At what point do I know whether my plateau is caused by my own mistakes or by other health issues?

NiceAndGoodEgg

For background, I am a fairly petite woman, currently 5'2 and 143 pounds. I am not new to counting calories: I did it very successfully back in 2018 (lost almost 15 pounds, from 120 to about 107) and then again in 2021 (to much less success, from about 125 to 118). In the past year or so, I've gained nearly 30 pounds, due to a variety of factors (pandemic shutdowns, starting a job that was more sedentary, eating out more often, studying abroad in a place where I didn't have good cooking facilities).

However, I'm trying to lose it now, and I lost 5 pounds in the first month...and then plateaued for an entire month. I'm eating about 1200 calories per day, and I'm fairly confident that I'm doing it right (I measure most things before eating them, and if I'm in doubt I will overestimate how much of something I ate). I have cheat days, but I don't exactly go wild with them, I think there's maybe been only one or two days recently where I would have gone more than 400 calories over the limit. I also started at a new job that has me on my feet a lot more, and I've been walking to work (30 minutes each way), yet that hasn't had any effect. At what point should I talk to a doctor? This wasn't this difficult before, and I'm not sure why all the things I used to do have all just stopped working.

tomcustombuilder

Doubtful there are health issues.

You’re having cheat meals which impact your weekly calorie numbers and weekly numbers are what to look at. Small women are at a disadvantage with fatloss as they need low calories and there isn’t much wiggle room for being off on calorie counting and tracking.

Give it a couple more weeks before changing things up.

spiriteagle99

Are you logging your cheat meals? If they are meals out, it can be hard to know how many calories you are actually eating. Odds are the cheat meals are also causing you to retain water, which can mess with the results.

NiceAndGoodEgg

spiriteagle99 wrote: »

Are you logging your cheat meals? If they are meals out, it can be hard to know how many calories you are actually eating. Odds are the cheat meals are also causing you to retain water, which can mess with the results.

Usually, yes, although it depends on what exactly the "cheating" was. If it's a "I am going to a buffet with my friends" kind of cheat day, I won't count at all for the entire day, but those are very rare (I have maybe one of these a month). For "I ate healthy but also had a dessert after dinner" cheat days, I will log it. Recently, I've found that if I know in advance that I will be having heavier foods later, I can tailor what I eat around it. Even on days where I've had treats and logged them, I haven't really gone over 1400.

AnnPT77

There have been times when I was losing slowly when for a month or more even my weight trending app thought I was maintaining or even gaining, when I was pretty sure I was actually losing very slowly. Sure enough, the expected loss finally showed up in a sudden scale drop. I can't even imagine how long it would've been confusing without the weight trending app.

Your increase in activity could be causing a little extra water retention, the cheat meals or meals out could be increasing water weight fluctuations in ways that make interpreting your scale weight quite difficult, and if you're adult/female/not in menopause your cycles are another potential distorter.

I don't know about you, but it's normal for me (5'5" and low 130s pounds) to see daily scale fluctuations of 2-3 pounds from water fluctuations and different amounts of food residue in the digestive tract. That can play peek-a-boo on the scale with a half a pound a week fat loss, maybe even a pound a week fat loss, for several weeks.

If you think you're on point with calorie logging and activity level, I'd give it another 2-4 weeks, personally, before doing anything radical.