Not Losing Weight

Nutrition Q&A [Moderated]
1

Good morning Dr. Feigenbaum,

I’m struggling to lose weight and cannot figure out why. I’m 31 YO, currenlty weigh 240.4 lbs. and I’m taking in 1500 calories per day. I started at 246lbs. on August 4th. I got down to 240.4 on August 25th. I started going to the gym on August 23rd 3-4 days a week. Now, I’ve been weighing the same going on 4 weeks, basically since I started going to the gym. I know usually this problem comes from not accurately counting one’s consumed calories. I have weighed, measured and counted as closely as possible every calorie that has entered my body. I have the logs to prove it. But for weeks now I am not losing any weight at all. I can’t imagine that my maintenance calories are 1500. Nothing is helping. Are there any medical explanations for this?

I went to my primary care Dr. and told them this problem and they had me get some bloodwork done to test my thyroid function, testosterone levels and B12 levels. I have the results from the bloodwork but have not had my Dr. contact me back yet as to their thoughts. Can I get your thoughts, please? Here’s the results from my bloodwork:

TSH - 1.81 mlU/L
B12 - 229 pg/mL
Folate - 6.9 ng/mL
Testosterone, Total, MS - 314 ng/dL
Testosterone, Free - 77.2 pg/mL

Do any of these throw any red flags to you? Is there anything else you would have checked? I’m so frustrated. I’ve tried lowering my calories further but I don’t feel well going lower and I get very cranky and hungry and it becomes unsustainable for me.

Any advice is appreciated, thank you!

2

Chef,

Barring some sort of water retention issue (perhaps from a medication) , the only explanation is that you’re not consuming the amount of energy you’re reporting. I want to be clear that even in the instance of a hormonal or vitamin issue, this relationship is still true.

I would guess that you’re eating lower Calories a few days a week- perhaps trying to lower them further- and then much higher Calories on the weekend +/- Calorie-containing beverages, larger-than-measured portions, etc. Still, even at 2500 Cal/day you’d be losing weight. I would be looking at somewhere in the 2500’ish Calorie range per day and stick to that for a good chunk of time to realize the weight loss results. I would not go further down the rabbit hole of investigating a medical problem.

-Jordan

3

Thank you for responding. Perhaps one of my medications is causing water retention. I will consider your advice to increase my calories to 2500, although it’s hard when I want to see results. Thank you for the advice!