I need help with a plateau!

ColeyBear08

I don't understand why I'm not losing weight! I'm training for a half marathon so I've been running and exercising more than I usually do. I thought for sure this would be the key to get me over my plateau but nope! I've been eating healthy too. There have been times where I've lost .6 lbs just to gain 1 lbs the next day. Will someone please help me?????

FitMama2013

sending you a message now!!!

ColeyBear08

sending you a message now!!!

THANK YOU!

love4fitnesslove4food_wechange

how many calories are you eating? how much do you currently weigh? how tall are you?

ColeyBear08

I'm 5'3" 162-163 I've been fluctuating and I'm eating 1200

HauteP1nk

I don't necessarily know what you are eating, but I have been told that 'abs are made in the kitchen'...meaning food is the most important part of any weight loss!

You might think you are eating healthy but there might actually be something you need to clean up.

Water is also integral as well. Especially when running we need to ensure we are drinking half our body weight in ounces per day! It gives us energy, provides moisture to our joints, and boosts that metabolism!

You are clearly keeping yourself challenged with your exercise, so keep it up! Have patience! It will happen. You will see a big difference and you'll feel better about yourself too.

love4fitnesslove4food_wechange

Well, looking at your diary you're literally STARVING yourself. you often eat LESS than 1200 calories AND you're exercising. What you're doing is actually quite dangerous and you're setting yourself up to lose precious lean muscle mass.

I recommend taking a break from "Dieting" and eating at maintenance for a few weeks to restore your leptin levels and reset your metabolism. Then begin eating no less than 1500 calories, more when you have a long run.

lvng_lf

the same seems to happen to me too! I up my running mileage and I either plateau or gain/loose the same 2 lbs over and over again. what's the deal?

Blessedmommy_2x

You may want to consider increasing your calorie intake and see if that helps. Sounds silly but I had one week were I could not lose anything and I was working out like crazy... But that was also the week MFP decreased my cals to around 1200. Once I increased my cals I was back to loosing again.

10acity

Well, looking at your diary you're literally STARVING yourself. you often eat LESS than 1200 calories AND you're exercising. What you're doing is actually quite dangerous and you're setting yourself up to lose precious lean muscle mass.

I recommend taking a break from "Dieting" and eating at maintenance for a few weeks to restore your leptin levels and reset your metabolism. Then begin eating no less than 1500 calories, more when you have a long run.

Yes, yes, yes! I've only ever pulled myself out of a plateau before by eating MORE. Do that!

ColeyBear08

I eat as clean as possible... I'm very involved in reading labels, staying sugar free and fat free. I don't eat red meat and I can't remember the last time I've gone over in calories. My diary is viewable on my profile if anyone cares to give constructive criticism.

stringsNlinks

I too had hit a plateau but kept doing the right things and now I have melted away 5 lbs in the last week and a half...it's so wierd. i did switch up calories and exercise. Hang tough - it will start coming off again. Good job on the marathon - that's awesome!

FitMama2013

yes! love4fitnesslove4food is the guru on this and she helped me break my plateau so listen to her!!!

SoozeE512

Maybe since you're training so hard, you could be losing fat but gaining more muscle? Not sure on this, but just a thought.

Also, are you eating breakfast? I read Prevention magazine sometimes and recently they had an article about plateauing and one of the biggest issues they said was that people should be getting a breakfast anywhere from 350-400 calories and about 14 or 15 g of protein to get their metabolism started on the right track to start the day. A cup of milk and some good whole grain cereals usually does it for me

KPainter70

For the amount of exercise you're doing, you're not eating properly at all. Way too little. Listen to what you've been told here and UP your calories. My additional advice would be to eat more protein and watch your sodium intake.

love4fitnesslove4food_wechange

you NEED to go over on your calories. You cannot run your body into the ground (literally) and give it less than it would need if you were completely inactive and expect to get POSITIVE results. Any weight loss you do see is likely to be lean muscle, causing a reduction in your metabolism and ultimately you'd be left "skinny fat" which is surely not what you want.

You really should just take a step back. Focus on restoring your metabolism and hormone levels and take this slow. you didn't gain weight over night and you don't want to lose weight in a way that sets you up to regain it. What you're currently doing is not sustainable in the long term and although I understand the feeling of urgency, you need to fight that urge.

A small deficit of 500 MAXIMUM is all you need. If you don't want to go to maintenance then don't BUT you still NEED to eat more. Much more. Your TDEE is likely well above 2000 calories so 1700-1800 calories for WEIGHT LOSS would not be unheard of.

Sidesteal

How long have you been stalled and over that period of time has it been a complete stallout? If not, what has been your total change in weight over that time period?

olong

I took a look-see at your diary (it's helpful that you opened it when seeking advice, so thank you), and see that your protein is REALLY low. It is my understanding that you should have a gram of protein for each pound of weight as a ceiling. I've also read 1.5 grams per kilogram of current weight as a goal. I do not know which formula is best, but all sites recommend AT LEAST 100 grams protein for adults. Some sites recommmend one gram for each pound of your desired weight goal (in your case 120 grams)

Some days this past week you had half a gram per pound, other days less than that. Feed the muscle that you are working so hard with your marathon training.

Hope this helps... or even brings out information from another MFPer with more knowledge.

akiramezu

Training for a marathon and eating 1200? sorry, but you need to be eating 1800-2000 calories. Is your mind blown? does it sound ridiculous? that you have to eat to lose weight =O WHERE DID THIS CONCEPT COME FROM?

I train 3-4 hours a day (MMA fighter) and if i ate 1200 calories a day, not only would i NOT cut weight, i wouldn't be able to function. sure, you can have multiple days where you eat really low calories (30-40% under maintenance) and other days where you are only 10-20% under maintenance and even some days above maintenance, mixing it up is good, so your body isn't used to a set amount of calories.

