Discouraged and needs advice

ttkg

Hi all. I have been on MFP for awhile, becoming serious about my weight loss near the end of February. Since then I have been able to trim off almost 20 lbs but the majority of that was between end of FEB and middle of MAY. Since that time I have not seen much of a weight loss and just seem to fluctuate around this new weight. At first I took it in stride and told myself that these things happen and if I kept at it eventually it would drop down again. So I kept logging and going to the gym and tried to just have faith that this would work.

But now it is June 21st and I am still not gaining any ground and I feel completely discouraged. I work out with a personal trainer, and I log my food as long as I am home (when on business trips it is kinda hard). Last week I did 5 one hour sessions with my trainer and added another two 30 minute cardio workouts as well. I drank 3 litres of water each day and I thought for sure I would see a budge on the scales, but there was none.

I feel like I am at the end of my rope. Plus I put my back out on Sunday doing some planting so now that will set me back a week or two as far as how hard I can work with my trainer. My food diary is public, but yesterday was an 'I am out of groceries and in pain' day so it wasn't too good.

I have read that a plateau can last weeks/months - HOW THE HECK CAN I GET OUT OF THIS?? Thank you so much for taking the time to reply, I just want to feel good about my progress again.

lulabellewoowoo

http://coaches.aol.com/diet/feature/_a/busting-through-a-weight-loss-plateau/20070515121109990001

I like this article.

Voncreepy2

I just looked at your food diary. You may be eating too little. You may have reached a point where you have more muscle tone. Muscles help your body burn fat all day long but if your body isn't getting enough calories then it thinks it is starving and hangs on to every ounce of fat that you have. (Wonderful failsafe) I know. But maybe if increase your calories for a little while and see if that doesn't boost your metabolism. Good luck!!!!

ttkg

Thanks for that article Lulabelle. About 2 or 3 weeks ago I did try zig zagging my calories for a week. I find it difficult to reach a happy medium between what MFP suggests and what my trainer suggests. I send him my nutritional diary almost every morning and he wants me to keep it below 1500...so when trying to zig zag those calories I felt torn and after a week I didn't see much change.

StephDoobie - thanks for this advice. Not sure what day you looked at (Sun and Mon sucked). I know you are suppose to eat more to burn more and for the last 3 weeks I have been attempting to have 5-6 smaller meals a day to keep my metabolism burning, and again i haven't seen much results from this. I honestly attempt to eat almost all of my exercise calories, keeping it at least within 100-200 calories of this.

Right now though I just feel at such a loss and I am so frustrated, it is hard to keep going on this path. When you hit a plateau, how long can it take you to get out of it? Is zig zagging calories something you have to do for several weeks??

lulabellewoowoo

I feel like I am at the end of my rope. Plus I put my back out on Sunday doing some planting so now that will set me back a week or two as far as how hard I can work with my trainer.

I found for me that when life prevents me from working out like I usually do, and I'm not able to concentrate on my calories as much, that when I finally get back to it, I end up having a couple pound weight loss, where weeks before nothing. Sometimes your body just needs a break I think from the regimen. So maybe a couple of weeks of lower intensity might be what you need.

ttkg

True - sometimes the body needs a break. But i am finding this to be mentally exhausting. When I started I would never get this upset about what the scale says, now I seem to be obsessing and checking it every day. maybe I will take a break from that too. Just wish I had an idea of how long a plateau could last...:frown:

andipandi

it looks like ur exercising too much and eating poorly. pizza and beer get stored immediately. over exercising doesnt burn calories-u conserve... ur body is storing and conserving. HIIT training and loading ur diet with veggies and nothing processed will get u back losing. ur not a kid anymore so NO NO BEER AND PIZZA EVER! p.s. my age is wrong and i cant seem2 change it. i'm 38 with 2 tween boys. i have the body i do because i am strict w/my diet and HIIT train daily. its about the kind of cals we consume not just the numbers. low fat, high intensity, clean eating (nothing out of a pkg) i hate to be so frank but its ur diet and ex...it seems good at a glance but its not.

Supermel

I read on a Jillian Micheals tips thing that to get off a platuea or to lose those last 10 pounds, to try and keep your sodium to 1000mg To do this u would have to eat very clean, with nothing packaged. Good luck!

p90xokc

I'm not sure I would say "never" to the good stuff. I had trouble losing weight for a while. I'm in my 8th week of p90x classic. But I did a calorie adjustment. Just dipped it by 150-200 calories per day. I also purchased a GOOD heart rate monitor/calorie counter to monitor things during my excersises. I recommend Polar. You can usually find these at Academy. I'll tell you now that they aren't cheap. The one I purchased was just under $98.00. But now I know exactly how many calories I'm burning per workout and more importantly, I have an accurate reading of my heart rate during these workouts. If you're not hitting your target heart rate, you're going to have a tough time pushing past the plateau you seem to have hit. I've lost 2 lbs. since purchasing this and I only purchased it last Saturday. My next official weigh in is friday and I expect to be around 217, down from 224 (5'11 male). I hope this helps and I wish you the best with your journey.

leftyy2k4

Couple things. You are starving yourself than binging. There are days you have 900-1100 calories. Followed by days you have almost 2,000. And every week there are 2-3 days of no entries.

Weight loss is simple math. You need to create a daily deficit of 500-1000 calories to lose 1-2\lbs a week. You are over your calories many days. And the days you don't log you must be over. That means you are not creating a deficit.

1st you need to log everything. Right it down on a piece of paper if you have too. You need to know how much you are eating when you travel and don't log. Your diary is a tool and if you miss 2 days a week its not going to help you. It is not hard to see you eating over by 1,000+ calories when you eat on the road. Destroying any deficit you created the other 5.

2nd you need to have a balanced diet that allows you to eat all the calories MFP has figured out you need. You need to try to not go below 1200 and starve yourself. And try not to go over by more than 100-200. Going over by 800 is not good at all.

And finally every day need to be its own day. Don't eat yesterdays deficit or under eat to fix yesterdays overage. Every day you need to fuel your body for that day. If you binge and go over work out to pay for those calories. But do not under eat.

Good Luck.

ttkg

Thanks for your replies!! I think you're right, I just went back and reviewed several weeks and clearly I need to make some changes, I appreciate the frankness and hopefully will have a different story a month from now.

kdiamond

I looked at a few days of your diary.

You are definitely not eating enough protein. Your diet is made up of mostly simple carbs and sugar! Yes, you stick to lower calorie as far as I can see, but you're not eating nutritionally sound at all. Whatever muscle growth you have achieved so far will go no further with this kind of nutrition.

You should change your ratios to 40/30/30 and spend a few weeks trying that out. Try eating cleaner foods and less processed stuff (like cereal - get rid of all of it and eat oatmeal instead!).

HTH