderately active... maybe 3200-3500 calories for maintenance.

So at a supposed 2000 calories per day, after a few weeks time, you'd expect to see a loss.

What sort of food scale are you using?
 
I'm using a standard food scale with the round dial thing. Nothing too fancy. I agree, it isn't as accurate as a digital scale. Do you think I should get a digital one instead?
 
I can't believe the scale would be throwing off the numbers to the extent it's understating your caloric intake by 1500 calories.
 
Neither can I but I am not going to overlook any possibilities. I'm actually trying to think back to see if I missed something but but I'm not getting anything yet. I'm not saying that I'm perfect, I could've overlooked something. Since this doesn't seem to be normal, It'll make me a lot more careful in the future which is always a good thing.

I really want this to work and I'm willing to try anything to make it work (except maybe for magic diet pills...I think they are BS). I'm also willing to get proper medical tests done to check if something isn't working when it should be.

I'm going to try to increase my excercise time as well. The problem is the knee injury makes it hard to press on. Can you point me to some good excercises for people with a busted knee? I heard elliptical is the best/least stressful of all the cardio machines...is this accurate?
 
Well you sound like you have a good head on your shoulders. I'd start with reassessing the diet and making sure you're taking in exactly what you say you are. Trying to recall what you ate and might've missed doesn't work. I do this for a living and I forget stuff. Too much unconscious nibbling here and there.

Not saying that's the case with you, but certainly is with me.

At least until you have things figured out, I'd be very strict with tracking and weighing everything.

Sign up to if you think that would help.

Knees are funny. I've seen people who say the elliptical hurts their knees. It is no impact though, so it's worth a try. Any peice of equipment that is low/no impact is worth toying around with to see how you like it.
 
Thanks for the advice. That site is pretty cool, but some of the numbers on it are different than the ones on the packaging. If I pick the higher numbers I exceed 2k by a bit.

I definately will try to re-assess my diet. I noticed that somethings that I eat (but I can do without) have a fair amount of calories. I'm going to cut those out of my diet completely.

It kind of sucks that I have to work extra hard for something that others have never experienced. I hope it works out and I don't give up too early.
 
ahammad said:
Thanks for the advice. That site is pretty cool, but some of the numbers on it are different than the ones on the packaging. If I pick the higher numbers I exceed 2k by a bit.
Click to expand...

I'd trust your package before I did the site. If need be, you can enter custom foods.

I definately will try to re-assess my diet. I noticed that somethings that I eat (but I can do without) have a fair amount of calories. I'm going to cut those out of my diet completely.
Click to expand...

Well if you're truly only eating 2000 calories per day, I wouldn't cut anything out to be honest.

Try and focus on one variable at a time. First one being assuring yourself that your intake actually IS 2000 calories.
 
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