Help under my calorie goal daily but stuck at my current wei

gappy

Hello everyone I have been following this MFP for almost 40 days now. In the beginning I was losing 3-4 lbs per week now I have been stuck at my current weight for the last 2 weeks. I am under my calorie count daily when you add in all my excercise, do I still need to keep my count lower? Thanks

erickirb

No, you need to eat more. It is not good to be below your goal on MFP you should be within 100 cals over or under as MFP already sets you up in a caloric deficit to loose weight, going under the amount may make you go into starvation mode, which is essentially the storage of calories as fat and a slower metabolism. Eat more and you should loose weight, try changing your goal to 1 pound loss per week.

abricklin

No, you need to eat more. It is not good to be below your goal on MFP you should be within 100 cals over or under as MFP already sets you up in a caloric deficit to loose weight, going under the amount may make you go into starvation mode, which is essentially the storage of calories as fat and a slower metabolism. Eat more and you should loose weight, try changing your goal to 1 pound loss per week.

While I doubt you are in starvation mode, you do really need to eat your calories if you are stuck. What do you do for exercise, try to mix that up. Also try to mix up your food.

Herewego

Hello,
You were losing quite a lot / week in the first few weeks so perhaps you body is reacting to that.
My way of doing is that: when I hit a platau for more than two weeks I start to eat a little more (I give you an example: allowance is 1600 and maintenance 2100, well for a week I stick to 1850). After a week I restart to 1600 and it seems to do the trick, my body seems to have been tricked in thinking that I was not on a diet so when I restart on my allowance, I restart to lose some weight.

I hope that helps.

HWG:happy:

acstein

I agree with Herewego. Our bodies of very much creatures of habit. If we do the same thing everyday or even every week, then our bodies get used to it. Try running the track instead of the treadmill or vice versa. Eat more for a couple days, then eat less. Pretty much anything to "trick" your body into action instead of maintaining. I was never worried about weight, only inches. I have a lot of muscle, so I knew weight would be a headache. However, once I stopped losing inches (2 months in a row, as we measure once a month with my trainer) I began to look at other solutions. I joined MFP and have lost a couple pounds over a couple weeks, fluctuated a couple pounds, but I'm starting to lose in my measurements again.

Do keep in mind that if you are exercising, muscle and fat take up different amounts of space. For instance, 1 lbs of fat takes up 2-3 times the space as 1 lbs of muscle. Just because you aren't losing weight doesn't mean you aren't gaining muscle, which in turn burns more calories when doing nothing. So try tracking inches too. My trainer tracks wrist, forearm, waiste, hips, thigh, calf. I have lost about 8 inches total. You can also measure just about anything you want, like the upper arm, chest, neck, belly (the area between hips and waist) depending on where you want to lose and your target areas.

The biggest thing I've learned in all of this, is the scale can be friend or your enemy. I check my weight once a week, no more...ever, sometimes less. Use the scale as one of the tools to measure better health rather than the focus.

bombus

thank you for posting this topic; I'm in exactly the same position. I'll be mixing it up and hopefully should see some difference and totally agree, the scales are only 1 way of measuring weight loss. Your clothes and measurements will also suggest how you're doing.

Good luck with your weight loss everyone.

curiouscat19

Oh thank you for posting this, I've been wondering the same thing too as to what I am doing wrong. I keep going on the scale and it seems like I'm stuck on the same weight but I know I have lost weight. So basically I now need to up my exercises (which I find hard to do anyway!!) lol But thank you for this it was helpful.

jeweljade

I'm glad I found this. I have been working out and watching my calories consistently for almost a month now and for almost a week on MFP. I've lost 2 inches around my waist, everything else is a lot firmer and people have told me I look like I've dropped weight, but in reality I've only shed 1/2 lb. I'm pleased with the results I am seeing, but I would really like to see a little on the scales too. I'll try mixing things up in my workout to see if that helps.