Frustrated with weight loss block

Mberkovrojas

Hi Everyone,
Congratulations to everyone for their hard work and success so far. I'm looking for some thoughts or advice in regards to a weight loss block or plateau. I am 35 years old and 5'6", and started my fitness pal in mid-January of this year at 174 pounds. I have logged my food each day diligently, and have been exercising 4-6 days per week. My exercise includes jillian michaels dvds, cardio classes at the gym, weight training, walking, running on the treadmill, and dance. I try to vary my workouts and usually do between 30-60 minutes per day. I eat a fairly healthy diet but when i want sweets or pizza sometimes i will have it in moderation. The first 5 weeks were great, I lost about 7 pounds (was down to 167) and I saw a drop in my measurements as well. Now in week 9, not only am i unable to continue losing weight, I am going back up again - back to 170 lbs now. I feel really frustrated and discouraged and don't know what else to look at to figure out why i can't continue losing weight. I'm working really hard and starting to feel very frustrated like my hard work isn't paying off. Any thoughts or ideas would be much appreciated. Thanks everyone!

broadway2007

Hi there,
I am also 35 years old, 5 foot 6 and weighed 174 pounds back in November. Right now, I am 162 pounds and I am feeling olay about it. I started using the My Fitness app back in mid February and I have a personal trainer that I have used since November. I would say be patient. Easier said tha done, I know! Also, remember that muscle weighs more than fat and continue to evaluate your diet. I took my measurements and used it to calculate my BMR. From there I subtracted 500 calories per week and that was my new goal. Again, this is new to me as well, but this is what I have been doing so far. My newest thing Fitbit One. I am trying to get that started, but it's not as initiative as it was supposed to be.

I would be open to hearing some of the other things that you did. We are in this thing together

Good luck!
Broadway2007

Mberkovrojas

Hey,

Thanks so much for replying! It is nice to hear your thoughts and I'm encouraged by your weight loss! I don't know if i can offer any great tips myself since i'm kinda stuck at the moment but i can tell you what i have done. I know that varying workouts is really good and it keeps the 'muscle confusion' thing going. If i ever eat out, i try to only ever eat half of the portion served. I try to include veggies and fruit in my diet each day at least 1-2 servings of each. And i try to always work out about 5-6 times a week.

So i feel like i'm doing all i can and that is where my frustration lies because i'm not getting the results i want. I am thinking maybe my problem is an issue with my food intake - i usually estimate my food intake but don't normally measure it - that is such a pain huh? I also wonder if i should just take sweets out of my diet altogether...i kinda have a sweet tooth but try to limit my sweets to only 150-250 calories of a sweet 2 times a week. Also, I'm thinking that maybe i should go back to eating several small meals a day because i realized that lately it has been (3) meals per day each between 350-500 calories - usually the biggest one at lunch. I have been stressed alot in the past year and i have heard that can prevent one from losing weight or even making a person gain more weight...I also have thought about genetics - my mom's side of the family is pretty overweight although both my mom and sister are petite and skinny. I am a medium frame and thick and curvy - which i am happy with, i just wanted to tone up and get rid of my belly ring and stuff like that...

About how many pounds per week have you been able to lose and has your weight ever gone up and down - or does it stay off once you get it off?

Thanks!

chymerra

so here's what i think may be going on and probably what you're experiencing is what i went through:

i'm 37 and when i started my journey last year january, i did what you did: eat fairly well and exercised daily (about 30mins using JM dvds too) ....but with little results. i thought i could do what i did when i was younger (which is what i was doing last year) with the same results but sadly, i realized that age has definitely affected my metabolism (slows it down). that's when i realized i had to change things and work extra hard meaning, more intense workouts and being very diligent with what i ate/watched my calories.

bummer!

it was only when i became strict with my caloric intake and increasing the intensity of my workouts, when i got results.

what i did:

-as much as i love fruit and as much as i think fruit is healthy, reducing my intake helped me trim the fat. i went from eating fruit 4-5x/day to 2.
-stopped doing JM dvds and started with beachbody programs. insanity is what shredded me, p90x only helped me burn even more fat as i put on lean muscle mass
-i became very diligent with my diet. i stayed away from white sugar, desserts, junk, soda etc. and only ate clean. i still do..in fact, i haven't touched any sweets/junk/soda etc for over a year. i don't feel "deprived" either; in fact, i don't even want or crave it.
-i made sure i ate my calories. whatever i calculated (not what MFP gave me because it was way under), i used that to track against.

a combination of doing intense HIIT workouts, incorporating strength training and a very clean diet is the only way i managed to get to where i am today. i think at our age, we just have to work a bit harder than when we were in our 20s

however, it is totally possible; you just have to tweak a few things and change things up.