Eating More to Overcome Plateau

rutkowsm

My weight loss has been stalled for the last month or two (I'll not lose for 2-4 weeks, then drop two pounds), and I'm starting to get frustrated. I've been at or below my calorie goal on a consistent basis, and I seldom eat back my exercise calories (as I do not have a HRM and I'm worried about over estimating my burn). I've heard from a variety of sources that when you hit a plateau (if this can truly be called a plateau) it's good to eat over your calorie goal for a few days (approximately 10-15% over your calorie goal for the day is what I've heard). I did this today (not particularly healthfully, as I ate M&M's, half a cookie, and potato chips--my biggest binge day since new years eve), but I'm just feeling kinda fat now. Which might have everything to do with eating bad foods rather than eating over my calorie goal.

I'm wondering if this method of plateau breaking has worked for anyone. Any success stories?

melaniecheeks

If you're still dropping a couple of pounds every 2-4 weeks I wouldn't call that a plateau! Unfortunately weight doesn't come off in a nice straight line - try looking at the report on MFP and see how your weight has dropped over a few months.

heybales

My weight loss has been stalled for the last month or two (I'll not lose for 2-4 weeks, then drop two pounds), and I'm starting to get frustrated. I've been at or below my calorie goal on a consistent basis, and I seldom eat back my exercise calories (as I do not have a HRM and I'm worried about over estimating my burn). I've heard from a variety of sources that when you hit a plateau (if this can truly be called a plateau) it's good to eat over your calorie goal for a few days (approximately 10-15% over your calorie goal for the day is what I've heard). I did this today (not particularly healthfully, as I ate M&M's, half a cookie, and potato chips--my biggest binge day since new years eve), but I'm just feeling kinda fat now. Which might have everything to do with eating bad foods rather than eating over my calorie goal.

I'm wondering if this method of plateau breaking has worked for anyone. Any success stories?

At or below calorie goal, not eating back exercise calories.
If you are eating below what your BMR used to be - congratulations, you are the winner of a new slower metabolism, and now the ill effect of current low goal calories isn't enough. Keep lowering to match that, and you can save money getting haircuts and nails cut, ect, but you'll probably start to get sick more often, so probably a wash.

Several places for inaccuracies that if they all go one direction, could have your calorie goals higher than they should be.
Now, I'm not advocating killing your metabolism by eating 500 under your BMR. Which is the other reason for not seeing advancement.

But it could be your BMR estimate by MFP is wrong.
Which means your calculated maintenance calories based on that is wrong, and if the wrong activity level, even more wrong.
And then your exercise calories could be way off if not using a decent HRM estimate.

So suggestion:
Confirm your BMR using another respected formula, which requires bodyfat % and is more accurate.
Get a better estimate of daily activity for the maintenance calories.
Do your math for weight loss to get your daily calories.
Update MFP.
Figure out if exercise calories is way off.

Here is site for getting your body-fat %. May not be super accurate, but the estimate is good enough for use in calculations.
The plus here is, you record these measurements in MFP as additional things to track and see positive progress.

http://www.fat2fitradio.com/tools/cbbf/

Take the results over to here after noting them.

http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/CalRequire.html

Change height to BF in the calculator, and the Katch-McArdle formula is used for BMR.
Do NOT include exercise in the levels and time of activity, because you'll still enter that into MFP and it will credit you, but really thing about your normal average daily activity levels and time outside exercise.
Now you have a better BMR figure (keep that in mind because you should not eat below that ever) and more importantly, maintenance calories.

Now do the math from those maintenance calories just like MFP does on it's estimate.
500 cal/day is 1lb week. Add 250 to that figure depending on being realistic. Even 10% of maintenance is recommended sometimes.
So take that calorie figure from the maintenance calories - and there is your goal calories.
This should NOT be below your BMR figure. You should never eat below what your body requires for basic life, unless you just want to slow your metabolism down and make weight loss harder.
If it is lower, your goal calories can be your BMR, but you would be better served sticking to 10% in that case.

Now you can enter that figure in MFP Goals manually. Don't worry about the figures on the right now, but may be interesting to see how it compares to that formula.

Now go to Enter Weight, and Add additional measurements for what you took for the body fat %.

Now eat back those exercise calories, and use a cheap HRM to get some sort of decent estimate.

Do this all over again in a month. And progress beyond the scale can be seen now too.

Example here. (30 yr old female, 180 lbs, desk job - not me)
Body fat% calculated - 32%
8 hrs resting, 15 very light, 1 light
BMR - 1572
Maintenance - 2162
Goal weight loss weekly - 1lb, 3500 calories, 500/day
Goal calories - 2162-500= 1662 daily (just above BMR, so would have been unrealistic to attempt 2lb/weekly).

Any exercise gets logged, and manually corrected by HRM estimate of calorie burn.
Extra food eaten is snack before and after workouts that are balanced carb/protein, with extra protein afterwords.
Want to feed that muscle, since that is what will help it grow, and burn fat 24hrs a day.

Cheers!