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

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.

JulieAnneFIU

Do you wear a heart rate monitor and log your workouts? I know when I logged Jillian as circuit training it gave me more calories than when I used my hrm. I used to bust butt doing that and only ended up burning about 147 calories. I didn't lose a pound. Now I wear a hrm and do the negative calorie adjustment with fitbit and I'm losing exactly what it says I'm supposed to and I eat every calorie back.

PeachyCarol

MeiannaLee wrote: »

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.

That could also just be a coincidence. I happened to have had a day where I had a horrible migraine and only managed about 500 calories. I came out of my three week stall the following day too. I don't chalk it up to the low calorie intake, I think it was just time for the stall to end.

3JinItaly

I do have a hrm and I wear it for every workout. When I log in my exercise, I enter the calories that my hrm says. So if you wear your hrm, do you enter your exercise into fitbit after? Then what do you have your MFP goal set on? It seems that on every level I've set it on, fitbit has still been giving me back a ton of calories, even after I disabled the step calories. Already today, with heavy lifting, kickboxing class and a bike ride in, I've been given an extra 782 calories. And it's only 1pm! Am I seriously supposed to eat all that back? That's what is so darn confusing!!

auddii

mamapeach910 wrote: »

MeiannaLee wrote: »

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.

That could also just be a coincidence. I happened to have had a day where I had a horrible migraine and only managed about 500 calories. I came out of my three week stall the following day too. I don't chalk it up to the low calorie intake, I think it was just time for the stall to end.

I started a gelato/ice cream/sweets cleanse on Saturday. I've lost 4lbs since that day. Clearly, my cleanse works... (or you know, water weight).

ETA: OP, my guess is that you're overestimating your workout calories or underestimating your intake. You say you have a pretty good handle on logging accurately, so just double check that isn't the issue, but the energy expenditure might be the issue.

The other thing I've noticed is you said that you have tried everything, but it's only been 9 weeks. That tells me that you've made several different changes to what you are doing but only waiting a week or two before changing again. I'd make one change at a time and give it 4-6 weeks, then make an additional change if needed.

You've gotten some pretty good advice already, and so I'd agree to try eating 1500-1600 calories per day (gross), and see what happens after a month. If you lose faster than you want, bump up the calories. If you don't see a drop in the scale, either give it another two weeks or lower the calories. And I'd suggest small changes, like 100-200 calories when you do make adjustments.