Plateau Help?

icdtfs

I'm an 18 year old girl, who has gone from 165 to 132 in about 8 or 9 months. My goal weight is 120-125 (depending on how I feel when I get there.) When I began losing weight, it was just from eating better and starting regular exercise. When I joined MFP, it set my goal at 1200 calories. That didn't work, so I changed my settings to a .5 pound weight loss, and ended up at 1460 calories. This worked for a bit, but I have lost no weight in about 4 months. I continue to exercise regularly and eat healthily, any ideas on how to break this?

gboybama

I lost weight like crazy for 3 months using only a low calorie count. Then, I hit a plateau that was just like flipping a light switch. Not one ounce dropped in a month.

I realized that I was eating so fewer calories than what my body needed that I had gone into starvation mode and my body was conserving everything.

Finally, I have broken out of this by eating more. I feel better and the weight has begun to drop off again.

Find out how many calories your body type requires and add in any calories that you burn by exercise and eat 100% of that. I'm betting that number will be much higher (and more healthy) than MFP's caloric suggestions alone.

icdtfs

Did you gain at all?

pattyproulx

Try switching things up, if your body gets used to what your doing, it's not working as hard as it once was.

If you do a lot of cardio, try lifting weights and doing sprints or HIIT. Try low-carb for a week maybe, or try intermittent fasting here and there.

gboybama

Didn't gain a bit! But I went up 100 calories a week for four weeks. So the old body adjusted slowly and then shifted back into drive.

iWaffle

Try switching things up, if your body gets used to what your doing, it's not working as hard as it once was.

If you do a lot of cardio, try lifting weights and doing sprints or HIIT. Try low-carb for a week maybe, or try intermittent fasting here and there.

Beautiful advice. Those last 10 pounds will take a little more determination than the first easily lost pounds. Your body wants to keep a small reserve of fat just in case. Now let's just cut to the point. If you're not losing you're not on a negative calorie diet. The two possibilities are:

Calories burned from exercise not accurate.
Calories consumed not accurate.

I would try changing up your exercise routine as suggested above as your first option of what to do before adding more calories. All the quoted tricks are the best options to unstick that scale. Of course make sure you're measuring and taking note if you're losing inches and not pounds as well.

icdtfs

My food is measured down to the gram...and I don't log exercise calories so I really don't believe that i'm overdoing by eating those back.

I'm going to try some of this and hopefully it works.