My Body has Divorced Me

Okay, so I have always eaten whatever I wanted to without any problem.  I had 4 kids and gained at least 40 pounds with each of them and the weight fell off effortlessly every time.  I've eaten cake, ice cream, milkshakes, double cheeseburgers and pizza without ever a thought.  Until about 7 months ago.  All of the sudden I began to gain about a pound a week.  7 months ago I was 140 lbs. and content.  (Wouldn't have minded being 130 but still happy with 140).  Right now I weigh 161 lbs.  163 at night.  159 in the morning and 162 in the early afternoon.  I don't have thyroid issues, been checked so I decided to start a diet for the first time ever.

That was a little over a month ago.  I started out at 163 at night.  Around 158-159 in the morning and 161ish throughout the day with a 3200 calorie intake every day and no real exercise.  So I took my calorie intake down to 1500 - 2000 daily and increased my exercise so that I had at least a 250 calorie deficit and most times had a 500 calorie deficit.  After a month, no change except my body is extremely unhappy that it's not being fed high amounts of butter and carbs.

Now this week, I decided to get mad right back at my body and I put it on a veggie soup diet.  The Sacred Heart diet they give to heart surgery patients for a week before the procedure.  I have eaten veggie soup morning noon and night.  Nothing but water, juice, fruits and vegetables ALL week.  This diet is supposed to cleanse your body of its impurities and cause you to lose 10-17 pounds in one week.  You should see 5-7 pounds gone in the first 3 days.  I'm on day 4 and I am, you guessed it, 161 lbs.  Now if my body has divorced me, then I would have appreciated some sort of warning before hand.  Maybe we could have comprised before letting it get this far.  Divorce is ugly, and I can get just as ugly so today I bought fat burning stuff from the pharmacy.  Its supposed to lower the cortisol caused from stress thereby getting rid of the unwanted belly fat.

Before this all gets too ugly, does anyone have any suggestions?  I'm mid 30's, 5'5 and 161 pounds and I look like I'm 7 months pregnant.  I'm running out of ideas.  With this soup diet, I've only been consuming 1200 calories and burning about 2200 calories every day.  NO CHANGE.  I don't want a divorce.  I want things to be the way they used to be.  We used to get along so well.  I ate normally and ate sweets whenever, my body was happy and in return burned it all with no questions asked.  What happened, where did I go wrong???

I read that the Sacred Heart Diet is a fad diet that has no association with Sacred Heart Hospital.

Read more here: http://www.everydiet.org/sacred_heart_diet.ht m

 

Not that I'm in my thirties, female or have had kids, but still looking over what you've said so far, it sounds like you just need some regularity. Diets that say you'll lose all that weight within like a week, its usually just water and you're probably messing up your metabolism. It sounds like you weigh yourself pretty compulsively too, not that i don't do the same, I'm just saying try not to obsess. Also, have you found out with your daily caloric needs are? I know women tend to need a lot less than men, like 2000 for men 1500 for women, I don't know how kids factor in. Regardless, your body needs a certain amount and if you dont provide that much, it'll start tapping into reserves. Just make sure you maintain some muscle so ur metabolism stays up and you're not skipping meals so your body doesnt think you're starving. Hang in there.

There are so many threads on here about how this diet does not work.  Your body needs nutrients to survive.

It is recommended to never go below 1200 calories if you are a female, because your body will go into starvation mode and it is possible that you might gain weight, besides doing serious damage to your body. (1500 calories if you are male).

Your body needs at least 1200 calories per day to survive. Here is a very rough scientific break down provided by a dietician for a  5' 2", 19 year old female weighing approximately 100 pounds, sitting around all day and doing nothing:


-The heart needs 12% of the calories (144 cals)
-The kidney needs 12% of the calories (144 cals)
-The Liver needs 23% of the calories (276 cals)
-The brain needs 23% of the calories (276 cals)
-The skeletal muscle needs 30% of the calories (360 cals)

Reference: http://www.calorie-count.com/forums/post/3178 .html#6

You need to consume at least
3-5 servings of fruit,
3-8 servings of veggies,
3-6 servings of carbs,
3-5 servings of proteins,
3 servings of dairy 
3 servings of  good fats
every day. 


 If you do not do this you do your body a disservice and it protest.

Work on the nutrition content of your 1500-2000 daily calories so that you're getting the best 'bang for your buck'.   Vegetables, for example, should form the bulk of all your meals.  Low in calories, high in fibre and very filling as a result.    Wholegrain carbohydrates provide excellent nutrition and should replace refined or processed starches e.g. wholemeal instead of white bread.  That way a smaller quantity is more satisfying but do weigh the amounts rather than guess.  Proteins are vital if you're exercising and they also act as an appetite suppressant.  So a portion of lean protein at each meal is vital.... lean meat, fish, tofu, eggs, pulses (legumes), nuts, seeds...  And you also need to be as well-hydrated as possible so that your body can digest and process your food efficiently.

Sugars, starches, processed foods... all those cheeseburgers, milkshakes and cakes of the past... should not be on the menu.  Because they have poor nutrition, you'd need to eat more to feel satisfied.   And don't be fooled by 'diet' versions of the above.  They're no more satisfying.

