Getting passed your body's "happy weight"

ouandi

I've been up and down for years now, gaining and losing the same 5-10lbs my entire adult life. My body seems to settle out at 160lbs no matter what I do. I'll get down to 155lbs only for it to slowly creep back to 160lbs (5'5"). I guess this is my body's "happy weight" as people call it. My body fat is around 32%. I just want to get down to a healthier body fat and maintain it.

How can I break this cycle? I already lift and cardio 5x/week and in the best shape of my life (besides my body fat %).

tayloralanj

Muscle confusion, rest, and caloric deficit. Have you tried switching up exercises and frequency?

callsitlikeiseeit

you are eating at maintenance if you are staying a certain weight.

reduce your calories.

SLLRunner

There is no such thing as your body's "happy place". You are not eating at a calorie deficit.

You have to want it, and unless losing weight is one of the most important things in your life it wont happen.

Cortneyrenee04

It looks like you're not consistently logging your food. Start there

cwolfman13

being at one's "happy weight" simply means you are eating at a level for which you are content to eat. if you're maintaining the same weight, you're eating maintenance...drop calories.

Francl27

You eat less.

abatonfan

Are you accurately logging everything you eat (weighing solids with a food scale, measuring liquids with measuring cups and using accurate MFP entries)? I took a quick look at your food diary, and there are days that aren't logged, days where you're only reaching about 800 calories, and MFP entries that use "1 package" or "1 cup" as serving sizes. Whenever I have issues with a plateau, it's typically because I'm not accurately logging and am instead maintaining my weight (my target deficit is about 250 calories per day -it's very easy to be inaccurate by 250 calories and maintain instead of lose). Tightening up my logging by making sure I'm weighing everything and inputting everything I eat into MFP tends to solve the plateau.

seltzermint555

A year or more ago I would have responded with "eat less, move more, it's SO EASY!" but honestly now I don't think that quite applies. Before people come around trying to lynch me for this, I just think once you get to a certain weight within a healthy range it is MUCH harder to consistently lose. It's just a different ballgame in my experience.

I am in the same boat in the range of 166-172, where I've bounced around for a year after once being at 307 lb and losing textbook weight on this site from 262 down to 172. While I'm ok with my current weight it is frustrating that my body seems so happy there, and when I get to 165.8 if I just eat an ice cream sundae my body seems to stick at 168 for 2 weeks (even eating at a calorie deficit). Since I refuse to cut out ALL treats, forgo all restaurant meals, and weigh/measure all food, I have gotten used to the idea of being in this range for the foreseeable future.

Just commiserating, really.

I will say, for over 10 years I fully "believed" that my body's happy weight was 265. I would diet and weigh 260, splurge consistently and weigh 270. For more than a decade. So at least I'm happy that my "new normal" is almost 100 lb less.

strong_curves

seltzermint555 wrote: »

A year or more ago I would have responded with "eat less, move more, it's SO EASY!" but honestly now I don't think that quite applies. Before people come around trying to lynch me for this, I just think once you get to a certain weight within a healthy range it is MUCH harder to consistently lose. It's just a different ballgame in my experience.

I am in the same boat in the range of 166-172, where I've bounced around for a year after once being at 307 lb and losing textbook weight on this site from 262 down to 172. While I'm ok with my current weight it is frustrating that my body seems so happy there, and when I get to 165.8 if I just eat an ice cream sundae my body seems to stick at 168 for 2 weeks (even eating at a calorie deficit). Since I refuse to cut out ALL treats, forgo all restaurant meals, and weigh/measure all food, I have gotten used to the idea of being in this range for the foreseeable future.

Just commiserating, really.

I will say, for over 10 years I fully "believed" that my body's happy weight was 265. I would diet and weigh 260, splurge consistently and weigh 270. For more than a decade. So at least I'm happy that my "new normal" is almost 100 lb less.

I believe this is true. This thread helps me to keep chugging along, there's tons of good info throughout the whole thread that has helped me. For me I have to remember to keep patient, stay consistent and trust my plan/process.

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/113609/relatively-light-people-trying-to-get-leaner/p1

strong_curves

ouandi wrote: »

I've been up and down for years now, gaining and losing the same 5-10lbs my entire adult life. My body seems to settle out at 160lbs no matter what I do. I'll get down to 155lbs only for it to slowly creep back to 160lbs (5'5"). I guess this is my body's "happy weight" as people call it. My body fat is around 32%. I just want to get down to a healthier body fat and maintain it.

How can I break this cycle? I already lift and cardio 5x/week and in the best shape of my life (besides my body fat %).

