Nearing Goal Weight- Increase or decrease calorie intake??

caburkhardt

I am about 4 pounds away from my goal weight, but have plateaued for the past three months or so. I tried being patient and waiting it out, just continuing my diet and exercise routine that resulted in 24 pounds lost, thinking it would eventually budge, but it doesn't look like it will.

So my question is this- is there ANY way to know if you should increase or decrease your net calorie intake to lose weight? I have heard it argued both ways, but don't want to undo any progress I have made, and to be honest, I am frustrated because my "deadline" for my loss is my birthday in 1 month! I know that this topic has been debated on these forums more than once, but there seems to be a lot of conflicting advice.

In case it helps, I am 5'4" and currently 121 lbs. I have been pretty darn good at maintaining a net calorie intake of ~1250 kcal/day; more if I have a particularly rigorous workout.

ANY suggestions/tips from people who have gotten unstuck from their near-goal plateau would be VERY much appreciated! Thank you!

DrJenO

With a BMI of 20.7, your body is going to be very reluctant to lose anymore weight. You might want to look into body recomp if you are still unhappy with your appearance.

Another thing is to tighten up your food tracking. Are you measuring your liquids and weighing all your solids? Are you getting enough protein? Are you exercising and eating back 50-75% of your exercise calories? The closer you get to goal, the more important 20 calories here and 50 calories there become. For someone who is overweight or obese, a 100-200 calorie swing won't make that much difference, but for you it would make all the difference.

caburkhardt

With a BMI of 20.7, your body is going to be very reluctant to lose anymore weight. You might want to look into body recomp if you are still unhappy with your appearance.

Another thing is to tighten up your food tracking. Are you measuring your liquids and weighing all your solids? Are you getting enough protein? Are you exercising and eating back 50-75% of your exercise calories? The closer you get to goal, the more important 20 calories here and 50 calories there become. For someone who is overweight or obese, a 100-200 calorie swing won't make that much difference, but for you it would make all the difference.

Thanks for your input! After having plateaued for a month and a half, I did get particularly anal about logging, and I have increased my daily protein intake hoping to minimize any muscle loss. The only thing I haven't heard before is the whole eating back your exercise calories... does this mean if my net calorie goal is 1250, and I have a workout that burns 400 calories, I should adjust my calorie intake to 1450-1550?

rodduz

I would drop my calorie intake a further 200 calories and introduce re-feeds (Google them) Massively important aspect of losing that last bit of weight. Basically if you're following a low cal/low carb diet your body goes in to starvation mode, leptin levels fall (leptin is responsible for fat loss), you lose no more weight. Have a re-feed with carbs every 4-5 days, leptin levels rise and stay risen until your next re-feed. Weight continues to disappear. Don't be worried about the re-feed day and eating excess calories and carbs. Nobody got fat in a day!

Eating back your calories depends on the method you used to calculate them in the first place. MFP uses a method of calculating which you can eat back your calories. This is not essential however. You used the number 1200 calories. So if your'e eating that much a day I would go by how hungry you feel. If you're hungry eat some of the burned calories back, if not then don't. I would certainly not eat them all back and certainly not just for the sake of it. Personally I don't like the way MFP works it out, prefer the BMR & Harris-Benedict method.

In relation to maintaining your current muscle mass, I hope you are lifting heavy as possible for much less reps. Diet should be the main contributor to fat loss on a deficit and use weight training only as a tool for preserving muscle, as it's pretty impossible to build any on a big deficit in any case.

For example, I'm on an fairly quick result/extreme cut for a holiday in a few weeks. My training routine has had the majority of volume slashed from it, no reps in hypertrophy ranges, pointless as you'll not build any muscle, just lose it if anything as there's not enough calories to go round so your body will eat your own muscles before it eats your fat, as it wants the fat for survival! Couldn't care less about your muscles! The only way to stop the body eating those precious muscles is to lift heavy! Body thinks then, woah I need these bad boys, keep a hold of them and burn the last of that stubborn fat.

One more thing you may be interested in that I use, and they work very well. Mini fasts. Do one in your first week, second week try two. It's basically a day where you eat as little as possible. Don't worry about hitting minimum protein/fats for that day, it'll make no difference. Over the week the extra deficit adds up! BIG TIME! And over even more weeks, adds up EVEN more. It's quite intense and needs some will power mind. But that's how I like to do things. Much prefer to eat happily and then have a crash weight loss for a few weeks than constantly be in a long drawn out deficit/diet. This method will work for you to lose that last bit of fat though.