Help! Potential weight loss plateau?

Dakyrae

Y’all, I am in dire need of some help and advice. My morale has been pretty low as of late because of my weight. I began dieting and exercising properly (probably a little too extreme, my food diaries are available for view) back in late January of this year. I began to see immediate results and lost about 20 lbs in 2 months. This progress has began to slow and almost stop. I weighed myself last Thursday and my weight was 234 lbs. Every day after that, it has been in the range of 238-243 lbs. I workout everyday doing cardio, mainly the elliptical and I push myself pretty hard! I have been eating in an extreme calorie deficit (I try to have 1,549 calories remaining for each day) and drink at least 1 gallon of water daily, so I am not completely understanding where the weight gain is coming from. This is extremely disheartening and I really need some help and advice on how to overcome this. I am trying my hardest to be under 190 lbs by the end of June. Please help, I appreciate each and everyone of you!

Dakyrae

When it comes to not on the scale, my clothes are fitting better and everything looks toner than before. I was thinking that the weight gain was a result of muscle gain, but I am not sure.

AnnPT77

Twenty pounds in 2 months is fast, aggressive loss. It creates stress on the body. Stress on the body tends to cause water retention. Water retention masks ongoing fat loss, on the bodyweight scale. (In that context, a week or so is not very much time . . .).

Furthermore, undereating - losing fast - eventually tends to cause fatigue, possibly subtle, that bleeds calorie expenditure out of each day. It can be nearly unobservable things like fidgeting less, not feeling like doing certain optional but energy-requiring chores, slowed hair growth (maybe thinning, later), resting more, perhaps feeling cold, and more.

If you got your calorie goal from MFP, you should be eating all the way up to it, not 1500 calories below it. If you set the activity level according to instructions (based on pre-exercise daily life), you should be eating back a reasonable estimate of exercise calories on top of that base calorie allowance.

A sensible, health-risk averse, long-term, sustainable weight loss rate is something in the range of 0.5-1% of current bodyweight per week. For you, now, that would be 1.2-2.4 pounds a week, maximum - the lower end of that is safer. Losing faster increases risk of health problems, some of them potentially serious. Is something bad guaranteed to happen? Of course not. But risk goes up for things like gallbladder problems, to name just one. Losing unnecessarily large amounts of lean tissue alongside fat loss is another risk, and it there's heart disease in one's family, it's worth considering that that's a muscle, too.

I'd strongly encourage you to slow down: What you're seeing is possible warning signs of worse to come, from fast loss.

I feel like people have gotten misleading ideas about what's reasonable as a weight loss rate, from things like reality TV ("Biggest Loser" was the early classic example), tabloid headlines ("Lose 20 pounds in 30 days on the Doctor XYZ Diet!!!"), hucksters selling programs and supplements, and that sort of thing.

This article will give a good insight into reasons for misleading scale results, which I suspect is what you're seeing in the short run, though I'll underscore again that I think it's a warning in other ways:

https://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations

In terms of whether this could be muscle gain: It's very unlikely for muscle gain to outpace any reasonable rate of fat loss (let alone *fast* fat loss). A man will be doing well to gain half a pound of muscle per week, a woman probably more like a quarter pound, under ideal conditions. Ideal conditions include a calorie *surplus*, not a huge calorie deficit, and a good progressive weight training program, faithfully performed. You do have some potential for "newbie gains" when first starting a good progressive weight lifting program (but you didn't mention any weight training?).

Still, any reasonably achievable muscle gain, when in a calorie deficit, sadly won't outpace fat loss (half a pound of fat loss per week is about the slowest observable rate of fat loss, and even that can take a month or more to show up amongst normal daily multi-pound water weight fluctuations on the scale). While some types of cardio have a very limited, very slow potential for strength or muscle gain IF they're *progressively* challenging an individual, they're seriously suboptimal at best for muscle gain, and will be a much slower route than weight training. (This, I've seen in personal experience.)

I'm sorry if this sounds harsh. I don't mean it that way. Please try to think of me as your concerned old internet auntie (I'm old enough) who wants to see you reach your weight goals while staying strong, healthy and energetic . . . because I do want that. I think you're teetering on the edge of health risks, with warning bells starting to ring.

Please slow down, eat a bit more, add some strength training to your routine if you're not doing any. The long-term results will be better.

Aside from that advice to slow down, you're really doing pretty great. How your clothes fit, your weight drop (despite being fast) are good signs of progress. Hang in there, make the adjustments to minimize health risks, keep your process sustainable, get water retention weirdness down to a minimal level.

Wishing you health and weight management success!

Lietchi

I'd listen to AnnPT77 if I were you, she knows her stuff 🙂 undereating is not a good idea...

callsitlikeiseeit

sijomial

"probably a little too extreme"
" I push myself pretty hard!"
" I have been eating in an extreme calorie deficit"

You have identified the cause. The solution is to slow down and ease up on yourself.

Bank the progress you have made a adopt a more moderate and sustainable set of behaviours.

88olds

I urge you to rethink. Trying to lose 60+lbs, in 6 months is very aggressive. (If I’m reading you right) If you read this board regularly you will see how many weight loss efforts are wrecked over the time factor. Unfortunately MFP itself encourages this by making projections of where we can expect to be by X date. Try to ignore it.

Lasting weight loss has 2 parts, eating in a calorie deficit and living with it. There’s a tendency to go all in on the deficit and try to beat ourselves into living with it. Doesn’t usually work for long.

The calendar is not a weight loss tool. Trying to lose on a schedule is a way to turn weight loss success, lost pounds, into failure, not fast enough. Try to do the program as designed. There’s nothing to be gained by speed dieting. Truth is that not a lot changes at goal weight. You have to find something you can live with long term. Good luck.

Dakyrae

Thank you all for your insightful and helpful advice. I am keeping notes of each reply and adhering to the advice. You all don’t know how much this means to me, I am truly grateful for all of you!

annliz23

Good luck, take it slow as they say above and it is more likely to stay off in the long run!