I've Plateaued !!

carolejeanie1987

Any advice welcome! I eat 1200 calories a day AND workout EVERY SINGLE DAY! But I can not drop ANY weight or even inches/pant sizes for that matter. It's been a month. I'm new to my fitness pal. I'm so frustrated and about to give up! Anyone have any tips as to what I may be doing wrong? Thanks in advance!

chandanista

What are your height, age, weight stats? How much do you estimate burning in a workout and how much of that do you eat back? How are you measuring your calories?

diannethegeek

1. If it's been less than 3 weeks or so, don't sweat it! Normal fluctuations happen and unfortunately sometimes we stall for a week or two even when we're doing everything right. Give your body some time to catch up with the changes you're making.

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.

callsitlikeiseeit

Nuke_64

Give us more details and I suggest opening your diary. Until then, read this

http://www.acaloriecounter.com/blog/why-am-i-not-losing-weight/

carolejeanie1987

I am 28 years old, 5' 6", and 162lbs. According to my fitness pal and my exercise equipment I burn anywhere from 400-600+ calories a day. Everyday I do an hour or more some days of cardio, plus crunches and other strength exercises. I do not eat back any of my exercise calories. And I log my calories through my fitness pal. I do not eat after 6. But do struggle some on weekends. But I do not feel like I go over too bad? But maybe I am? And I still workout.

jemhh

What do you you mean by "struggle some on weekends"? Does that mean you are eating more on weekends? How much? It's easiest if you let us take a look at your diary. It sounds like your logging is likely off in some way.

davidvd66

Hi,
Calories in must be less than calories burned to lose. work out Your RMR (resting metabolic rate) remember this decreases as you lose weight, then make sure your intake is still less than what u are burning daily. a fast day- water only 24 hours is quick way of resetting the plateau. but sad news is if weight is staying constant over 7 days or longer then intake or exercise (output) must be looked at.

i suggest reset with a 24 hour water fast which is hard and you will get hungry.

gd luck and let us all know what happens
:-)

Nuke_64

carolejeanie1987 wrote: »

I am 28 years old, 5' 6", and 162lbs. According to my fitness pal and my exercise equipment I burn anywhere from 400-600+ calories a day. Everyday I do an hour or more some days of cardio, plus crunches and other strength exercises. I do not eat back any of my exercise calories.

You should eat back your exercise calories. Estimate that the machine in MFP is off 50%, so eat start eating back 200-300 calories.

carolejeanie1987 wrote: »

And I log my calories through my fitness pal.

Are you weighing your foods?

carolejeanie1987 wrote: »

I do not eat after 6.

Doesn't matter.

carolejeanie1987 wrote: »

But do struggle some on weekends. But I do not feel like I go over too bad? But maybe I am?

Are you logging it? If you were, you would know.

Nuke_64

davidvd66 wrote: »

Hi,
Calories in must be less than calories burned to lose. work out Your RMR (resting metabolic rate) remember this decreases as you lose weight, then make sure your intake is still less than what u are burning daily. a fast day- water only 24 hours is quick way of resetting the plateau. but sad news is if weight is staying constant over 7 days or longer then intake or exercise (output) must be looked at.

i suggest reset with a 24 hour water fast which is hard and you will get hungry.

gd luck and let us all know what happens
:-)

I lined through all the untruths in the post and bad advise. You do need less calories as you lose weight, but if your target is 1200, you shouldn't be going any lower.

cityruss

davidvd66 wrote: »

Hi,
Calories in must be less than calories burned to lose. work out Your RMR (resting metabolic rate) remember this decreases as you lose weight, then make sure your intake is still less than what u are burning daily. a fast day- water only 24 hours is quick way of resetting the plateau. but sad news is if weight is staying constant over 7 days or longer then intake or exercise (output) must be looked at.

i suggest reset with a 24 hour water fast which is hard and you will get hungry.

gd luck and let us all know what happens
:-)

No. Don't do this. Ever. The human body does not have a reset facility.

If you are consuming 1200 calories a day, and if you are burning 400-600 every day in the gym then you have a net calorie intake of 600-800 calories a day.

This is a dangerously low amount of calories. You would be dropping weight at an extremely fast rate if this were the case. Given the timeframe in your OP you would also be malnourished.

Your weekend struggles would have to be those of legend to balance the above out.

