Why do I plateau for weeks at a time
I count my calories, avoid sugar, limit carbs and struggle to lose. It takes me weeks to lose a pound. Then I gain it back and lose it again, all while staying in a calorie deficit. Idk what I’m doing wrong and it’s frustrating
Answers
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Hi there, I understand it must be frustrating.
Can you provide us your current stats? Then it'll be easier to give you more detailed advice.
Just for understanding: what do you mean with count? Do you use a food scale for everything that has calories or another method? Do you make sure that database entries are correct? Do you log everything every single day?0 -
I do log everything I eat and measure all. I don’t use a scale. I use this app to track. I have Hashimotos and inflammation. I go to the gym 4-5 times a week. I do weights and stationary bike. I also walk 3x a week 1-2 miles. I’ve been so strict.
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Ok, may I suggest you use a food scale for a while? If you're not losing you're eating more than you think. You're basically eating at maintenance and need to go lower. Weight, track and log everything for at least 4-6 weeks, or a whole menstrual cycle if you have one. Only then you can be sure you're doing everything right. Yeah, hashimoto can lower your calorie needs, but only up to about 4% of total base metabolic rate. So it's basically nothing.
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@pcat23 i feel this.. I too struggle being in a deficit and losing weight.. I am losing but it’s sooooo slow. My weight goes up and down up and down all month long and eventually I’ll lose a pound. And it just keeps going like that. I also have Hashimoto. I also struggle with inflammation. My Dr recommended I eat gluten free and dairy free to help with the widespread inflammation and pain. What’s your diet like? In order to lose weight, I have to eat 1200-1400 cals a day. I walk 4-5 days a week and run 2-3 days a week and strength training 2-3 times a week. I do eat a tiny bit of my exercise calories back but even with activity I still lose sooooo slowly, I think I lost most of my 55 pounds with no exercise at all. Also, are you properly medicated for your thyroid disease? When my labs are off, I’ll gain like 15 pounds within a couple months. It’s wild how fast I can gain but losing is a different story. I use a weight trending app like happy scale so I can see if I’m in a deficit despite the ups and downs.. it shows a trend line.. I only have 15-25 more pounds to lose until i reach my goal weight. I’ll reevaluate when i get a bit closer. It doesn’t sound like your doing anything wrong per say, since you do lose a tiny bit, maybe just a slower rate of loss than you’d like. Maybe try to see progress in other ways, like energy levels or lab levels.. or maybe your losing inches, take your measurements or take photos so you can compare your progress along the way. Just don’t give up. Keep doing what your doing and you’ll eventually see the progress you desire. Hugs
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It's because we're not always in a calorie deficit, when we think we are.
Humans are biologically wired for survival and not 10% body fat and when we're in a calorie defict our brain thinks we're starving and activate hunger hormones like ghrelin and suppressing satiety hormones like leptin and basically makes us hungry and when it's a constant deficit we're going to feel the constant desire to eat, basically.
Being in a constant deficit often results in lower energy levels which can make us feel tired and sluggish, simply because we have less available energy which often results in less motivation to exercise or just do some of our normal daily activates which makes it harder to stick to a deficit. Also food can be a comfort reaction to the daily grind and basically can and does turn eating into a comfort or enjoyment environment, which can be overwhelming and cause over eating.
Also the simple fact that we are wired from a environment of food scarcity that have evolved our biological mechanisms to protect us and allow for survival mostly known as the "fight or flight" hormones where the body craves high-calorie foods and stores excess energy as fat for future use, so we don't die. Most males today in the USA have around 175,000 of those stored calories (body fat) for when we actually do find us in a food scarcity and women about 125,000 and unfortunately with the constant availability of calorie dense foods, mostly UPF's in many forms it makes it not only easy to overeat but very convenient and people over eat without even realizing it.
Understanding our biological makeup might help people realize this is mostly a hormonal game of metabolic homeostasis where the delicate balance the body maintains to regulate energy production, storage and usage is like I said better understood on an individual basis simply because modern western medicine is based in reductionism and is an approach that breaks down complex systems into their individual components to understand and treat them individually as opposed to thinking in a more holistic approach where the body and mind is fully taken into account. The new magic bullet in this reductionism reality for weight loss are GLP-1's again medicating the symptom and when removed people get fatter and the reason why is they never bothered to address the root cause of weight gain.
