Breaking Plateau

sluedu09

Hello! I have been stuck for a couple of months at the same weight. Honestly, I wasn’t really trying so it was understandable. However, for the last week and a half I have been tracking and exercising at least 30 minutes a day. Nothing has happened. Any suggestions or helpful criticisms to get the ball rolling again?

quiksylver296

Food scale?

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10634517/you-dont-use-a-food-scale/p1

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10697068/how-i-stopped-kidding-myself/p1

Panini911

x100 on food scale

also if exercise is new or increased it can cause muscles to retain extra water to repair themselves which can mask water weight.
http://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations/

sluedu09

The exercise isn’t new but I went from doing it like three times a week to every day. I have a food scale but use it for just meats essentially...do you recommend using it for everything?

Panini911

yes scale for all foods. carefully select entires in MFP as it has many bad entries (user generated).

read/watch this thread linked above.
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10634517/you-dont-use-a-food-scale/p1

diannethegeek

I looked back a couple of weeks in your diary. It looks like you eat out a fair amount. That's fine, but it is harder to log accurately since you can't be sure the restaurant is serving consistent portions and the sodium may cause weight fluctuations that sometimes look like a stall on the scale. It might be worth taking that into account.

sluedu09

Agreed! It was the end of the school year and I was just not making it a priority. This week was our anniversary so we ate out for that too.

rarecandy89

Honestly, my favorite quote is “it takes 4 weeks for you to notice a difference, 8 weeks for friends and family to notice, and 12 weeks for everyone else to notice.” And it’s true, it takes a good 4 weeks of healthy routine to REALLY notice yourself, like on the scale, clothes getting easier to button etc.... it will come off if you are accurately measuring and counting everything, I don’t have a good scale like everyone suggests, but instead I use measuring cups and measuring spoons for EVERYTHING.... then I log it all, I also log everything INDIVIDUALLY instead of using those lump sum logs “peanut butter and jelly sandwich on wheat bead.” Instead I log the peanut butter, the jelly and the bread all separate so I can be as accurate as I can, I’m currently down 16 pounds since the beginning of May! It will come off for you too!