Just can’t seem to break this stall
goatelope
Posts: 178 Member
So I’m 5’4” and 172 lbs, 38 years old female.
Been at this since July. Hard to exercise because of my hip and knee so I primarily targeted diet. I reduced to 1200 calories per day and lost 10lbs. Then I stalled and since then have been gradually gaining.
I can’t quite see where I’m going wrong. I log every day although I think there are gaps in my diary due to not always hitting ‘complete’ afterwards. But most days I stuck to 1200, occasionally going over that.
More recently I am averaging about 1300-1400 per day. People have said I might not be eating enough so it was my hope this could help shift it - but I stepped on the scales today and I’ve gone up to 173.
I’m really concerned I can’t seem to lose and I think I’m doing something wrong.
Any constructive ideas would be great - am frustrated and demoralised.
Been at this since July. Hard to exercise because of my hip and knee so I primarily targeted diet. I reduced to 1200 calories per day and lost 10lbs. Then I stalled and since then have been gradually gaining.
I can’t quite see where I’m going wrong. I log every day although I think there are gaps in my diary due to not always hitting ‘complete’ afterwards. But most days I stuck to 1200, occasionally going over that.
More recently I am averaging about 1300-1400 per day. People have said I might not be eating enough so it was my hope this could help shift it - but I stepped on the scales today and I’ve gone up to 173.
I’m really concerned I can’t seem to lose and I think I’m doing something wrong.
Any constructive ideas would be great - am frustrated and demoralised.
0
Replies
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Are you accurately weighing everything you eat and drink with a food scale?1
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Stalls can definitely suck. How long has it been since you last saw a drop on the scale?
I peeked at your diary for the past month. Good job on logging everything daily. That's dedication. A lot of what causes stalls just comes down to food logging issues and there are a few you might want to work on. Things like quick adds, relying on generic entries if it's something you made yourself, not weighing everything (I know it's a plain to get used to, but it really does add up), bad database entries (I have never seem a reliable "small banana" entry for less than 90 calories and you've found two of them), etc. Tightening up your logging for a few weeks will give you a clear picture of what's happening and may help solve the issue. Am I right in guessing from this log that you seem to eat out a lot? That might be another thing to look at curbing. I'm not against eating out as a rule, but restaurant portions are harder to control and may be quite a bit off from what they report. It might be something to look at while you're troubleshooting this stall.6 -
diannethegeek wrote: »Stalls can definitely suck. How long has it been since you last saw a drop on the scale?
I peeked at your diary for the past month. Good job on logging everything daily. That's dedication. A lot of what causes stalls just comes down to food logging issues and there are a few you might want to work on. Things like quick adds, relying on generic entries if it's something you made yourself, not weighing everything (I know it's a plain to get used to, but it really does add up), bad database entries (I have never seem a reliable "small banana" entry for less than 90 calories and you've found two of them), etc. Tightening up your logging for a few weeks will give you a clear picture of what's happening and may help solve the issue. Am I right in guessing from this log that you seem to eat out a lot? That might be another thing to look at curbing. I'm not against eating out as a rule, but restaurant portions are harder to control and may be quite a bit off from what they report. It might be something to look at while you're troubleshooting this stall.
Thank you for this. I don’t eat out - what I do sometimes is write it all down on paper and then quick add because I find it a hassle to create recipes at dinner time. I am pretty meticulous about logging. I eat 1200 daily on the basis that it probably adds up to 1300 thanks to little mistakes. But even with an average of 1300-1400 daily, and with exercise, I don’t understand why no change in over a month.0 -
Are you using a food scale?0
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diannethegeek wrote: »Stalls can definitely suck. How long has it been since you last saw a drop on the scale?
I peeked at your diary for the past month. Good job on logging everything daily. That's dedication. A lot of what causes stalls just comes down to food logging issues and there are a few you might want to work on. Things like quick adds, relying on generic entries if it's something you made yourself, not weighing everything (I know it's a plain to get used to, but it really does add up), bad database entries (I have never seem a reliable "small banana" entry for less than 90 calories and you've found two of them), etc. Tightening up your logging for a few weeks will give you a clear picture of what's happening and may help solve the issue. Am I right in guessing from this log that you seem to eat out a lot? That might be another thing to look at curbing. I'm not against eating out as a rule, but restaurant portions are harder to control and may be quite a bit off from what they report. It might be something to look at while you're troubleshooting this stall.
Thank you for this. I don’t eat out - what I do sometimes is write it all down on paper and then quick add because I find it a hassle to create recipes at dinner time. I am pretty meticulous about logging. I eat 1200 daily on the basis that it probably adds up to 1300 thanks to little mistakes. But even with an average of 1300-1400 daily, and with exercise, I don’t understand why no change in over a month.