I'm the same height as you and I started my weight loss journey at 156 lbs and I'm now down to 149. The biggest thing that helped me and I KNOW people are sick of hearing this is weighing my food on a food scale and trying to stay consistent. It's a slow process and that can be very frustrating.

tomatoey

shell1005 wrote: »

I'm not a big believer in a "happy weight" or "set point" theory.

I think that you found a maintenance set of calories that you like and that tends to find you at a certain weight. For you that seems to be 160 lbs. Your body will respond with whatever you do to it and give it. If you ate at the maintenance range for 155, it would stay there.

True, your body settles at a given level of intake and output. I thought my natural set point was 130 lbs (as that's what it was in high school, before various things happened and I gained weight). Turned out that with significant enough changes re both intake & output, I could do 124 (for years!). You have to find a way to shave off those few hundred calories that's sustainable for you, though. (I didn't feel deprived that whole time, at all. I regained some when the output side changed bc of injury and I didn't change the input )

whmscll

ouandi wrote: »

I've been up and down for years now, gaining and losing the same 5-10lbs my entire adult life. My body seems to settle out at 160lbs no matter what I do. I'll get down to 155lbs only for it to slowly creep back to 160lbs (5'5"). I guess this is my body's "happy weight" as people call it. My body fat is around 32%. I just want to get down to a healthier body fat and maintain it.

How can I break this cycle? I already lift and cardio 5x/week and in the best shape of my life (besides my body fat %).

I'm the same height as you and I started at 161 pounds. Lost 27 pounds over the course of about 8 months. Slowly over the next two years I put half of it back on. Then I found mfp. This time, I started at 148.5 and in 11 weeks I'm down to 136. So it CAN be done. Just takes super diligence in weighing, measuring and being active (so you can eat back calories) because there's not a lot of wiggle room in maintaining a caloric deficit.

arditarose

I agree with everyone who says you're just eating too much. That being said, personally it's very hard for me to eat any less once I get to a certain weight. It can be done, sure. But I think I do have a happy weight, only because eating less makes me too miserable and I'm already in a healthy weight range.

lemurcat12

strong_curves wrote: »

seltzermint555 wrote: »

A year or more ago I would have responded with "eat less, move more, it's SO EASY!" but honestly now I don't think that quite applies. Before people come around trying to lynch me for this, I just think once you get to a certain weight within a healthy range it is MUCH harder to consistently lose. It's just a different ballgame in my experience.

I am in the same boat in the range of 166-172, where I've bounced around for a year after once being at 307 lb and losing textbook weight on this site from 262 down to 172. While I'm ok with my current weight it is frustrating that my body seems so happy there, and when I get to 165.8 if I just eat an ice cream sundae my body seems to stick at 168 for 2 weeks (even eating at a calorie deficit). Since I refuse to cut out ALL treats, forgo all restaurant meals, and weigh/measure all food, I have gotten used to the idea of being in this range for the foreseeable future.

Just commiserating, really.

I will say, for over 10 years I fully "believed" that my body's happy weight was 265. I would diet and weigh 260, splurge consistently and weigh 270. For more than a decade. So at least I'm happy that my "new normal" is almost 100 lb less.

I believe this is true. This thread helps me to keep chugging along, there's tons of good info throughout the whole thread that has helped me. For me I have to remember to keep patient, stay consistent and trust my plan/process.

Agree with the thread recommendation, and I'll say this is absolutely true for me. For me, though, it's a combination of just not caring that much, so it's really easy to get sloppy with logging or to justify going over more often, or--as with now--having trouble being consistent enough to quite figure out where my calories have to be.

Part of it is that when I was heavier (and more excited about losing the weight, since I had more to lose), I seemed to be able to effortlessly keep my calories down while exercising hard enough to make improvements (I was getting back into running and biking, starting some weight stuff). Now I find that when I train hard it's REALLY hard to keep the calories down. I think part of this is that my idea of training is different as I'm in much better shape and have more ambitious goals, but I'm sure part of it is having less excess fat to fuel my activity (although I'm not especially lean, around 26%).

I know it's not what I'm eating (for all the "clean" eaters who say that you don't get hungry if you eat well enough), since I'm eating pretty similar to when it was not a problem, and I've experimented with different food choices. It's either the time I've been doing this, being less motivated, or something about training harder/having less body fat.

Anyway, I find two things seem to work for me. (1) Exercising less and thus being able to eat less; or (2) thinking about it less and focusing really hard on fitness. With the latter I've not lost any weight (possibly even gained a couple, although right now I'm chalking it up to fluctuation), but I've lost a size and some inches. I'm not wild about the first possibility, but I may try it when my big race in September is over, depending.