Weight not moved for a week now

jayenguk

So I have a lot to lose and I am on week 3. ...so this last week I have not budged on my weight at all, just bounced around the same area. I don't get it, i have tried adjusting my calories and now im wondering was i just too low? I weight 290 and mfp put me at 1360 i was eating sometimes under 1200 , i do feel that was too low, i hadset mfp as not very active but i do walk a lot in my day to day work so i have now upped it to lightly active and its upped my calories now to 1640 ...do you think its because i was too low in calories that I stopped losing? any tips...i am just so confused with all the macros and different things you can set ..what am i doing wrong? help please i dont want to get discouraged.

Lietchi

Weight loss is not linear, you won't necessarily see the scale go down every week.
You don't mention how much you lost the first two weeks, but sometimes people lose a lot of water weight the first weeks and then experience a 'stall' because their body is rebalancing its water weight level.

Eating too little can sometimes cause scale weirdness (it stresses the body, which can cause water retention, masking fat loss on the scale). Eating less than 1200 calories for someone at your weight and who has an active job certainly doesn't sound like a good idea.

The main thing is to be patient: don't change your calorie goal based on only one week of stalled weight loss. You need to look at the long-term trend. I would stick with 1640 calories per day, which sounds reasonsable, for at least 4 weeks (or one monthly cycle for those who have a menstrual cycle) to see if it's working.

jayenguk

Thank you yes I lost a lot first 2 weeks 19 pounds so its prob my body in shock ...sounds like good advice I'll give it a month

88olds

Step back and slow down.

Try not to be too distressed. Calorie counting has a long learning curve. One of the things we have to learn is to not immediately react to every bump in the road.

You don’t say, but do you use a food scale to crunch the numbers? But even if your number crunching is spot on there are always going to be gray areas. Add to that the fact that the calculators are not exact. The calculators and gadgets get their numbers from statistics and averages. But no one is exactly average. We really don’t know how many calories we are burning unless wired up in a lab.

So although the calculators a can give us starting points we each have to fill in the details based on trial and error. This drives a lot of people nuts. Don’t be one of them. Weight loss is mostly about problem solving and persistence. Keep your food diary no matter what and keep tracking your weight.

Eat in a deficit and you will lose weight. It’s how our bodies are designed. Keep trying. Good luck.

jayenguk

Hi yes I use scales and weight everything that needs a weight or barcode scan ...I will see how it goes for a month and then rethink if I have to ....on another point will exercise in a gym help with weight loss or will it slow it

Lietchi

jayenguk wrote: »

Hi yes I use scales and weight everything that needs a weight or barcode scan ...I will see how it goes for a month and then rethink if I have to ....on another point will exercise in a gym help with weight loss or will it slow it

If all things are the same (if you eat the same amount of calories and are just as active in daily life) exercising will make you lose weight faster. Watch out though: faster isn't necessarily better, if you lose too fast you risk losing muscle mass and other health risks. It's generally recommended to lose max. 0.5-1% of your bodyweight per week (not counting the first few weeks of rapid loss due to water weight loss).
If you eat back (a reasonable estimate of) your exercise calories, you'd lose weight at the same rate but you'd be able to eat more.

If you start strength training, it's great for lowering the risk of muscle loss. Weight training can also lead to water retention in the muscles for muscle repair: your weight loss may stall/slow down a bit on the scale - don't let that discourage you, you're still losing fat, but the water retention will mask the fast loss temporarily. Other types of exercise can also cause some water retention, especially if it's new to you, don't let that discourage you, just be patient.