I would be surprised if those little mistakes add up to only 100 calories difference. I know from my own experiments, just the difference between using weights vs measurements added up to about 300-400 calories difference. It's definitely something to look into as you go.5 -
I was on a 3 month stall, very discouraging to say the least. There are tricks to break a stall. On Weight watchers it is called Wendy's plan. I used to call it the zig zag. Same thing, one uses points one calories. I have had to do this a couple of times. So far I have lost 68 pounds slow and steady. Here is one plan. Zig-Zag Calorie Intake
Zig-zagging, or calorie cycling is the process of varying daily calorie intake, while maintaining the same weekly intake. Instead of consuming (for example) precisely 1000 calories each day – you can mix it up.
Eat 1000 calories one day, and 700 calories the next. This can be as simple as swapping meat for fish or adding a shake into the plan.
If your daily calories for fat loss is 1000 a weekly zig-zag would look like this:
Daily Calories
Monday 800
Tuesday 1100
Wednesday 700
Thursday 1000
Friday 900
Saturday 1200
Sunday 700
This is based on 1000 calories which is too low in my opinion so I would increase everything by 200 calories. good luck.1 -
I was on a 3 month stall, very discouraging to say the least. There are tricks to break a stall. On Weight watchers it is called Wendy's plan. I used to call it the zig zag. Same thing, one uses points one calories. I have had to do this a couple of times. So far I have lost 68 pounds slow and steady. Here is one plan. Zig-Zag Calorie Intake
Zig-zagging, or calorie cycling is the process of varying daily calorie intake, while maintaining the same weekly intake. Instead of consuming (for example) precisely 1000 calories each day – you can mix it up.
Eat 1000 calories one day, and 700 calories the next. This can be as simple as swapping meat for fish or adding a shake into the plan.
If your daily calories for fat loss is 1000 a weekly zig-zag would look like this:
Daily Calories
Monday 800
Tuesday 1100
Wednesday 700
Thursday 1000
Friday 900
Saturday 1200
Sunday 700
This is based on 1000 calories which is too low in my opinion so I would increase everything by 200 calories. good luck.
A lot of people have talked about doing this and/or fasting. I have upped calories to 1350 to see if that will help (some people told me I’m not eating enough). I would like to try this as well, as I’m getting so fed up.0 -
diannethegeek wrote: »diannethegeek wrote: »Stalls can definitely suck. How long has it been since you last saw a drop on the scale?
I peeked at your diary for the past month. Good job on logging everything daily. That's dedication. A lot of what causes stalls just comes down to food logging issues and there are a few you might want to work on. Things like quick adds, relying on generic entries if it's something you made yourself, not weighing everything (I know it's a plain to get used to, but it really does add up), bad database entries (I have never seem a reliable "small banana" entry for less than 90 calories and you've found two of them), etc. Tightening up your logging for a few weeks will give you a clear picture of what's happening and may help solve the issue. Am I right in guessing from this log that you seem to eat out a lot? That might be another thing to look at curbing. I'm not against eating out as a rule, but restaurant portions are harder to control and may be quite a bit off from what they report. It might be something to look at while you're troubleshooting this stall.
Thank you for this. I don’t eat out - what I do sometimes is write it all down on paper and then quick add because I find it a hassle to create recipes at dinner time. I am pretty meticulous about logging. I eat 1200 daily on the basis that it probably adds up to 1300 thanks to little mistakes. But even with an average of 1300-1400 daily, and with exercise, I don’t understand why no change in over a month.
I would be surprised if those little mistakes add up to only 100 calories difference. I know from my own experiments, just the difference between using weights vs measurements added up to about 300-400 calories difference. It's definitely something to look into as you go.diannethegeek wrote: »diannethegeek wrote: »Stalls can definitely suck. How long has it been since you last saw a drop on the scale?
I peeked at your diary for the past month. Good job on logging everything daily. That's dedication. A lot of what causes stalls just comes down to food logging issues and there are a few you might want to work on. Things like quick adds, relying on generic entries if it's something you made yourself, not weighing everything (I know it's a plain to get used to, but it really does add up), bad database entries (I have never seem a reliable "small banana" entry for less than 90 calories and you've found two of them), etc. Tightening up your logging for a few weeks will give you a clear picture of what's happening and may help solve the issue. Am I right in guessing from this log that you seem to eat out a lot? That might be another thing to look at curbing. I'm not against eating out as a rule, but restaurant portions are harder to control and may be quite a bit off from what they report. It might be something to look at while you're troubleshooting this stall.
Thank you for this. I don’t eat out - what I do sometimes is write it all down on paper and then quick add because I find it a hassle to create recipes at dinner time. I am pretty meticulous about logging. I eat 1200 daily on the basis that it probably adds up to 1300 thanks to little mistakes. But even with an average of 1300-1400 daily, and with exercise, I don’t understand why no change in over a month.
