How to break a plateau without cutting more calories

bloomblythe5

Hey guys,

I’ve been at a pretty strict 1650 cut for maybe just under a month now. I’m a girl weighing 168lbs at 5’3. I’m pretty active too. I don’t lift weights or anything but I’m diligent about getting 8-10k steps in a day, and about 4-5 days a week I do about 45 mins of strength body weight exercises that definitely work for me. I’ve noticed thag ive gained muscle and feel stronger and can do more sets and stuff. But I still have a lot of fat to lose. 1650 has been a good cut for me so far but most weeks eighther lose .5lbs or nothing until the next week. I don’t really want to have to cut my calories lower because I just feel like going under 1550 isn’t healthy for an active girl and I just think it’ll do more harm than good because I’m learning how to manage hunger at 1650 cal but I feel like anything lower and I’ll just be starving all the time and miserable.

How can I speed up weight loss to maybe 1lbs a week without cutting more calories for a long time? Im down to do any kind of like short period of time where I’m eating more or less if it means it’ll help me break a plateau or kind of switch up my metabolism a little.

quiksylver296

Do you use a food scale?

bloomblythe5

quiksylver296 wrote: »

Do you use a food scale?

I don’t yet! I haven’t gotten around to incorporating that I was hoping it wouldn’t have to come to that haha. What’s your suggestion?

Nativestar56

You've been losing between 0.25-0.5lb a week since you started a just a few weeks ago. Well done! It's not a plateau at all. Did you start working out and increasing your activity a few weeks ago as well or have you been that active for a while?

How often do you weigh? There are other factors that can influence weight which aren't always obvious if you weigh once a week. There's nothing wrong with weekly weighing but its often best to compare results after at least a month to take into account things like time of the month or to let things settle if you've just started new exercise.

quiksylver296

bloomblythe5 wrote: »

quiksylver296 wrote: »

Do you use a food scale?

I don’t yet! I haven’t gotten around to incorporating that I was hoping it wouldn’t have to come to that haha. What’s your suggestion?

Use a food scale.

Nativestar56

Ah, yes. Food scale first. You need to accurately know what you're logging. Things like cups are not accurate, weighing is.

Strudders67

If you've only been doing this for less than an month it's far too early to say you've plateaued. You haven't even gone through one menstrual cycle.

As everyone else says, weigh your food - and measure any liquids too. And make sure the database entries that you're choosing match what it says on any packaging.

Also, how did you set your activity level when you went through the set up? And is that based on your exercise or on your day-to-day activity? Do you log your exercise? Do you eat back your exercise calories?

bloomblythe5

Nativestar56 wrote: »

You've been losing between 0.25-0.5lb a week since you started a just a few weeks ago. Well done! It's not a plateau at all. Did you start working out and increasing your activity a few weeks ago as well or have you been that active for a while?

How often do you weigh? There are other factors that can influence weight which aren't always obvious if you weigh once a week. There's nothing wrong with weekly weighing but its often best to compare results after at least a month to take into account things like time of the month or to let things settle if you've just started new exercise.

Honestly I weight every morning just because I feel like since I waived on .5lbs to nothing each week I wanna be able to adjust day by day. I’ve been active for a a really long time actually but I just didn’t understand the whole concept of like how much should you actually cut to lose weight so I was just maintaining my weight for a long time while being active. But when I started to get serious with my cut I did increase activity and it was just a lot more purposeful and dedicated.

So if I get a food scale, do I have to drop my calories or should I try eating at 1650 with a food scale for a while?

lgfrie

I agree with the above posters: food scale, patience, and managed expectations.

According to the trusty tool over at TDEEcalculator.net, your TDEE (maintenance calories, "break even") is around 2030, based on your description of your activities - I picked "light exercise" as your category. So at 1650, you're running a deficit of 380 calories per day, which should yield weight loss per week of ... 3/4 of a pound per week. Not really all that far off from the 1/2 lb you've been getting. The difference could just be the normal scale fluctation and water retention changes that go with the first month of dieting. But most likely, you're eating more cals than you think you're eating. A food scale that weighs to the gram will fix that. You need to measure by weight, not volume,.

It's possible that you belong in the next category up - moderate exercise - and that'd get you another 258 calories per day (from 2030 to 2288), but easily possible that, while true, you're also that far off on your calorie counting. That is not an unrealistic amount to be off at all. 10-15 % undercounting of cals is very easy to do.

The weighing thing can seem a bit tedious at first but is easy to adapt to and will provide the kind of precise view of why your weight loss is slower than you expected, that you want right now. Suggest doing it for at least a few weeks / month so you can nail down what you're actually eating, calorically speaking. I think that will be very informative for you.

Nativestar56

bloomblythe5 wrote: »

Nativestar56 wrote: »

You've been losing between 0.25-0.5lb a week since you started a just a few weeks ago. Well done! It's not a plateau at all. Did you start working out and increasing your activity a few weeks ago as well or have you been that active for a while?

How often do you weigh? There are other factors that can influence weight which aren't always obvious if you weigh once a week. There's nothing wrong with weekly weighing but its often best to compare results after at least a month to take into account things like time of the month or to let things settle if you've just started new exercise.

Honestly I weight every morning just because I feel like since I waived on .5lbs to nothing each week I wanna be able to adjust day by day. I’ve been active for a a really long time actually but I just didn’t understand the whole concept of like how much should you actually cut to lose weight so I was just maintaining my weight for a long time while being active. But when I started to get serious with my cut I did increase activity and it was just a lot more purposeful and dedicated.

So if I get a food scale, do I have to drop my calories or should I try eating at 1650 with a food scale for a while?

I would use the food scale and keep it at 1650 to start with if that is what MFP gave you (assuming you put in all your details like activity level correctly). What you will most likely find when you start weighing your food is that you've been eating over 1650. Its really hard to accurately track if you've not been weighing and most people find they're over.

If you weigh daily, it'd probably help to use a weight trend app. I use a rolling 7 day average on a spreadsheet, I know a lot of others here use an app called Libra. It'll even out any bumps. There's also a really good thread about scale fluctuations: https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10683010/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-fluctuations/p1

Lietchi

bloomblythe5 wrote: »

Nativestar56 wrote: »

You've been losing between 0.25-0.5lb a week since you started a just a few weeks ago. Well done! It's not a plateau at all. Did you start working out and increasing your activity a few weeks ago as well or have you been that active for a while?

How often do you weigh? There are other factors that can influence weight which aren't always obvious if you weigh once a week. There's nothing wrong with weekly weighing but its often best to compare results after at least a month to take into account things like time of the month or to let things settle if you've just started new exercise.

Honestly I weight every morning just because I feel like since I waived on .5lbs to nothing each week I wanna be able to adjust day by day. I’ve been active for a a really long time actually but I just didn’t understand the whole concept of like how much should you actually cut to lose weight so I was just maintaining my weight for a long time while being active. But when I started to get serious with my cut I did increase activity and it was just a lot more purposeful and dedicated.

You can't adapt your calorie intake/activity level day by day based on your morning weigh-in, weight loss doesn't work that way. Weight bounces up and down for all sorts of reasons beside lost or gained bodyfat. It's the long term trend that will tell you if you need to make changes.
That doesn't mean weighing daily is a bad thing, it's actually good because it makes it easier to see the long term trend, more data points to work with.