Is this normal?

cbstewart88
cbstewart88 Posts: 453 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I am a 60 year old female with 30 lbs to lose. I began my plan on 4/1/16. I am on 1200 calories per day ( which I have adhered to) monitoring sugars, fat, carbs, protein. I do one hour on the treadmill 4-5 days per week burning about 400 calories per workout. Also do upper body strength workouts with free weights. I lost 10 lbs my first 14 days. Now I am at 24 day mark - have not lost anything since. Is it usual for weight loss to come in big surges followed by lengthy plateaus? Has anyone else experienced this? I figured weight would go down steadily - like 1 to 2 lbs per week....

Replies

  • JackieMarie1989jgw
    JackieMarie1989jgw Posts: 230 Member
    Yes, I lost a lot of weight right in the beginning, then plateau, then it finally started becoming a steady 1 lb/ week. I think in the beginning it is mostly water weight due to less salt. Even if you arent tracking sodium or trying to eat less of it, if you cut your overall food consumption by 30% then you are automatically eating less of everything, including sodium. So that will cause a big decrease right in the beginning.
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  • CoffeeNCardio
    CoffeeNCardio Posts: 1,847 Member
    edited April 2016
    It is normal for weight to fluctuate, weight loss is NOT linear. There will be weeks where you lose nothing and weeks where you lose more than what they say you'll lose. EVERYBODY has experienced this. In fact, there are apps and websites devoted to logging a daily weight for people so they can see the loss trends over long periods of time. Because that 2lbs per week it promises you is an AVERAGE loss. Further, because you are female, you will gain and lose water weight throughout the month if you are not yet menopausal, and you will gain and lose water weight because of other factors like exercise (water is retained to restore muscles) and sodium intake (eating a lot of salt one day will result in water retention for a day or two after) regardless of menopause or not.

    You're doing fine. Your loss is good. And no one in the history of MFP can say "I lost exactly two lbs every week on the nose no variations" It simply doesn't happen that way. For myself, I frequently maintain the same scale weight, or even an increase for 3 weeks, then the fourth week I'm suddenly 4 lbs lighter or more.

    Consider using trendweight.com to log your weights in every week so you can see them on a graph and see that there's a general decline over time.
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  • CoffeeNCardio
    CoffeeNCardio Posts: 1,847 Member
    Noel_57 wrote: »
    yes, @coffee that one. What took so long? :p

    LOL, I try to only bible-thump at people who actually have an issue ha ha, this woman is clearly doing just fine:)
  • cbstewart88
    cbstewart88 Posts: 453 Member
    Thank you everyone for your kind responses. BTW Jackiemarie, I am monitoring sodium, so water weight loss is a realistic possibility. I am happy to know that I am "normal" and will continue to plug along and not obsess over it. Can't even look at that chart - LOL!!
  • ericatoday
    ericatoday Posts: 454 Member
    Yes its normal for that to happen. But also if youre eating back the calories you burned it can slow it down
  • snowflake954
    snowflake954 Posts: 8,399 Member
    CoffeeNCardio wrote: »
    Noel_57 wrote: »
    yes, @coffee that one. What took so long? :p

    LOL, I try to only bible-thump at people who actually have an issue ha ha, this woman is clearly doing just fine:)

    I, personally, love the chart. Thanks for posting it. There are so many plateau posts and so many lurkers--it's a valuable tool. There used to be long, long threads on this topic with back and forth for pages, until the "bible" was born. It condenses alot of information.
  • Rocknut53
    Rocknut53 Posts: 1,794 Member
    cbstewart88 wrote: »
    Thank you everyone for your kind responses. BTW Jackiemarie, I am monitoring sodium, so water weight loss is a realistic possibility. I am happy to know that I am "normal" and will continue to plug along and not obsess over it. Can't even look at that chart - LOL!!

    Keep up the good work. All the above advice is spot on. It has taken me 111 days to drop 30 pounds. Some weeks it melts away, some not so much. I haven't yet had a "plateau" that lasted more than a few days. I have 5 more pounds to go and I have a hunch it is going to take a while to lose it. I'm 62 BTW.
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