I would suggest adopting a diet that contains mostly whole foods and try and stay away from UPF's as much as you can, count calories if you believe it helps and try to find foods that are more nutrient dense and eat until you feel satisfied, animal protein is a good choice in this regard and eventually try and gravitate to the foods that make you feel more satiated, it's a start and being less hungry on a constant basis is certainly a better space to be in imo.
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I only eat Whole Foods. I limit dairy tremendously. I don’t eat sugar. My diet is primarily meat and vegetables. Bone broth. Once in a while I’ll make an isopure protein shake with water. I don’t eat any junk at all. Nothing in a box or bag. I take thyroid meds.
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my daily caloric intake is 1000-1400 and I rarely reach the 1400
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Honestly, while most of those are good things to do for health, they aren't necessarily the heavy hitters when it comes to weight loss.
You still haven't given us any indication - that I noticed on skimming through the thread again, anyway - of how old, tall or heavy you currently are. That gives us no parameters for evaluating that calorie level. You've said you measure your food, but not - I think - whether you use a food scale.
If you've stuck with that calorie level for months, no skips, cheat days, or other oopsies; and lost on net nothing or close to nothing for weeks at a time, very high odds you're eating close to maintenance calories. (It takes 4-6 weeks of data on a given regimen of eating/activity, one full menstrual cycle for those who have them, to evaluate whether that regimen is working or not. Shorter time periods generally won't suffice.)
If you're not losing on that calorie level and theoretically should be, i.e. you are somehow eating close to maintenance on average, there are two general possibilities: You have lower than average calorie needs in the first place, or there's a logging issue.
MFP's or other calculators' calorie needs estimates are basically the average for demographically similar people. Even good fitness trackers spit out population averages, just more nuanced ones.
But we're each individuals. Individuals vary from averages, though most people are close to the calorie averages (but a few aren't close). MFP's estimate is 25-30% off for me as compared with almost 10 years of quite careful logging experience.
When I mention logging issues, that's not a diss. Logging is a surprisingly subtle skill, and many of us who've done it a long time have had face-palm moments when we realized some systematic error we'd been making. This next is an offer, not a demand: If you open your diary to other MFP-ers, and post here to say you've done that, perhaps some of the old hands will take a look and see if there's anything in your diary that they've learned from their own experiences, to tighten up the logging further.
No one here is asking these questions in order to accuse you of something, or to beat you up about any aspect of the situation. We're all human, we've all run into bumps in the road, and most people here are IME very helpful when that's happening. Sure, some can be a little "tough love" while others are more warm'n'fuzzy, but generally everyone is trying to help.
Best wishes!
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When I plateau, I usually up my water (and sodium; I have POTS),eat more fresh fruits and veggies, and cut back a lil on my calories. However, for you, I wouldn't cut back on calories. You are already at a caloric minimum.
The only other thing that has helped me break a plateau is by having a 'cheat day'. It's seems so wrong and backwards, but maybe it was the reset my body craved/needed.
Best of luck, pcat23, and remember to be kind to yourself.
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Hello, have you tried intermittent fasting?
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Has zero to do with weight loss.
I agree with the other posts above though.
A "calorie deficit" by definition means eating fewer calories than one uses. So the problem here is not actually being in a calorie deficit, whether that's because of not weighing food, not calculating the original calorie goal accurately, or something else like being not medicated correctly for the hashimotos.
If blood thyroid numbers are good for the last three months, the meds probably aren't it. I'm under treatment with levothyroxine for the past 30 years and my weight is stable and manageable.
The solution is to tighten up logging and be consistent with it for 4-6 weeks. Then if your weight doesn't change as expected, lower your calories by 250 per day and do the same logging for the next six weeks. It's an experiment we all had to run.
I linked a thread below of how to log more accurately. Most of it is probably still correct. 🙃
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Hey @AnnPT77 This is how I'm tagging you ….by quoting your whole post because the "@" thingy didn't work…😐️
I haven't been able to figure out how to post a hyperlink to mfp threads with this new software. Is there a tutorial somewhere? I mean, I scanned through the "Announcement" thread that's pinned to the top, but it doesn't appear to address this.
