Doing everything right, but not seeing progress
echristensen010
Posts: 27 Member
Hi there,
I have been in a moderate calorie deficit for a year.
I strength train 5 days a week with proper rest, hit 8-10k steps a day, eat 80% + whole foods (gains, fruits, veg), and eat 140 g protein a day. I sleep 7-8 hours a night and manage my stress.
I am stalled on the scale. And worse, my clothes fit the same and my measurements have only gone down a few centimeters in months and months! My body fat percentage is also stalled a lot about the same place.
What do I need to do to get past this plateau?!
I have been in a moderate calorie deficit for a year.
I strength train 5 days a week with proper rest, hit 8-10k steps a day, eat 80% + whole foods (gains, fruits, veg), and eat 140 g protein a day. I sleep 7-8 hours a night and manage my stress.
I am stalled on the scale. And worse, my clothes fit the same and my measurements have only gone down a few centimeters in months and months! My body fat percentage is also stalled a lot about the same place.
What do I need to do to get past this plateau?!
Tagged:
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Replies
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Oh that’s tough. I lost a lot of weight several years ago and remember plateauing a few times. Once because my body actually did a slight recomp. The scale wasn’t changing much cause I was adding muscle (perhaps your strength training). The thing with the recomp is that it was slowwww. But eventually it started showing in how my clothes fit.
The other time. I just don’t think I was going to lose anymore. Not without sacrificing muscle mass or healthy weight. I’m not saying I was shredded by any means. But those are the two things I remember slowing down.2 -
You aren’t in a weekly calorie deficit. It sounds like you’re plenty active exercise wise so you’ll need to lower calories.2
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I second that you need to reassess your calories. Calories are king, and if you're not losing, you're not eating at a deficit. Full stop. Now, there are many reasons you may not be at a deficit, that's highly individual. But, at the end of the day, if you're not losing at all, and you want to continue losing, you're going to have to see where those extra calories are and how you want to cut them.1
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I doubt that this is going to be a popular response, but it’s true for me and my body and may be true for you..,High protein makes me fat. I have adjusted macros and workouts and a million factors and if I eat that much protein I just can’t cut my fat. It hangs right on and I can’t shift anything! You might consider adjusting macros and seeing what happens…2
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echristensen010 wrote: »Hi there,
I have been in a moderate calorie deficit for a year.
I strength train 5 days a week with proper rest, hit 8-10k steps a day, eat 80% + whole foods (gains, fruits, veg), and eat 140 g protein a day. I sleep 7-8 hours a night and manage my stress.
I am stalled on the scale. And worse, my clothes fit the same and my measurements have only gone down a few centimeters in months and months! My body fat percentage is also stalled a lot about the same place.
What do I need to do to get past this plateau?!
First, I want to make sure you are truly in a stall. Do you use a weight trending app like Happy Scale (iphone) or Libra (Android)? I lost almost 40 pounds in 2021 and many weeks (and even months) it seemed like I was not losing weight but the trend line indicated otherwise.
Second: there are mistakes that people commonly make that cause them to not lose weight that we might be able to spot if you change your Diary Sharing settings to Public: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings
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That’s such an annoying feeling! My advice would be to either increase your output (more steps, more cardio in the training, more calories burnt) or decrease your input (bump your daily calories down by 100 and see how you get on with it)1
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Thanks for the feedback! According to most calculators, my maintenance calories should be able 2000 based on my height, weight, and activity. I eat 1650-1690 calories a day and make sure to measure everything by weight including sauces and tiny bites. I also very rarely eat out or drink alcohol, usually 2 times a month.
Over the last year I did lose 60 lbs. I started at 1200 calories a day and increased that to 1650 when I started hitting my steps, weight training and adjusted my macros.
Since I am doing a body recomp, I don't know of I need to lose more weight, it's really about fat loss at this point to see more definition.
Does that also come from cutting calories?0 -
The calculators are a starting point. Some MFP food entries are incorrect. Your personal data and results will take precedent over the calculators/food entry data.
Yes if you’re already pretty active, you need to lower your weekly calories.2 -
You'll lose weight in a calorie deficit, mostly fat. To recomp, you'll need to be doing progressive overload lifting. Consider, if you're at the same weight with less fat you must gain that missing fat weight somewhere else, i.e. muscle.echristensen010 wrote: »Since I am doing a body recomp, I don't know of I need to lose more weight, it's really about fat loss at this point to see more definition.
