Hit a plateau? 😭

trippindaisies

Hey everyone
I've been following a CD since end of Nov last year. 1400 cal I'm a office worker and 44 F.
I've lost 7.4kgs (16pounds) and have hit a plateau for about a month now.
I'm currently 103.1kgs (228pounds??). The scales just won't move or go up n down 500gms or so and silly me hasn't measured from the start! It's been slow but there has been many events over December and Jan.
I've dropped my CD to 1310 due to being a office worker. I exercise nearly everyday (walking, ladies bootcamp and zumba) I must admit my 10,000 km steps haven't been everyday though.
I drink lots of water (over 2litres a day), barely drink alcohol and track everything.
Does anyone have any advise on how to get over that hump? It's really disheartening when you feel you are working hard and it's not paying off like you want.

briscogun

Hi Daisies!

So if you haven’t moved weight in a month, that’s your body telling you that you are eating at maintenance calories. It looks like your diary isn’t public so I can’t see what may or may not being going on from that perspective, but if you say your calorie goal is 1310/day and you aren’t losing weight then I’m guessing you are eating higher (on average) than that.

If you can go into your settings and make your diary public there are some very very smart people here that can look through and see if there might be some opportunities. In my 9 years here, I will say that 9 out of 10 times when someone makes a post like this it’s a logging issue (barring any medical issues).

A few other questions: you say “silly me hasn't measured from the start!”, are you talking about your weight or your food? As far as your 10K steps go, are you using a tracker that is giving you an additional calorie burn to get to that 1310 net per day?

Good job on the 16 lbs! Sounds like you are off to a great start!

tomcustombuilder

After a month of being on a plateau, you’re eating at maintenance calories every week. Week is the operative word people as can say they're taking in that amount of calories every day but is that every day or is that cherry picked a day or two a week when they’re actually eating that low? you need to figure calories Weekly

Also, make sure you’re counting everything that goes in your mouth. With those two factors, you’ll probably find your eating a lot more than you think.

AnnPT77

Did the loss slow down then stop, or stop rather suddenly?

If I look at that as around 3 months, you'd averaged roughly 2.5kg per month, roughly 0.6kg per week. (For other USA-ians like me, that'd be about 16.3 pounds total, 5.4 pounds per month, 1.4 pounds per week, with some rounding in there.)

That's a pretty reasonable rate. I'm assuming when you say a CD of 1400, you mean you ate 1400, not that your deficit (number of calories below maintenance calories) was 1400.

If so, that implies that if you've eaten 1400 calories daily on average, your average daily deficit would be very roughly around 678 calories per day, and your average total daily energy expenditure around 2078 calories. That's not crazy low for your age/weight (if I assume average-ish height), though I'd maybe expect it to be a little higher with the daily exercise. Obviously, I don't know whether you had some higher-calorie days over the holidays like many of us do, or anything of that nature. But you should be able to add up your calories eaten, multiply your kg lost by 7700 (approximate number of calories in a kilo of body fat), and get some reasonable estimates.

Generally, if weight loss is proceeding at a good pace, and stops suddenly without a change in eating, exercise, or daily life activity levels, there's a reasonably high probability that the change isn't a difference in fat loss, but some water retention weirdness, or different amounts of waste in the digestive tract. If the scale hasn't moved for a month, you're getting out to the edge of the amount of time something like that usually masks fat loss on the scale, unless pregnant or something.

If the stall is a water/waste kind of thing, then the right answer would be to wait it out. Cutting calories more in that scenario could confuse things more, since calorie deficit stresses the body, and stress can increase water retention. (I'd observe that cutting from 1400 to 1310, 90 calories per day, would be expected to take around 86 days to make a full kilo of difference in total loss.
At the same time, I recognize that it should even be necessary to cut below 1400 at your current weight.)

On the other hand, also generally, if weight loss starts out at a reasonable pace, then gradually slows over a period of weeks to a stall, somewhat higher odds that we've found our current weight-maintenance calories. If that were the case, cutting more calories or adding more activity would probably be necessary. But you're already logging fairly low calories, and indicate that you're fairly active daily.

