Help: I changed my diet and have only gained weight

For some background:

I am currently 19 years old and weigh 320 Ibs. For the last ~ 4 years, I have lived a rather sedentary life, especially during quarantine. Before just recently, I had hovered in the 290-300 range quite consistently for the last 3 years of high school. When COVID hit, any chance for activity dissipated, but I still managed to maintain that weight for the first 9 months of quarantine through my first semester of college. My diet consisted of a slew of junk food and a vast amount of soda each day.

Sitting back and taking a look at what I eat, I decided if I wanted to start and make a change I would have to first change my diet, so I did. I realized that most of my unhealthy calories were coming from my heavy soda-drinking (450 - 700 cal/day), so I cut soda completely and started drinking water. I have also tried to cut down on snacking and reduce my helpings at dinner along with this. I started this 4 months ago on New Years'.

Since then, I have maintained this diet quite consistently. I know, it's not the best diet, but I have certainly cut 500+ calories a day, and have noticed a lot of improvements to my health from the water intake alone. A rough estimate would be a decrease from ~ 2000 cals/day to sub-1500 cals/day.

This is where things start to not make any sense:

Like I previously stated, for the last 4 years I have maintained a weight of 290-300 Ibs. I also maintained that weight through the first 9 months of COVID. Since January of this year, I have made no change to my physical activity, only to my diet, yet, I have gained a total of 20 Ibs. Most people recommend cutting calories to lose weight, yet I have gained a whopping 20 Ibs when I cut the amount I did. It feels like I should have lost 20 Ibs from this significant amount of change, yet the complete opposite has happened. It almost feels like I shouldn't have changed anything, as, from my previous experience, I would have likely maintained that sub-300 Ib weight. I'm really lost as to what is happening to cause this and feel that I am either doing something completely wrong, or there is something else at bay. It would seem acceptable if there was little change at all, but this amount of weight gain just seems too out of place that I am starting to think that I may have some sort of issue going on.

Does anyone have any ideas?

submitted by /u/ej-stew
[link] [comments]

from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/3vB4f8k