On top.... Regular meals.  Don't skip meals but aim to eat a small meal or snack every 2 or 3 hours starting with a decent breakfast.  A steady intake of nourishment keeps energy levels up and blood-sugars level.  You may not have thyroid problems but if your diet has been high in sugary junk for 30+ years you may have issues with insulin resistance or metabolic syndrome.  In which case, starving or taking dodgy diet pills is the worst thing you can do.

So that's the plan... Regular meals.  'Real food' in controlled portions.  Keep going with the exercise.  Best of luck 

Thanks...appreciate all the advice everyone.  Just getting a little discouraged is all.

I'm coming off the soup diet although I think I may stick to the diet pills because they're not really "diet" pills.  They don't suppress appetite or anything like that.  They're simply designed to help lower your cortisol and I've been reading a lot about cortisol, stress levels and belly fat.  It seems to be more natural and very similair if not identical to the phosphatidylserine I started taking a couple of weeks ago from an organic store.  I really don't want to lose any weight on my legs, arms, chest, butt...well you get the idea.  All of my weight seems to go to one place and one place only.  It's very frustrating.  I usually do 30 minutes on the eliptical, try to do a couple nights a week doing 30 minutes or so of regular ab exercises using the ball and a little light weight lifting for tone (and to hopefully prevent the weight from leaving the areas I don't want it to.)

Anyway, I'm back on the healthy horse and plan to put protein and "regular" food back into my diet since this isn't working.  Any reccomendations on exercises that I may not be doing that would help with the "spare tire"?

Parts of my body should feel free to divorce me and leave. I won't stop them.

serious answer: lisa that sounds very frustrating and the same thing happened to me when I was about 30. My body turned on me like a rabid dog! I need lots of weights and watching what I eat to keep it in check

My boyfriend's mother did the SH diet and she said she didn't see any weight loss until the 6th day. She also said it all came back when she was finished the plan.

I think it's pretty common to hit a wall in your metabolism at around 30. Then just about the time you get used to that, you hit another one in your 40's. I know that's not comforting. It's a matter of learning to eat consistantly at the level that is appropriate for your metabolism. Not that it's easy but the alternative is to gain and gain.

You're free to spend your $ anyway you want but you're wasting it on those pills. Wouldn't it be better to invest in healthy food? (Which is unfortunately more expensive than junk.) If you just think about it in a practical way, if anything that simple worked, it wouldn't be languishing on the shelf in a drug store. We're all here counting our cals and exercising because that crap doesn't work. There's always some sleeze ball waiting to take a little morsel of scientific research and try and exploit it with some product that has NO proof of efficacy.  That's why they ALWAYS have that disclaimer about having not been evaluated by the FDA for any health benefit. If they could get evaluated and prove anything, they would! $$Ca-ching!$$$

You may want to consider getting a second opinion from a doctor.  After my third child I kept on 30 lbs or so for a while but then decided to diet it off.  I wasnt a perfect dieter but I was dieting (in a healthy way) 80% of the time and I was gaining weight.  I was also losing some hair.  My hair is real thick so you couldnt really tell but I had lots of broken flyaway hairs sticking out all over.  I thought it was breakage but I asked my hairdresser and she said, "nope.  some is coming out.  this stuff is regrowth."  Fortunately, I had a great doctor who noticed that my thyroid level looked a little on the lower end of normal.  So she grabbed my neck and said it felt like I had a couple teeny tiny nodules on my thyroid.  She sent me to a wonderful endocrinologist who treated me based on symptoms- not my numbers which, as I said, werent so bad. I believe its called "subclinical" when you dont look like you have a problem according to the textbook but you functionally have something wrong.  I dont know how hard it is to find good doctors.  At one point because of insurance I had to see another endocrinologist who practically reamed me out for being on thyroid meds (which stopped the weight gain. Now I just have to eat right and exercise to get the weight off but at least that will work now!). He looked at me so disgusted and said, "This is not a diet pill."  I was horrified and embarrassed.  Fortunately, I changed insurances again and went back to the first guy.

Thanks for all the advice and info.  I'm pretty sure it's not a thyroid issue.  My dr. checked me physically as well as the blood test and I'm not having any other symptoms.  He's been my doctor for 10 or 15 years so I feel pretty comfortable with his diagnosis. 

The only reason I pay attention to stress causing symptoms is because I know that stress can cause a multitude of problems.  I once broke out from head to toe with the worst skin rash.  I went to my doctor (same one) because I thought I had shingles or some horrible allergy.  He looked at me and asked me only one question: Have you been under stress lately?  All I could do was laugh.  He prescribed an ointment and gave me some other meds but the irritation didn't go away until a couple of months later when the issues that was causing me stress finally were resolved.  So I can believe that high stress can cause weight gain.  I'd rather take a natural remedy to help lower the stress level than a narcotic.  I've also started taking prenatal vitamins.  When I used to take those, it was the best I ever felt.  Those things are absolutely wonderful for women.

The best thing I've come across since I started taking action to lose weight is this website.  It really makes keeping up with your eating habits and keeping it in check easy!