6 Month Plateau... Looking for Advice/Help

reneelee

We must be twins I'm dealing with the same issue. I'm just hanging in there and trying to keep positive, never going to give up.
On Biggest Loser they said something that hit home with me so I wrote it on my large dry erase boar in the kitchen, 'Finish what You Started" . So lets all hang in there and never give up!

00trayn

I think that this and many forums on this web cite need to rethink the perils of steady-state cardio (The kind of exercise where you maintain a specific heart rate for long periods of time.) When you do steady state card you are only giving your body half the benefits of exercise. A key reason why you should increase your resistance/ Strength training days is EPOC or exercise post oxygen consumption. This is when you body becomes in oxygen debt and in turn burns more calories after you workout. Some Personal trainers call it after burn, but is associated with anaerobic training from Strength training, or metabolic circuits. To help break through your pleatu I would suggest the fallowing.

1) Add 2 Strength training days a week, taking away two running days.
a) one of those days should be a metabolic circuit, talk to you trainer they should be able to help you design this. But consists of doing 2-3 exercises right after another with 60-90 second rest in-between sets.
2) Get some sleep. Make sure you get 6-8 hours of sleep every night.
3) Eat your BMR at a minimum - What others were talking about in this forum is when you are on a extreme caloric restriction you body can become catabolic. When this happens you body tends to hold on to fat and look for other things to burn as fuel.
I hope this helps.

I've been doing HIIT running intervals twice a week, where I'm running at my max speed for 1/4 mile, then walk for 2-3 minutes to recover. I did one of those yesterday for 5K total. I'm definitely planning to replace at least one cardio day with a strength day, and probably shorten one cardio day to include a 20 minute strength circuit. My trainer actually already has me doing a metabolic circuit with him once a week, I didn't realize that's what it was called tho. We have a set of 3 circuit exercises set up, I do all 3 and then rest and repeat. My BMR I think is about 1370, so I eat that as a minimum every day, even my low calorie zigzag day is at least 1300. And I love sleep, minimum 7-8 hours a night.

00trayn

Hi! I'm a PT and just posted on this yesterday!

www.fitnesswithnatalie.blogspot.com

I hope it helps!

I read that! Great blog! It was the reason that I realized strength training was needed. I've got the food down (I just have to stop overeating and over-drinking on the weekends) and I do tons of cardio. It was strength training that I've been slacking on, so my new plan is to add more.

Hardemanwifey

Bump all great suggestions I will be using

plentyoo7

This sounds really naive, but does the zig zagging with the calories really make a difference?
I've been in this plateau for far too long and I'm at wits end.
Recent change: eating more including calories burned during exercise.
After getting on MFP I realized I was eating really low, about 1200 calories a day. I've upped it to 1400 and well today I'll start to go a bit higher just to change things up a bit.
::crosses fingers::

Looking again through previous posts and DUH. I guess it does. If you can't tell I'm slightly desperate.

melsinct

This sounds really naive, but does the zig zagging with the calories really make a difference?
I've been in this plateau for far too long and I'm at wits end.
Recent change: eating more including calories burned during exercise.
After getting on MFP I realized I was eating really low, about 1200 calories a day. I've upped it to 1400 and well today I'll start to go a bit higher just to change things up a bit.
::crosses fingers::

Looking again through previous posts and DUH. I guess it does. If you can't tell I'm slightly desperate.

I was in a plateau for six weeks. I upped my calories from 1200 to 1400 a few weeks ago and the scale just started to move again this week. Upping calories seemed to have worked for me!

ajbeans

I looked back through your diary briefly, and you say that 1270 is your "low day," but I saw at least two days where you were far below that. You're well below your calories every day from what I can see. Perhaps you're just simply not eating enough. Have you tried just eating more for a couple of weeks to see what happens? With as much exercising as you're doing, you need to give your body enough fuel to do its job properly. If it were me, I would just try eating more for a couple of weeks and see what happens. You might gain a pound or two initially if your metabolism has slowed, but it should start coming back off pretty quickly. I wasn't in a plateau, but I went through a period of eating right around maintenance calories for a while because I was stressed out, and when I lowered my goal again the weight dropped pretty rapidly. Sometimes our bodies just need a break from "dieting."

00trayn

I looked back through your diary briefly, and you say that 1270 is your "low day," but I saw at least two days where you were far below that. You're well below your calories every day from what I can see. Perhaps you're just simply not eating enough. Have you tried just eating more for a couple of weeks to see what happens? With as much exercising as you're doing, you need to give your body enough fuel to do its job properly. If it were me, I would just try eating more for a couple of weeks and see what happens. You might gain a pound or two initially if your metabolism has slowed, but it should start coming back off pretty quickly. I wasn't in a plateau, but I went through a period of eating right around maintenance calories for a while because I was stressed out, and when I lowered my goal again the weight dropped pretty rapidly. Sometimes our bodies just need a break from "dieting."

I have days where I don't log everything I eat, especially on the weekends when I don't have nutrition info for anything. So if you see a day Thurs-Sunday without a complete day filled in, it's because I didn't log it, but I definitely ate it... hahaha. I only have that one day at 1270 once a week, and the rest I consume at least 1400-1500, depending on the schedule.

Robertlawnicki

And I thought that I was the only person with this problem. I have lost 71 lbs, it has taken one year and 4 months.
I have only lost 5 lbs in the last 6 months of my life change " diet" . Losing the 71 lbs is great , but that is it.
My ave. intake per day, for the last 234 days is: 1230g cal., 150g carb., 37g fat, 81g prot., 1733g sod., 33g sug., and 15g fib.
I am working out 7 days a week and have, for the past two weeks intensity traning. I have tried to take in more cal. due to
working out, I put on 4 lbs. I am not going to give up, but it sure can get you down. It helps to see that other people are
working as hard to overcome the stop in weight loss. Thanks for all the input.

Robertlawnicki

What do you mean by 60% prot., 25% carb. and 15% fat. Is that relative to your body weight vs intake?

00trayn

Its the percentage of calories that you're eating. You can set it manually in MFP. So 60% of your calories come from protein, 25% from carb, 15% from fat. I like the ratio 50% carb, 25% fat, 25% protein, it works for me.

I'd definitely suggest eating more. Once you've gotten to the point that we're both at, 1200ish calories won't cut it anymore, esp with that workout schedule. Try gradually upping your calories. The 4 lbs you put on is just an adjustment by your body, probably water retention and the extra food "in your system". Keep at it and the scale should respond after a week or two. But eating more is definitely what you need.