Does that also come from cutting calories?0 -
echristensen010 wrote: »Thanks for the feedback! According to most calculators, my maintenance calories should be able 2000 based on my height, weight, and activity. I eat 1650-1690 calories a day and make sure to measure everything by weight including sauces and tiny bites. I also very rarely eat out or drink alcohol, usually 2 times a month.
Over the last year I did lose 60 lbs. I started at 1200 calories a day and increased that to 1650 when I started hitting my steps, weight training and adjusted my macros.
Since I am doing a body recomp, I don't know of I need to lose more weight, it's really about fat loss at this point to see more definition.
Does that also come from cutting p?
Probably, if you don't want to gain much more muscle, or don't have the patience for recomp at maintenance calories, and if you don't have much fat left that you want to lose. What do you think your BF% is, and what do you think you want it to be?
Fat loss can come from eating under maintenance calories (cut), or from eating at maintenance to slooooowly add muscle from continuing progressive lifting and using some of the remaining body as fuel, loosely (recomp).
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10177803/recomposition-maintaining-weight-while-losing-fat/p1
If you're more impatient than that, probably a tiny calorie deficit (250 calories or fewer below maintenance calories, calculating maintenance needs from your own data, not a calculator) to absolutely minimize chances of muscle loss, maximize possibility (not guarantee) of continuing slow muscle gain.
If you were logging consistently, you should have data from your loss last year that tells you how close you are to the calculator estimates (like MFP's or a TDEE calculator's) or your fitness tracker estimate if you have one. Use that data to adjust going forward.1 -
Good advice. From my data I think my TDEE should be about 1800 - 1850 calories a day.
I'm eating at 1650 calories a day now and not adding any back in from activity. So I guess I could try cutting to 1550 a day and maintaining my activity level, which over the last 4 months has been about 300-400 calories a day according to my watch.
Does anyone have tips on how to keep up with protein when getting into a lower calorie range?
@AnnPT77 my current BF% using calipers and a calculator is about 22%. This is a conservative estimate, I rounded up a percentage point from my calculation to account for inaccuracy in measurements.3 -
Protein:
Lots of good info in this thread:
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10247171/carbs-and-fats-are-cheap-heres-a-guide-to-getting-your-proteins-worth-fiber-also
I'll add a suggestion that I always make to fellow vegetarians, but it works for non-veg folks, too: If short on protein, don't think only about the "one big protein per meal" things. In addition, think about pleasant ways to get little bits of protein from many different sources throughout the day. There are veggies with more protein than others, breads/grains/pastas with more protein, crunchy/salty snacks with protein, flavoring incredients with protein (like miso or nutritional yeast) . . . you get the idea. Those little bits of protein add up, by end of day.
Review your diary, look for foods that "cost" quite a few calories - more than seem worthwhile to you for the food's tastiness, nutrition or satiation, and that don't have much protein. Reduce or eliminate those, substitute some other food that you enjoy eating that better helps you meet your protein goals. That will gradually move your protein total in a positive direction.1 -
is 22% body fat for a female considered to be high these days?1
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echristensen010 wrote: »Good advice. From my data I think my TDEE should be about 1800 - 1850 calories a day.
I'm eating at 1650 calories a day now and not adding any back in from activity. So I guess I could try cutting to 1550 a day and maintaining my activity level, which over the last 4 months has been about 300-400 calories a day according to my watch.
Does anyone have tips on how to keep up with protein when getting into a lower calorie range?
@AnnPT77 my current BF% using calipers and a calculator is about 22%. This is a conservative estimate, I rounded up a percentage point from my calculation to account for inaccuracy in measurements.
You eat 1650 calories a day, hit 8-10k steps a day, and don't eat any exercise calories? What's your activity level set to? How tall are you and how much do you weigh?1 -
@kshama2001 Activity level is set to moderate. I am 5'3 and weigh between 115.8 and 117.8 depending on the day.
Another insight I had after reflecting is that I did increase my calories from 1400/day to 1605/day about 10 weeks ago when I started training more diligently. So that is maybe impacting results too. Perhaps I need more time to let the results take place.0 -
It is interesting that not only is it not always possible to easily estimate these percentages but sources don't always agree on their meaning and ranges/brackets.
