Mystery weight gain solved
I was sticking to my diet and doing lots of exercise so why wasn’t my diet working? It took a small purchase to find out...
For several weeks my weight stayed static. I stopped losing weight despite sticking to the diet. Eating around 1500 calories a day which while at the top end of a calorie allowance should still produce a weight loss, especially when combined with regular exercise.
I do 10,000 steps a day, a combination of brisk walking, including some very steep hills, and dancing. This is aerobic exercise which is the best way to burn fat. All aerobic means is “with air” and while there are all sorts of complicated way to ensure your exercise is aerobic all you have to do is get a bit out of breath but, crucially, remain able to speak or sing along to music. That’s why aerobic classes had loud music for you to dance and jog along to.
I can keep going now for 30/40 mins doing very vigorous dance exercises which I learned long ago in the 80s craze for aerobics and dance classes. So why wasn’t the weight shifting? It wasn’t muscle weighing more than fat as aerobics doesn’t really build muscle though it should tone you up a bit.
No the answer was actually quite simple. For years I haven’t owned kitchen scales. I’ve been guessing what calorific value foods have. And then I bought some on a whim.
Turns out I’d been quite a bit out of whack with my calorie counts. For example I am very fond of peanut butter. Spread on toast it’s a deliciously filling and satisfying breakfast and keeps me going for ages - sometimes all day. However I thought a spoonful was only about 60 calories. It wasn’t. It was double! Peanut butter has 620 calories per 100 grams so just 20 grams is 124 calories.
I’d also been under-estimating the amount of milk I have in my coffee and sugar. And blue Brie which I adore. I had been miscalculating quite a few favoured food items. So now I’ve now gone the other way and become a bit fanatical about weighing everything that passes my lips. I won’t do this forever as obsession of any kind isn’t healthy and my ultimate goal is not just a weight one - it’s to stop being obsessed with food. To eat like someone who doesn’t think about food all the live-long day.
If you’ve chosen your calorie allowance at the upper end but miscalculated your calories by only ten per cent you won’t lose weight. When you bake a cake the recipes always say weigh your ingredients, don’t guess. It’s the same with dieting.
I hope this has helped if you too have been mystified about your lack of weight loss despite doing everything right. It’s worked for me. The weight had finally started coming off again. I’ve lost two and a half pounds since I bought those scales last week.
I know it’s a pain to count calories and it’s not easy to eat less than you want to. It’s especially tough if you’ve been doing it for a while. This is why so many diets fail in the long term. If you want to succeed not just in losing weight but keeping it off you have to persevere. Keep it going. Good luck with yours. More from me next week.