But if you are constantly eating 1200 calories, your body is going to adapt because it ain't stupid, it will do what it can to store what you eat as fat for energy because it hardly gets any food. If you are an athlete, you must eat! if you're an athlete trying to cut weight, I recommended you eat 20% under maintenance, but then again, even if you weren't an athlete and you were just trying to lose weight, i would still suggest 20% under maintenance.

If your maintenance is 3000, eat 2400-2700 calories
If your maintenance is 2500, eat 2000-2250 calories
If your maintenance is 2000, eat 1600-1800 calories << I highly think you are in this category
if your maintenance is 1600, eat 1280-1440 calories << i highly doubt you fit into this category, you have to be like ... 4 feet tall and not active at all haha

DragonSupra

I'll have to agree with what others have said before me. You need to eat more calories. Trust me, I know that sounds crazy but your body has more than likely gone into conservation mode. That means your body isn't allowing you to burn anymore fat as it is not getting enough energy intake on a daily basis to burn. Survival mode, if you will.

Also, you really need to try and eat back your exercise calories. I know many believe that if you don't eat back your exercise calories then your body will be forced to burn more fat off the body, yes? This CAN be true if you have a LOT (you're pretty obese) of weight to lose, however, you're more than likely losing muscle mass along with fat.

I'll give you an example. Myself.

I lost from 280 to 175 with no problems. I did minimal exercise, didn't drink much water and had a 1000 calorie deficient. So I basically got to the point where I was also eating 1200 calories a day. 175 comes along and for three weeks, the scale absolutely refuses to budge. It was time to do some research. I read articles online, read some books and finally decided to bite the bullet and eat MORE calories. In fact, I upped my calories to 1730, started doing heavy lifting and do cardio in between. I would guess my heavy lifting + cardio probably takes up about as much time as your running. With exercise calories, I'm eating around 1900 - 2000 calories a day and crazy enough, the scale is moving downward again.

My biggest recommendation is to do research and learn WHY the body needs calories and why less can cause you to stall out. The human body is a truly amazing and complex piece of machinery.

momof3and3

Eat more....

I run and take fitness classes, some days I can burn 1200 calories, other days 500...look at my diary, I eat all day long. Since I have started to up my calories a few weeks ago, I have been consitantly losing. You will also see that I spike a day or 2 each week, usually Saturdays....I also take one day off a week to rest, again usually Saturdays.

It is scary at first to eat more, but your body will thank you for it!

ColeyBear08

Maybe since you're training so hard, you could be losing fat but gaining more muscle? Not sure on this, but just a thought.

Also, are you eating breakfast? I read Prevention magazine sometimes and recently they had an article about plateauing and one of the biggest issues they said was that people should be getting a breakfast anywhere from 350-400 calories and about 14 or 15 g of protein to get their metabolism started on the right track to start the day. A cup of milk and some good whole grain cereals usually does it for me

Yep, I'm eating special k red berries with almond breeze or 1 egg plus 1 egg white omlete each morning with a coffee (no sugar and fat free creamer)

ColeyBear08

How long have you been stalled and over that period of time has it been a complete stallout? If not, what has been your total change in weight over that time period?

I've been at a plateau for 2 weeks maybe and I've been fluctuating but not at a complete stand still

Sidesteal

I've been at a plateau for 2 weeks maybe and I've been fluctuating but not at a complete stand still

I have a few comments:

If you're indeed sitting around 1200 calories for intake, this is pretty low and in that regard, I'd agree with the other comments that you could probably up your intake.

But having said that, I don't think two weeks is enough time for your to make an assessment about whether or not you're stuck. This isn't a plateau (yet) and it could be easily masked by water weight fluctuation.

I would expect that "don't change anything" would work in your case, but again, if you're marathon training then 1200 kcals/day is just too low.

It's not going to cause you to GAIN FAT, as that's not how things work when leptin and thyroid hormones downregulate due to low intake, but you're going to have performance issues and probably other issues due to low intake (satiety, micro insufficiencies, etc).


EDIT: I'm typing out more crap so that I'm abundantly clear here: I think you should up your intake for reasons other than plateauing. I do not think enough time has elapsed to conclude anything about a plateau.

ColeyBear08

I want to thank everyone for their help! It looks like the verdict is out and it's unanimous... I'm going to increase my calories. I'm not sure if I'm ready to go up to 1800 so maybe I'll shoot for 1400-1300. Does that still seem too low?

ColeyBear08

Now can someone tell me how to change my calorie goal??? I'm lost here lol

love4fitnesslove4food_wechange

I want to thank everyone for their help! It looks like the verdict is out and it's unanimous... I'm going to increase my calories. I'm not sure if I'm ready to go up to 1800 so maybe I'll shoot for 1400-1300. Does that still seem too low?

Yes still too low. You cannot let fear decide for you--if you want results you have to eat. Someone else can explain changing goals.

Charlottejogs

I took a look-see at your diary (it's helpful that you opened it when seeking advice, so thank you), and see that your protein is REALLY low. It is my understanding that you should have a gram of protein for each pound of weight as a ceiling. I've also read 1.5 grams per kilogram of current weight as a goal. I do not know which formula is best, but all sites recommend AT LEAST 100 grams protein for adults. Some sites recommmend one gram for each pound of your desired weight goal (in your case 120 grams)

Some days this past week you had half a gram per pound, other days less than that. Feed the muscle that you are working so hard with your marathon training.

Hope this helps... or even brings out information from another MFPer with more knowledge.

I seem to have found myself back to plateau however recently when I was stuck (for months) upping my protein helped. After months of nothing I lost about 5lbs with protein and no other change. Just me- good luck!