Have you experienced and broken a plateu?

I had one for months that made me crazy!! I did a lot of reading and researched the TDEE / BMR numbers, etc. as I had been eating the recommended 1200 cals for months. I did really well at first and lost 7 lbs pretty quickly. then nada.... I couldn't figure out why since I was only eating between 800 - 1200 cals per day net. Doesn't a large deficit equal large weight loss? Not for me...

After spending a lot of time on different websites, and doing different calculators, here is what has worked for me:

http://scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/

I didn't want to base my numbers on exercise that I MIGHT do, even though I'm consistent, so I factored in my TDEE at the Sedentary rate - 15% (I don't have much to lose).

I am 5'5" and currently 136.4 lbs. My BF is 22.7 % and am 40 years old. I went to the Scooby Workshop website to calculate my calorie needs for the day and use those numbers. If you know your bodyfat % then a more accurate calculation is using the Katch-McArdle formula according to them. These stats give me:

BMR - 1405
TDEE - 1686 (at Sedentary)
Calorie Requirements to lose 0.5 lb per week - 1433 (this is at a 15% deficit)

Sooooo, what I did after that is reset my MFP daily goals at 1450 cals per day NET! I eat back ALL of my exercise calories.

The second thing I did was purchase a HRM to accurately guage what I was burning during my workouts. You would be surprised at the discrepancies between estimates! I do an intense bootcamp class 3 x per week and run on my off days. Either a few miles or sprint intervals, depending on how I feel that day. Depending on what we are doing in bootcamp, my burn could be anywhere from 240 cals to 350 cals....WAY under what I thought!!! If I was to eat back what I GUESSED I was burning, then I would be eliminating any deficit I had for the day. Keep in mind that the muscle you're building will burn more calories at rest, and you get a great 'afterburn' from weights that will last for hours after, so even though you're not burning as large of an amount during your workout, the after effects far outweigh doing just straight cardio!!! Heavy lifting is the best thing you can do for your body!! I used to do both on the same day, but have stopped doing that. A little bit of something 6-7 days per week is better than a huge amount of exercise 3-4 days per week. (for me anyway).

The last thing I do is stop stressing and trust the process. I eat whatever I want and try to make sure that it fits into my calories for the WEEK. I've been eating Halloween chocolate like it's going out of style (yesterday that's all I had for lunch), and I was down a half lb this morning. I was way over my calories on wednesday, and was under Monday and yesterday. The little weekly graph on MFP shows me at an average of 1453 cals per day for the week so far.

I weigh myself every morning, but only log the progress if it's less than the last entry. sometimes there will be 2 weeks of no change, but then all of a sudden there's a 1 lb loss showing on my graph. If I take the total loss and divide it by the amount of weeks, then I AVERAGE a 0.5 lb loss per week.

This method has been easily sustainable for me....slow and steady with zero deprivation!!

Hope this helps, and good luck to you!!

I went through MONTHS of what I thought were plateaus. I did every calculation on the planet and I went to a registered dietician for advice. I finally came to the realization that the calculators out there were just based on average numbers.

I googled "RMR testing" including my area. I found a place that does actual RMR testing. I had to fast and not exercise for 12 hours prior to the test. No water, coffee, etc.

It was a breathing test where they measure CO2 output to accurately gauge your RMR.

Turns out every calculator out there put me at 1490 RMR but in reality, my RMR was only 1022. That was why I couldn't lose weight. I went back to the dietician and she said those tests are extremely accurate.

You may want to look into this test for yourself. It could give you answers about your body.

I went through MONTHS of what I thought were plateaus. I did every calculation on the planet and I went to a registered dietician for advice. I finally came to the realization that the calculators out there were just based on average numbers.

I googled "RMR testing" including my area. I found a place that does actual RMR testing. I had to fast and not exercise for 12 hours prior to the test. No water, coffee, etc.

It was a breathing test where they measure CO2 output to accurately gauge your RMR.

Turns out every calculator out there put me at 1490 RMR but in reality, my RMR was only 1022. That was why I couldn't lose weight. I went back to the dietician and she said those tests are extremely accurate.

You may want to look into this test for yourself. It could give you answers about your body.

That is really interesting! I would be interested in doing it just to find out what my numbers really are.