That offer upthread to have experienced MFP-ers review your diary and look for any possible logging issues - that's a solid thing to consider, IMO, but obviously your choice. Most of the long-experienced loggers here have had some face-palm moments of realizing a systematic mistake they'd been making in logging. That's normal, because accurate logging is a surprisingly subtle skill. Folks generally are kind about diary reviews, not treating it as a critique of someone's eating style. Review can speed up the logging-learning process. I'm not suggesting your logging is all wrong, no drama like that, but pinning down any small inaccuracies might help with more predictability going forward, if you want that.

Best wishes!

PAV8888

A bit along the stuff mentioned by the others. BUT. I also don't particularly like seeing the doubling down because I find that it seldom proves sustainable.

I really wish I fully understood what you mean by CD and whether that is your target of food to eat or your average food eaten and whether it includes alcohol and everything else or not and whether measuring refers to body weight or measuring food on scale.

as Ann mentioned a 90 Cal drop is a pretty long term play. I would double down on measuring my food and logging it before putting it in my mouth instead of aiming lower.

Alcohol is also interesting. This is not a value judgement against alcohol. But it is interesting because it both takes away calories you would normally be able to use to consume something satiating but, especially in company, may contribute to logging inaccuracies... I doubt most people having a few drinks with friends will add up the olives, cashews, or crackers that they eat into their logs ;-)

Scales moving up and down is also fairly normal. That's where weight trend apps and websites come into play (trendweight.com, libra for android, happy scale for iphone are all examples)

Also if you only weight yourself once a week it is sometimes harder to capture your actual weight level as the more measurements you have of something the more likely you are to be able to see the underlying value.

So what appears to be a stall may be a slow down or weight measurement artifact. Or it may be a stall.

I'll be honest. My inclination based on your past success (pretty good) and current weight level (still high enough that your body should be preferentially tapping into fat reserves in a deficit) is that this is a scale artifact possibly caused by the extra exercise and the stress caused by you doubling down chasing a regular scale drop.

So I would just keep on going and I would keep firmly in mind that the goal is not to drop 10kg in 10 days. The goal is to find a SUSTAINABLE WAY OF LIFE THAT OVER that WILL CONTINUE to move you forward towards a lower weight for several months (12 to 24 given where you're at). And once you get to that much lower weight after that fairly long time period, you will have built a framework / sustainable way of life that will hopefully promote your ability to maintain your new lower weight.

So doing things you don't see yourself doing in a year or two years just to move one more kg is not the key to success. The key to success, in my opinion of course, is to set up the preconditions: the new ways of eating/moving/entertaining that will promote the new leaner you going forward. i.e. find things you love (and if you don't love them today that you can tolerate today, and see yourself possibly loving them in the future ;-) ) as opposed to things you hate or that you punishingly push yourself into doing.

That said. If you are really in a stall then the calories will probably have to drop. Though I would be more aggressive than 90 Cal in the case of an actual true stall.

I don't think you're in a stall because you are AIMING for calories that are too high.

So I would continue to aim for your previous levels, use a weight trend app, review how and when I weigh myself, and would double down on my COUNTING and optimizing as opposed to just "aiming to eat less".

trippindaisies

Thank you all. Some solid advice to take in.
Apologies so my food intake calculated by MFP to lose approx 1kg a week was 1400 with daily light movement however I recalculated due to being an office worker sitting most of day which showed 1310. I guess cos I'm active I should keep it at 1400.
I have had alot of events and been away from home over last few months so that could contribute to the stall. Still remained quite active so body may of just gone into maintenance/balance mode? This is all quite new to me tbh! I've done several 'diets' before just to regain the weight again. I'd rather set good habits this time and do it a bit slower.
I'll be a bit more proactive with my tracking and weighing of food and see if that helps!

trippindaisies

Oh and to briscogun, measurements...I meant body not food and yes I have a samsung watch connected to MFP