Hit major Plateau! - Need Help

mdshelby13

I'm at a lost & looking to see if anyone else has experience this or if they have any ideas what direction to go in. I started a weight loss fitness challenge in September of 2013 with my husband @ our local gym. Previously I had lost about 20 lbs on my own & came to a plateau. The trainer there who we work out with twice a week, had us start logging our food here, and gave us a food plan to follow. 5 small meals a day, protein with every meal, no startchy carbs at dinne, been following to a tee. However definitely not seeing the results as the other participants have. Don't get me wrong, i have lost about 10 lbs and a few inches but for 5 months doesn't make sense to me. During these last 5 months, due to the diet discovered i had gallstones, had my gall bladder taken out which i though originally might be contributing to my lack of energy and weight loss. Leading up to finding out about the gall bladder, I had every blood test ran known, Thyroid checked, Vitamin B12, Vitamin D, all normal. Had my horemone levels checked as well all normal. Only thing slightly elevated was the amount of inflammation in my body, not sure if caused by food or workouts. I am currently working out atleast 5 times a week, cardio/strength training. What haven't I looked at that could cause my fatigue and lack of weight loss? Trainer is stumped too, he isn't a dietician but says how I am eating works for the normal 99% of people. We started at 1200-1400 calories higher on the days of my workouts with him, then as they intensified I'm now on 1400-1600 to see if that would spark a drop in weight. No such luck, still just maintaining. Anyone out there in a similiar situation? Any suggestions? I have 20 lbs to go and need help!

Toblave

Are you measuring/weighing everything? If you make your food diary public, someone might be able to spot something.

LH85DC

Unfortunately, if you aren't losing weight it means that you probably aren't in a deficit, since your blood tests came back normal... How accurately are you tracking your food? Are you weighing and measuring things? You could be eating far more than you think if not. Eating 5 meals a day won't change anything if you're still eating more calories than you're burning. So your 1400-1600 could actually be far more (for example, I don't eyeball or use measuring cups/spoons for peanut butter or ice cream, because I tend to stuff as much as possible into the cup- then I'm actually overeating even though I measured it. I prefer to weigh for calorie dense foods).

How long have you been stuck at your current weight? I'd say that unless it's been more than 3 weeks just the change in your exercise routine and eating patterns could be responsible. If you're working out harder than before or eating lots of salty foods you may retain water.

You may also get more responses if you post this under Weight Loss instead of the maintenance thread.

socajam

I'm at a lost & looking to see if anyone else has experience this or if they have any ideas what direction to go in. I started a weight loss fitness challenge in September of 2013 with my husband @ our local gym. Previously I had lost about 20 lbs on my own & came to a plateau. The trainer there who we work out with twice a week, had us start logging our food here, and gave us a food plan to follow. 5 small meals a day, protein with every meal, no startchy carbs at dinne, been following to a tee. However definitely not seeing the results as the other participants have. Don't get me wrong, i have lost about 10 lbs and a few inches but for 5 months doesn't make sense to me. During these last 5 months, due to the diet discovered i had gallstones, had my gall bladder taken out which i though originally might be contributing to my lack of energy and weight loss. Leading up to finding out about the gall bladder, I had every blood test ran known, Thyroid checked, Vitamin B12, Vitamin D, all normal. Had my horemone levels checked as well all normal. Only thing slightly elevated was the amount of inflammation in my body, not sure if caused by food or workouts. I am currently working out atleast 5 times a week, cardio/strength training. What haven't I looked at that could cause my fatigue and lack of weight loss? Trainer is stumped too, he isn't a dietician but says how I am eating works for the normal 99% of people. We started at 1200-1400 calories higher on the days of my workouts with him, then as they intensified I'm now on 1400-1600 to see if that would spark a drop in weight. No such luck, still just maintaining. Anyone out there in a similiar situation? Any suggestions? I have 20 lbs to go and need help!

Open your diary to get an honest answer (which you may or may not like).

diannethegeek

Hi. I understanding how frustrating stalls can be. Unfortunately, you've posted this on the board for those looking to maintain their current weight, so I'm not sure how many people will see it.

