Encouragement for plateaus!!

Pinkdueces2

I have been on MFP for 145 days. Prior to this, I was had spent two weeks doing it alone. In the past month and a half, I hit a plateau and only lost about 1 lb for the whole 6 weeks. I was becoming frustrated but never lost motivation. In the past 3 days, I've lost 2 and 1/2 lbs!! For those of you who are on a plateau, I want you to know that it will eventually end. I know it's hard, and you begin to lose hope, but there IS a light at the end of the tunnel. I am exactly 5 lbs away from a NORMAL bmi. If I had given up, I would never be able to reach this. Anyways... Good luck, and never give up!!

hannahmayr30

Great advice!

ingeh

how did you break the plateau? Did you just keep doing what you were doing? IV stayed the same for 3 weeks and Iv upped my cals to a 500cal defiency to hopefully lose 1lb a week and get back on track. Great advice and I hope I can keep going like you say

lukybug

Thanks for this post. I too am in the same predicament, no loss in a month, and I'm soooo ready to quit. Glad to see there is a light at the end of the tunnel

peterson_jessica

Thanks for the encouragement. I have a feeling that I am at the beginning of my first bad plateau. I have lost 29 pounds and have 11 to go to reach my 135 goal. I've been sticking to my 1200 calories (not a lot of exercise this week... schoool ugh) but I have gone UP! What gives? I'm hanging in there though hoping to reach my goal

LaMujerMasBonitaDelMundo

Thanks for the encouragement. I have a feeling that I am at the beginning of my first bad plateau. I have lost 29 pounds and have 11 to go to reach my 135 goal. I've been sticking to my 1200 calories (not a lot of exercise this week... schoool ugh) but I have gone UP! What gives? I'm hanging in there though hoping to reach my goal

If your diet & exercise routine hasn't been changed since you started then your body eventually adapts to it even when you're on deficit. You need to challenge your body more by adding a day or increasing your intensity of your exercise. If you're just relying to your diet alone, you need to decrease your cal intake & not eat the same cals as when you exercise. But since 1200 is already too low so you need to up your activity level more. No matter how busy you are if you're really dedicated to lose weight then you will always find a way to exercise. I'm also a very busy person in my 8-5 job then travel an hour from office to home so I get home late but I still find time to exercise even if I feel like just resting my butt off.

peterson_jessica

I have been switching up my exercises quite often. I started getting serious in April and have been working out for at least an hour a day 5-6 days a week until this week when I have only done 3 half hour workouts. I don't think it's a matter of switching it up any more than I have been or doing anything more in general (this week, Yes I could have done a lot more) but I don't know what I could do. I am going to experiment with raising my calories to 1400 and see where that takes me

Pinkdueces2

Honestly, I tried everything to break my plateau. I added more calories, tried different exercising, exercised more, exercised less, ate my exercise calories back, changed the types of foods I was eating, ate dairy, didn't eat dairy...etc... and nothing worked. I think it just took time. I couldn't tell you exactly what happened to change for me, but I'm so glad that it did. I wish I had more advice, but the only advice I have is to never give up. Because eventually things will change. A deficit of 3500 calories=1 pound so no matter how much our body resists, you can't beat science. It will eventually work!! We just have to keep going!!

veganbaum

Thanks for the encouragement. I have a feeling that I am at the beginning of my first bad plateau. I have lost 29 pounds and have 11 to go to reach my 135 goal. I've been sticking to my 1200 calories (not a lot of exercise this week... schoool ugh) but I have gone UP! What gives? I'm hanging in there though hoping to reach my goal

Since you are only 11 pounds from 135, have you set your goal to a .5 lb weekly loss? Seems like you haven't only because unless you are really, really small, MFP probably would have given you more than 1200 as your goal. So, you might want to try that if you haven't. If you have, then maybe try zig-zagging? I dunno, just some things I'm looking at as well as I have been at a massive plateau and so am experimenting.

Fruit4dessert

Thanks for this, I'm at a plateau for the past three weeks and it's so helpful and encouraging! Congrats on your progress!