The scale won’t budge.. Please help =\

jenna2cu

Hello! I am getting so discouraged.. over the last year I’ve lost 60 pounds, but since mid-May I can’t get the scale to budge. I started at 276, right now I hang around 215 since May. It’s been 5 months now. I’ve tried cutting back on calories, I’ve tried doing macro counting, exercising.. truly nothing is helping! Thank you for any tips.

Go_Deskercise

Things that might be helpful:

What is your height?

Open up your diary so you can get helpful tips on logging
https://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings

Also take a look at this:

Jthanmyfitnesspal

First of all, you have MASTERED dieting. Losing 60lbs is an incredible achievement.

Second, it may not feel like as much of an achievement, but you have also mastered maintenance! In some ways, maintaining weight is harder than losing. For one thing, you don't have the reward of watching the scale go down. (You just have the pain of the scale going up when you lapse!)

Anyway, something must have changed since you were losing weight. For me, I find that I start relaxing my dietary control over time. So, when you are really ready to lose again, most of the work will probably be tightening up your logging and eliminating any cheats. It's worth going through the MFP calculator to make sure it's using your current weight. Sadly, it may lower your plan slightly! I always set for 1lb/week loss at most.

There is an effect called "metabolic adaptation" which means that your body will conspire to reduce it's calorie burn (TDEE) when you reduce intake. It is not a huge effect, and I believe it can be counteracted completely by upping your general activity level in addition to doing specific higher-intensity workouts (perhaps early in the day). By "general activity" I mean getting in your steps. Of course, you can get some sort of step counter to help with that, if you don't have one.

ossentia

Are you taking measurements? It's possible that you're still losing inches even if the scale doesn't change. Other than that, my guess is that you're consuming too many calories. Do you use a food scale? I'm always amazed at the difference between my guess on portion size and what the scale actually tells me!

MostlyWater

get a tape measure instead.

jenna2cu

I am 5’4”, and I do use a food scale! I consume around 1500 calories a day. Maybe it’s too much now?

JenKindo

I don't use MFP's calorie recommendations and recalculate my BMR every 25 pounds or when I plateau. Have you been especially stressed or emotional?

Jthanmyfitnesspal

jenna2cu wrote: »

I am 5’4”, and I do use a food scale! I consume around 1500 calories a day. Maybe it’s too much now?

The "real number" for TDEE (or NEAT, which doesn't include your work-out calories) varies a bit person-to-person. There are several formulas for estimating it, all based on population averages The page below explains several of the formulas, and you can learn something by playing around with them:

https://www.omnicalculator.com/health/tdee

But, the bottom line is what happens to your bodyweight. Be persistent, and you will eventually get the results you want! Best of luck!

Jeremy0311

Don't give up. That scale is an *kitten* and it's way to lose motivation because of it. I would talk to a professional nutritionist about it. I'm sure there an solution to your problem. You got this!

nanastaci2020

How consistent are you? I don't know how active you are, but eating 1500 daily should result in weight loss over time based on the stats you mentioned. Do you log every day? Maybe you need to make it a priority to be consistent with your logging & accuracy for the next 8 weeks. It can be so easy to get into a routine of thinking 'I know what a serving looks like' or 'I know how may calories I'm eating in a day' and stop logging. Then calorie creep happens.