What has worked for your last twenty lbs?

veganbaum

I lost thirty five pounds last year. I maintained my weight loss through my first year of law school, then gained four pounds while out of state for six weeks, then lost the four pounds. I have 22 pounds to lose to get to my goal weight. So my question is - for those of you who lost weight then had to get that LAST 15-20 pounds off, what worked for you? I lost the first 35 fairly easily, but now the rest will not budge.

ARighteousWoman

i will LOOOOOOVE to know too...i am on my last 15 and its a nightmare shedding them off!

Erin_26

I would like to know the secrets to this, too! I have lost 13 and have 18 left. It's not easy!!!!! I have cut out all carbs and that seems to be helping slowly.

ARighteousWoman

I would like to know the secrets to this, too! I have lost 13 and have 18 left. It's not easy!!!!! I have cut out all carbs and that seems to be helping slowly.

man...the carbs?!?!"?!?!?!?! pray for me...

LauraMarie37

Eating my exercise calories, but setting myself at "lose 1.5 lbs per week" helped me lose the first five of my final ten pounds pretty quickly. I plateaued again with only 5 pounds left so I am now trying upping my calories to "lose 1 lb per week", intensifying my workouts, and seeing how that goes.

ChantalGG

Ummmmm.... It has been such a struggle. i was eating 1200 ( to lose 1 lb or more a week) for two months and i lost a few lbs and then i stopped at 145, going up and down, i was stuck there for 1 and 1/2 months. A week and a half ago i raised my calories to 1500 (to lose 1/2 a lb a week) and i think *crosses fingers* that i will be weighing in tomorrow at 141lb. i was doing a lot of toning stuff and the scale didnt want move with that.

cwojo

I feel your pain. Have 15 to go and can't get there. It is a slow process. :sad:

taso42_DELETED

Do's:
1. figure out your approximate TDEE
2. subtract a reasonable deficit, say 500 calories per day
3. eat those calories as cleanly as possible 6 days/week (1 day can be a splurge day)
4. exercise 6 days a week

Don'ts:
1. worry *too* much about macros. find a reasonable balance. 40/30/30 or 50/30/20 or 35/35/30... are all "close enough"
2. worry much about meal timing. (you can eat late at night; don't obsess over whether to drink a shake before or after your workout, etc)
3. cut out whole food groups - e.g., carbs are your friend, unless you're one of the small percentage of people who are insulin resistant
4. chronically under-eat
5. let one bad decision ruin your whole day

flutterqueen04

I never understood this whole last few pounds thing....like how does your body know that you want to lose 5, 10, 15, or more pounds?

I think the problem is just plateauing and your body getting used to the fitness/eating regime you've been on to lose the weight you've lost so far. My advice would be is to try to switch up your workouts. Add something new into replace something. Same with your calories. Try eating a little more actually, or zig zagging to throw off your body. Sometimes it takes taking a few days off from exercising and calorie counting to shock your body back into losing.

If this helps to give you hope....I lost 60lbs. No one pound was harder to lose than the next. I never really found myself stuck for more than 2 weeks. What did I do? Nothing magical, I just made sure I switched up my workout every 3-4 weeks. I zig zagged my calories. I upped them some weeks, lowered back other weeks. I allow myself to have free days where I go over (not a ton but enough) usually just a few hundred over my maintenance amount. This shocked my body and usually within one to two days, with drinking plenty of water to flush away bloat, I was down another pound or two.

There is hope. Just quit thinking of it as your last few pounds. Your body doesn't know the difference

criscole

...The toning stuff is working it's just that you may have reached a plateau of which means you need to increase either the time of your cardio or the intensity of it. The harder and the longer you workout the more fat is burned and increasing your weights will help too but aerobic cardio is the real fat burner.. If you can't do both increase the time or the speed try one or the other...
Good Luck

juliapurpletoes

well, I only had 20 to lose, and it was slow going, took 5 months. I did a ton of research and this is what it boiled down to for me.

ACCURACY - you have no wiggle room anymore!

Retweak your goals to 1/2 pound per week. (or a 15% deficit from your maintanace cals) And, be mindful to really choose the appropriate lifestyle setting here.

In everything.....weigh your food, don't use cups, spoons or eye ball it.......use a food scale and weigh it like it is rocket science. (got to be fun!)

