I give up.
I have been working out like a crazy person for the last three months - first by walking insane distances and the past few weeks by daily hour-long sessions on the elliptical trainers at my gym. And you want to know how much weight I've lost?
NOTHING!
And before you say, "Well maybe you're eating more.": No, I'm not. As a matter of fact I've been eating less. Much less. AND I'm a vegan now so I can't blame the cheese as I would have done in days of yore. I've been eating all vegetables and fruits and healthy healthy food, and guess what? Not only have I not lost weight, I've actually GAINED 5 KILOS!!!! That's 11 pounds for any Americans reading along. That's more than any of my cats weigh. That's nearly two cats. I've gained two cats.
And NO, it's not "muscle weight". Unless I have the world's squooshiest muscles, and then what is the point?
So I read all this stuff online and I determined that I must have a problem with my thyroid - it's the only thing that makes sense. So I went to the doctor a few days ago and I just got the results back today: Not only do I not have a thyroid problem; but I'm incredibly, astonishingly healthy. I have the body of a 20-year-old apparently. An active, albeit chubby, 20-year-old. Fuck off!.....When I got the news I couldn't stop crying. And it didn't help that my evil skinny husband was laughing at me for crying about being healthy. But here's why I was crying: If it had been a thyroid thing, I could have taken pills for it that would have made me thin! But since it's nothing I have to face the fact that I might be CURSED TO BE FAT UNTIL THE END OF TIME.
Meanwhile the closetful of clothes I've bought in the size I should be are slowly going out of fashion.
Apparently exercise does the same thing to me that it does to Sumo wrestlers.
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10 comments:
Is it possible that you're not eating enough? I know that sounds crazy, but if you're not getting enough calories, especially when you're exercising a lot, your body goes into 'starvation mode', which slows your metabolism down and makes it almost impossible to lose weight. I've been trying to lose weight too and started keeping track of everything I eat and the respective calories. It's made a big difference.
Have you done to a dietitian? I mean, I'm definitely planning on seeing one this month because I've kept my calories between 1200-1300 a day for a month and I hit a plateau after only losing 3 kilos. I know this doesn't compare to your issue...if I was you I'd've cried too. It's so frustrating to try so hard and get no results.
This is weird! So this is a thing that's going around? All of it defies the laws of physics! Apparently we can all survive with no food or something!
I'm going to try the eating more thing (it definitely appeals to me) then I might try a dietician.
There's this hopeful part of me that's thinking all the exercise will kick in and I'll suddenly wake up skinny.
Meanwhile I think I'm better at the elliptical trainer than just about anyone at my gym! Ha! Skinny weaklings, all of them! ; )
Just thought of something else - are you doing any strength training to go along with the cardio? Toning your muscles helps speed up your metabolism too. You don't have to go crazy with weights or gym machines, just something simple like Pilates should work.
I have done quite a lot of reading on scientific studies of weight-loss, and they are not encouraging. I have looked at randomised studies comparing diet-and-exercise vs drugs vs surgery over the long term.
In one study, subjects either had a lap-band placed around their stomach, or were placed on a very low calorie diet along with the drug orlistat. At six months, both groups were 15% below baseline weight. But at two years, the non-surgical subjects were about 6% below baseline, while surgical patients were around 22% below baseline.
A Swedish study found a difference of loss of 0.7 kg vs 20 kg at 8 years for non-surgical vs gastric bypass interventions.
(Treatment of Mild to Moderate Obesity with Laparoscopic Adjustable Gastric Banding or an Intensive Medical Program. Annals of Internal Medicine. 2006.)
It is so frustrating that people work so hard for so long, for transitory or no results. There really seems to be an inbuilt metabolic setpoint that is set while young, and nothing short of major surgery can change it. So please don't feel as if this is somehow your fault, but I wish I had better news from the land of science :(
Wow! I can't believe all the advice I'm getting!! : )
But here's the thing: logic still tells me that in extreme conditions I would lose weight. If I were in a death camp (for instance) I don't think I'd be the one chubby one in a sea of emaciation. I'm already exercising heavily and eating incredibly healthy (fruits, vegetables etc. - a lovely vegan diet) so I think I need to up the exercise to gargantuan proportions. I'll post id things change!
That should read "if" things change, not "id" things change. Freudian slip perhaps??
Sadly they have done these experiments in death camps to see what happens. They starved people who came in overweight, and overfeed people who came in skinny. Then they put them both on the same fixed-calorie diet. The originally-overweight-now-skinny people gained weight, and the originally-skinny-now-overweight people lost weight.
Good luck, keep us informed.
But that sort of proves my pint! The originally overweight people did become skinny at some point, which is good news (if you ignore the death camp bit).
My feeling is that the law of physics does have to be obeyed a some point!
A friend of mine tried Infraligne, it's probably quite expensive, but it worked. They measure your whole body and set up a personal training schedule, based on how much weight you have to loose for each body part.
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