Need some advice - weight loss plateau!

livijane07

I was talking to my mum today and she really needs some advice, and i'm not too sure how to help her.

She has been steadily losing weight over the past half year or so eating 1,200 calories a day, and incorporating running and walking into her weekly cardio, as well as some (very light) strength training.

She said she has previously been losing 1lb per week steadily, but over the last month, has not seen any changes at all to her weight. She hasn't been eating more than her 1,200 calorie goal. She weighs all of her food and logs it accurately, although when I asked her if she weighed EVERYTHING (including pre-packaged foods etc) she said she didn't know she needed to, and had just trusted in labels - one problem i have now emphasised to her.

Her activity levels are quite sedentary, and she includes her cardio exercise as extra calories, of which she is careful to only eat back 50% to allow for errors on exercise machines and in the MyFitnessPal database.

As she is 56, i assume her calorie goal of 1,200 is sufficient for her daily needs and is not too low. Although she does some light strength training (bicep curls with 3kg dumbbells, body weight squats, etc) she feels she cannot increase this due to a recent serious operation, although i'm not sure if this should be inhibiting her as much as she seems to believe.

I am running out of ideas to suggest to her - please help! Any advice is really appreciated

middlehaitch

You are a little low on your mum's stats.
Could you add more info please.

The obvious answer is to tighten up the logging, but you say she is starting to do that.
The other is to up her burn and/or drop her feed back to 30% to take into account exertion errors. If she is eating back her resistance calories that could well be a problem as she doesn't really need to.

Nerdfitness.com has a great novice body weight programme that you could encourage her to do. It doesnt matter if she cant do everything, baby steps are good. As she is post menopausal some type of resistance work will help with bone and muscle retention.

If you could post more of her stats I may be able to be a little more helpful.

Cheers, h.

At 61, 5'1, and weighing between 100 & 105 lb. 1200 cal plus eating back 50% of my exercise would give me a .5lb loss a week, if I wanted to lose.

Liftng4Lis

Most likely, it's in the logging, but we would have to see her diary.

livijane07

Thanks for replying, she is 5'3 and around 147lbs.
She doesn't eat back any calories she might've burned through resistance exercise - is that what you mean by eating back resistance calories? She only eats back calories from cardio.

And thanks for the website info!

livijane07

Hmmm I did think it could be the logging and not weighing absolutely everything. I wasn't certain though, cause she kept saying 'well how come it worked for me before!'

deceived1

livijane07 wrote: »

Hmmm I did think it could be the logging and not weighing absolutely everything. I wasn't certain though, cause she kept saying 'well how come it worked for me before!'

It worked for her before, likely because when you are larger and have more weight to lose, you have a MUCH HIGHER margin of error. Meaning, being inaccurate when you have a lot of weight to lose doesn't hinder your progress as much as when you have very little to lose.

If she's not weighing everything she is probably underestimating her intake.

Liftng4Lis

livijane07 wrote: »

Hmmm I did think it could be the logging and not weighing absolutely everything. I wasn't certain though, cause she kept saying 'well how come it worked for me before!'

The closer she is to goal, the tighter the logging has to be (less to lose).

BWBTrish

what previous posters said
Meaning she was very successful but worked away her own deficit...so indeed tighten up her logging by weighing everything on a scale and creating a deficit again.

livijane07

deceived1 wrote: »

It worked for her before, likely because when you are larger and have more weight to lose, you have a MUCH HIGHER margin of error. Meaning, being inaccurate when you have a lot of weight to lose doesn't hinder your progress as much as when you have very little to lose.

If she's not weighing everything she is probably underestimating her intake.

Liftng4Lis wrote: »

The closer she is to goal, the tighter the logging has to be (less to lose).

TheOwlhouseDesigns wrote: »

what previous posters said
Meaning she was very successful but worked away her own deficit...so indeed tighten up her logging by weighing everything on a scale and creating a deficit again.

Thanks for all your help I'll let her know!