Eat back all exercise calories (minus the adjustment for what you would have burned just sitting around on the couch.) Speaking of that use a HRM. databases and machines use very generic calculators.....you need something more personal to your body.

Don't become a cardio maniac....add in strength training.

Try to breathe because it won't happen fast, there will be plateaus....just know it will happen!

veganbaum

Do's:
1. figure out your approximate TDEE
2. subtract a reasonable deficit, say 500 calories per day
3. eat those calories as cleanly as possible 6 days/week (1 day can be a splurge day)
4. exercise 6 days a week

Don'ts:
1. worry *too* much about macros. find a reasonable balance. 40/30/30 or 50/30/20 or 35/35/30... are all "close enough"
2. worry much about meal timing. (you can eat late at night; don't obsess over whether to drink a shake before or after your workout, etc)
3. cut out whole food groups - e.g., carbs are your friend, unless you're one of the small percentage of people who are insulin resistant
4. chronically under-eat
5. let one bad decision ruin your whole day

What is TDEE? (total daily energy expenditure?? - how do I figure that out?) I think I do chronically undereat because I am vegan and with all the veggies, it's really easy to undereat while still being full, I do think that might be something to work on.

And I was not exercising during law school, just walking my dog, so I can't change a routine that I didn't have! (If you've been through your first year of law school - you understand; I was grateful not to gain weight while chronically sleep deprived and stressed - unlike some of my classmates). I am exercising now and determined to continue a workable exercise routine when I start school.

veganbaum

I would like to know the secrets to this, too! I have lost 13 and have 18 left. It's not easy!!!!! I have cut out all carbs and that seems to be helping slowly.

man...the carbs?!?!"?!?!?!?! pray for me...

I'm sorry, but I will never cut carbs. We need them for energy - the best I could do would be to reduce them. I mostly eat whole grains - brown rice, oats, though I will have a piece of peanut butter toast sometimes after a workout.

Rae6503

SLOW AND STEADY. Although I didn't start with that many. But it's taken me 13 months to lose what I have.

I eat a LOT. I have my goal at 0.5lbs / week, activity level at lightly active. I eat my exercise calories and often go over a little. It often takes me 2 weeks or so to see the scale move. I'm okay with that. I'll get there eventually.

My new goal is to get 130 grams of protein each day (1 gram for every estimated pound of lean body mass).

robin52077

Do's:
1. figure out your approximate TDEE
2. subtract a reasonable deficit, say 500 calories per day
3. eat those calories as cleanly as possible 6 days/week (1 day can be a splurge day)
4. exercise 6 days a week

Don'ts:
1. worry *too* much about macros. find a reasonable balance. 40/30/30 or 50/30/20 or 35/35/30... are all "close enough"
2. worry much about meal timing. (you can eat late at night; don't obsess over whether to drink a shake before or after your workout, etc)
3. cut out whole food groups - e.g., carbs are your friend, unless you're one of the small percentage of people who are insulin resistant
4. chronically under-eat
5. let one bad decision ruin your whole day

What is TDEE? I think I do chronically undereat because I am vegan and with all the veggies, it's really easy to undereat while still being full, I do think that might be something to work on.

And I was not exercising during law school, just walking my dog, so I can't change a routine that I didn't have! (If you've been through your first year of law school - you understand; I was grateful not to gain weight while chronically sleep deprived and stressed - unlike some of my classmates). I am exercising now and determined to continue a workable exercise routine when I start school.

Taso is 100% correct.

And TDEE is your Total Daily Energy Expenditure. The amount of calories your body normally burns throughout the course of a typical day just living your life. Do NOT confuse with BMR.
Your TDEE is otherwise known as "maintenance" calories, or what you would need to eat in order to stay exactly the same. Make a SMALL deficit off of that and stick to it daily.
Basically you can just set your MFP goal to HALF a pound a week, which will be a small deficit off your TDEE, like you need.

Undereating can be as bad as overeating. I eat 2000 a day at 5'2" 110 lbs. No need to ever feel hungry. And make sure you get all your protein and fats, most people get way too little protein (aim for about 100g) and they also fear fats. Fats don't make you fat. ALL the macros are important to your body and it's not safe to cut ANY of them down to almost nothing.
Like Taso said, don't obsess over whether to use 40/30/30 or 50/30/20 or whatever, as long as you aren't cutting anything down to like 10% or anything, that could be bad.

taso42_DELETED

What is TDEE? (total daily energy expenditure?? - how do I figure that out?

