Weight-Loss New here.. Need some help.

Weight-Loss
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Sarin

New member
Well I need some people to explain this to and maybe get a few pointers as to what I can do to help me lose my last few pounds. So here's my story..

I am currently 17 years old, 5'2" and 140 lbs. Around this time last year I was 215 lbs.

Every morning I wake up at 6:30-7:30, weigh myself, and exercise for 20 minutes (low impact aerobics) then I am usually off to work for 4-8 hours. (Mr. Sub and a local Pet Store) I am on my feet pretty much the entire time I work. About 2-3 times a week I do 10 minutes of high impact aerobics including sit ups, squats, jogging, etc.

My calorie intake is an average of 600-800 calories a day. And I drink 1-2 600 mL bottles of water a day. I'm not much of a water person, but I try.

I want to lose maybe 15-20 more pounds, I am not sure if I am capable or not because of my body structure.. I'm naturally a thick girl (wide hips, skinny waist), always have been. People say I look skinny now but I still want to lose weight so I feel happier.

My problem is I keep fluctuating and it is VERY frustrating. I will lose a pound to 2 pounds one day and then I gain for 3 more days... I am basically stuck at this one weight. I am losing maybe a half a pound a week if I am lucky. I used to lose a good 3-5 pounds a week.

Another problem is lately (past 3 months or so) I have been feeling really weak, light headed, dizzy, and always have a headache. I am wondering if I am pushing it too hard? But I don't want to stop as I fear I will put on all that weight again. People say I am not eating enough but I seem to just gain more weight if I eat more.


Thanks for any advice, it's really appreciated!
 
Sarin ... holy wow. Um, sweetie, the amount of food you're eating is DANGEROUSLY LOW.

I'm not surprised you're feeling dizzy, lightheaded, weak, and headachey. I don't know how long you've been eating so few calories, but what you're doing is dangerous. It's even more dangerous for someone who is a teenager and whose body and organs are still developing. You NEED the nutrients that you're depriving your body of.

Please, please, please, please ... start eating more. At your height and weight and age you should be eating around 1800 calories.

And I'm not going to lie to you, if you've been doing this for any length of time, you've probably damaged your metabolism. You're going to gain some weight back before you start losing again because your body is going to have to readjust to getting a reasonable and healthy amount of food.

That is the whole reason you're stalling and fluctuating and not able to lose more weight now. You've severely compromised your metabolism and your body is saying "ENOUGH". You've put yourself into a survival/starvation mode. You're probably not going to lose any more weight at this point until your body actually does go into starvation and start cannibalizing lean muscle and damaging your heart. At that point it's too late to reverse the damage you've done.

I know that you probably think I'm being dramatic, but I'm not, I promise you. People on this site who know their stuff will echo what I'm saying. YOU MUST START EATING MORE.

You need a good selection of lean protein, veggies, fruits, complex carbs (whole grains, oats, etc.), and healthy fats (things like olive oil, avocado, nuts and seeds). You need to balance those items out and eat at the VERY LEAST 1500 calories a day worth of food.
 
Your weight can fluctuate each day, that's why I only weigh myself once a week. I'm currently eating the same amount in calories using the Protein Sparing Modified Fast. It's where you eat mostly protein so you lose fat without losing a lot of lean muscle along with it. It's broken my plateau of 3 months, I kept fluctuation between 172 -174 each week eating 1800 calories. After a week on the PSMF I am now at 169.

Eating that low of calories you should probably cut down on exercise, especially cardio. You're already in a very low deficient and with that kind of exercise you're lowering it even more which could hinder progress. Have you been strictly on this diet without "cheat" days? If you've been on it for over a month maybe you should take a week and eat at maintenance.
 
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With all due respect, JDav - you are way off base in even endorsing this kind of calorie intake for a teenager, much less saying "eat that little and cut back on your exercise". It's bad enough to encourage an adult to eat a dangerously low level of calories, but for a teen whose muscular and skeletal systems are still developing, encouraging any kind of extreme low calorie diet borders on criminal.

Please think about what you're advising someone to do. What Sarin is doing is not safe.
 
Well I'm only 2 years older than Sarin, I recently read the book Rapid Fat Loss Handbook by Lyle Mcdonald which is where most of my information comes from. This diet calls for a 1-2 week long "diet break" eating at maintenance after doing the PSMF for 6 weeks. I don't know how long she has been doing this low calorie diet but it sounds like it calls for a break.

