Stuck at the same weight for a month

amberwaves74

After a month of plateau, the weight is finally dropping. Month 1- lost 10lbs, month 2- lost 0lbs, month 3- lost 5lbs (mostly in the past week). I've been doing the same thing the entire time. Sometimes the body just doesn't make sense.

mark03264

Can we see your food log? I understand that some people are rather skittish about this but we may see something that will help.

Do you eat close to the calorie goal that MFP gives you each day? (within about 100) Some people will eat hundreds of calories below their calorie goal thinking that they will speed their fat loss only to find that they cause their body to slow or even stop losing fat.

soozy84

I know it makes a long day, but body pump isn't a great burn because it isn't pure cardio... I normally try o do at least half an hour of cardio after. My gym does have body combat, but at inconvenient times for me, so not sure what s typical burn from that is.

On average it's about 500 cals. Even if I don't take body pump in to account I thought zumba once a week and BC three times would have some impact. Especially as my exercise before was a leisurely stroll on a Sunday afternoon. Ahh nevermind. I'm keeping it up regardless of what the scales say. Thanks anyway though. Good idea about doing cardio afterwards though. Don't think I could stay in the gym but might start jogging home?

Good for you pinkita! You sound really motivated. Why not try and avoid weighing yourself for a couple of weeks? At least then it won't be disheartening and you might get a big shock when you do actually weigh yourself?

KeriA

Hi I am just now coming out of a 2 month plateau. I am posting the address of my blog here not for you to read my experience but for the 2 really good links to articles that really helped me to 1. understand why we have plateaus and when we do and 2. what to do to get out of them http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/KeriA/view/plateaus-revisited-132685 .

I so can relate to the frustration. Just briefly we typically slow down and hit a plateau at about 10% of our original weight. It looks like you lost more than the 10% to me. So you are ahead right there. The thing that is happening is that your body is made to keep you at what it determine is your regular weight. You need to know and work with that concept. It fights weight gain and loss. As you get further from your original weight it sees as your regular weight it fights harder and harder. If you do not recognize this you can really get stuck in that plateau. This article/weight loss site actually says to maintain for 2 months when you hit a plateau, eat a bit more and slowly cut back on exercise. This is so your body will recognize that your new weight is your new regular weight and it won't fight you so hard. This information is really important once you reach your goal weight. Remember this then to maintain for at least 2 months so your body will help you maintain your goal weight. Even losing more will mess this up.

However there are some that have gotten out of plateaus faster. I basically felt I had maintained for 2 months already. The first website helps you know what to do when you are out of the plateau and the second article helps you determine what to do when you are in one. It is different depending on what you did to lose your weight. If you did it by a high calorie deficit you may need to up your calories. If you did it by high cardio you need to maybe lower cardio and up weight training. Yes if you were heavy on weight training and low on cardio then switch it up. Switching it up doesn't mean more of the same unless you never really reached the peak of that type of wethod. Such as you do alot of cardio but you haven't done any intervals of more intense cardio then this could switch it up for you. It has a great chart to help figure out when you have pushed one type of strategy to its limit and you need to switch your focus elsewhere.

So many people told me that they got out of their plateaus by upping their calories. Usually many of them had their calories set pretty low. Since that wasn't my case I wasn't sure this was what would work for me. I did up them a bit though. I realized I was really heavy on cardio but had just recently started to intensify it and didn't want to stop what I was doing. Also realize that you need to try something for more than a week to see if it is working. 2 weeks plus a day or 2 is more like it. You probably don't want to hear that though. If you have been on 1200 net calories or less for most of the time you have lost then you definitely need to raise the calories to get out of this plateau. So good luck and don't give up. Water, sleep and tracking inches is really good advice. I lost alot of inches while in my plateau and now know I can maintain when I reach my goal weight. I have learned alot. It isn't that bad really. What is bad is to gain or give up. So kudos for trying a few things - you may have done the right things but just didn't give them enough time to work.