Stuck and hoping for help

Mrshamblen

Hi all! I'm new here

So in January this year I hit my all time high of 243 pounds. I decided to do something about it, and by May I was down to 198.

However, I'm still that same weight. Due to a hip injury, the only workout I can really do is light walking and upper body exercise, which I do three times a week. (Plus physical therapy for the hip)

I eat around 800- 1,000 calories depending on exercise, and can't figure out what else I could do. I don't eat much meat, no bread or sugar. Most of what I eat are fruits and vegetables with some type of protein.

What can I do to break the stall?

kommodevaran

Make sure your calorie goal is adjusted to your new, lower weight. Then eat all the food you like within your calorie goal, log accurately, after weighing and double checking each entry, and don't leave anything out. Hit your calorie goal, don't cheat, estimate, guess, or give up. Don't eat back more than 75% of your exercise calories.

DebLaBounty

MyFitnessPal sets a calorie minimum of 1200 calories. Enter your lower weight into MFP and your weight loss goals and eat that amount. Your body probably needs a little more energy to help heal up. Try it for 2 weeks and see what happens.

TavistockToad

Are you weighing your food? If you were truly only eating 800 cals you would be losing weight

Mrshamblen

I don't weigh but I use measuring cups. I get light headed sometimes, idk why it's not enough.

MegaMooseEsq

It is very, very common to underestimate how many calories you're eating, especially when you're starting at a high number where it doesn't take all that much to create a deficit. Assuming that your doctor doesn't have a different opinion about what's happening, I suspect you have been eating at maintenance and would highly recommend you go over your logging with a fine tooth comb and if you haven't already, buy a food scale and start weighing everything.

And do not listen to ANYONE who says you aren't losing weight because you're eating too few calories. That's nonsense.

TavistockToad

Mrshamblen wrote: »

I don't weigh but I use measuring cups. I get light headed sometimes, idk why it's not enough.

Seriously?! :huh: :noway:

Because you're a grown adult not a 3 year old?!

MegaMooseEsq

Mrshamblen wrote: »

I don't weigh but I use measuring cups. I get light headed sometimes, idk why it's not enough.

Measuring cups are really inaccurate for solid food - I would strongly recommend getting a scale. As for the light-headed-ness, that could be any number of things and really best answered by your doctor or a dietitian. Honestly, if you can afford it, that may be the way to go given the complication of your injury. Any advice you get here is only going to be addressing the most common issues, or will be so idiosyncratic as to be useless.

Mrshamblen

That's probably true. I've never tried using a food scale, I'll have to YouTube how to do it.
My doctor knows surprisingly little about nutrition, and my insurance wouldn't cover a dietician unless it was related to an approved health problem.
Maybe using the scale will help enough

MommaGem2017

Yes, use the scale and please eat more than 1000 calories. I would recommend going into your MFP diet profile, entering in your statistics and goals, then following the calorie recommendation MFP gives you.

MegaMooseEsq

Mrshamblen wrote: »

That's probably true. I've never tried using a food scale, I'll have to YouTube how to do it.
My doctor knows surprisingly little about nutrition, and my insurance wouldn't cover a dietician unless it was related to an approved health problem.
Maybe using the scale will help enough

There are lots of good tips around here too. My advice for a beginner would be not to stress out over grams vs. ounces at first, and to use the tare (zero out) function to weigh how much you take out of a container rather than trying to directly weigh more messy items like sauces and condiments and such.

Mrshamblen

Thanks for your help