Would you be comfortable opening your diary so that we can take a look at what you're doing? It's possible we might see something that's off a bit. You can open it by going to Settings > Diary Settings > Public and then Save Changes.

The first thing most of us are going to ask is how accurately you're tracking your food. Are you logging everything? Are you using a food scale, measuring cups, or eyeballing your portion sizes? Even with measuring cups, your calories can be off by several hundred calories if you're not using a food scale.

Are you eating back any of your earned exercise calories? If so, are you using a well-calibrated heart rate monitor or gym machine/MFP estimates to determine your burn?

Toblave

Also, the scale often lies. Are your clothes fitting better? Weight may not change on the scale even when body composition does. Have you measured your body fat % or taken your measurements to compare against?

mdshelby13

I've opened up my diary for you to look at. You'll notice that the last couple of weeks, I have up'd my fat intake with what my trainer considers "good fats" and my sugar listed is mostly from fruit. I tried to avoid processed foods, and don't eat out.
My BMI has gone down only 1.5% I believe since September. As for my clothes fitting better, some do, some don't just really depends, I dry EVERYthing! lol -
I do measure all my meats, fruits for my smoothies, etc. Maybe not so much on my veggies at dinner or lunch, but their veggies.
and sorry for posting under the wrong topic - first time doing this, was just looking for some insight on what others may have gone through this as well.

diannethegeek

Do you use measuring cups or a food scale? A lot of people don't realize how big a difference there can be between the reported serving size by volume and by weight. Weighing is always going to be more accurate.

Take, for example, a medium sized sweet potato. A medium sweet potato is about 5 inches long and 2 inches wide and should fit easily in a small hand with room to spare. Was that how big yours was or was it larger? How much larger? That sweet potato could be 130 calories or it might have been closer to 200 calories. The little differences add up throughout the day.

Weighing takes the guess work out of logging. I was really hesitant to switch to the food scale while I was dieting and I lost a good chunk of my weight without one, so I know it can be done. But I found that as I get closer to goal the little differences were causing me to stall more often. Now I weigh everything that goes on my plate and it takes hardly any time at all to do it.

nxd10

Besides measuring and logging every stupid thing you put in your mouth (mayonaise, onions, that lick of cookie batter . . . )

Re-enter your numbers in MFP and recalculate your numbers. When you lose you need to drop calories, but MFP doesn't do that automatically very reliably. Every time I stalled, that was the problem.

Also, carb ratios were important for me. If I have over 40% of my calories from carbs, I have a much harder time losing than if they're under. That is NOT low carb. This is particularly true if you eat a lot of easy-to-digest carbs like sugar, white bread, 'starches', etc. If you've ever been overweight, you may have heightened insulin resistance, and it can make a difference.

Good luck! You are on the maintenance board, though, and should be on the General Diet advice board.

mdshelby13

Dianne, thanks for your imput, i weigh on a food scale at home. But your right with the example of the sweet potato, I'm taking what I think a medium potato is, trying to best guess the size not to mention, I don't always eat the skin but have no way to figure out what the difference is if I only eat the insides.
As far my MFP numbers, my trainer set them, so they are custom, if I follow MFP, my trainer doesn't think its enough, i would be back down to 1200 calories a day. With the amount of exercise I'm doing, i would be starving. I don't log my exercise here as it takes to much time to say 50 push ups, 100 squats, etc. So I just started my fitbit since xmas and put the calories in place, not sure how accurate fit bit is, but I am ALWAYS under those calories burned.

Again, I know I'm on the wrong board, if there is a way to move it just let me know

LH85DC

As far my MFP numbers, my trainer set them, so they are custom, if I follow MFP, my trainer doesn't think its enough, i would be back down to 1200 calories a day. With the amount of exercise I'm doing, i would be starving. I don't log my exercise here as it takes to much time to say 50 push ups, 100 squats, etc. So I just started my fitbit since xmas and put the calories in place, not sure how accurate fit bit is, but I am ALWAYS under those calories burned.

