Help!!!

Back a few years ago a friend of mine said I was never going to be thin, and I was just one of those who was born to be fat.

You know what? I am starting to believe her, don’t get me wrong, I don’t ever want to be a skinny bitch, but just one fitter and slimmer than I am now. 2 months now, and I am back to just a weight loss of 4 stone. Yesterday, at weigh in, again I have put on, this time 1lb. I have spent the last 2 months fluctuating between losing a pound or two, putting it back on or not losing anything. I really am getting so frustrated. I have never exercised so much, I have never kept an eye on what I am eating so much, I have never kept to something so long. And yet, nothing is happening. Nothing is going the way it should.

Is she right, am I destined to be a fat old bird? They say your size should not define you. Thing is it does. I might for the first time in a very long time be starting to feel more confident, more capable more willing to do different things, but the longer this stagnation goes on the harder it is to keep the momentum and good feelings going. I had a long weekend off, and have been back on the rails for over a week, but  I do feel myself slipping.

This week I haven’t been to the gym once before work but I have caught up and been after a couple of times. I have been to most of my zumba classes, and those I didn’t make have only been because 1, something else came up (The Boy) that needed my immediate and rather urgent attention or 2, It was cancelled.

My birthday is 6 months away, and for the first time this year I am doubtful if I will achieve anywhere near what I wanted to be.

Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t been fitter for many years, my resting heart rate is only 75bmp, which for a woman of my size is pretty fantastic. My heart rate is decreasing rapidly after exercise which means my body is recovering faster than ever before and my fitness levels have increased. I am pressing up to 80kg in the Gym. I don’t look at hills with dread, and take a quick breath on my inhaler in preparation when I know I have to walk up them. But I still have a stomach the size of a pregnant woman who is 5 months overdue!

I thought going to the gym would give my body that kick it needed, but after a month of going I don’t feel I am seeing any great difference if any at all. I am worried I am slipping into the mentality of looking at my alarm and snoozing it because I can’t be bothered to get up and be at the gym for 6.30, or I think I will do it tonight and then when I am there not “feeling it” as much as if I went in the morning. I wonder if I chose to have the long weekend off/away at the wrong time.

Out of everything, the first weigh in, the first cardio class, the first zumba class, the first time at the gym, the strict calorie counting, this mental side right now has to be the hardest part. I am really struggling right now, which is so annoying. No matter how many pep talks I give myself and no matter how many times I tell myself some good is being done somewhere in my body, I can’t help but doubt I will ever get to where I want to be, and I certainly don’t think I will be anywhere near where I want to be in 6 months. 2 months now seem wasted, 2 months where I could have lost at least another stone, instead I have put 4 lbs back on and am back to just 4 stone weight loss. Agggggghhhhhh!!!!!!!! So frustrating!

Right I need to get this going, I need to start losing lbs again. Helpful suggestions, advice, and encouragements all gratefully received (don’t bother with the fad diets, fad ideas, fad pills, fad anything). If you haven’t guessed by now I am following a calorie counting diet, which is worked out correctly to my height, weight, age and sex. That side is fine. I am eating lots of lean meats, veggies and fruit. 99% of the food I eat is less than 5% fat. I also do cardio exercise in the form of Zumba and Kardy’O classes 3 or 4 times a week, and I try and do the gym for ½ hour on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday morning, an hour and 20 mins normally on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday followed by a quick swim and sauna. At the gym I am doing resistance training and weights after a warm up on the cross trainer ending with ab curls and stretches.  So.. What the Fuck am I doing wrong?!?!?!?!?!

BMR and TDEE -How I See It.

I have been doing some research into this whole eat more lose weight thing. I find it really confusing and also still very hard to get my head around. I have trawled the internet and looked at many sites, most of which are either very basic and more or less say ”this is what you must believe just go with it” or others that are sooooooo detailed and soooooo complicated that I can’t get my simple mind around it.

When I finish logging my intake for the day on Myfitnesspal I get a rough guess from it what my weight will be in 5 weeks, but then also a lot of the time it says “you are eating too few calories”. Now this goes against everything we get told. All you hear is eat less and you will lose weight. Cut down on everything, be a veggie, eat clean foods, eat raw foods, eat only green foods, pink foods, white foods, eat dust!! All these faddy diets and celebrity lose weight quickly push the eating less calories and deprive yourself of all those tasty foods you like because they are EVIL!!. Yawn.. what a load of baloney!

