9 week plateau and I'm needing some new ideas!

3JinItaly

I am now on week 10 of a plateau. I started back in October, lost 20lbs. pretty quickly, and then it literally all stopped. I have not gained weight, and the scale has moved a few tenths of a pound or so, but not much. I have tried literally every combination of calories, activites, macros...you name it. At this point I have officially run out of ideas and I need some fresh eyes!!

I am 34, 5'4" and 151lbs. I live in Italy, so I walk everywhere and on a slow day, take at least 12,000 steps. I have a fitbit too. I am also doing the 30 day shred 6 days a week and heavy weight lifting with the Jamie Eason's livefit trainer 4 days a week. So, I'm active. With my fitbit synced, its been giving me an additional 1250ish calories a day to eat back, which seems nuts! Right now I have my activity level set at sedentary and my goal at 1.5lbs a week. I've also had it set at "active" before and lightly active. I've tried it all! What am I missing here? I eat clean, almost always stay under my calorie goal, and pretty much never, ever eat back all the calories the fitbit is giving me. I stay around 1700-1800 usually.

Any ideas??

tryanother

This happened to me... I stopped eating back any calories from exercise (I don't even log it anymore). With the over estimation on exercise calories and under estimation on food, I was maintaining without realising it. I don't use a fitbit though. This 'not losing' gave me such a hard time, but I try to learn more every day.

shroodle88

Hi, we're roughly the same height & age and I only weigh a few kg less than you. MFP is set to 1200 calories for a loss of 0.5kg per week. I hardly eat any exercise back (and don't do much either), but keep losing. What I'm saying is, check your calorie settings - 1800 sounds perhaps a bit comfortable?

dramaqueen45

When my loss slowed down quite a bit I bought a good food scale and started weighing everything in grams. That has helped quite a bit (although sometimes I don't weigh if I'm at a restaurant or something). Have you recently started the 30 day shred? Doing intense exercise can make you retain water at first (although 9 weeks is a long time to do that). If neither of these seem to be an issue you might want to talk to your doctor to see if there are problems with your thyroid and/or insulin levels.

3JinItaly

I have a food scale and weigh everything religiously!! There are no surprises there. As far as 1800, that's me eating back maybe half of my calories. My net calories are almost always in the negative. So should I just ignore all of my fitbit/exercise calories? I'm honestly not sure that I can do that much physical activity with only eating 1200 calories. That seems a bit too severe. I am on day 20 of the 30 day shred, and although the scale hasn't moved, I can definitely tell I have more muscle definition. Also with the heavy weight lifting...the muscles are poppin! They're just hiding under a stubborn bit of fat!

blktngldhrt

Are you eating back the fitbit calories? Personally, I would only eat back a portion of the calories burned from 30 day and lifting. If the walking you do is your norm..that counts towards your TDEE and should not be eaten.

3JinItaly

If I'm doing TDEE -20%, that puts me at 1709 cal a day. Even if I don't put in my exercise calories, I'm still getting around 7-800 back from fitbit. There are some people that are adamant that you need to eat back your calories, because that's how MFP was designed, but then others say not to. What's a girl to do??!!

Liftng4Lis

Can you open your diary?

MrCoolGrim

Eat less move more! You are probably or have found your caloric maintenance level. But I agree with Lifting4Lis, open your diary so a more accurate assesement can be done. cheers

3JinItaly

I did.

3JinItaly

Some of the food is in Italian though so beware!!

MrCoolGrim

3JinItaly wrote: »

Some of the food is in Italian though so beware!!

A beautiful thing isn't it , Italian food! Is that Venice in your profile pic?

3JinItaly

Yes!! I live a bit further south but it's the perfect city for a day trip!

annavalente

First of all well done on the weight loss so far!

A few things ive noticed after looking at your diary...spoons and cups are not accurate ways to measure foods..your banana probably has more calories in it!

I think if u maybe tighten things up in regards to your logging it would help.

Also, when was the last time your readjusted your goals through mfp? :-)

3JinItaly

My goal is currently set at 1lb a week and on sedentary. I have no idea if I should set it on sedentary when I'm not, but I read several posts that said to, so I thought I'd try it. Should I change that?

annavalente

According to mfp you need to reassess your daily calorie goal for every 10lbs u lose ...maybe relog things with your current weight and see if anything changes?

I_Will_End_You

If I was in your situation, I'd probably try 1500 calories per day for a few weeks regardless of activity and see what happens.

Liftng4Lis

I only looked at 3 days and you were over on all of them. I would imagine you're eating at maintenance.

haydiz70

After losing 20 pounds, I'm struggling to find the right balance too. I'm about the same weight and height, a little shorter. I noticed changing up the exercise, having rest days, and sometimes eating a little more once in a while helps. The weight is coming off, just more slowly. I don't weigh food but I tend to purposely overestimate the calories by about 10-15% to be on the safe side. I also have a fitbit but I don't log it or count it as exercise. Just keep being active and eating healthy. Being healthy is more important than a number on a scale anyway, though I sure would like to see a smaller number on mine.

emily9423

Try measuring your body in inches or whatever measurements you like. I know for me I thought I had hit a plateau when in reality I was gaining muscle while losing inches around my body. The scale isn't always the best tool to measure your hard work! Keep going; you'll get the results you are looking for!

