Stuck on the same number for over a month

Maltesers23

Hi, I'm a 19 year old female (height 167 cm) and I started my weight loss journey in May,:explode: 2014 to lose the extra 8 kgs that I've been carrying around for the past 6 years, my starting weight was 66.1 kgs and goal weight was 58 kgs. And I wanted to reach 60 kgs by the time I turn 20 in September, but its been a month since I've been stuck at 63.5 kgs, and its so tough weighing myself and seeing the same number everyday, when I'm doing everything right...I eat the required amount of Vegetables, drink 3 litres of water & 2 cups of Green Tea and have reduced the sugary foods I used to eat before. I also do brisk walking for 30 minutes (sometimes 40) and climb stairs as much as I can.
Please help! And if you've had a similar experience then kindly share what you did to get over it!1

MinnieInMaine

Are you eating within your calorie goal? Are you logging your food consistently (every day) and accurately (weighing)? Do you eat back calories burned from exercise?

erickirb

measure liquid calories with measuring cups and spoons, and weigh all solid food. If you are not doing these, then you may be eating 10-50%+ more than you think you are

choll80

All I can say is that the same thing happened to me and then BAM the pounds started falling off. Hang in there!!

Mischievous_Rascal

All of the above, plus read this:

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

BillRicks1

Eat at a slight deficit, work out, have patience. Wash, rinse, repeat daily. Keep your goal in the front of your mind and have faith you'll get there.

Maltesers23

Thanks, it was initially hard for me to track my calories on myfitnesspal because it used to take time to load, but now I've been consistently logging the past week and I've been 200 calories under my calorie goal everyday. I just want to know if there is any thing going wrong inside of me, like should I test for thyroid?

MKEgal

"Most weight loss occurs because of decreased caloric intake.
However, evidence shows the only way to maintain weight loss is to be engaged in regular physical activity."
http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/physical_activity/index.html

You have so little to lose, you should expect maybe 1/2 lb (250g) per week,
and to do that you need to cut your intake by 250 calories per day from what you're eating now.
Maybe even aim for 500 cal below, just to get started, then add back 100 cal at a time until you're losing at a healthy rate.

Do not eat back exercise calories. That's a very common mistake.
Most people underestimate what they eat & overestimate what they burn (don't rely on what MFP tells you).

2 simple ways to decide on appropriate calorie intake for losing weight.

1 - use a BMI chart to find a healthy goal weight (in the green range) in pounds, then multiply that by 10.
There's your calories.

2 - multiply your current weight in lb by 10, then subtract 250 - 500 cal per day.

Is your goal weight in a healthy weight range? If not, that could also be why you're not losing more easily.


No, you probably don't need to test for thyroid. If you had thyroid problems you'd have more wrong than just losing weight slowly.
http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/hypothyroidism-symptoms

Symptoms of hypothyroidism usually appear slowly over months or years. Symptoms and signs may include:
•Coarse and thinning hair.
•Dry skin.
•Brittle nails.
•A yellowish tint to the skin.
•Slow body movements.
•Cold skin.
•Inability to tolerate cold.
•Feeling tired, sluggish, or weak.
•Memory problems, depression, or problems concentrating.
•Constipation.
•Heavy or irregular menstrual periods that may last longer than 5 to 7 days.

Some less common symptoms may include
•An enlarged thyroid gland (goiter).
•Modest weight gain, often 10 lb (4.5 kg) or less.
•Swelling of the arms, hands, legs, and feet, and facial puffiness, particularly around the eyes.
•Hoarseness.
•Muscle aches and cramps

Maltesers23

Thank you MKEgal, that info does really help! And before subtracting the calories I expended though exercise, I'm 200 calories less than my goal.
Also, my weighing scale often displays the number without calculating the weight (i.e. it skips the buffering interval) and it is the same as what I previously weighed as, so is it unreliable?

negator5543

Taken from https://suite.io/robert-rister/5c1n2t7

Almost every quick weight loss plan involves the loss of what is termed "water weight." Releasing 3 to 4 pounds of water stored in your liver helps you lose a little weight fast. Storing 20 to 30 pounds of water in your fat cells causes the dreaded weight loss plateau. Sometimes it is necessary to eat more to help your fat cells expel excess water.

