I need some help

beggaboo2000

I am going crazy!!! I cannot seem to shed any pounds these days, I am starting to wonder if I really have to start eating 1200 calories, I really dont want to, I love eating 1500-1800 calories, what am I doing wrong, anyone??? I am 5'5 and I weigh 212 lbs, I walk everyday and bicycle everywhere I go (I live in a small town in Iceland) I do pilates 4-5 times a week. I have been eating at 1500-1800 calories for many months now and it has been working fine, but I have been the same for 5 weeks now and I really dont want to stall out here, I still have a long ways to go. I am not very good at drinking water maybe 2 glasses a day and I do drink to much pepsi max but it has 0 calories:-) I hope somebody can give me good advice:-)
Hugs from Iceland

beggaboo2000

bump in hopes that someone sees this

nigel061

Bumping for my friend ....

Drastiic

You might not actually be stalling out. Water retention can mask fat loss to make you think you aren't losing weight. Read more here:
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/adjusting-the-diet.html
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/not-losing-fat-at-20-deficit-what-should-i-do-qa.html

If you really are stalled out, bump your calories up to maintenance for a week.
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-full-diet-break.html

cari4jc1

Hmmm...I would definitely say to up your water intake...you have to stay hydrated. Have you tried messing with your diet profile settings to see if MFP adjusts your calorie goal? If you haven't, that's what I would suggest. The other thing I would say is make sure that you're eating good quality foods for the most part at least. If you're eating low cal/low fat highly processed foods it's not really going to help you much. You need to give your body real fuel that comes from real food. Of course you might already be eating good foods, but I figured I should bring it up just in case. I'm sorry, I'm probably not much help, but hopefully it gets figured out. I know how you feel to be stuck. Good luck!!

PinkEarthMama

Maybe switch up your workout?

beggaboo2000

I do eat really clean and cook all my food from scratch except maybe one or two meals per month, You guys dont think I should try and eat less calories? I already tried to mess with the goals on here to see what calories they give me, I just changed it to losing 1 lbs per week and sedentary, I dont think that I am sedentary though, but maybe I am? that gives me around 1500 calories a day.

gamehen2

I found that it didn't matter how active I was or how religiously I monitored my calories. I didn't bust through my plateau until I got the right ratios of macros. I'm actually not exercising right now on doctor's orders (recovery from surgery), but I'm still losing weight.

High protein, high fat and low (healthy) carbs really made the difference for me. I cycle that with 1 day of no carbs that ends with a "cheat meal" (within reason) and then 1 day of higher carbs to restore the glycogen stores. Feel free to peruse my diary. My notes indicate what I was doing that day.

Athijade

Open your diary so we can give an informed opinion. Without that, we are really just guessing.

beggaboo2000

I opened my diary and hope that you guys can help, I eat mostly very clean and make everything from scratch, but I am getting very discouraged I have weighed the same since the middle of april, going up and down the same 2-3 lbs :-/ thank you all for commenting and for your advice!
Hugs from Iceland

RuthieCass

Well, first of all, I would make sure the calorie counts are accurate (this would be the simplest reason). Do you measure everything you eat or just eyeball servings? I'm pretty bad at estimating serving sizes, although I've been improving since I started measuring everything. Are you counting every single calorie you consume? Drinks/alcohol/snacks/etc? If your counts are accurate, you should move on to look at the raw numbers...

Next, you can look at your bmr and total calorie needs calculations. According to the bmi calculator (http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/), your bmr is around 1700. You should not eat below this amount for a long period of time. If you are regularly eating close 1500/day, you should try increasing your calories to at least 1700 (your bmr will decrease as you lose weight). Assuming you are "moderately active," the calories you need to maintain are 2663. Assuming that you have a daily deficit of ~950 calories, you should be losing nearly 2 pounds/week (1.9 pounds). If you've been on this diet for 4 weeks, you should've lost about 8 pounds.

Now, as others have suggested, you could've lost fat but gained water weight. Exercise and excess sodium can cause water retention, which would make your weight appear to have remained constant. This is why many fitness sites suggest having goals based on measurements other than weight loss: clothing sizes, hip-and-waist measurements, body-fat percentage (my favorite), etc. You could test the "water weight" theory out by making sure you do a proper cool-down post workout, increasing your water intake and decreasing your sodium intake. Then weigh yourself after a week or so to get a better idea of your "real" weight loss.

Another reason could be cortisol levels, which promotes fat storage. Raised cortisol levels result from increases in stress, so working on stress management (plus continued exercise) should help. Now, if none of the above seem to help, you could talk to your doctor about your weight-loss attempts since this may indicate medical issues. For example, I know some people say thyroid problems can stall weight loss, and your doc should be able to check that out.

alltacht

Like the previous poster said, for your height and weight you should probably up your calories a bit. The same thing happened to me (just with different numbers cos Im small), and once I went over my BMR, the weight started coming off again. It was slow and I saw an initial increase but my energy was better my body felt better. It seems pretty scary at first and it can be disheartening to see the scales go up ( I was up 3lbs one month but lost that and got to a new record low afterwards). So i really believe the whole net at least your bmr works. And if you are active feel free to go over your bmr. Best of luck! Remember to just keep on going with the positive changes and eventually the weight will come off, even if there are some crappy bumps along the way
x

beggaboo2000

Thank you all so much, I am going to try to up my calories to BMR and also see if I can lower my sodium and drink more water, I will post back in a week to see how it turns out:)) thanx again for your time,
Hugs from Iceland