Help with my plateau please

ssbmacdaddy

I was loosing weight pretty well up until a month ago. I lost about 40 pounds. I was losing about half a pound per week even though I had myself listed at 2 pounds per week on the caloric limit. For some reason the weight-loss had slowed down. I was also feeling somewhat rundown and tired. The recommendation was to potentially just jumpstart the system by increasing my caloric limit by just changing my setting the goals and listing myself as loosing half a pound per week instead of 2 pounds per week. I definitely feel like my energy has come back and I have been able to feel more energized. I have been doing calisthenics and recently increased rep range and thought that this could be an increase due to muscle gain. If I list myself and losing half a pound per week my current height which is 5 feet 11 inches and weight of 212 pounds my caloric range is about 2100 cal. When I had myself set at 2 pounds per week I was eating in the range of 1350 cal. I would usually add back the exercise calories in those settings so I would range slightly above 1350. I usually exercise burning about 700 cal per day. I do this by doing aerobic circuit training calisthenics - things like the insanity workout and my own additions of push-ups pull-ups and shoulder exercises as well as curls and tricep dips. My goal is to reach 180 pounds. Over the last month to six weeks I have not really lost any weight of been sitting in up-and-down pattern around the same 210 lb range. I i'm not sure now that actually increasing my calories to trying to lose only half a pound a week had any significant benefit on my weight loss and whether it may be extra considering to potentially a weight gain. I'm a little frustrated and confused as to how to break through this plateau. Any ideas or information would be much appreciated. I should also mention I have changed up some of my activities since it being summertime and all. I've added hiking bike,riding bikes to my regimen so if anything I was actually burning more calories now than I ever have previously. I do not eat back all of the exercise calories either. There are sometimes when my neck calories are only 900. This is one of the reasons that I actually increased my caloric range too 2100. Any help would be much appreciated especially from all those with broken through those plateaus and lost in the high ranges of 80 or more pounds. I say this only because I pay total would need to lose approximately 70 pounds from my original weight. Some of your weight-loss numbers on the forms are amazing just the sheer quantity of weight lost his quite impressive. Please share any techniques.

editorgrrl

Set your goal no higher than 1 lb. per week, and log everything you eat & drink accurately & honestly. Get a digital food scale & weigh everything you eat—even packaged food.

Read the Sexypants post: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants

ssbmacdaddy

Set your goal no higher than 1 lb. per week, and log everything you eat & drink accurately & honestly. Get a digital food scale & weigh everything you eat—even packaged food.

Read the Sexypants post: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants

I checked out the link and recalculated my calories. Will watch my measurements too and feel optimistic that it will help break me through weight loss plateau.

ProfessorCurlz

I'm curious as to how much your body fat has changed? Although you are not seeing your weight numbers go down for the past few weeks, what about your inches? Body fat?

SezxyStef

Set your goal no higher than 1 lb. per week, and log everything you eat & drink accurately & honestly. Get a digital food scale & weigh everything you eat—even packaged food.

Read the Sexypants post: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants

This...a plateau indicates you are actually eating at maitenance.

As for prior yes 1350 is too low for a man...and you know that based on your energy levels.

Log accurately and consistently using correct entries and by weight if a solid.

Ninkyou

Set your goal no higher than 1 lb. per week, and log everything you eat & drink accurately & honestly. Get a digital food scale & weigh everything you eat—even packaged food.

Read the Sexypants post: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants

This...a plateau indicates you are actually eating at maitenance.

As for prior yes 1350 is too low for a man...and you know that based on your energy levels.

Log accurately and consistently using correct entries and by weight if a solid.

All of this.

Weigh your foods to make sure you're getting an accurate portion and select the correct entries in the database.

Without an accurate count, you won't get accurate results.

TheMotivator123

How many Carbs are you taking in and what kind of carido are you doing?

ssbmacdaddy

Just wanted to say that these are great responses and thank you to all. I am very frequently encouraged and impressed by all of your results. You all are doing great. I have 2 days ago reset my goals to 1 lb per week loss and listed myself as lightly active. This changed my calories to 2130. I also going to be much more strict and weigh and measure. As far as carbs I have tried to stay at the percentages by mpf. I do not go over the limits. One thing I am guilty of is eating late at night. This happens because I get up early for work and have found it difficult to excercise in the morning- due to both time and getting injured a few times. So when in get home from work I excercise until 10 p and then eat dinner. I sometimes just eat cereal , almond milk and a table spoon of peanut butter. Eating carbs late . I'm trying to switch to a more am workout schedual- but some days it's just not realistic to do so. I will try not to eat late or workout late as it messes with my sleep and begins a bad cycle. I am also one of those weird guys who likes to excercise. I am doing in insanity now and so each workout is different and each 4 weeks it's a new phase with different workouts and different time intensity. I also supplement with push-up, pullup, squat, shoulder lateral raise and press, chair dips, elastaband arm curls, and rubber band rows and reverse lat raise for the back, and ab wheel. I do chest and back on alternate days I only do 10 reps in each move now as when I did 15 got feeling burnt out. Also not looking to bulk anymore just lean out- yet trying not to loose muscle.

