Stuck at a plateau for 2 months!

aencinas18

Going to open this up. Anyone have any advice on overcoming a month-plus weight plateau? I have been stuck around 45 pounds lost, 206 pounds, for almost 2 months. And I know I haven't been great with some days on my diary, having sabotaged myself several times. But, I have included sprinting, weight lifting, HIIT exercises, and tried to make my own food at home as much as possible. If any advice or recommendations could help, I would greatly appreciate it!

diannethegeek

Setting your diary to public might help you to get more specific advice. It really can help to have an extra set of eyes look it over if you're comfortable with that.

Otherwise, here's my general advice:

1. You've changed up your exercise a lot in two months! Be sure you're giving your body a couple of weeks after each change to release the extra fluid new exercise routines tend to come with. Otherwise you may be seeing a natural water weight stall that's just masking any fat loss that's still happening.

2. If you aren't already, be sure that you're logging everything. Sometimes people forget about things like veggies, drinks, cooking oils, and condiments. For some people these can add up to enough to halt your weight loss progress.

3. Consider buying a food scale if you don't already have one. They're about $10-$20 dollars in the US and easily found at places like Amazon, Target, and Walmart. Measuring cups and spoons are great, but they do come with some degree of inaccuracy. A food scale will be more accurate, and for some people it makes a big difference.

4. Logging accurately also means choosing accurate entries in the database. There are a lot of user-entered entries that are off. Double-check that you're using good entries and/or using the recipe builder instead of someone else's homemade entries.

5. Recalculate your goals if you haven't lately. As you lose weight your body requires fewer calories to run. Be sure you update your goals every ten pounds or so.

6. If you're eating back your exercise calories and you're relying on gym machine readouts or MFP's estimates, it might be best to eat back just 50-75% of those. Certain activities tend to be overestimated. If you're using an HRM or activity tracker, it might be a good idea to look into their accuracy and be sure that yours is calibrated properly.

7. If you're taking any cheat days that go over your calorie limits, it might be best to cut them out for a few weeks and see what happens. Some people go way over their calorie needs without realizing it when they don't track.

8. If you weigh yourself frequently, consider using a program like trendweight to even out the fluctuations. You could be losing weight but just don't see it because of the daily ups and downs.

9. Some people just burn fewer calories than the calculators predict. If you continue to have problems after 4-6 weeks, then it might be worth a trip to the doctor or a registered dietitian who can give you more specific advice.

malibu927

Your diary isn't open, but most likely you just need to tighten it up. Make sure EVERYTHING you consume gets logged, even on days you go over. Log everything as accurately as possible, which for many people means using a food scale to weigh your food with (never measuring cups except for liquids). If you eat your exercise calories back, be mindful that those are only estimations and in many cases will be way over what you really burn. Stick to 50-75% of those.

TracyeS4

I was on a plateau for 3 months. Keep working out and eating right. I increased my exercise and dropped my calorie intake by about 100 calories. I cut out alcohol, which is probably the item that was hurting me the most. Step back and really evaluate yourself and your habits. Is there anything that has come back into your diet? Can you increase the intensity of your workouts?

You have done awesome! Just keep it up and the scale will start moving again.

Francl27

aencinas18 wrote: »

Going to open this up. Anyone have any advice on overcoming a month-plus weight plateau? I have been stuck around 45 pounds lost, 206 pounds, for almost 2 months. And I know I haven't been great with some days on my diary, having sabotaged myself several times. But, I have included sprinting, weight lifting, HIIT exercises, and tried to make my own food at home as much as possible. If any advice or recommendations could help, I would greatly appreciate it!

This is why. Log everything accurately, once you do the math you'll realize that it's very easy to eat a bit too much and maintain instead of losing.

aencinas18

I opened my diary as public.

I know I have sabotaged myself. I have to start cutting back more on sugar, which I try to limit anyway, since I have a sweet tooth. I try to stay under my calorie limit that's set up and not eat back any of the calories I log from working out. But sometimes I will put in a 20 minute run, do a bunch of sprints, hit the gym, ride the bike and end up feeling starved afterwards.

Francl27

I know everything about having a sweet tooth, believe me!

Couple things from your diary - if you're really logging everything, you should still lose weight because your goal is pretty low for a 29yo man (and I'm guessing you're pretty tall too, if you look that good at 206 pounds).

I recommend weighing your food, it's way more accurate. Also your protein goal seems a bit low. but mostly it looks like it's mostly your logging that's a bit sloppy... lots of cup entries or generic entries that seem inaccurate (most bagels are closer to 260 calories than 230, for example).

katrn05

You may need to increase your calorie intake. Sometimes, it's that your body needs more fuel, not less.

maidentl

katrn05 wrote: »

You may need to increase your calorie intake. Sometimes, it's that your body needs more fuel, not less.

If he's not losing now then eating more won't help. The advice to tighten up logging is the best place to start.

aencinas18

As for the bagel aspect, that's the information I'm going off of the packaging. I'm trying to clean up my measurements everything, such as butter and cream cheese when using, but at least using measuring cups. I will invest in a food scale to get better accuracy on things.

I haven't done anything to change most of the macros on my account here, and have been thinking of increasing/decreasing carbs, protein and fat. I do a lot of running and sprinting, plus I've been trying to hit the weights a little harder, but my body has felt more fatigue at the gym than before.

Francl27

aencinas18 wrote: »

As for the bagel aspect, that's the information I'm going off of the packaging. I'm trying to clean up my measurements everything, such as butter and cream cheese when using, but at least using measuring cups. I will invest in a food scale to get better accuracy on things.

I haven't done anything to change most of the macros on my account here, and have been thinking of increasing/decreasing carbs, protein and fat. I do a lot of running and sprinting, plus I've been trying to hit the weights a little harder, but my body has felt more fatigue at the gym than before.

It depends on how hungry you get too. Protein and fat will keep you fuller than carbs.

But yeah, a food scale is a must for me, I never realized how much I was underestimating my portions until I started using one.

aencinas18

I just looked online at balancing macros for fat loss and increased my fat and protein limits and cut my carbs back. Going to be hard the first couple weeks to get it right, but hopefully that will start heading in the right direction soon.

Liftng4Lis

aencinas18 wrote: »

Going to open this up. Anyone have any advice on overcoming a month-plus weight plateau? I have been stuck around 45 pounds lost, 206 pounds, for almost 2 months. And I know I haven't been great with some days on my diary, having sabotaged myself several times. But, I have included sprinting, weight lifting, HIIT exercises, and tried to make my own food at home as much as possible. If any advice or recommendations could help, I would greatly appreciate it!

There's the problem. Tighten the logging.