Plateau advice-please!

fevermaps
fevermaps Posts: 162 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
So i've been dieting/exercising for the past 3 months. I started off at 128 lb and i am now down to 122lb. I have been happy with the process so far losing about 0.5lb a week. However for the past 2 weeks i have lost nothing and i have lost no inches either.

I exercise about 5 days a week and i have recently upped my calories from 1300-1500 and eat more when i exercise but it has not worked. I upped my calories before i plateaued as i realized i was probably not eating enough and was quite hungry. But now I am actually up 0.4lb which might not seem a lot but when you are only losing 0.5lb a week it's disheartening. Can anyone give me some advice please? It seems when i was eating less, i was losing and now the weight won't shift!

Trying to get down to 114lb.

Thanks!

Replies

  • fevermaps
    fevermaps Posts: 162 Member
    Anyone?
  • fevermaps
    fevermaps Posts: 162 Member
    ?
  • WBB55
    WBB55 Posts: 4,131 Member
    Have you read this?

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/912920-in-place-of-a-road-map-3-2013

    Upping your calories might have been right, depending on your TDEE and BMR. But once you up your calories, it's normal to plateau or gain for a couple weeks before you start going down again.
  • fevermaps
    fevermaps Posts: 162 Member
    Have you read this?

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/912920-in-place-of-a-road-map-3-2013

    Upping your calories might have been right, depending on your TDEE and BMR. But once you up your calories, it's normal to plateau or gain for a couple weeks before you start going down again.

    Yes i have read that. My BMR is 1373. My teedee is 1,628 to lose weight but i just haven't lost anything. Seeing as i was only cosuming around 1200 calories a day and losing, i'm worried that i will just stay stuck.
  • WBB55
    WBB55 Posts: 4,131 Member
    is 1628 your TDEE-20%?

    This is a good group led by a couple really smart people. Have you read their posts? http://www.myfitnesspal.com/groups/home/10118-eat-train-progress

    Really, try to be patient. It's normal to plateau/gain for a couple weeks when you up your calories.
  • lockmand
    lockmand Posts: 90 Member
    Did you take the 20% from your TDEE? If not , and you do so it would put you at 1,272. That may be where you should be?
  • AnnaVee84
    AnnaVee84 Posts: 345 Member
    plateaus suck. i broke mine by upping cals and mixing up my exercises, so it's good you upped yours, maybe considering changing your exercises? adding HIIT or a new gym class, something to get your body burning cals in a diff way since it's gotten really efficient with what you've been doing before. Stick with it though, 2 weeks is really short, and you should break through. it took a bit over a month before I was able to break, but when I did, I smashed through!
  • fevermaps
    fevermaps Posts: 162 Member
    Did you take the 20% from your TDEE? If not , and you do so it would put you at 1,272. That may be where you should be?

    Yes i did take the 20% off. I will see what happens!
  • ptf9
    ptf9 Posts: 12 Member
    I did the same thing for a year and lost maybe 10 pounds. However over the last 3 months I've lost 51 lbs because I stuck to 1200 calories or less a day no matter how much I worked out. It's extremely important to keep up the exercise for many reasons beyond just loosing weight -- but don't factor in these "additional" burned calories when you are trying to loose weight (think of them as bonus).
    Another thing you may want to look in to is a good electronic scale (they're on Amazon for about $30). Weighing what you eat helps avoid mistakes when calculating calories.
    Try these two things for a few weeks and I believe that you will see improved results.:happy:
  • fevermaps
    fevermaps Posts: 162 Member
    I did the same thing for a year and lost maybe 10 pounds. However over the last 3 months I've lost 51 lbs because I stuck to 1200 calories or less a day no matter how much I worked out. It's extremely important to keep up the exercise for many reasons beyond just loosing weight -- but don't factor in these "additional" burned calories when you are trying to loose weight (think of them as bonus).
    Another thing you may want to look in to is a good electronic scale (they're on Amazon for about $30). Weighing what you eat helps avoid mistakes when calculating calories.
    Try these two things for a few weeks and I believe that you will see improved results.:happy:

    So you're saying i should stick to 1200 calories a day and not to eat back my exercise calories?
  • WBB55
    WBB55 Posts: 4,131 Member
    is the 1678 your TDEE-20%?? Meaning your TDEE is 2100?

