Plateau reached !! Help me !

samtodner

Hi guys, thanks in advance for any help available post reading this !
Trying to give as much detail as possible to be accurate.

Ok - the story so far. I've lost around 4.5 stone on the weightwatchers diet before reaching a plateau, and eventually after trying all the lipobinds etc, I decided to join a gym to up my exercise as I didnt get much and struggled to maintain motivation.

After a couple of weeks, I came across the notion that perhaps I wasn't getting enough nutrition on the WW diet whilst exercising, so I came off that and onto a calorie controlled diet. My BMR is around 1800 cals, and I switched to eating 1300 on rest days, and eating back my burned calories on exercise days.

I then moved up from 3 gym sessions a week to 5 or 6, and use a personal trainer once a week to keep motivation up. I now burn around 700 calories a session, over about 1.25 hours.

Unfortunately, because I work till 5 or 6 at night, we don't hit the gym until around 7, and thus don't eat tea until around 8 or 9. I know that eating carbs so late in the day is bad for me, but I can't eat every meal without them ! and I can't eat my main meal at work.

Ok, that out the way, I have been weighing myself on our digital scales around once a week or less frequent. After initially losing around 6lbs when starting the calorie controlled diet, I have lost nothing for a long time, and my Body fat percentage is still showing the same as when I first started the gym !!!

Some points from this... I know I must be losing body fat, as my measurements are decreasing, but I am reasonably sure the scales are working ok, as myt boyfriend has no issues from them ? Also, I'm pretty sure I must be building muscle as I am able to use the resistance machines on higher weights than when I first started... ?

My thoughts are this... I'm going to try not eating back all my exercise calories (I struggle with this anyway), as well as my 500 calorie deficit each day. I'm also going to cut out the post-workout snacks that my boyfriend suggested I eat (peanut butter on bread and mars/snickers bars) as I think they are more for weight training than anything.

Can anybody suggest anything else which might be causing the plateau ? I was initially worried about my body going into starvation mode (my reason for coming off WW) but apparently this shouldn't be an issue at 30% fat?

Again, many thanks for reading the long essay ! Any help is appreciated !

southweststan

Hi

If your shape is changing like you say then I wouldn't worry too much. You are probably building muscle and loosing fat which seems evident as you are able to do higher weights on the machines and your measurements are decreasing. This may mean your weight stays the same for a while but it's not all about the scales, your body shape can be just as important.

pmjsmom

I heard about this on another thread:

http://www.sparkpeople.com/mypage_public_journal_individual.asp?blog_id=4194173

This woman went from a size 14 to a size 4--all while weighing around 160 pounds!

If you are using the scale to measure your body fat--well, they are not accurate at all as the number they show depends a LOT on your level of hydration. See if they can measure your body fat at the gym. That should be more accurate.

How quickly you can lose weight also depends a lot on how much you have to lose. The less you have to lose the harder it will be and the slower it will come off.

I agree you should cut out your current after-workout snack but change it to something healthier--lean protein and complex carbs. Get rid of the sugar (candy) and that should help.

Whatever you do--don't give up! It sounds like you have been doing very well so far!