Yes when I cut my calories down to 1200 a day for 2 weeks I lost a lot of weight, but I still did when we increased the calories up to 1400 for quite a few weeks, and now I have increased them again a month or so ago I am still losing weight! It is so confusing! I know some of that weight was water weight, but most (I hope) was fat. So how can increasing my calorie intake mean I still lose weight??
So what is this secret, well it comes down to 2 things:
BMR – Basal Metabolic Rate
and
TDEE – Total Daily Energy Expenditure

After all the reading I have done I am now going to try and explain what I think these are and what it all means. Bare with me, I will try and do it as simply as possible, and if I have anything wrong and you know better please let me know.

BMR – Basal Metabolic Rate. Well we all have an understanding what metabolic rate but is whats this Basal stuff.
Simply, as I understand it, it is the minimum number of calories you have to eat for your body to function efficiently if all you did was lie in bed all day and not move. This is dependent on your height, weight and sex.

The more you weigh the more energy/fuel your body needs to perform the basic functions that keep you alive. So 36 year Sarah who is 5’6″ and weights 18 stone (252lbs) will need more fuel/calories to just function than 36 year Carol who is 5’6″ and weighs 10 stone (140lbs).
Don’t forget this is just for basic survival, no exercise taken.

TDEE – Total Daily Energy Expenditure.

This is the number of calories, ie fuel, you need to consume daily depending on how active you are. Obviously unless you are lying in a bed all day not moving you need to consume more calories than your BMR so your body has enough fuel to work efficiently and not be detrimental to your health.

If you stick close to or less than your BMR then your body will go into what is sometimes called starvation mode. (Hence the message I sometimes get on myfitnesspal). You will lose weight, but it will be very slow. As a species the human race (most deffinatly me included) we like things like losing weight to happen quickly and get frustrated when that doesn’t happen.

This is when the huge industry that is the diet industry comes in promising quick fixes and miracle pills that will make you lose weight quickly, basically preying on our insecurities and our drive to see quick results. But haven’t you noticed that with all these “miracle pills” and quick fixes the small print says “use with calorie controled diet and exercise”. Oh and I have been sucked in on many of these false promises, and lined the pockets of those multi-million pound companies.

So how do we work out our own BMR and TDEE. There are 100s of sites on the web with various calculators to use. I’ve used this one:

BMR Calculator

So lets put the details of previously mentioned Sarah. We will say she wants to get down to 9 stone (108lbs).

First we we work out her BMR. So we put these details in:
Age: 36
Sex: female
Height: 66
Weight: 252
Goal weight: 252

(We put her current weight in as goal weight as we want to use figures that apply right now).
From this we get these results. Firstly the BMR, remember this is the very least number of calories Sarah should be eating to just maintain her weight and for her body to function normally if she lay in bed all day (bit like my son).

So if Sarah had 1892 calories pumped into her intravenously while she lies in bed alllll day and then she would maintain her current weight.
Now you might think that surely if she eats just that number but exercises and moves around then she would lose weight. And yes she would for a short while, but then her body would catch up and realise its not getting enough energy and will slow down her metabolism and start to store fat as it is starting to panic that its not getting enough to perform the basic tasks plus the additional exercise of just moving.
So then we look a bit further down the page and find the TDEE calculations.

Lets assume she works in an office but has a kid and a dog that she runs about after, and then there is the housework etc she does.
So we would say she is lightly active. This means her TDEE is 2602. So thats 2602 calories she can eat and maintain her weight. She shouldn’t put it on or lose any.

When you come to doing your own TDEE this is obviously subjective, you have to be quite honest when choosing your activity level. Don’t over estimate, but equally don’t underestimate.

So how about losing weight? Well it seems you take a certain percentage, depending on how much you want to loose off your TDEE.
If you want to lose:

5-10 lbs, take off 10%
10-20 lbs, take off 15%
20+ lbs, take off 20%

So Sarah wants to get down to 9 stone so that’s more than 20lbs.

20% of 2602 is 520 (rounded down). So if Sarah eats 2082 calories, she will not only maintain her BMR (which we know is 1892 but it will also allow her to eat under the 2602 TDEE for her weight right now. This is where the whole eat more weigh less comes in.

By eating like this she is teaching her body that she isn’t starving it, and it therefore does not need to store the calories and keep the fat, which in turn will mean the body will release the fat.

As she loses weight she would have to go back to the site and work out her new BMR and TDEE, both of which will go down, and she would alter her calorie intake accordingly.