Not my circus nor my monkeys and there exists only a tiny tiny picture of the OP on my screen, and screen pics can always be made to show what one wants to show... but as a neutral observer with few data-points other than a 60lb successful weight loss and a picture of what appears to be an individual as slim or slimmer than the pictures I've seen of our formidable Ann, I would encourage, strongly, a full examination of goals and their setting in order of importance and how to best achieve the most important first.
As an example, and based on my own experience, I would be more concerned with not pushing to a rebound inducing level of leanness to preserve my successful 60lb weight loss than I would be pushing to continue losing. I ***WOULD*** push to continue "losing" if I were only using this as a mechanism to achieve maintenance, as a challenge perhaps, as something that would keep me engaged and working on improving myself. But not if I was pushing myself to a punishing and stress inducing degree.
The danger zone for regain is several years. Not several months. So seeking challenges and improvement is both good and necessary. But my own slant would be towards trying to make life easier, enjoyable, challenging, but not losing the forest for the trees.
The primary success here is the substantial weight loss that has been achieved to date. And seeking ways to ensure that it sticks.
But, that's a different perspective I guess.
I did notice that the OP has mentioned a LOT of stats in her discussion but has avoided stating her actual weight and height. Based on past MFP interactions with other people I have some doubts it was an accidental omission on her part.
Challenges are good. Challenges that keep us healthy are good.
Extremes do exist, of course, even successful ones--especially on MFP. But I am more of a what is the "highest possible optimal for health percentage play in these circumstances" sort of person.1 -
Hi @PAV8888 Thanks for the insightful comment.
The progress pics shown on my profile are not edited aside from some cropping of the edges. My current height and weight is 5'3 and weigh between 115.8 and 117.8 depending on the day
My primary goal at the moment is to maintain/build muscle and get more definition. I imagine that comes from fat loss and progressive overload training (along with other factors like rest, protein intake, stress mgmt, time, etc.).
If there are other key factors though please elt me know!1 -
I typed the above before my screen posted your response.
I admit that I was contemplating the possibility that you were already below BMI 20; not just 21. Punch your numbers into smartbmi ... it is interesting to read through for a different perspective.
The extra time to see results is definitely a thing. The more time at a normal weight the better off you will be!
Training will help with definition and muscle mass. 10K steps without any other activity is generally reflected by the "active" level in either MFP or even sailrabbit and other estimators.
Of course your own intersection of logging and weight trajectory matter more than estimations. And weight trend apps exist so you don't have to specify your weight range as you did above.
By the way a 2lb range for anyone and even more so for a female is very "tight" and would indicate to me that you're applying pressure to keep it in the range/1 -
@PAV8888 Right in one! I have been working really hard to keep things tight for the 12 week plan I am working on. The plan at the end of the 12 weeks is to do a short de-load and then work up to maintaining at maintenance.
Maybe I am just too impatient right now.
I've never heard of SmartBMI, i did that today and it was helpful to read through the results. And also reassuring to see that I am basically in a good place. Thanks for the recommendation!1 -
So I would personally encourage the build muscle/train without allowing substantial weight gain vs the same in conjunction with losing weight
Why? Complex. More than one reason. But truly it boils down to because it's slower and has no end date and is less likely to push you quickly into too low of body fat percentage
Slow is your friend after substantial weight loss.
Regain is a bigger risk and problem than incremental benefits. Spinning your tires in a good place far from the edge is much better than driving quickly to the edge.
Not saying my perspective is THE correct one. It won't produce Olympic athletes. But I *feel* it may help some extra people achieve long term weight reduction after they've arrived at a fairly good place !🤷♂️2 -
echristensen010 wrote: »@kshama2001 Activity level is set to moderate. I am 5'3 and weigh between 115.8 and 117.8 depending on the day.
Another insight I had after reflecting is that I did increase my calories from 1400/day to 1605/day about 10 weeks ago when I started training more diligently. So that is maybe impacting results too. Perhaps I need more time to let the results take place.
Slow fat loss (tiny deficit) can take a surprisingly long time to show up on the scale - I can say from personal experience. I've had it take more than a month to show up even in my weight trending app - let alone from simple observation of scale weight - and I'm long menopausal so I don't have hormonal water retention variability in the picture.