As to the MFP numbers, does that mean that you input to lose 2 lbs a week? Because if you choose an accurate activity level and goal you should probably get more than 1200 calories a day. At 9,000 steps a day you're at least lightly active even before you input your exercise later. Your trainer is probably right, 1200 a day wouldn't likely give you enough energy to work out. How much do you have to lose?

I'll also echo Dianne, especially with something like a 'medium potato' guessing can be detrimental. While weighing can be a pain, it can also be eye opening. Try using your scale for things like the potato too- the base sweet potato entry should give you an option to enter it in increments of 100 grams. So you could weigh your sweet potato, eat what you're going to, and then weigh what's left over if you don't finish it. Enter the difference in your log.

Make sure that you're logging everything, and log as accurately as possible. So, for example, on yesterday's entry for taco meat- is that your own entry created in the recipe creator? Or a generic MFP entry? Because if it's a generic one it could be anything.
Do you add extra salt to your meals? And are you drinking enough water? Because if you aren't drinking much water, you could be seeing water retention from a combination of salty foods and/or muscle repair after your workouts.

(edited because I saw that you already said you do have a food scale!)

spoiledpuppies

I agree about weighing everything, even the veggies--they add up too! I always search for "[veggie name] usda," and sometimes cross-check it with a google search. Packaged things that say X number of servings in the package: weigh those too. You often get more than the package says.

dakotababy

I hit a plateau and it lasted for more than 8 months! It was ridiculous, and I got very similar responses. Let me just say that "you are not eating at a deficit" is tossed around too much, and is not always the case.

Like you, at the time - I worked out often, almost every day - high intensity cardio. I was eating around 1400-1500 calories per day. I finally caved and purchased a fitbit to get a better estimate of the calories i was burning through out the entire day (not just exercise). And just as I suspected, I was not eating enough...by A LOT. I started to follow my fitbit numbers and kept logging away. I actually slowed down on my exercise and BAM - Lost 2 lbs after 1 week.

During this time, i changed up so much. When from cardio to weights. eating more, eating less. reducing carbs, to carb cycling. I even started doing IF for a while (which did work, but then it stopped after a few lbs).

The fitbit was an amazing investment, but I wanted something more accurate since I knew this was going to be the way I would approach things from now on. I bought the Bodymedia Armband and have had it on me almost every day since, now down 20lbs since the plateau.

Basically, the numbers came out to TDEE minus 500 calories...and once in a while to change things up, ill go to a 700 calorie deficit and then back to 500. Based on my numbers provided by the bodymedia armband, the scooby TDEE calculator gave the closest number.

littlebutlean

For myself and the people I've worked with, I always suggest going low carb or carb cycling when hitting a plateau. It's an entirely different approach for the body and never seems to fail.

snapehbp

I hit a plateau and it lasted for more than 8 months! It was ridiculous, and I got very similar responses. Let me just say that "you are not eating at a deficit" is tossed around too much, and is not always the case.

I totally agree!! I was at a plateau for a good 3 months and when I posted some said to eat more. Then of course, someone also posted "you're trying to loose weight why are you eating more?" the usual backhanded comments. I agree with dakotababy that when people say you're not eating at a deficit, well it isn't always the case. Reading your story, what you're going through is the exact same thing I did.

My trainer was also stumped. I measured, weighed everything, ate back half my calories, worked out 5 days a week, used my Polar FT7 HRM.

What worked for me was to drink a boat load of water, 96 oz is my minimum a day and that helped. I always drank a lot but I upped it and it seems to help. I should note while I eat little processed foods my sodium is sometimes high. So I started to chug water to get excess sodium out, and started a banana a day and a grapefruit. Only thing is after 3 weeks of doing this, I still wake up too often to use the bathroom

I also started to do less cardio (only 2 days a week) and 3x strength. So the scale may not move but my clothes are looser and everyone says I'm shrinking.