There are two kinds of water weight you can lose quickly.

One kind of easily lost water weight is the extra fluid in the plasma in your bloodstream and in the interstitial fluids between your cells. This is the fluid your kidneys retain when you eat a lot of salt. The various electrical functions of the body require that plasma and interstitial fluids contain sodium, one of the chemical components of table salt, in a very narrow range.

Your kidneys produce more urine or less urine to keep sodium concentrations constant. When your body uses the excess sodium (and it uses most of it to transport glucose inside cells), then your kidneys can let go of the extra fluid. That's how diuretics help you lose weight.

Another place water is stored that can be lost very quickly is in the liver. One of the most important functions of the liver is storing glucose for quick energy. After all, if your body couldn't store glucose for later use, you would have to eat all night rather than sleep.

Every time the liver stores a single molecule of glucose, it combines it with four molecules of water. Every time it uses a single molecule of the glycogen it makes to release sugar, it also releases four molecules of water. This means that if you don't eat carbs for a day or two and your liver runs out of glycogen, you will have lost a noticeable amount of water, too.

Within a few hours of eating more carbohydrates than you need immediately, your liver will put that water weight right back on. But you can lose, and regain, four to seven pounds of this kind of water weight very easily. Just don't eat carbs for a day or so. Four to seven pounds weight loss, all temporary weight loss, is the limit with this method. Since the water is chemically bound to glucose and stored inside liver cells, it's out of reach of diuretics.

No one should go through the motions of dieting to lose weight just to put it right back on. But if you pursue any long-term weight loss plan, after a few weeks water weight will be a concern in a different way. The science of long-term water weight loss was discovered during the first half of the twentieth century, when there was greater concern with famine than obesity. It has almost been forgotten.

Water weight and the plateau effect
Back in the days when scientists studied weight loss prevention rather than weight loss promotion, when famine was a real problem for much of the world, many studies focused on the phenomenon called "famine edema."

When people starved, they would invariably put on water weight around their ankles and in their fingers, and then in the rest of their body. The problem would at first come every afternoon and then go away by morning, but the longer people were starved, the more permanent the swelling became. As the condition progressed, the sac containing the heart could fill with fluid. This was the condition once called hydrops, or "dropsy."

Over and over again, in studies of starvation that appeared in the medical journals between World War I and a few years after the end of World War II, scientists reported that starving people lost fat, but they didn't lose weight, because their bodies retained water. The swelling due to accumulated water typically became so great after about the twentieth week of starvation that weight loss stopped entirely. And here's the finding that the gurus of weight loss who believe that starvation slows down the metabolism miss:

Invariably, when victims of starvation were found and fed, weight loss not only did not stop, it accelerated.

Starving doesn't slow down your metabolism. It increases it. Study after study after study has found this. Apparently weight loss experts usually don't have time to read studies. Most experts ignore a very simple principle:

When fat goes out of your fat cells, water goes in
This water is out of the reach of your kidneys. It's not the water that is combined with glucose to make glycogen, so you can't burn it off. It's inside the fat cells, so you can't measure it with a tape measure or fat calipers.

At first this water accumulation sets in late in the day and is gone by morning. There's a biological reason for this. Dieters and famine victims alike are more active during the day than at night. Every time a fat cell releases fat, it takes in sodium (as part of the chemical mechanism for the process), and sodium attracts water into the cell.

Fat cells also have a process for getting rid of their excess interior sodium supply and that can work when they aren't quite so busy at night. Eventually, however, the fat cell is too "tired" to get rid of its fluid and the swelling is permanent. When the famine victim is finally fed, however, the fat cells then have enough energy to get rid of their excess sodium and water, so for a short time, feeding famine victims results in weight loss.

You don't want to become a famine victim just to lose weight. The moral of the story is that eating for a while, not eating while you're busy doing other things, and then eating again, rather than grazing constantly, gives your fat cells a chance to burn fat without becoming waterlogged. Even the best diets for quick weight loss work better if they are not followed too closely. You'll actually lose more weight if you don't diet too hard.

Maltesers23

@negator5543 Thank you so much for the information! Will definitely try reducing the carbs for a day or too and then see the results