For muscle gain results, you absolutely need more than 10 weeks. I'm not saying you'd see no progress at all in that span . . . but it's unlikely to be dramatic. Fat loss can be kind of fast, but that's unlikely to be the right answer in your scenario IMO, partly because you're already slim and at a low-ish body fat (even if not max bodybuilder low), and partly because you have muscle-gaining goals.
If you do have goals to look like a bodybuilder, that's great, and you likely can (with extreme patience and discipline). But keep in mind that the way female bodybuilders look in competition and publicity photos is not how they look most of the time just walking around in daily life. For formal photos, they're fake-tanned, carefully lit, mega-posed, professionally photographed, and maybe even photoshopped. If internet influencers are a factor, the same will apply to what they share in public . . . and a fair fraction of them flat out lie about how long it took them to achieve the body they have now, and misrepresent that they got that look by some less daunting program that they're selling, rather than the slower and more challenging route they actually used.
You seem more level headed than to be influenced by that kind of nonsense, but I can't help but rant a little on account of seeing quite a few more naive and starry-eyed young women post things that tell me they have fallen for it (and I wonder what other threads they may be reading, like this one, so sometimes I rant).
@PAV8888 has a point about hormonal issues around low body fat, either appetite/hunger snapback at extreme leanness, or loss of menstrual cycles (which can happen at varying levels, but unlikely at your current stage, seems like).
Your calorie goal does seem oddly low to me, but I'm possibly biased by being a mysteriously good li'l ol' calorie burner, despite being much older than you, and only a little bigger. There's one thing you might consider, once your weight stabilizes, or as you have a couple of months in the bag where you're seeing the teensy tiny weight loss that would be the most you should go for with your size/goals. That would be inching your calorie goal upward a little, with a long-ish adjustment period between, to see if you can get the same weight trend at higher calories.
Eating very little (low calories) is not any kind of virtue, although I feel like some few women behave as if it were. (I hope that's died since the era of my youth, when eating like a tiny sparrow was absolutely seen as more feminine!)
In my view, the more calories you can eat while accomplishing your goals, the better. That's the path to thriving. More calories will fuel your muscular gains better, more calories will let you get more nutrients which also will fuel your gains better plus maximize your workout energy for better results. If you can train your body to accept a little more but still accomplish your body goals (look and performance), that's a big win, a virtuous cycle.
I'm not saying that for sure can work (eating more, same weight management outcome) . . . but our bodies tend to respond to what we train them to do. Calorie deficits tend to train our bodies to get along on less (adaptive thermogenesis). That is reversible, generally.
Think about it.
Best wishes!2 -
With apologies to OP for a digressive side trip into chatting amongst the audience . . .
It is interesting that not only is it not always possible to easily estimate these percentages but sources don't always agree on their meaning and ranges/brackets.
Not my circus nor my monkeys and there exists only a tiny tiny picture of the OP on my screen, and screen pics can always be made to show what one wants to show... but as a neutral observer with few data-points other than a 60lb successful weight loss and a picture of what appears to be an individual as slim or slimmer than the pictures I've seen of our formidable Ann, I would encourage, strongly, a full examination of goals and their setting in order of importance and how to best achieve the most important first.
(snip)
@PAV8888 - Yes, and age is a relevant variable, although I posted a generic chart for simplicity. Bringing in SmartBMI was a good thought on your part, and there are age-related charts on the web.
OP is leaner than I am, by a few percentage points, if her 22% guess is accurate. The photo in my profile is from around the time I overshot my goal weight, so I was about what OP weighs now (maybe 2-5 pounds more than she, maybe 116-120ish), but at 5'5". My upper body doesn't look that different now, from recent photos.
(Annoying personal rambling in spoiler, sorry.)
I'm up a little from my preferred weight (Winter + holidays), around 131-132 most days now, rather than more like 125 as I prefer. I'm lighter than many women my age would prefer to be aesthetically, but my reasoning has to do with both minimizing joint pain and reducing odds of my specific cancer type recurring metastatically (which can happen years, even decades after the fact with this type, and body weight is a statistical factor). At this weight, my best estimate would be about 25%-ish body fat (plus or minus a couple percent, more likely plus), which is OK health-wise for a li'l ol' lady of 67. I stay in communication with my doctors about that - always multiple doctors at this stage with my health history!
