How to break a plateu

Babygi6003

I have been stuck boucing around between 160-164 lbs for the past 2 months and I think I am in a plateau. What would you suggest to help me break it? I am eating 1200-1400 calories a day and working out 5x a week (burning 600-800 calories a day)

IsaackGMOON

1. Are you measuring accuaretly?
2. Are you getting calorie burns from MFP or a HRM?

OP, maybe you could try upping your calories a bit more; being stuck on 1200-1400 a day could be hindering your weight loss possibly.

earlnabby

Is the 1200-1400 total or net? If net, you really should consider upping them so you net 1200.

Babygi6003

I am getting my calorie burns from my Fitbit Charge HR and it is a 1200-1400 NET for me.

PeachyCarol

How tall are you? How old are you?

Are you using a food scale? Are you measuring all your liquids?

How long have you been dieting? How much weight have you lost?

malibu927

Can you open up your diary? Are you using a food scale?

juggernaut1974

I would venture a guess you're not burning nearly that much, and you're eating more than you think.

Babygi6003

I am 5'6 and 27 years old. I have been dieting for 3 years and have lost 102 lbs so far. I do use a food scale when I am at home.

Babygi6003

I have calculated my BMR and it is 1728 and it is saying I should be eating around 2000 calories a day to lose but that seems insanely high!

I am doing T25 in the mornings and cardio in the evenings (Ellipitcal, bike, treadmill). I am using a HRM to track my calories burned. I have my activity level set to sedentary since I am working a desk job.

arditarose

Babygi6003 wrote: »

I am 5'6 and 27 years old. I have been dieting for 3 years and have lost 102 lbs so far. I do use a food scale when I am at home.

Have you been on a deficit for 3 years? I hope you have taken quite a few diet breaks.

Babygi6003

I have eaten around 1200-1500 calories a day for 3 years other than cheat days sometimes.

arditarose

Babygi6003 wrote: »

I have eaten around 1200-1500 calories a day for 3 years other than cheat days sometimes.

That's a long time...


https://youtube.com/watch?v=r0jqAXpjCV0

The importance of diet breaks.

malibu927

Your diary is not reflecting that you use your scale consistently. Additionally, you have entries such as "Homemade - 2 scrambled eggs - 1.25 eggs". Did you enter that in yourself? Most likely you're eating more than you think.

ana3067

Babygi6003 wrote: »

I am 5'6 and 27 years old. I have been dieting for 3 years and have lost 102 lbs so far. I do use a food scale when I am at home.

Could be a potential case of metabolic adaptation, or something like that. I know there are some members who are better versed on this.

How long have you been dieting, has it been consistent without any breaks?

I'd suggest taking a few moths off and eating at your estimated maintenance needs. You're already maintaining your weight, might as well maintain a bit longer. I'm your height and although 160 looks a bit chubby on me it's not a terrible weight to be at for a while. I'd suggest slowly adding 100-200 calories every week (on top of your exercise calories, however much you currently eat back) until you reach your estimated net maintenance needs. Then eat that plus exercise calories for at least a month, maybe two. Then get back to eating at a deficit, although stick to 1lb/week or even half a lb a week.

ana3067

Babygi6003 wrote: »

I have calculated my BMR and it is 1728 and it is saying I should be eating around 2000 calories a day to lose but that seems insanely high!

I am doing T25 in the mornings and cardio in the evenings (Ellipitcal, bike, treadmill). I am using a HRM to track my calories burned. I have my activity level set to sedentary since I am working a desk job.

i'm 154lbs (SW 188) and I eat 2050 to lose somewhere between 0.5-1lb week. This includes my exercise routine of ~4-5 hours max of moderate exercise a week (most of this is weight lifting).

If you are eating back your exercise calories then your average intake would be close to 2000 calories anyways. Why would that seem high?

Babygi6003

I don't usually eat back my exercise calories but I guess if I did, I would be eating close to 2000 calories a day. I guess just the high number scares me. I am super scared to gain back weight.

ana3067

Babygi6003 wrote: »

I don't usually eat back my exercise calories but I guess if I did, I would be eating close to 2000 calories a day. I guess just the high number scares me. I am super scared to gain back weight.