Also now I will try just to eat my calories yet not eat back the excercise calories. Yet not a hundred percent that's right either as yesterday had net calories of 800 as had a lot of excercise as it is summer and having fun outdoors and such. Wondering what you think of my approach. Any opinions and dialogue is always appreciated.

SezxyStef

Limited carbs is not going to help you lose weight...as a matter of fact you will find you have less energy to do all the fun stuff.

Eating late at night is not a big deal as long as you stay in goal.

All those myths are just that myths...doesn't matter how many meals, when or what...it's all about how much you eat.

Doing resistence training or lifting weights won't bulk you up...it will lean you out. You won't gain bulk unless you try which means eating at a surplus of maitenance. I lift heavy weights as do lots here and we are not "bulky". That goes for men and women.

To not lose muscle you need to get in 1gram of protien per 1lb of LBM or 0.8g per lb of bodyweight and do some sort of resistence training...a progressive load lifting program works great for that.

As for exercise calories...you should eat some of them back...you need those to fuel your next workout. Never net under 1800....MFP has given you a deficit to lose 1lb a week those exercise calories are bonus but saying that if you are netting low numbers your exercise will suffer and you will lose muscle.

Most suggest eating back 50-75% of those exercise calories...and if you get to your goal then have those extras that when the treats come in .

Treats being those foods that we were all taught were "bad" but really no food is bad...ie beer, pizza, wings etc.

Your goal should be....to eat as much food as you can (treats and nutritious) and still lose the weight you want....

editorgrrl

I have 2 days ago reset my goals to 1 lb per week loss and listed myself as lightly active. This changed my calories to 2130. I also going to be much more strict and weigh and measure.

I will try just to eat my calories yet not eat back the excercise calories. Yet not a hundred percent that's right either as yesterday had net calories of 800 as had a lot of excercise as it is summer and having fun outdoors and such. Wondering what you think of my approach. Any opinions and dialogue is always appreciated.

You're underestimating your food & overestimating your burns. Log everything you eat & drink accurately & honestly. Get a digital food scale and weigh everything you eat—even packaged foods. Learn to identify accurate database entries—there's a whole lot of junk data in there. The first time you log anything, verify the entry against the label. Then always use the verified entry from your recent & frequent lists. If there's no label, look for USDA values.

Your MFP calorie goal has your deficit built in, so you must eat back at least a portion of your exercise calories. The burns are only estimates, so some people reduce the margin of error by eating back half their exercise calories.

Please, read the Sexypants post: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-Sexypants

khara2012

Hope this works for you. I'm going to be checking back in on you. I'm at a plateau myself...

dbcase

I am in the same boat - SO frustrated to be working so hard and, all of a sudden, not seeing the numbers budge. Based on the responses from your post, it sounds like I need to shake things up a bit... change my work-out and add some calories. Admittedly, I am assigned 1,200 calories, I have 1,000 in food and work 400+ off on the treadmill 5 days a week... I am thinking that's a problem...

ssbmacdaddy

Yeh - very frustrating. I am working out a lot. At least 1 1/2 hour each day and really watching not to eat junk food. Overall very clean diet- with a slice of pizza 3 times per week. I have never been over calorie goal. Measure food all the time. Have weekly calorie deficits of 6-8000 below goal weekly. I do eat fruit as I don't eat bread very often. In the last 7 months on mpf I have never been above goal calories. At least according to my measurements. I was doing great up to 8 weeks ago loosing consistently. Lost 40 lb in 7 months. Doing the insanity workout and another 20 minutes of calisthenics like push-ups and pullups. Workout 6 days a week. Also have a job wear I stand 6-8 hours out of my day and even when sitting a a minute at a time do manual work. I just came to a halt 8 weeks ago. Did what folks said. Changed up the calorie. Even remeasured myself as 5 ft 10 not 11. Increased and redid goals and listed myself as light active as workday is on my feet. Relisted as loosing 1 lb per week. Still no budge. The only thing I have not changed is the workout- yet I have added biking and hiking 2 days a week on top of the other stuff I do. I even now got a heart rate monitor by polar to get accurate calorie burn. May even try it at work to see how much I burn just doing daily work. Just for curiosity. Very frustrating indeed. I like doing the excercise I have been doing so I have not changed. I also have p90x videos so I could try that out next round. I like the calisthenics from insanity as they seem to stregthen core more and put me into more natural movement. I have 7 bulging disks and a history of back problems to want to stay out of injury zone. From most folks I heard it's not the excercise but the calories for weight loss. I am very much encouraged by all the you mpf folks who have achieved goal or lost incredible amounts. Any people who can share their plateau story and how they got through it would be appreciated.