Simples!! Isn’t it?! So do you get it? I’ll let you do the working out for Carol. And no the figures for Sarah are not mine, for a start I am 5’8″.

Again, if I have this wrong then please let me know, but the above is how I understand it and how the healthy eating plan I am following at Rosemary Conley works. I think.

A Private Battle Made Public.

Why? I’ve been trying to work out why I am blogging this battle I am going to be having with my body and mind for the next year.

Ever since I can remember there have been issues with my weight. One of my oldest memories is me sitting on my grannys back step and her discussing with my parents whether I was fat or just had puppy fat, and then there was the time we were in M&S and we were trying on clothes and my sister looked great but me as far as my mother was concerned looked like “a sack of potatos tied in the middle”. Don’t get me wrong, I have many wonderful memories growing up and I love my family to bits. Looking back at old photos I can’t say I was fat, well covered maybe but not fat. I’ve been promised all sorts by my father over the years if I lost weight, from barbies to a full new wardrobes. None of it ever worked. My Granny, not long before she died, told me the reason I was sent up to stay with her every summer was so I would lose weight. She ate quite a strict diet of lots of fish. But as she said she knew I would go into town and buy sweets. I miss her so very much.

I didnt have a great time at school. At primary I didnt always feel I fitted in.

and the at secondary I was mercilessly bullied, which followed me up to sixth form at a new school. I never told anyone at the time about the bullies, I was forever on the edge of what was going on, watching, quiet, trying to disapear so I wouldn’t be spotted by the gang of girls who verbally, psychologically and once or twice physically bullied me for 5 long years. It didn’t help that my English teacher in the first year at secondary nicknamed me Atilla, and then in my 4th year my science teacher told me in front of a class that I reminded him of Animal from The Muppets. Looking back now I can’t believe it went on. I didn’t want it, I just wanted friends and to be happy. I wasn’t fat, I wasn’t thin, I was just a teenage girl trying to get through each day so I could get home to my Mum and her wonderful homemade dinners.  

I really grew when I left home at 18. I had independence and I discovered a life of fun. I started working in a pub. Me who wouldnt say boo to a goose had my first shift on a bank holiday when the town had a Georgian fair. The first guy I had to serve tried to climb across the bar to kiss me, that soon brought me out of my shell. Every night when I wasnt working I went out (apart from Wednesday night, that was recuperation night). Thursday was ladies night, Friday and Saturday was just because, Sunday was band in the pub nigh, Monday was £1 a pint night and Tuesday was karaoke night. I would stagger back to my flat at 1 in the morning and then be up and at work in a chicken factory by 7.30.

I was probably at my thinest when I was living off rice every day and then suffered awful sickness for weeks. I went to the doctor and told him about the sickness, and he asked me if I could be pregnant.  I said I didnt think so, he felt my stomach and said no I wasnt as it was nice and soft, he diagnosed gastroenteritis and prescribed me pills. It turned out, as I discovered a few months later that I actually had really bad morning sickness and I had been in my first trimester.  

Then after I had my son I never got rid of the post baby weight, the amount I was breast feeding the boy I should have been as skinny as a rake. But no, my body just kept putting the fat down. Having grown up eating wonderful home cooked meals I was adiment my son was going to have the same. So his entire life I have tried to cook him, no matter what my financial situation, good wholesome food made with fresh ingredients. I love cooking, trying new things and eating good food something he enjoys as well, but he contrary to to a Daily Mail article I read a while ago which said fat parents make fat kids, has not announce of fat on him and appears to be pure muscle. Life can be so cruel, he eats 3 times as much as me yet he remains obber healthy.

So anyway, nearly 18 years down the line I am huge, I eat healthy and for a woman my size I am quite active. I often read articles about people my size who have lost weight because they couldn’t walk up the stairs without getting out of breath, or they couldn’t walk more than a 100 yards without their legs/backs/knees/feet hurting, I can walk for miles and stairs cause me no such problems. I’ve even been known to power kite!

So why am I finally doing it? I am 40 next year, and I have said for many years that my life will begin again then. My boy will be coming up to his 19th and hopefully will have started living his life (I live in hope), so what a perfect time to change things. I have another 40 years ahead of me hopefully, but not if I stay the way I am now.

Why so public? Why open myself up to ridicule, hurt, public humiliation, and possible failure? I think those very reasons are why. In the past I have always tried to loose weight quietly,  not telling anyone, so when I fail only I know. I don’t think it can be much more public than written as blog. I love my comfort zone, but you know what? I guess its time to test the waters around it.