Well you can't (or shouldn't) live on 1200 every day forever.. you eventually will need to learn how to eat greater quantities of food to maintain your weight, so I think a good time to learn how to do so would be now. Cleaning up your logging would also probably help.

_Terrapin_

I'd recommend watching the video and the part where he says 'dieting sucks' is really at the heart of this. Take a break from 'dieting' meaning increase your calories for 2 weeks then recharge and find a goal where you can manage to eat enough to lose a little each week/month. When you get closer to goal the frustration sets in when the patience wears out. So, IMO, reset for 2 weeks and increase your intake, then re-evaluate where you want to go. You can continue to search threads where people speak about what was next when they stalled. Good luck.

IsaackGMOON

Babygi6003 wrote: »

I don't usually eat back my exercise calories but I guess if I did, I would be eating close to 2000 calories a day. I guess just the high number scares me. I am super scared to gain back weight.

OP, eat at maintenance or 100~ higher for a while... eating such lower calories for that long of a time is not good.

Your body could have adapted to the change, as Ana said.

PeachyCarol

I'm going to put in another vote for metabolic adaptation. Watch vismal's video, follow the advice to do a refeed, then go back to eating at a deficit.

Christine_72

That video is really helpful. Concise, simple and straight to the point! No rambling for 20 minutes before getting to the point... :yawn:

arditarose

christinev297 wrote: »

That video is really helpful. Concise, simple and straight to the point! No rambling for 20 minutes before getting to the point... :yawn:

@vismal is the man.

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Christine_72

arditarose wrote: »

christinev297 wrote: »

That video is really helpful. Concise, simple and straight to the point! No rambling for 20 minutes before getting to the point... :yawn:

@vismal is the man.

That he is :smokin:

arditarose

MrM27 wrote: »

3 years straight?

I can appreciate the whole metabolic adaptation theory in this situation but we have to sort of look at the real trends because something is clearly off with the numbers. If the OP was over 260 lbs and she was eating 1200 calories that whole time then weight would have been flying off. Instead we are looking at 100 lbs over 3 years. That's about 2.77 lbs per month. So if we breakdown what TDEE should be and the fact that she has lost weight and is not saying anything about a metabolic disorder then how big of a deficit would she have had to average to lose .6 lbs per week, a lot more than 1200 imo.

Maths. Nice.

Babygi6003

Backstory: I had weight loss surgery 3 years ago and I have been eating around 1200 calories since then so yeah, even at 260 when I started out, I was eating 1200-1400 max

PeachyCarol

In light of what MrM said, which is a good point...

Do you have any other underlying conditions?

Allgoingtomakeit

24 hour fasting once a week. Simple. Sorted.

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marissafit06

It looks like you eat a lot of premade food like McDonalds and Mexican food. Do you weigh those before eating them? If not, you could be eating more than you think.

ana3067

MrM27 wrote: »

3 years straight?

I can appreciate the whole metabolic adaptation theory in this situation but we have to sort of look at the real trends because something is clearly off with the numbers. If the OP was over 260 lbs and she was eating 1200 calories that whole time then weight would have been flying off. Instead we are looking at 100 lbs over 3 years. That's about 2.77 lbs per month. So if we breakdown what TDEE should be and the fact that she has lost weight and is not saying anything about a metabolic disorder then how big of a deficit would she have had to average to lose .6 lbs per week, a lot more than 1200 imo.


I do want to add that I do know that video from Visual well and it is good. I've had many conversations with him, he's very smart and I consider him a friend. I just think that in this case what we are being presented on the surface might not be the automatic answer.

Poor logging is, I'm sure, part of the issue in that she is eating more than she realizes. So if she was actually eating like... idk, 1600 calories every day with a maintenance of 2600 calories, if she continued to eat mostly 1600 calories every day as she lost weight her maintenance needs would have lowered. She also mentioned "cheating" at times, no quantification of what that means (eating different food? Eating above or at maintenance? Binging significantly above maintenance?). So if her maintenance dropped enough then... idk.

Even if there isn't anything going on outside of poor logging, I'd say that a dieting break is warranted. Especially at a pretty healthy weight. This would be a good time to also practice more accurate logging in order to properly determine the true maintenance needs (while reverse dieting up to the estimated number to minimize sudden water weight gains) so that she can then reset her deficit to a more reasonable 0.5 or 1lb/week.