Help me please 😔

gray261013

Plateau.

I started in January at 225lbs
As of today and for the past 4 weeks I've stood at 209lbs.

I can not break this plateau. I've lowered my calories in accordance of what mfp has said when I've put in my weight loss. Think I started out around 1625 cals a day. Now it's more like 1479 cals a day.

I religiously use a scale to weigh any food that needs weighing and measuring spoons for sauces.

I've uped my exercise and now do 2 x bounce cardio sessions a week and I've tried to up my steps and make sure I hit at least 8000 a day. I was hitting around 5 or 6000.

Ive had a weekend off ish to see if that will break it, but nothing is working.

Any help or advice please guys.

I'm female
5ft 5inchs
209lbs
And mostly sedentary

Would appreciate any advice to get the scale moving again.

Lillymoo01

I had a quick look at your diary and you do seem to be doing a pretty good job with weighing food. There are a few points that stand out to me which could result in you eating more than you think you are.
Firstly, it looks like there is a lot of incomplete logging. If this is the case then try and log everything that enters your mouth.
Secondly, weigh prepackaged food. It is not uncommon for prepackaged food to weigh more than what is indicated on the label which can easily add an additional 100+ calories to your day. It won't take much of doing this to work out which ones are pretty much always over and which are pretty close to what is indicated.
Thirdly, how are you determining your calories burned? It appears that these could be overinflated.
On top of this double check entries against the packages nutritional label or the USDA database. Because entries are user entered they can be incorrect.

OooohToast

Hiya - and well done on the weight loss so far ! I also had a quick look at your diary and can see that some of the logging is amiss. For example, the Greggs Iced Bun (nice choice!) has not logged any sugar. I also have a sweet tooth but have found that there is a more direct correlation between my calories consumed and weight loss if I keep my sugar as low as possible (note thats sugar, not carbs !). Also, if you arent drinking buckets of tap water, I would add that in - its not just a stomach filler, the body needs water to process everything efficiently. It will mean more frequent visits to the loo for a bit but that does settle down. Essentially though, if you are eating less calories than you need, you will lose weight. If this isnt happening, you are somehow consuming more than you think so its good advice to really focus on weighing and logging everything. Finally (honest !) I would also only eat back half of exercised earned calories and try and make as much food as you can from scratch which I appreciate is a challenge when you have a youngster. Good luck !

PAV8888

I see no mention of logged condiments. In sufficient quantities even ketchup and mustard matter.

I am not sure from the logs whether you sometimes take a "portion" as marked on the package and mark that as what you consumed. Hopefully you're actually weighting out what you do consume.

Much more importantly between a couple of extremely low days that I will have to assume are only semi-logged and the number of days that are outright missing you have logged approximately 70% of your intake during the past 28 days. <-- and I hate that MFP now only allows us to see 28 days at a time--it has really taken the joy out of reviewing past performance and 28 days is barely sufficient data for people to make educated decisions.

If you're not already using one, please start using a weight trend application such as Happy Scale (iphone), Libra (android), or trendweight.com -- my favourite, or weightgrapher.com -- if you don't want to open and connect a free fitbit.com account. I am sure there are others.

I suggest that you weight your milk if you're eyeballing it... it is very close to 1g for 1ml and you can find exact conversion tables online based on milk fat percentage. Reason is that you use quite a bit of it.

You may want to explore the wonderful world of vegetables. Five a day and all that. Frozen vegetables can be microwaved in less than 4 minutes. You can even use a pre-made stock or powdered stock and turn them into a soup (total prep and cook time 6 minutes from arrival in kitchen including weighing ingredients on scale!. Uses ONE container for minimal clean up!) or add a "tin of tomatoes" and turn them into a chili or stew or what have you. Potatoes, especially boiled, are often considered to be quite satiating ever if in the UK they are not considered to be part of your 5 a day!

Personal suggestion given your stats? Hit your 1500 Calories, if not the 1600 you used to have. You are going below that most of the time. AND I DON'T THINK THAT HELPS THE OTHER 30% OF THE TIME THAT IS NOT LOGGED.

So hit your 1600 Calories... but 100% of the time. Or at least 96.4%! Really. If you're trying to bust a plateau there is zero excuse for not KNOWING what you've eaten 30% of the time!!!! If eating out you can take pictures and make an educated guess. That guess will still be closer than zero/un-logged.

In terms of moving around I don't know if your 8,000 steps are in a single bout or accumulated throughout the day. Going for a walk is an excellent way to fit in some moderate exercise and I would, most certainly, not decrease a single bout or two of moderate+ activity! I would suggest, however, that you also set a timer (or use a tracking device with reminders) and ensure you move about 3 minutes each and every hour you're awake: 250 steps an hour basically. Of course you won't always succeed. But it is an excellent goal to strive for and it will ensure you're not sedentary.

BTW someone who gets 8,000 steps a day and does not log them as a separate exercise does qualify as lightly active if not slightly above.

TL;dr: increase your calories to your previous level AND get that amount 100% of the time as opposed to 70%. Built in short bouts of activity throughout your day. Stretching your legs feels good!

maybe1pe

I also would like to point out that new or increased exercise can cause a stall on the scale because of increased water retention in muscles.
I took a break from my exercise for a couple of months due to life and when I start I didn't lose anything for 10 weeks then suddenly dropped water weight. I was losing fat the whole time but it was masked by increased water retention. This also happens to me every spring when I start walking outside more again.
So if you recently increased the amount or intensity of your workouts that could cause a temporary stall.