Stalled

shanehackney

I have been focus on my new life style for 136 days now. And so far have been very successful. I am down about 49lbs from my all time high, dropping another 50lbs, will put me at he top of the normal range for my height and build of my age. I am not married to a specific weight I need to hit, I will switch to body fat % once I get to closer to my desired body size.

I have however stalled at around this number for about a month now. I have taken a break by going into maintenance given my metabolism a chance to go back to normal for a short period. I did this for about 8 days. After that I did go back to a deficit and have been running it for a 2lbs a week weight loss and it has been about a week and a half since I have gone back into deficit mode with little to no progress in that time. I do run about 20 miles a week and I eat back most of the calories. I use a HRM with my Garmin watch so I am confident in the numbers not being over estimated. I am pretty consistent with measurements and when i cannot measure I over estimate. So my questions to all of you;

1. Do I stick with what I am doing at the deficit level I am currently at (2lbs a week) and just give it more time?
2. Do I change my goal to only 1lbs a week?
3. What other suggestions do all of you have for me to consider.

I knew the progress would slow eventually, but I was not expecting it to become this slow so far from my goal.

Shane

maidentl

You might have already done this but didn't mention it, have you re-evaluated your caloric needs at your new lower weight?

TMattP

I'm interested in how this works out as I'm in exactly the same position. I've been losing steadily over the weeks but have come to a standstill.

MFP re-evaluated my daily calories down from 2150 to 2070 and I've stopped losing weight. I do wonder if I'm over training as I find it impossible to eat back the calories I'm exercising away. Maybe it's a mixture of the two.

I've decided that If I haven't lost any weight this week I'm going to go back to my old calorie limit.

The lack of weight loss is annoying as I'm working so hard at it, but I figure MFP has worked for me so far and it's a very very long time since I was my current weight.

So I guess I'd stick with Option 1. However, would it hurt to only lose 1lb per week? If I've learnt anything using MFP it's that slow and steady wins this particular race.

bidimus

You might have already done this but didn't mention it, have you re-evaluated your caloric needs at your new lower weight?

I agree. Had a similar situation recently. The numbers do change as you lose weight. Not sure if it's helping or not yet but it is looking that way.

shanehackney

I have done this. I update about every 10 lbs.

LunaStar2008

I am at a similar situation and have fallen off the wagon a little.After cutting my calories intake to my new weight I came to a complete stand still. Now I am hovering between 163-167lbs, depending what I ate and if I had a work-out. Haven't logged consistently the last two weeks and need to start doing this again :embarassed: . Also, I added some sweets into the diet (and logged them), but sugar makes you really addicted and I guess I got to cut them out again-it is getting out of control :sad: .

Need some motivation......:indifferent:

Must admit that running is currently very painful for me (will have surgery in September to fix that), but I really miss it. I'd rather run outside in all kinds of weather, then working some machines in a "dusty gym".

Madame_Goldbricker

Weight loss isn't linear sometimes there will be stops/starts/stalls. If you are no longer losing it's because you are no longer hitting a deficit.

However it can sometimes take a few weeks for the scales to move again at all. I've had a few times where the scales have apparently stalled then hit a "woosh" so to speak.

I'm not being funny OP but you state the scales haven't moved for a month? But then state you ate at maintenance 8 of those days?
So that's not really been a month? And those 8 days seem to have been in the middle of the "month"?

Chopping & changing things round is fine - but your body will probably need time to readjust to anything "new" i.e. A new daily calorific goal/increased exercise. If the scales don't move for 4-6wks straight then you know something is off.

Weight loss is unfortunately a slow process & it's never as steady as we hope it'll be.

shanehackney

You are right. It has not been a straight month of deficit. I will give it some more time...