I have hit a plateau and NEED HELP!!!

I peeped your diary. You're making good food choices, just don't eat back exercise calories. MFP tells you you burned way more than you're actually burning.

Hello there fellow friends! I will try to sum up for you all shortly what has been going on the last 4 weeks. I have had pretty steady weight loss over the last 5 months. I hit my goal of 150 pounds after 28 pounds of weight loss the first week of October (2.4 pounds lost that week) Since then, I have had NO WEIGHT LOSS. I haven't gained, thank the Lord, but my loss had halted totally. Take a look at my food diaries..... I eat healthy grains, fruits and veggies almost everyday and I work out 5-6 times a week at an hour minimum. I am just wondering if I am eating too few calories and my body is holding onto weight or if I am not pushing hard enough? I am really confused. I just recently purchased Insanity and plan on starting that monday, but I am not totally sure what it is I should be doing as far as diet.... ANY IMPUT is appreciated and feel free to tell me like it is. Also what is everyone's thoughts on net calories vs. food calories. THANKS SO MUCH!

You can be losing fat weight and gaining LBM weight (not muscle, just other stuff).

Hence the need to have measurements, about 8 different spots to compare.

If those haven't moved in 3 weeks along with weight, then you are currently eating at TDEE or maintenance level right now.

If this was sudden, did you start exercising more, drop calories more?

Have you read Insanity's info as to how much you should eat?

Do it and you'll likely see results. Stay at your same low level and you won't get nearly the results from the effort you are putting into it, if much of anything.

And yes, you are eating way too little for that level of exercise. Might as well not even waste time doing it since you can't get the full benefit from it.

Once your exercise takes some of those calories off the top of what you eat just to burn for energy, and your basic metabolism (BMR) takes the rest, what exactly is left for the body to work with to actually improve things?

You might benefit getting a handle on what you should be eating for a healthy loss, and getting real benefit from those workouts.

Use this, and read the stickies on the group.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/717858-spreadsheet-bmr-tdee-and-deficit-calcs-macros-hrm

Being that you presently weigh 152 and have a goal of 135, a deficit between 10-15% below actual TDEE would be more ideal. As fat mass decreases, you need to decrease your deficit. Aside from the endocrine alterations people above have mentioned that result naturally from calorie restriction, gradually reducing the deficit is needed for a few reasons.

First, the psychological adaptations can be quite stressful. If you consider two deficits, one about 15% below maintenance and the other being 35% below, which would likely cause more paranoia when thinking of returning back to maintenance? Obviously, the 35% cut since it would lead to a larger difference between present and adjusted maintenance calories. Thus, you want to gradually decrease the deficit the closer you get to your goal so the psychological effect of dieting is minimized.

Secondly, the amount of fat oxidation that takes place depends on how much fat mass you have. The more fat mass one has, the larger the deficit they can assume. In contrast, as fat mass decreases, a smaller deficit is needed because any extra work will be unnecessary and will lead to excessive loss in lean body mass as well as accelerating decline in RMR and leptin as well as potential increase in cortisol.

A side note on cortisol - excessive calorie restriction and exercise can lead to a stress too great for your body to adapt to. Once you set parameters to extremes - such as too much exercise and not enough calories - cortisol levels skyrocket. One of the effects of elevated cortisol is water retention - a lot of it. This can mask actual evidence of fat loss. To remedy this, you simply reduce the deficit by: upping calories, reducing exercise or both.