Fitmom122

I_Will_End_You wrote: »

If I was in your situation, I'd probably try 1500 calories per day for a few weeks regardless of activity and see what happens.

futuremanda

I am not seeing a weight for everything in your diary.

1 slice of cake.
1 serving of meatballs. (Though this may be a homemade entry that you divided up?)
4 inch banana.
1 scoop protein powder.

Weighing even your packaged foods can be helpful, as the weight can vary significantly from the package sometimes. And a package might contain more or fewer servings than it says it does, as a result.

I would say you are lightly active, maybe active, and close enough to goal weight that 0.5-1 lb per week is probably an appropriate goal. If I put your info into a random internet calculator, I get 1884-1900 as your maintenance number, or 2100-2123 if I use active instead of lightly active. (This would be including your walking lifestyle, excluding your lifting & 30 Day Shred.)

Maybe try setting it to lightly active, drop your goal to 1 lb per week, don't eat back any of your walking calories (unsync the Fitbit if you want) and eat back maybe half of the calories from your other exercise. Like, maybe about 100 calories for every day of 30 Day Shred. If that doesn't work in say, 2 weeks, drop the exercise calories.

And go on a double check through your logging, and see if there are any items (like your protein powder) that you could weigh that you haven't been. Even finding one or two items you've eaten regularly that come to more than you thought could be getting in your way.

It gets trickier the smaller we get, as there's less room for error. Good luck!

3JinItaly

Thanks so much everyone for the ideas!! The food that you see that isn't measured, is either a specific recipe that I entered, product for product, gram for gram, or something that is already pre-measured (like the protein powder). The serving for that is one scoop, which is what I use every time, to the gram. The cake was a specific betty crocker recipe and it was divided in exactly the servings that the recipe said. I swear, I'm being amazingly vigilant!! Almost crazy so. I think I will try setting it to 1lb. a week, and putting it on lightly active and seeing how that goes. I will enter in any cardio that I do, but probably not the weightlifting.

The problem too is that with any heavy weightlifting, protein is required. So sometimes I have trouble meeting my protein requirements with such low calories!

Also, today already, fitbit has given me back already 896 calories that it says I should eat back. That would put me at 2100 calories already today and its only 4pm here. The more I walk, the more calories it gives me to eat!

Amerielle

Are you a member of the Fitbit group? So much great information there. I feel like you probably have your MFP activity level too low if you are getting such large adjustments. http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/1290-fitbit-users

I_Will_End_You

3JinItaly wrote: »

Thanks so much everyone for the ideas!! The food that you see that isn't measured, is either a specific recipe that I entered, product for product, gram for gram, or something that is already pre-measured (like the protein powder). The serving for that is one scoop, which is what I use every time, to the gram. The cake was a specific betty crocker recipe and it was divided in exactly the servings that the recipe said. I swear, I'm being amazingly vigilant!! Almost crazy so. I think I will try setting it to 1lb. a week, and putting it on lightly active and seeing how that goes. I will enter in any cardio that I do, but probably not the weightlifting.

The problem too is that with any heavy weightlifting, protein is required. So sometimes I have trouble meeting my protein requirements with such low calories!

Also, today already, fitbit has given me back already 896 calories that it says I should eat back. That would put me at 2100 calories already today and its only 4pm here. The more I walk, the more calories it gives me to eat!

Sounds like you should ignore the Fitbit for awhile.

3JinItaly

That's what I mean about so much conflicting info! I am a fitbit group member and there are so many threads that talk about setting the activity level as sedentary. So, I tried it. And no one in their right mind would eat back that many calories!!!

Amerielle

Well, I think the calories will work out the same. If you say you are sedentary, it will give you back fitbit calories to eat...but if you set it at active MFP will give you a higher number of calories to start with so you won't see such a large adjustment.

Either way, I think you have found your maintenance so you will probably have to adjust your calories in to less than what you have been eating no matter what all the other numbers are telling you. Sad, but true. There is no number more accurate than the results you are getting.

PaperSt

I'm no pro for sure, but I used to sync up my Fitbit and it also gave me SO many calories back. I did not want to eat those calories back because the weight loss had been going so well prior to sync'ing the Fitbit, I was afraid it would muck me up. I'm glad I didn't because there is no way I would have lost anything if I did. Eventually, I un-sync'd because it was useless to me.

giannigreco83

I do not log any kind of exercise... I just log the food according to my calorie deficit set by MFP and am constantly losing weight....

MeiannaLee

A lot of people recommend eating less, but what got me out of my plateau was eating more. I had a refeed day of over 2000 calories (Im 5'1 lol) and then two days later I went from my 3 weeks of being 132 pounds to 129 lbs. And Im pooping a lot more now. Try something like that.

Although everyone's body is different.

mastahscram

It seems as though you are very active + doing weight training. If you are seeing more muscle definition, you may be losing fat and gaining muscle. The number on the scale sometimes is deceptive. I would try looking at before/after shots, taking measurements, or doing a body composition assessment. I Would just keep on eating clean, trying to hit your macros and staying active. Maybe take 100 calories off of your daily intake, but restricting more will probably just make you more tired.