Yep exactly.

You can get a ballpark estimate from online calculators. Here's one: http://www.webmd.com/diet/healthtool-metabolism-calculator.
They all seem to give slightly different results, but usually within the same ballpark.

I find that the number the webmd one spits out is pretty darn close to reality. If you find that it's not, you can tweak it by doing trial and error.

Rae6503

I never understood this whole last few pounds thing....like how does your body know that you want to lose 5, 10, 15, or more pounds?

I think the problem is just plateauing and your body getting used to the fitness/eating regime you've been on to lose the weight you've lost so far. My advice would be is to try to switch up your workouts. Add something new into replace something. Same with your calories. Try eating a little more actually, or zig zagging to throw off your body. Sometimes it takes taking a few days off from exercising and calorie counting to shock your body back into losing.

If this helps to give you hope....I lost 60lbs. No one pound was harder to lose than the next. I never really found myself stuck for more than 2 weeks. What did I do? Nothing magical, I just made sure I switched up my workout every 3-4 weeks. I zig zagged my calories. I upped them some weeks, lowered back other weeks. I allow myself to have free days where I go over (not a ton but enough) usually just a few hundred over my maintenance amount. This shocked my body and usually within one to two days, with drinking plenty of water to flush away bloat, I was down another pound or two.

There is hope. Just quit thinking of it as your last few pounds. Your body doesn't know the difference

But your body DOES know. It knows that it doesn't have very much fat left. Evolution has programed it to hold on to fat to survive! Therefore it starts adjusting, trying to figure out how to live without letting go of that fat. It'll either lower your metabolism OR start eating your muscles instead. This is why it needs lot of food (SMALL calorie deficit so it doesn't notice), and exercise to force the metabolism to stay high, and make it recognize that you need your muscles.

Rae6503

... duplicate...

robin52077

I never understood this whole last few pounds thing....like how does your body know that you want to lose 5, 10, 15, or more pounds?

There is hope. Just quit thinking of it as your last few pounds. Your body doesn't know the difference

But your body DOES know. It knows that it doesn't have very much fat left. Evolution has programed it to hold on to fat to survive! Therefore it starts adjusting, trying to figure out how to live without letting go of that fat. It'll either lower your metabolism OR start eating your muscles instead. This is why it needs lot of food (SMALL calorie deficit so it doesn't notice), and exercise to force the metabolism to stay high, and make it recognize that you need your muscles.

exactly. It knows, all right. It knows WELL. And this explanation was perfect.

yanicka

For me ;

patience....I lose 1 to 2 pounds a months
eat..... set to lose 0.5 pounds a week eat 75-80% of exercice calories
Do not do cardio more then 20-30 minutes
Add strenght training (no 5 pounds barbie weight)

It's what work for me

veganbaum

Thanks for the feedback - looks like I might have to experiment with upping my calories. I don't purposefully undereat, it's just really easy when you eat vegan, and don't eat a lot of processed vegan foods. I know you have to eat more protein the more you exercise, but MFP has mine set I think around 50-something, and I believe the WHO recommends something like 46 for women, I think. 100 seems really high unless you are strenuously exercising a lot.

llkilgore

When I still had around 10 pounds to lose I set my goal to a half pound a week, began eating back 100% of my exercise calories (ate back 2/3rds before), and began the Couch to 5K program. Worked like a charm. I'm now a graduate of C25 and have reached my goal weight without ever hitting a plateau.

Running is great exercise, but I think the important thing was that I challenged my body in the home stretch in a way it wasn't used to. I hadn't run more than a few yards in 40 years.

Edited to add because I forgot it earlier: If you aren't strength training you might want to start. That's how I broke through a slowing of my progress when I still had around 25 pounds to lose.

spaingirl2011

Bump! Thanks for all the info, folks!

koosdel

I lost thirty five pounds last year. I maintained my weight loss through my first year of law school, then gained four pounds while out of state for six weeks, then lost the four pounds. I have 22 pounds to lose to get to my goal weight. So my question is - for those of you who lost weight then had to get that LAST 15-20 pounds off, what worked for you? I lost the first 35 fairly easily, but now the rest will not budge.

Food scale + eating back exercise Cals + no cheat days (kinda)