Weight stalling...please help!

sarab260

Hey everyone!

Looking for some advice.

I had been losing weight pretty steadily since Mar 2 and weighed my lowest last Saturday. Since then, I haven’t been able to lose anymore—and even fluctuated up and down a little. I even took tape measurements and didn't notice any discernible difference.

Any constructive advice would be much appreciated!

STATS:
• 5'2 Female, SW—133 (3/4), Lowest—123.6 (4/11), CW—124 (4/18), GW—115
• TDEE = ~1845 (BF%=20%, and I just do some light at-home exercising or walking a few times a week)
• I weigh everything that I eat in grams, including fruits, vegetables, & "0 calorie" items like Miracle Noodles and Hot Sauce
• My total calories consumed 4/6-4/12 averaged out to 1135; my total calories consumed 4/13-4/17 averages out to 1278 (higher, I know, but still a deficit)
• I'm not PMSing or on my period

Happy to answer any other question but the basic gist is I feel like I'm doing everything right—and the scale agreed until last Saturday! Now I'm stuck (and even slightly up) from that point.

Looking forward to hearing your perspectives!

Thanks!!

harper16

The minimum you should be eating is 1200 calories. Are you logging your exercise separately and eating back those calories?
What do you have your weight loss set at?

Unicorn_Bacon

The lower you go.. the slower it goes..

There could be a chance that those few pounds you lost were a combination of water weight and real fat loss, but people able to lose 2lbs per week, dont lose 2lbs per week their whole weight loss.. it trickles down.. 1.5...1.... and then .5 and then eventually they will hit their goal, but they may not see much of a loss on the scale for a long while

jelleigh

Also there are a lot of factors that cause weight fluctuations that do not mean you aren't loading fat in the background. For example, water retention (caused by sodium intake, hormone changes, muscle repair after starting a new routine, taking a flight, stress, etc) can "hide" the fact that you've lost weight. It sounds like it's been only one week that you've seen no change - many people say to wait 3-6 weeks and watch the trend since it's common to stay steady for a bit and then drop a bit quickly (commonly referred to as a woosh here)

AnnPT77

I agree with those above about eating at least 1200, and being patient as you get closer to goal. If you don't already use one, you might find a free weight trending app helpful (Happy Scale for iOS, Libra for Android, Trendweight with a free Fitbit account (don't need a device), Weightgrapher, others). These are not magical predictors, but they use statistical techniques that can help visualize that slow weight loss is happening, beneath the inevitable daily fluctuations.

If you haven't read this, I suggest it:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10683010/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-fluctuations/p1

Have you changed your daily life activities in some way in context of the coronavirus restrictions? Sometimes, people don't think of the effect that sort of thing can have on daily life calorie burn, but it can be enough to slow weight loss down. I've seen people here who realized their calorie expenditure decreased observably from something as simple as moving from an upstairs apartment to a ground-floor one, or moving from an office in their work building that was close to other things they needed (colleagues, supplies, etc.), vs. one that was further away. This stuff is subtle!

Moreover, if you reduce calories too far, or stay in a calorie deficit for a long time, you can bring on a subtle fatigue that limits daily-life movement (think fidgeting, though it's really beyond that). Reseach has shown fidgety people can burn up to low hundreds more calories daily than otherwise similar non-fidgety ones. Some of these are things that fitness trackers aren't designed to "see", if you're relying on one of those for calorie needs data. I'm not suggesting you should start fidgeting, I'm just trying to paint a picture that small changes can have a surprisingly large impact, cumulatively, over time.

The good news, is that daily life activity (NEAT) is something you can work on increasing. The thread below is general (not specific to our current era where many are confined at home), but some of the ideas still work:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10610953/neat-improvement-strategies-to-improve-weight-loss/p1

Best wishes!