Plateaued, Calorie Deficit, Calories Too Low?

daryldblack

I've plateaued and would love some ideas from the collective.

Age 50
208 lbs,
6'0 inches
26% body fat
goal weight 190
2 lbs./week
Moderate Activity in MFP
Intermittent Fast (for brain health)

Macros:
Low carb (sub-50g/daily)
150g protein (based on 1.6 grams per kg/body weight)
40g fat

Activity:
Exercise 4 X week (2 X 30 min resistance band, 2 X 15 min basic kettlebell routine)
30 min slow state cardio X 5 days/week (walk @ brisk pace or steady stationary bike)
One day weekend is treat day

Daily Calories Burn:
Approx. 400 or so (I take Apple metrics and cut by 50%)

MFP has me at only 1160 as a base goal
I typically consume 1300 calories daily and track 'religiously' in MFP.

EVERYTHING I read is that I am WAY too low for carbs (TDEE Calculator has me at 2911/day at moderate exercise). I get that MFP is a general point. I'm SO confused and have analysis paralysis lol

Ideas? Next steps? Increase calories? How much? Other?

Thank you in advance!

AnnPT77

How long have you been at this, this time around, before your weight held steady? Normally, it will take 4-6 weeks on a new calorie intake/activity routine to know what the actual average effect is. If it's been less time than that, it's too early to say there's a plateau.

Most of us lose weight non-linearly, some weeks looking like little/no loss, others with larger than average drops. Adding new exercise (among other things) can lead to some water retention that shows up on the scale, making it look like we're not losing fat when we are.

If your weight has literally been the exact same number for multiple days in a row with daily weighing, and you have an electronic scale, maybe try changing the battery. If you don't weigh daily, how often do you weigh in? If your weight hasn't been the exact same number, how much has it changed over what period of time?

MFP will typically not give a male a calorie goal lower than 1500. I wonder how yours is 1160? That's lower than the 1200 that's the lowest it would give a woman. Then you're only eating 1300?

What does your weekly treat day look like: Do you calorie count that?

You can change your carb goal in MFP if you want to. That's more a matter of personal preference. Protein and fats (or actually some of their subcomponents) are essential nutrients in the sense that our bodies can't manufacture them out of any other nutrient. Carbs are not essential in that sense. People seem to do OK on a wide range of carb levels, with some people finding that too many carbs spike their appetite, others finding that too few carbs tank their energy level. Only way to know where your personal best carb level is, is to experiment, AFAIK.

It's calories that matter directly for weight management, period. Poor nutrition can indirectly affect weight management success: Sub-par nutrition can reduce energy so we move less, burn fewer calories than expected; or sub-par nutrition can trigger cravings, making it hard to stick with calorie goal.


If you only have 18 pounds total to lose, 2 pounds a week is an aggressive loss rate to shoot for, higher on the health risk scale than I'd personally prefer.

If your logging is accurate, I'd say there's a fair bet you're eating too little for your best health outcomes, but that won't stop you losing fat. (It can add to the scale confusion via stress-related water retention, maybe, though.) Unless you have a good reason to do otherwise, eat at least the number of calories MFP thinks you should eat to lose weight at a sensible rate (2 pounds isn't a great idea IMO, but even at that rate MFP should give you more than 1150 calories as your goal!)

My main point here, though, is that you haven't given us enough information to understand why you believe you're in a plateau, or how long you've been there, so it's hard to give you a sensible and specific answer.

neanderthin

I have about the same stats but 1" taller and 20 years older and the pandemic glued extra pounds on me while I slept and when I woke up I was 20lbs heavier and now I'm 185. I lost the weight by consuming, and take this for what it is, because I don't count calories daily, but did check periodically, and I was consuming 2000-2200 calories. Not even too sure how this app has you at 1160 because I would have thought that a built in "standard of care" mechanism would have caused a meltdown and an implosion. Cheers.

cmriverside

Make sure your logging is on point. Here's a good guide:
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1234699/logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide/p1

Set your Goals to, "Lose 1 pound per week," and "Lightly Active." Eat 200-300 more on days you exercise for an hour.

Log for a month and then use that data you collect to make adjustments. We can't really give you much more than that.

JaysFan82

You're 6'0 200 and MFP has you set at 1160? There's no way.