- and they're all fine with it.
At 125ish, my doctors are still fine, and I'm happier. That's only a slightly lower BF%. From the standpoint of comparative photo evaluation, I have to say this: My fat distribution is maybe not average for all-ages women. Even now, my upper body, say lower rib cage up, looks more like teens BF%. (I've had bodybuilder dudes here argue with my rough estimate of mid to slightly lower 20% on the basis of that photo).
My lower body, from below rib cage to maybe mid-thigh, is where my body fat likes to hang out these days. That part of me looks more high 20s to maybe even 30% percent in spots. I'm not going to link it here because I think that would be tacky, but I did post a whole body thing elsewhere to give other women my age one set of honest loose-skin results. What I'm saying here seems pretty obvious there, to me.
I do hope you're not using my photos to evaluate OP's body fat percent, because bodies are weird. Sincerely, I'm not applying my goals to her, I'm trying to listen to what her goals are. If I thought they were dangerous, I'd say so. I understand your point about cementing in maintenance habits before pushing the envelope, but she seems to be doing a pretty good job of shifting mentally from the fat-loss push to the recomposition push. I applaud that!
In context of what she's said and looking at her profile photos, I'm disinclined to emphatically argue against her goals, because she seems like a level-headed woman, and for sure she has body autonomy. She looks great, but she doesn't look excessively slim at this point in her profile photos, just nicely slim. If I were her, I'd maybe want a little more muscle gain more than I'd want a little more fat loss, but I'm not sure even young me would've agreed, and it's not my body anyway.
While I do tend toward the "worried granny" mode here often, her goals don't seem crazy extreme to me. Unusual? More aggressive than average? Maybe. The way she looks in those photos would be what a lot of women dream of, I think. But each of us has individual dreams.
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Such great insights, and I appreciate the candor from everyone.
I personally don't have social media aside from LinkedIn, however the photos and culture from Instagram, etc. is pretty inescapable. It's always good to have a reminder that those are curated at best and outright false at worse.
I did start my journey on a very low calorie count, it wan't until 8 months in that I decided I needed to change my methods so my results could be maintained long term. That is why I am focusing on building muscle and trying to find a good way to gradually increase calories so I can eat as much as possible while having muscle definition.
The biggest take away for me from this conversation is that change takes time. It took me 9 months of a dramatic calorie deficit to drop the 62lbs. It is helpful to hear (really, to be reminded) that building back up will take more than 10 weeks.
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echristensen010 wrote: »Such great insights, and I appreciate the candor from everyone.
I personally don't have social media aside from LinkedIn, however the photos and culture from Instagram, etc. is pretty inescapable. It's always good to have a reminder that those are curated at best and outright false at worse.
I did start my journey on a very low calorie count, it wan't until 8 months in that I decided I needed to change my methods so my results could be maintained long term. That is why I am focusing on building muscle and trying to find a good way to gradually increase calories so I can eat as much as possible while having muscle definition.
The biggest take away for me from this conversation is that change takes time. It took me 9 months of a dramatic calorie deficit to drop the 62lbs. It is helpful to hear (really, to be reminded) that building back up will take more than 10 weeks.
Yup. Slower than fat loss. Sadly. Worth the time, though, I'd betcha.1 -
Quick note to say that no I wasn't really comparing her to your pictures Ann and I'm aware that life-saving surgery may have changed them in your case.
I'm obviously operating at a bit of a disadvantage of only having seen a very small Avatar picture when I looked or tried to I did not see any pictures at the op profile probably operator error on my part!
Beyond that I will not hide that my bias is and remains 100% towards doing things that promote long-term maintenance and that includes both mindset activities methods of eating moving and exercising if I have two options and one potentially enhances the probability someone will maintain that is what I would suggest.
Athletic and physique goals that progress slowly and without time limits are a most excellent maintenance promoting activity!
The whole thing about potentially being able to increase calories (of course this depends on how one is recording them in the first place too, right?) anyway the potential at maintenance to slowly reverse adaptation that took place during weight loss definitely does exist.
And hormonally induced rebound hunger is definitely something that happens to people. and if we had a definitive guide as to when any of these things happens with 100% probability we would all be rich and happy1
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