    If your total TDEE is 2100, then 1200 is probably WAY. TOO. LOW. If so, you're still not eating your TDEE-20% if you're only eating 1400-1500. (However, with so little weight to lose, you should aim for TDEE-10% or TDEE-15%)

    Please read the sticky posts I linked you to in the Eat, Train Progress group. You said you were hungry when you were eating at 1200. Listen to your body. And read the posts I linked you to. Good luck <3
  • fevermaps
    fevermaps Posts: 162 Member
    is the 1678 your TDEE-20%?? Meaning your TDEE is 2100?

    If your total TDEE is 2100, then 1200 is probably WAY. TOO. LOW. If so, you're still not eating your TDEE-20% if you're only eating 1400-1500. (However, with so little weight to lose, you should aim for TDEE-10% or TDEE-15%)

    Please read the sticky posts I linked you to in the Eat, Train Progress group. You said you were hungry when you were eating at 1200. Listen to your body. And read the posts I linked you to. Good luck <3

    Yes thanks a lot for the advice!
  • fevermaps
    fevermaps Posts: 162 Member
    I did the same thing for a year and lost maybe 10 pounds. However over the last 3 months I've lost 51 lbs because I stuck to 1200 calories or less a day no matter how much I worked out. It's extremely important to keep up the exercise for many reasons beyond just loosing weight -- but don't factor in these "additional" burned calories when you are trying to loose weight (think of them as bonus).
    Another thing you may want to look in to is a good electronic scale (they're on Amazon for about $30). Weighing what you eat helps avoid mistakes when calculating calories.
    Try these two things for a few weeks and I believe that you will see improved results.:happy:

    So you're saying i should stick to 1200 calories a day and not to eat back my exercise calories?

    He's older than you, and metabolism declines with age, so no... don't eat 1,200 unless you're pretty short, around 5 ft or so.

    I'd be way too hungry only eating 1200 calories!
  • tiggerhammon
    tiggerhammon Posts: 2,211 Member
    I would try not to pay to much attention to the scale. At this point, you body may well be just building muscle. Also, have you concurred that it is possible you are at the weight your body wants to be? Maybe you need to focus more on building muscle and toning now and less on losing.
  • tiggerhammon
    tiggerhammon Posts: 2,211 Member
    Considered, not concurred. Stupid autocorrect. I think you are at a healthy weight. Try to change your mentality a little to focus on feeling great, lung capacity, endurance, strength, conditioning, toning and forget the weight number. Especially if you have a lot of muscle you may never weigh 114.
    Sorry, if that is harsh, but that is my opinion.
  • ptf9
    ptf9 Posts: 12 Member
    1200 calories is a general target (specific circumstances need to be taken into account to determine your situation - age, activity, gender and other factors that will affect your metabolic rate but also be affected by what you eat). The tools out there, while useful, may be somewhat blunt and dependant upon assumptions made and accuracy of data input. For instance, I am an adult male who exercises regulary and could apparently maintain a healthy weight of about 140 - 160 lbs on anywhere from 1700 calories a day to 2000 calories a day according to several of them depending upon slight changes in input and variation of tables used to drive the calculations.
    Over the past 3 and a half months I have restricted myself to strictly below 1200 calories a day (several days to 1000) with great results and very good health. I am almost always over on fibre and protein according to the tables for daily allowances. This has all been done under the supervision of a well seasoned physician who graduated from a top medical school and decided to focus on health through nutrition after seeing folks eat themselves to death (either by eating too much, eating things that harmed them or not eating enough). I get regular blood work along with other tests and we have seen no ill effects but real health improvements throughout. I make sure that I get the right amount of vitamins, prives rotein, carbs, fibre and I pay particular attention to limiting sugar. Don't assume that a message being generated (ususally based on some general guidelines & tables) that suggests you may not be getting enough calories is appropriate for your situation.
    The two things I have done differently this time from previously where I lost weight at a very slow rate or not at all is 1) I avoided falling into the trap of deducting calories burned from my target daily caloric count (in part as I'm not convinced of the accuracy of the caloric burn tables information out there) and 2) I got an accurate food scale to make sure that I was not under estimating the amount of calories I consume.
    I have done this with absolutely no ill effects and in fact significant health improvements including getting off a drug I was using to help control a moderately low HDL. That doesn't mean 1200 calories a day or less is right for you.
    I thought I'd share these insights from actual experience with results in case you could take anything from them that you might incorporate into your plan for a couple of weeks to see if it will help you get back on track.
    As for medical advice (well there are some useful sites - The Mayo Clinic site http://www.mayoclinic.com/ comes to mind) however I think it only makes good sense to consult a professional to help you determine what advice from the net is going to be effective for you even though offered with the best intentions. Best wishes for success.
  • ptf9
    ptf9 Posts: 12 Member
    true dat

Categories