I'm 6"3 235 and my base is 2659 for comparison sake. I'm in Maintenance but I have my calories set at 0.5 loss to factor in underestimates on calories

I run 5km 3 days on, 1 day off with strength training after. I'm actually undereating a slight bit at 2600 calories. I was doing fasted cardio and eating 2000 a while back and man oh man were my workouts suffering as I kept increasing the intensity

COGypsy

daryldblack wrote: »

I've plateaued and would love some ideas from the collective.

Age 50
208 lbs,
6'0 inches
26% body fat
goal weight 190
2 lbs./week
Moderate Activity in MFP
Intermittent Fast (for brain health)

Macros:
Low carb (sub-50g/daily)
150g protein (based on 1.6 grams per kg/body weight)
40g fat

Activity:
Exercise 4 X week (2 X 30 min resistance band, 2 X 15 min basic kettlebell routine)
30 min slow state cardio X 5 days/week (walk @ brisk pace or steady stationary bike)
One day weekend is treat day

Daily Calories Burn:
Approx. 400 or so (I take Apple metrics and cut by 50%)

MFP has me at only 1160 as a base goal
I typically consume 1300 calories daily and track 'religiously' in MFP.

EVERYTHING I read is that I am WAY too low for carbs (TDEE Calculator has me at 2911/day at moderate exercise). I get that MFP is a general point. I'm SO confused and have analysis paralysis lol

Ideas? Next steps? Increase calories? How much? Other?

Thank you in advance!

I don’t see how it’s possible for MFP to calculate a daily goal for a man that’s less than the minimum they won’t go past for a woman.

You know that the calorie goal MFP gives you already includes your deficit, right? If you put your goal in to lose 2# a week, you don’t have to take another 1000 calories off of that goal manually. 2160 is likely more than enough to lose consistently.

ninerbuff

Eating TOO LITTLE. I'm shorter, weigh a little less and am 10 years older and eat at least 2200 calories minimum.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

kshama2001

I was wondering if 1160 calories was a typo as it is clearly too low for a man, let alone a 6' man, but 50g carbs, 150g protein, and 40g fat does indeed = 1160 calories.

Daryl, with less than 20 pounds to lose, change your weekly weight loss goal to a half pound per week and enjoy those extra calories!

cryonic_273

Im 55 started at 106kg - currently at 96kg after 35 days.
Im eating 1200cals /day and eating 3/4 of my exercise back. Most days i stick to this but i will allow myself to exceed it up to about 1500cal plus 3/4 exercise at a pinch.
First 2 weeks were very fast weight loss (watter loss)- and since then its stabilised at ~1kg/week
Im eating 40% protein 40% carb and 20% fat and mostly hit that macro split.
Im intermittent fasting 18/6 (2 meals late lunch and dinner).
I log everything.
Even with all that - i can see periods where it appears plateaued. However i weigh daily first thing)
and the important metric is long term trends which are all in the general expected zone. I ignore daily variations but enter them as checkpoints. My personal metric for success is the 30 day report.

If you are eating 1300 cals then you should be losing weight. You may see fluctuations caused by water retention from heavy exercise , but the trend should be definitely downwards. Try weighing first thing in the morning every day for consistency.

Retroguy2000

There's so much wrong going on there.

With a goal weight just 18 pounds away, you aren't going to be losing two pounds per week of fat. That target drop rate should be much lower, like 1 pound now and soon 0.5 pounds.

Your calorie intake at under 1200 and you are probably burning 200+ in exercise most days too, is way too low.

I would strongly recommend you start doing weights, more than just a little bit with bands and kettlebell.

If you've been doing this for a while already, take a refeed break. Go back to maintenance for a week or two. You'll probably gain a bit of water weight, don't worry about that. Then resume the deficit but at a far more reasonable pace.

tomcustombuilder

If your stall has been less than 3 ish weeks then just keep going as it may be water. How much have you been losing per week before plateau?

If you’re truly at 1,300 you should be losing at a good pace. Adding calories won’t help Fatloss unless it allows for higher NEAT to offset the higher calories and that doesn’t happen often.

It’s common to be taking in more calories than you think and overestimate calorie burn and not seeing results.

How much have you lost so far and what was the timeframe of loss?

Not sure where you heard IF helps brain health.

losin_for_my_liver

That calorie target is WAY too low, even if you were completely sedentary which you obviously are not. I would recommend Googling a BMR calculator to show how many calories you actually should be eating.