The last 10-15 lbs....

psuLemon

Can you open your diary? Also, ever consider taking two weeks off and eating at maintenance (to refeed you system)? How about cutting cardio. Cardio makes it difficult to cut body fat as it tends to burn a lot of calories and very little people eat enough. In turn your body releases cortisol which prevents fat loss.

Its actually a fairly common thing with runners to have higher body fat % and less lbm.

ahmommy

Well, I'm probably in a different boat as most, since I only had about 10 pounds to lose when I started. It was/is the last of the baby weight. What seems to be working for me is that I set it to lose 1 pound per week initially, set my activity to sedentary (I work at a desk job, long hours, 3 days a week). Then I logged all of my exercise and ate back some of my calories (I didn't eat if I wasn't hungry). Any calories burned by playing and running after kids on my non-work days was a bonus.

I plateaued with 2-3 pounds to go. At that point, I adjusted my goals to lose 1/2 pound per week with my activity level still at sedentary. I'm actually less active now than I was, because I injured my foot. I was getting skeptical about the whole "eating more" thing, but after about 3 weeks I suddenly dropped a pound and a half. So I'm going to stick with it and see how it goes. I won't be too upset if I don't lose any more, since I'm so close to my goal weight now. I've started lifting weights and I'm going to try to reduce my body fat percentage now, without losing much more weight.

Good luck!

ETA - I realized I didn't actually answer your question. I'm 5'10" and eating 1560 calories a day. I'm not logging any calories burned from lifting weights.

psuLemon

How many calories do you eat each day? I am 5'4.5 and weigh 130. I have my goals set to eat 1700. I should actually be set to 1800.

When you ate more, how many calories were you eating and for how long?

I started off at the recommended 1200, lost 8 lbs. I wasn't really eating back my exercise cals so plateaued pretty quickly. Then I reset to about 1680 net per day. I wasn't losing but didn't gain either. I reduced them to 1430 but again, didn't lose. I found information on eating for the future you type thing and if I was 125-130 lbs my BMR would be 1331. Soooooo I've reset to 1330. LOL

I always eat back ALL of my exercise calories to net the 1330 so I'm usually eating anywhere from 1550-1800 per day about 6 days per week. I take at least one full day off for rest. So far so good, am down about 1 lb this week, but wanted to see what kind of deficit seems to be the most effective for the people who have reached their goals.

thanks to everyone for their feedback!! *not sure I'd be able to go vegan....:) I considered a paleo type style but would miss my dairy too much!!

I am 80/20 paleo and its helping me keep my sodium under controll. And i lost 5 of my final 12 lbs.

Madux1818

I agree that at this point a "scale based" goal may not be the best thing.

After losing 90 pounds I've been at the "10 pounds to go" plateau for quite a while now. I've lost 2 of those pounds and it took me nearly 2 months. I have decided that I'm really not going to stress about it anymore. I run daily, I eat right, my body fat % is down from roughly 40% to 22%.

I've decided to focus on overall fitness and not worry about what the scale says. :happy:
If I drop that last 8 pounds, great, if not, I'm happy with where I'm at.

Congratulations on losing all that weight, but how did you manage to bring down your bf from 40 to 22? That's where I struggle.

mt130022

Speaking solely from experience, and understanding that this will likely be frowned upon, in order to get MY last 10 lbs. off (over two years ago), I HAD to drop my calories to around 1000 (sometimes a little less per day, never MORE) and step up my cardio to an hour (or more) every day of the week. It took about a month. These last few pounds are usually "vanity" pounds and are the most stubborn little things! Since that time, I've gained back 5-6 of these and my weight usually fluctuates anywhere from 115 - 120.

californiagirl2012

"The Reverse Taper Diet " :

The Theory of Fat Availability:
•There is a set amount of fat that can be released from a fat cell.
•The more fat you have, the more fat can be used as a fuel when dieting.
•The less fat you have, the less fat can be used as a fuel when dieting.
•Towards the end of a transformation, when body fat is extremely low you
may not have enough fat to handle a large caloric deficit anymore.