I would be surprised if those little mistakes add up to only 100 calories difference. I know from my own experiments, just the difference between using weights vs measurements added up to about 300-400 calories difference. It's definitely something to look into as you go.
I’m pretty careful but I know what you mean0 -
I was on a 3 month stall, very discouraging to say the least. There are tricks to break a stall. On Weight watchers it is called Wendy's plan. I used to call it the zig zag. Same thing, one uses points one calories. I have had to do this a couple of times. So far I have lost 68 pounds slow and steady. Here is one plan. Zig-Zag Calorie Intake
Zig-zagging, or calorie cycling is the process of varying daily calorie intake, while maintaining the same weekly intake.
<snip>
This is based on 1000 calories which is too low in my opinion so I would increase everything by 200 calories. good luck.
Those calories are far too low to be recommending to anyone, and in fact are against the rules of the forum. Even adding 200 to each would still be unnecessarily low for most people.
A stall of 3-4 weeks or less is perfectly normal and just how real life weight loss works. A stall of more than that means you are eating too much, either because your numbers are wrong, your logging is wrong, or you have a medical condition that needs to be diagnosed and dealt with.
If someone has been eating too little for too long, or eating in a deficit for a long time, effectively suppressing their TDEE, it's possible a regimented diet break could help to stabilize hormones and improve the situation.7 -
missysippy930 wrote: »Are you accurately weighing everything you eat and drink with a food scale?
OP, you still have not answered this question.
using measuring cups or estimating can have you off by as little as 10% or as much as 50%.2 -
missysippy930 wrote: »Are you accurately weighing everything you eat and drink with a food scale?
OP, you still have not answered this question.
using measuring cups or estimating can have you off by as little as 10% or as much as 50%.
Yes, I weight everything with a kitchen scale and rarely estimate. Also I never use oil, just fry light, and always round up not down.0 -
missysippy930 wrote: »Are you accurately weighing everything you eat and drink with a food scale?
OP, you still have not answered this question.
using measuring cups or estimating can have you off by as little as 10% or as much as 50%.
Yes, I weight everything with a kitchen scale and rarely estimate. Also I never use oil, just fry light, and always round up not down.
The thing is, your diary today only shows 3 things that were weighed, so it's easy to be dubious about the accuracy of some of the foods you're logging4 -
diannethegeek wrote: »missysippy930 wrote: »Are you accurately weighing everything you eat and drink with a food scale?
OP, you still have not answered this question.
using measuring cups or estimating can have you off by as little as 10% or as much as 50%.
Yes, I weight everything with a kitchen scale and rarely estimate. Also I never use oil, just fry light, and always round up not down.
The thing is, your diary today only shows 3 things that were weighed, so it's easy to be dubious about the accuracy of some of the foods you're logging
Everything had caloric values on the packaging. Eg I had a sandwich from Gregg’s which was 347, a soup which had the calories on the carton and which I ate all of. I weighed the banana and measured the milk. I checked packet for rice cakes. Weighed the feta. Etc0 -
When people suggest weighing everything, they mean everything. The sandwich, the rice cakes, the soup. Everything. That's because the nutrition information on the label is based on the weight listed next tip the serving size. The serving size in cups, pieces, etc is a based guess provided by the manufacturers. You'll find that it's very often off from the weight given - sometimes by a little and sometimes by a lot. Don't tell us you weigh everything unless you actually do.1
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ah ok. I can try doing this for a couple weeks and see what happens.2
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Stalls can happen even when doing everything right but the science is, if we take in less than we burn we lose - it might not just happen as evenly or as quickly as we like. I recently was finding weight creep happening, I went back to logging/tracking really carefully and increased my exercise, it took 6 WEEKS before I saw a drop of 3lbs. The scales didn't show all my effort for that length of time, in fact I appeared to be gaining. I really was at the stage I was thinking, what is the point! but I stuck with it. Thankfully my losing streak is now happening each week again, 3lbs down, 4 to go until back in the low end of my goal range.
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LivingtheLeanDream wrote: »Stalls can happen even when doing everything right but the science is, if we take in less than we burn we lose - it might not just happen as evenly or as quickly as we like. I recently was finding weight creep happening, I went back to logging/tracking really carefully and increased my exercise, it took 6 WEEKS before I saw a drop of 3lbs. The scales didn't show all my effort for that length of time, in fact I appeared to be gaining. I really was at the stage I was thinking, what is the point! but I stuck with it. Thankfully my losing streak is now happening each week again, 3lbs down, 4 to go until back in the low end of my goal range.
I feel so hopeless. I do weigh and log as carefully as is practical. I’ll keep at it but I’m so upset.
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Did you manage to break your stall? I am currently going through a stall at the beginning of my weight loss break, so curious to know how you got on? It is so disheartening!0
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