I'm not advocating a low calorie diet but Sarin said herself that she feels discouraged when told to eat more as she tends to gain weight. I'm just throwing in an idea that she doesn't have to follow at all, it just seems similar to what she is "comfortable" in doing now but could also be safer, depending on what she is eating right now.
 
While I have a lot of respect for Lyle based on what I've read of his, I simply cannot agree with a diet plan that advocates that kind of calorie restriction w/out being under a doctor's care. And, as I mentioned above, especially for a teenager, and certainly not for a long period of time.

I will probably wind up buying the book just so I can be more knowledgeable and informed about exactly what the program is, but as of right now, I just can't agree with the plan.
 
I really don't see the reason for the aerobic exercising when running such a deficit. What you eat in a day I sometimes eat for lunch. You might want to increase you calories because my diet is really not that healthy as is but if I was eating at your rate I'd probably be in a coma.
 
Thanks for the help guys.... I went up 100-200 more calories a day since and I actually gained 5 pounds in one week! I am furious! How do I up my calories and NOT gain so much weight? This is what I was talking about in my above post... The second I eat more I gain and gain. I cheated once and had a cookie and frozen yogurt last night. Other then that I have been eating healthy foods. HELP! This is really frustrating. :(
 
You've been starving your body for nearly a year now, at least if I read your post right. I'm pretty sure that you completely messed up your metabolism, to the point that it's working in emergency mode at all times now. Your body sent you plenty of warning messages (being light headed, dizzy, headaches etc) but you ignored them.

After such a long time of abuse, your body will need quite a while to get back to 'normal', and you will inevitably gain weight, because after such a long time of starvation, your body will hold on to everything. You can either keep on starving yourself and ruin your health even further, or live with the fact that you will put some weight on at first, give your body time to heal, and then lose the remaining pounds slowly and healthily.

And just for the record, you're not drinking enough. That's where your headaches come from. You should drink around 3 litres per day, minimum.
 
Pretty much what San said. You're going to have to accept some weight gain for a while in order to get your metabolism back into any kind of normal functioning.

You've starved yourself and deprived yourself of nutrition for so long that it's going to have to happen before you can start losing again.
 
I expected some weight gain but FIVE pounds in a WEEK? How much more weight will I have to gain in order to go back to normal? I was thinking maybe five total but now I am scared. :(

It's SO hard for me to eat because I am full on 800 calories a day and I know I need to eat more. It is past dinner and I've still only had 650 calories today.

Some fruit and a yogurt for breakfast, yogurt for a snack, a veggie wrap for lunch, plum for snack, and campbell's soup for dinner. I will probably have a fruit and yogurt parfait for a snack tonight. I also snack on some cereal throughout the day. This is my usual day's worth of food.
 
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There's only so many times I can tell you that you need to eat more before it just becomes me talking to myself. I'm not trying to be harsh and I understand that this is a complete mindf**k for you ... but after the third or forth time of saying it, it just becomes either you'll learn what's healthy and take care of yourself or you won't. There's nothing else I can say that will convince you otherwise.

I'm gonna be really blunt - if you've been eating at the 600-800 calorie level for a year (as you said in your first post) then you've royally FUCKED your metabolism. Yes, you're going to gain weight. I don't know how much, but I would suspect even as much as 20 lbs or more. I hope not that much, but if you do ... and again, this is blunt, but it's the truth: You have only yourself to blame for starving yourself for a year.

You have a choice right now: You can accept that in order to be healthy and ultimately get to your goal weight in a healthy and lifetime sustainable way, you are going to have to refeed your body and regain your nutritional health. Or you can continue what you're doing and eventually wind up in the hospital where they will forcefeed you using IV and feeding tubes and you won't have any choice or control over how much you weigh. Given that for the last 3 months you've started suffering the symptoms of malnourishment (dizziness, weakness, etc.), I'd say that it won't be long before you pass out and wind up in the hospital and possibly under the care of a psychiatrist for an eating disorder.

I am very sorry - I don't mean to be hurtful, but I'm hoping that by being brutally blunt I can get you to see some sense. You are killing yourself, sweetie. You are not making yourself healthy and slim and in shape. You are destroying your body and there will come a day that you will regret what you've done ... or you will die if you keep eating (or not eating, as the case may be) like this.

Please go see a doctor. Talk to them about how you're eating and ask for a referral to a therapist who deals in eating disorders. It's really really really important to that you stop doing this to yourself now. Please .. as much as I can care about a complete stranger on a message board, I do care about you. I care about anyone who is harming themselves this way and I hope you get some help for it.
 
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