I would suggest just try different things: types of exercise, take pictures of yourself to see progress even if the scale doesn't budge, etc., It's hard not to get fixated on the scale and I totally get your frustration. But like others have told me, and I try to remind myself this, at least you're not gaining and go by how you feel/clothes fit. Like you, I'm close to my goal weight, so it is harder to loose. Keep it up!

nxd10

Dianne, thanks for your imput, i weigh on a food scale at home. But your right with the example of the sweet potato, I'm taking what I think a medium potato is, trying to best guess the size not to mention, I don't always eat the skin but have no way to figure out what the difference is if I only eat the insides.
As far my MFP numbers, my trainer set them, so they are custom, if I follow MFP, my trainer doesn't think its enough, i would be back down to 1200 calories a day. With the amount of exercise I'm doing, i would be starving. I don't log my exercise here as it takes to much time to say 50 push ups, 100 squats, etc. So I just started my fitbit since xmas and put the calories in place, not sure how accurate fit bit is, but I am ALWAYS under those calories burned.

Again, I know I'm on the wrong board, if there is a way to move it just let me know

I think fitbit is pretty good. If you're eating back those calories and are under, and you're logging accurately, sounds like you're under (assuming your trainer has you set right).

I believe in the laws of thermodynamics. How are your inches and how are you feeling?

ndj1979

I'm at a lost & looking to see if anyone else has experience this or if they have any ideas what direction to go in. I started a weight loss fitness challenge in September of 2013 with my husband @ our local gym. Previously I had lost about 20 lbs on my own & came to a plateau. The trainer there who we work out with twice a week, had us start logging our food here, and gave us a food plan to follow. 5 small meals a day, protein with every meal, no startchy carbs at dinne, been following to a tee.

why five meals a day? why no carbs after dinner? Sounds like a broscinece plan to me..

do you have a food scale?

ten pounds over 5 months would two pounds a month or about .5 pound a week …why don't you reduce your daily calories by 250 and see if you start losing a pound per week?

nxd10

Enter your own stats. What do the MFP algorithms say you should do? As you say, your trainer is not a dietician - he/she knows how to help you exercise safely and effectively.

Since you have a fitbit, enter your stats, set yourself for sedentary, and see what it gives you for baseline. Then look at your fitbit site and see how many calories you are actually burning, on average, over the last few weeks. From that you can calculate what your deficit has been.

That would give you some data to talk about with your trainer as you come up with a plan.

Housekat61

HI there MDShelby! Im Chrys! I was bumpin up against a plateau as well but with my case it was just the need to bump up my strength training which I did and finally broke my plateau. I'm no professional by any means however. I do follow a clean ,and primarily plant based diet. I took a look at your food log and noticed a couple things you might try. Only suggestion mind you.
1. Hamburger is one of the worst meats you could eat. (I suggest going to you tube and watching a video on factory farming) You wouldn't believe what goes into hamburger! Remember if they are injecting the cattle with growth hormones to make the cows fat its in their flesh then YOU eat it , you can pretty much do the math.
2) Milk,,,same thing not to mention the infection and puss in cow milk. Try switching to Almond, Rice or hemp, but not soy.
3) Incorporate more healthier proteins such and egg whites (no yolks) Legumes ,Salmon, sardines ,tuna. If red meat is something you can't live with out try game meats such as Buffalo ,deer and elk . Much healthier if you can access it!
4) Eliminate everything you can thats processed (Things some factory made) Good rule of thumb . The closer to the way Mother Nature made it the better it is for you. If it didn't grow that way think twice. {Mother Nature/God made = Good ...Man made = Bad or questionable at most)
5) No Carbs in the PM Only AM . Have your Bread with Breakfast...Sug.Daves Killer Bread is Awesome! Make it whole grain.
Sweet potatoes are Okay sometimes . I indulge one for dinner every once in a while.
So anyways. This is info I have compiled from my dietitian and other Nutritional specialist.s. I also am working to reverse my type 2 diabetes. My numbers are getting so much better and my weight is going down again and I hope to reach my goal this year. I wish you luck and hope something here was a little help.

allysteven880

plateau diet is one of the interesting pattern for the exercise. you can hit your target if you concentrate your daily workout. this is the simple logic which gives you results.

ninerbuff

With gall bladder removal, your digestion is probably compromised. Most diets I've heard of after gall bladder removal are lower in fats due to the interference of how bile is now used by the intestines.

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
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Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition