6 month Weight loss stall?! female 19, 5'2" help please?

ranariad

Hey there! Background:

I'm 19, 5'2" and I weigh between 132-136 for over 6 months now. Keep gaining and losing the same 4 pounds!
- I ate only 1000 calories/day for about 3 months and worked out burning at least 400 calories 4 times a week.
- by April, with no weight loss luck I upped intake to 1000-1400 net calories, still no success
- bought a heart rate monitor and now I'm positive I burn about 1700-2100 calories per week while eating a net of about 1200 per day.
- exercise is lots of cardio and strength training too
- measurements don't seem to say that I've lost any inches instead?

What do I do? Has my metabloism been damaged by the restriction? Am I eating too much now? Am I eating too much? Anyone have advice? I am starting to feel hopeless, like I'll never reach my goal weight help?

mea9

Eat more. Try eating your exercise calories. I know it sounds funny but...

J5lester

Most weight loss programs tend to hit a plateau. You are right, you were eating WAY too few calories to start and may still be. You are only 19 and should have a pretty good going metabolism. One suggestion to you is that you completely revamp your workout. Your body may be "used to" the same old thing. Switch it up. Try a new class at the gym or if you are a home workout warrior, get some new DVDs to try. New exercises can not only help reinspire you, but they can trick your body too. Another suggestion is just to have your thyroid checked. A underactive thyroid can make it very hard to lose weight. Lastly, if your diet still consists of any "white" foods like white breads, white rice, white pasta...get rid of them. They can make you hold onto water weight too.
Good luck! Don't give up! Also, learn to love the you at the weight you are at, because even 135 can be FABULOUS!

crazycat828

You are not eating enough and possibly butting up against starvation mode.. eat at least 1300 calories broken up into 5 smaller spaced out meals is my technique.

yanicka

Did you try going to maintenance for a few weeks? 6 months is a long time to not lose weight. Did you see your doctor to make sure you don't have anything else going on.

I am thinking that you did major damage to your metabolisme when you ate only 1000 calories. Did you gain weight when you started eating your exercice calories back?

Do you mesure everything you eat?

SailingMike

1. Never eat less than 1200 calories, it does NOT help you loose weight.

2. Do NOT worry about how much you weight, focus on how you FEEL. Its about being healthy NOT being skinny. Mary Lou Rettin (google her) the famous Olympic Gymnast recently said in an interview, that she does not allow scales in her house!

3. Enjoy your life! Don't deprive yourself. Take a bite of cake, it won't kill you!

4. Look at WHAT you are eating. Make sure you are getting plenty of protein and vegetables.

You are NOT fat... relax

Simomofmich

My suggestions:

Eat at least 1400 calories day.
Keep carbs around the 100 count.
Increase your protein.
Drink 10 glasses of water a day.
East something every 3 hours.
Try to increase your exercise routine to 3500 calories a week.
Just weigh yourself once a week. Period.
Good luck!

ranariad

Yeah I try to change up my workouts a lot actually. And I eat very little processed foods. I've even began cycling or zigzagging calories. I upped my net calorie goal to 1330 and I pretty much average that net goal ore the course of a week. Is that still too little?

progue10

Try six small meals a day, 1 hour 4x per interval cardio training, make sure you have carb intake after workout. strength train 3x per week, large muscle groups. More pure protien will help also.

maidentl

I read this elsewhere: "Research shows that yo-yo dieting and eating disorders do not permanently affect metabolic rate." So I think you're OK there. My suggestion, if you aren't already doing it, would be to add strength training to your routine. Muscle is the most metabolically active tissue and will help accelerate your fat loss. It's the reason men tend to lose faster than women.

jujubean1992

not enough cals! i'm 5'1" and currently weigh 146.6. and all the other calorie counting sites/calculators say i should eat no less than 1350... and that's the lowest i've found and that is with my deficit in there for weight loss. try finding calculators like i did and input your info and see what you get.

sleepytexan

don't give up! I was stuck for an entire year before I knew to eat back my exercise calories.

in general your diary looks very good. I would offer the following suggestions:

1. you are very close to goal. change your weekly weight loss goal to 1 lb. or (preferably) 1/2 lb. (don't worry--you haven't been losing anything! this should help kick start you into at LEAST 1/2 lb./week, maybe more. If you're at 1200 cals you're probably set up for 2 lbs. loss/week and that is not feasible for someone so small, in fact it will cause you to gain.

2. Eat every bit of your exercise calories (if possible) on the day that you earn them. If you have a very high burn day and can't eat them all, try to take the next day off of exercise and transfer some of the exercise credit over to the new day--eat them all. That way you reconcile within in 24 hours. Don't even leave 100 cals in the green if possible.

3. When you go over cals into the red, try to keep that overage within 200 cals.

4. Have patience. You have definitely stalled your metabolism, but it will come back.

5. Read labels and avoid partially hydrogenated oils (PHOs) and corn syrup whenever possible.

good luck!

blessings.

It's what works best for me.

ranariad

Wow thank you so much (: I changed my goal to 1/2 pound and it set my net calorie goal at 1410. Hopefully that's not too high . I'll continue eating back exercise calories and we'll see from there! I appreciate everyone input (: