13 pounds from maintenance should I lower my pounds lost per week

toledochic

So I am currently 13 pounds from where I want to be. I still have my calories set to lose 2 pounds per week. I am at a plateau. Should I decrease that to 1 pound per week and try upping my calories a bit? Thanks for any help!

StaciMarie1974

How long have you been stalled? How often do you use a food scale? How do you determine calories burned thru exercise and do you 'eat them back'?

Decreasing your # per week to lose means eating more. If you're truly stalled, then you're eating more than you think so eating more won't fix it. But that leads back to my first question, how long since you've lost weight? If less than a few weeks, its probably too soon to panic.

Also what is your height/weight/age/activity level/calorie goal per day now? If you have 1200 from MFP as a target, then you're probably not set to lose 2 pounds per week but bottomed out as MFP won't recommend under 1200.

toledochic

I've been stalled about a week. I am 33, 5 ft 8 and 188 pounds. My calories are set at 1430 from MFP. I exercise for 30 minutes 5 days per week. I usually go by what MFP calculates for calories burned. Thanks!

Ninkyou

With 13 lbs to lose you should be aiming for .5 lbs/week.

Also you're not plateau'd. It's been a week. Weight loss isn't linear. Give it more time.

dubird

A week isn't a plateau. Weight loss isn't linear by any means! With that little to go, setting your weight loss to .5lbs a week is the safest way to do it. Plus, setting it with that little deficit helps you adjust your eating habits close to what you need to maintain, so when you do lose the weight, you're already eating close to what you need to and it's easier to switch to maintenance.

toledochic

Thanks everyone!

StaciMarie1974

A week is not a stall or plateau. You are not going to drop weight each & every week. Even if you had 100+ excess pounds to lose, there would be some weeks where the scale did not show a loss. That doesn't mean your body is at a plateau or that something is wrong.

Assuming you are accurately logging calories in (using a food scale, accounting for condiments/cooking oils/drinks/etc.) and not overestimating calories burned thru exercise* then eating at a deficit will lose weight over time. The key being 'over time'. So you should weigh less on Feb 25th than you do today, for example. But you may weigh more on Feb. 26 than on Feb. 25. Comparing weighins very close in time is misleading because water weight causes fluctuations.

*One way to avoid overestimating calories burned thru exercise is to only eat 50-75% of your exercise calories back.

toledochic wrote: »

I've been stalled about a week. I am 33, 5 ft 8 and 188 pounds. My calories are set at 1430 from MFP. I exercise for 30 minutes 5 days per week. I usually go by what MFP calculates for calories burned. Thanks!