The last 10-15 lbs....

I bought a Fitbit which provides MFP with a calorie burned adjustment based on your activity level. I ate back those cals and broke through a 2 month plateau, lost 5 lbs and reached my goal weight. That's what worked for me!

My TDEE says I should be eating 1800 cals net, which scares the bejeezus out of me! I'm netting 1350 at the moment.

You sound just like me!
It's the last 10 to 15 I keep struggling with....We are the same height basically (I am 5'51/2"...gotta get that extra 1/2 ' ya know). I have played around with calories/marcros/ eating clean/eating what I want but staying in goals/). Just bounces all over the place. I have not had my official BF measured..and would like to do that, but based on other people our height...I know it can be achieved. My ultimate GW is 135. I am trying not to concentrate so much on that..as just staying true to the course and keep working out!

Good luck in your responses!

bump!

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.

This suggestion might be a bit radical, but it worked for me...
Go Vegan.


......Are you still here? Good. Why not try it for just 30 days and see how you do? Can't hurt. Make sure it's whole foods and unprocessed foods.

It's easier than you would think! I've been vegan for 6 weeks and without exercise (I'm a lazy sort) have lost 7 lbs. I'm not missing the fats in meat and milk and cheese. (well, maybe cheese a little... *smile*) If you want to know more about what I'm eating and how to do it, send me a note!

Good luck with the last few pounds - you can do it!
Cath

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'm 5'5 and I'm working my way to 130 lb. I have 7 left to go.. I eat 1350 calories and I try and exercise 5 times a week.
I have almost gone vegetarian but i still eat fish so that helps with my weight loss and I was doing calorie cycling to change my metabolism.
There is lots of link and info about it on the net http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm

Good Luck !

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.

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.

"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.

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?

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!!!