I'd hazard a guess at the problem being with your logging accuracy, over-estimated exercise burns and weekend struggles.

ffwife921

Try eating more often. I only eat 1 carb per day and I make sure that it isn't my last meal of the day. I eat every 3 hours up until I go to bed. I try to reduce my sugar intake. I'm allowing myself 1 cheat meal a week. Best of luck to you!

mommazach

Drown your body. Make sure you are drinking half your body weight in water too. 200 lb person=100 oz of water a day. When I get stuck, that's where I start! Drink away!

kshama2001

carolejeanie1987 wrote: »

I am 28 years old, 5' 6", and 162lbs. According to my fitness pal and my exercise equipment I burn anywhere from 400-600+ calories a day. Everyday I do an hour or more some days of cardio, plus crunches and other strength exercises. I do not eat back any of my exercise calories. And I log my calories through my fitness pal. I do not eat after 6. But do struggle some on weekends. But I do not feel like I go over too bad? But maybe I am? And I still workout.

You're undereating during the week and then erasing your deficit on the weekend.

Eat more during the week and less on the weekends.

Muscleflex79

ffwife921 wrote: »

Try eating more often. I only eat 1 carb per day and I make sure that it isn't my last meal of the day. I eat every 3 hours up until I go to bed. I try to reduce my sugar intake. I'm allowing myself 1 cheat meal a week. Best of luck to you!

how exactly are you eating 1 carb per day??

Nuke_64

ffwife921 wrote: »

Try eating more often. I only eat 1 carb per day and I make sure that it isn't my last meal of the day. I eat every 3 hours up until I go to bed. I try to reduce my sugar intake. I'm allowing myself 1 cheat meal a week. Best of luck to you!

mommazach wrote: »

Drown your body. Make sure you are drinking half your body weight in water too. 200 lb person=100 oz of water a day. When I get stuck, that's where I start! Drink away!

Although neither of these things are harmful, they do nothing to help you lose weight or break a plateau.

kimny72

carolejeanie1987 wrote: »

I am 28 years old, 5' 6", and 162lbs. According to my fitness pal and my exercise equipment I burn anywhere from 400-600+ calories a day. Everyday I do an hour or more some days of cardio, plus crunches and other strength exercises. I do not eat back any of my exercise calories. And I log my calories through my fitness pal. I do not eat after 6. But do struggle some on weekends. But I do not feel like I go over too bad? But maybe I am? And I still workout.

OP, chances are you need to tighten up your logging. If you don't have one, get a food scale. I thought FOR SURE I was eating @ 1,400 cals a day, but once I started weighing everything I found I had really been eating more like 1,800 per day - definitely the reason I wasn't losing. You don't have to use it forever if you don't want to, but committing to it for at least a couple of weeks will help ensure your calories in. Even packaged food - just because they say one slice of bread weighs 10 grams and has 100 calories, doesn't mean your slice of bread doesn't weigh twice as much!

Also check the entries you are using to log your food - if you are using "generic" or "homemade" entries, they can be very wrong.

Once you nail down how many calories you really are eating, you can decide better what you need to change.

What time you eat, how often you eat, how much water you drink will not keep you from or cause you to lose weight. They would only affect your appetite, which you didn't say was a problem for you.

Good luck!

carolejeanie1987

I do not weigh my food. Never thought of that. And I am thinking maybe my weekends are what's hurting me. I am going to try to buckle down harder on my calories and measuring them as well! And try to stay away from "cheat days" a couple of weeks to see if that's my problem for sure- Fingers crossed! Thank you all so much for the advice! I really appreciate it!

rileysowner

The first two responses pretty much told you what you need to do. Chances are your logging is the problem. You need to weigh all solids including grated (eg. cheese) and ground (eg. nut butters), and you need to use measuring cups and spoons to measure liquids. Make sure the entries you are using match up to what you are eating, so vary either over time due to changes in products or from region to region, and some are just wrong due to mistaken entries. Log everything, good and bad, even when you go over your calories. Log every day, and if you start logging this way, start eating at least half of your exercise calories as well.

borrego6193

carolejeanie1987 wrote: »

It's been a month.

You'll be okay just keep working out and counting your calories, make sure it's the actual amount your eating, if you can, buy a food scale, they're pretty cheap I got mine for about 10$

topyule

Do you vary your workout? It sounds like your body has adjusted to the demands and you need to shake it up and change your cardio.

cityruss

carolejeanie1987 wrote: »

I do not weigh my food. Never thought of that. And I am thinking maybe my weekends are what's hurting me. I am going to try to buckle down harder on my calories and measuring them as well! And try to stay away from "cheat days" a couple of weeks to see if that's my problem for sure- Fingers crossed! Thank you all so much for the advice! I really appreciate it!

Then you have no idea how many calories you are actually consuming.