I'm Stuck (15 lbs to go)

tiffanyfoundit

I'm at at about 150 and I'm shooting for 135.
I've been stuck at this for a little while now and it's really frustrating and I'm eating right and exercising and I'm not really sure what else to do.

Any ideas on how to get those last pounds off?? Its getting very annoying.

Tblackdogs

I have no ideas for you. But know that you are not alone! I've never been more than 15 pounds over my goal weight and I keep losing and regaining the first 10 pounds. Frustrating!

Alyssa_Is_LosingIt

Eating "right" and eating at a calorie deficit are two different things. You can be eating nothing but "healthy" foods but still eating at maintenance or a surplus.

Now that you're in the home stretch, your TDEE is lower than it was when you were much heavier, which means that 1) your deficit will be smaller and you will lose more slowly (think ~.5 lb per week) and 2) accuracy in logging is more important now that your deficit is smaller.

Do you have a food scale? Do you weigh and log everything that goes into your mouth?

arditarose

You need to tighten up your logging. I got stuck at 140 and as soon as I stopped guesstimating lunches, started pre-logging and weighing every SINGLE meal, shaving off 100 calories from my deficit so I could have a calculated high day over the weekend and stay within a weekly goal...I started losing again.

tiffanyfoundit

I'm eating under my calorie goal by hundreds of calories everyday. I burn about 450 to running and such and never go over my 1200 during the week that they just give me.
Weekends I do sometimes go over the 1200, but not over with the exercise cause I burn about 800 on the weekend days.

arditarose

tiffanyfoundit wrote: »

I'm eating under my calorie goal by hundreds of calories everyday. I burn about 450 to running and such and never go over my 1200 during the week that they just give me.
Weekends I do sometimes go over the 1200, but not over with the exercise cause I burn about 800 on the weekend days.

You'd be losing if that were the case. Are you using a food scale?

tiffanyfoundit

I am losing. Just soooooooooo slowly. Like .2 and lame crap like that. It's like I've plateaued.
I don't have a food scale.

brianpperkins

How are you measuring your caloric intake? How are you determining your exercise burn?

arditarose

tiffanyfoundit wrote: »

I am losing. Just soooooooooo slowly. Like .2 and lame crap like that. It's like I've plateaued.
I don't have a food scale.

You need a food scale. You are not at the deficit you believe you are in. You shouldn't be aiming to eat under 1200 calories anyway, but fortunately, you are not eating under 1200 calories based on your rate of loss.

Alyssa_Is_LosingIt

tiffanyfoundit wrote: »

I am losing. Just soooooooooo slowly. Like .2 and lame crap like that. It's like I've plateaued.
I don't have a food scale.

You're likely eating more than you realize. Here is a good video that details why weighing your food is so important:

https://youtu.be/vjKPIcI51lU

You should really invest in a digital food scale. $10-15 on Amazon or at Walmart, and it will make a huge difference!

lindsey1979

I hit a major plateau when I got to that point too -- lasted for 7-8 weeks. But what broke it for me was switching up my way of eating. I gave 5:2 a try and it broke it through for me. And I didn't have any other plateau getting to my goal weight using 5:2 -- so it worked really well for me. 5:2 has been shown to help insulin sensitivity and since I have insulin resistance, that's why it may have been particularly helpful for me.

I know some will say it means you're not in a deficit, but that wasn't the case for me. I had a food scale and was weighing/measuring every little thing. When I shifted to 5:2 the weekly caloric deficits were almost the exact same and the weight started coming back off. I didn't lose a whole bunch at once like you'd see with a big water weight woosh, but it just started again. So, the deficit only didn't work for me all the time -- perhaps my body was shifting my CO somehow which wasn't readily apparent. Who knows? But this sort of thing is seen by a LOT of people when they get down to a certain amount of leanness.

You may also want to check into something like cal/carb cycling -- I know a lot of people will use that when they get fairly lean (I personally like lean gains).

Shifting your carbs somewhat may also help. For example, there was a study done a couple years ago with obese women who were insulin resistant and those who were insulin sensitive. The insulin sensitive women lost nearly twice as much weight with more carbs. It was the exact opposite for the insulin resistant women. They lost nearly twice as much with less carbs. The protein and caloric deficits were the same across all groups -- so same amount of calories proportionally, but how they created their respective deficits yielded dramatically different results. If I could lose nearly twice as much weight by simply adjusting my carbs, I'd definitely want to know about that!

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1038/oby.2005.79/full

Good luck!

PinkPixiexox

I'd definitely suggest weighing all your food if you aren't already!

tiffanyfoundit

So I did the food scale thing and I got way more than I've been giving myself when I was estimating

sylviak555

There are plateaus along the way (weigh) . Keep track and be honest with yourself about the food that goes in. Your body needs to adjust to your new style of living.

WBB55

If you've been losing 0.2/week then that's good if you only have 15 lbs to go. Honest. This is the speed you want to go if you want the loss to be sustainable.

If that rate makes you upset, personally, I'd suggest tightening up those weekends and making sure I only eat back 50% of any exercise calories. You have a leak somewhere if the calories say you should be losing faster. Start plugging cracks until you end up plugging the crack that was leaking.

diannethegeek

This might be a useful read: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/113609/relatively-light-people-trying-to-get-leaner/p1

auddii

tiffanyfoundit wrote: »

So I did the food scale thing and I got way more than I've been giving myself when I was estimating

See, we're not crazy. :laugh:

And I was also going to post the link Dianne did. Give it a read as well, but I think accurate logging will greatly help you.

tiffanyfoundit

No I meant I got to eat more than I've been giving myself previously.
Like, i could have been eating a whole lot more than I have been

WBB55

auddii wrote: »

tiffanyfoundit wrote: »

So I did the food scale thing and I got way more than I've been giving myself when I was estimating

See, we're not crazy. :laugh:

And I was also going to post the link Dianne did. Give it a read as well, but I think accurate logging will greatly help you.

I think she's saying she's been underestimating and when she weighs it, it actually ends up being more food than before.

I still think accurate logging is a must. Especially for fats oils and carbs.

tiffanyfoundit

WBB55 wrote: »

auddii wrote: »

tiffanyfoundit wrote: »

So I did the food scale thing and I got way more than I've been giving myself when I was estimating

See, we're not crazy. :laugh:

And I was also going to post the link Dianne did. Give it a read as well, but I think accurate logging will greatly help you.

I think she's saying she's been underestimating and when she weighs it, it actually ends up being more food than before.

I still think accurate logging is a must. Especially for fats oils and carbs.

Yeah that's exactly what I meant.
I could be eating more food!

MommyL2015

.2 pounds is still a loss. I think with my current calorie goal that MFP gives me, even though I set it to .5 pounds, it's actually only .2 or .3, because I only have 10 pounds left to go and the more you lose, the harder it is to lose.

Patience! Even if it takes me another 3 months or longer, I'm patient.

And also, i got stuck at 150 for a while myself. If you're eating at a deficit, it'll come off. Eventually.

Kimegatron

I noticed that when I set my loss goal to 2 pounds a week, it then says that my estimated weekly loss is really 1.98lbs/week.