**edit* oh, FPS, Well, I tried.
oh…wait…I figured out the (way too complicated) link posting…just not the tagging of specific peeps.
Cool.
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With apologies to the OP for the digression:
Put the tag or tags at the top of the post. I think they're working on getting them to work inline again, rather than just at the top. Unlike some people, you know this is a Vanilla Forums problem, with the MFP staff working on Vanilla to get a fix. Probably not going to be instant.
For the links, I haven't totally figured it out, either. One thing that mostly works, I think: Paste in the URL, then highlight the URL. You'll get a box with some markup options in it, one of which is a link option - a couple of chain links in the icon. Click that. Paste the URL in the URL box, too. Click add link.
It's still fuzzy to me when we get the big-box link with semi-preview vs. the one-liner link. I haven't tested it to try to figure it out, just have seen one or the other at times but haven't really cared enough to sort it out - yet, anway.
ETA: Weirdly, I did get a "cmriverside mentioned you" notification even though my ID wasn't a tag in the usual way in your post. Dunno how to think about that.
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Thanks. :flowerforyou: OG-style
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Ann said:
ETA: Weirdly, I did get a "cmriverside mentioned you" notification even though my ID wasn't a tag in the usual way in your post. Dunno how to think about that.
Me:
Cuz I quoted you, methinks. I meeeeeean, that's why I did that…
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Didn't used to get a notification when merely quoted, I thought.
Enough of this digressive side chat, though, maybe? There are several threads about RTE where it'd be more on topic. I miss the real "flowerforyou" but appreciate the gesture. 😉
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I barely eat 1400 calories a day. I’m 59 and weigh 233. Down 18 lbs since January but have been stuck at 232-234 past 2 weeks and I’m strict with my diet. Thanks for the help. I’ll try some of the suggestions. I did start a probiotic and am going to try cortisol crusher.
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If you'd continued losing at a reasonable pace until the last two weeks, I'd say don't change anything, wait it out. It's normal to have temporary scale stalls along the way. Two weeks counts as temporary.
You've averaged something like 1.8 pounds per week loss if you started at the beginning of January. If you did that eating 1400 calories on average, that implies that your daily calorie total energy expenditure averaged around 1400 + (1.8 pounds times about 3500 calories in a pound of fat) = 2500 daily calorie burn over that whole time period. I still don't know how tall you are, but at average height we'd expect you to burn maybe 2000 daily if truly sedentary, more if moderately active through some combination of job, home chores and intentional exercise.
Sure, if your loss was fast for a small part of that 10-ish weeks, and tapered off gradually, maybe you've found your maintenance calories. But if it was sudden, after fairly steady good loss, it's much more likely to be some weird water retention thing masking fat loss.
Example, let's do round numbers: Losing 2 pounds a week of fat is losing a mere 4.6 ounces of fat per day. At the right calorie level, that fat loss is likely to be ticking down at a somewhat steady pace.
Water retention fluctuations can vary by several pounds just from one day to the next, and depending on what triggered them, can hang around for days up to a couple of weeks, even a full menstrual cycle sometimes for women who have those. (At 59, I'm guessing you may already be in menopause.) I've had as much as a 6 pound change overnight, as a menopausal woman. For calories to explain that, I would've had to have had a 21000 variance in calorie intake (6 pounds times roughly 3500 calories in a pound of fat) in probably the preceding couple of days. I didn't. I would've noticed. 😆
On top of that, waste in the digestive system has weight. If we eat lots more fiber, or we get a little constipated, the scale is going to go up from waste on its way to the exit. If we eat more carbs or sodium/salt than usual, even if perfectly reasonable amounts, we'll retain more water to metabolize those things, besides.
Water and waste aren't fat, but they can hide fat loss on the scale for a surprisingly long time sometimes.
Repeat: If it's only been 2 weeks, and you were losing at a reasonable rate before that, stick with your current calorie level for at least another 2-4 weeks. Everything's probably just fine, most likely water retention and waste conspiring to hide fat loss on the scale for a while, normal and no big deal.
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