At the extreme low end, when your body fat cannot ‘keep up’ with the energy deficit
you've imposed on your body, the energy MUST come from SOMEWHERE. This is
when you are at risk of losing lean body mass during dieting (commonly referred to
as ‘starvation mode’). This happens at extremely low levels of body fat, under 6% in
men and 12% in women [Friedl K.E. J Appl Phsiol, 1994].

Oddly enough, it seems as though some obese people have an unbelievable amount of fat available as a fuel, but a lower ability to burn that fat, whereas as they get leaner, they have less and less fat available as a fuel, but a greater and greater ability to burn the fat they do have. So at extreme levels of leanness, it is the fat availability that limits a persons ability to lose fat.

---

I ignore exercise calories so the exercise log is just to track time spent exercising for me. Exercise calories are highly over rated. You can't exercise away eating too much food. I learned this the hard way most of my life running marathon after marathon (and lifting) and not being able to lose weight and in fact continued to gain year after year. And I don't pig out, binge, snack mindlessly, eat out of boredom, etc, but the portion sizes are too big for a small person like me. (Well I wasn't small when I weighed over 170 lbs at 51'0"!)

Anyway I found what worked for me was separating out the two things:

Eat less to lose weight
Exercise to maintain or build lean body mass
end of story.

I found just ignoring all the complicated stuff everyone throws at us is the key. Day in and day out focus on two things. Eat less, move more, stay within calorie budget (either weekly or daily). You can eat low one day and high the next, whatever you want. Well, it did work for me. I am the fittest, leanest, strongest, and most muscular I've ever been in my life at age 51 and I'm healthy and don't get sick and have long endurance.

When you get close to your goal it's a slower deficit and it takes longer. When I got to my goal and was trying to lean out slowly it took over a month just to lose a couple of lbs... this is what happens when you get leaner. --> http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/734287-what-the-venus-index-workout-did-for-me-with-pics

The only way to know for sure what your deficit should be right now would be to have an ACCURATE body composition test done, either hydrostatic or DXA. Once you know if you are over 12% BF or under you can make better decisions about calories at this point. The Reverse Taper Diet has a special calculator to help you determine this as well.

kimpossible5

subscribing to this thread for any tips that might come along..... I'm working on getting off 10lbs now and the scale doesn't budge. Sigh.

red_jess

Hey there. I'm 5'5 and I have 4 more pounds to lose to reach my goal of 132. I'm currently losing about half a pound a week.

My calorie target is 1200 and at first I lost weight fairly easily. Once I reached the '10 pounds to lose' point, I started calorie cycling - eating more one day (say, 1500 calories), then back to 1200 or just below it the next day. I haven't changed what I eat or my type or level of exercise, so I think it's the cycling that's keeping my body guessing and helping me lose the last pounds. I've read how other people on MFP have used it to help break through a plateau, so it might be worth trying?

jenbusick

Bump. I am also 5'5", and can get to 145, where I get Stuck. For years now. V. frustrating. I'm up for new ideas. Or old ideas to try again. Or bad ideas. Or vague suggestions. Or magic tricks. Anything that might work, really. I'm just about ready to buy diet pills off the radio.

carlsoda

I'm so having the same struggle as the rest of you! I have about 5 - 10 lbs left to lose and just can't get anywhere. I didn't have time to read all the posts yet but it's time to go home now (yay!) and I'll read later!!!

muamontreal

bump because I am in the same situation

nellyett

Bump. I am also 5'5", and can get to 145, where I get Stuck. For years now. V. frustrating. I'm up for new ideas. Or old ideas to try again. Or bad ideas. Or vague suggestions. Or magic tricks. Anything that might work, really. I'm just about ready to buy diet pills off the radio.

LOL!! I've even looked into the alternate fast day....:)

nellyett

Hey there. I'm 5'5 and I have 4 more pounds to lose to reach my goal of 132. I'm currently losing about half a pound a week.

My calorie target is 1200 and at first I lost weight fairly easily. Once I reached the '10 pounds to lose' point, I started calorie cycling - eating more one day (say, 1500 calories), then back to 1200 or just below it the next day. I haven't changed what I eat or my type or level of exercise, so I think it's the cycling that's keeping my body guessing and helping me lose the last pounds. I've read how other people on MFP have used it to help break through a plateau, so it might be worth trying?

This is definately something I will have to try!!