Plateau? Help please....I am so discouraged.

You are probably gaining muscle... xD


But for real, have you been checking your BFP in contrast to your weight loss?

I was having the same kind of problem, so I recently (this week actually) went to a friend of mine that is a personal trainer. I showed him everything that I was eating and told him what I was doing at the gym. He told me that I needed to eat way more and increase my carbs. I was really nervous because every thing I read is opposite but kinda willing to try anything at that point. I thought for sure I would gain... but I've lost .6lbs since Monday and feeling a whole lot better. I eat at least 1900 calories a day now and more when I exercise.

Definitely not gaining muscle on 1200 cals.

Definitely eat more - food is fuel. I've had my best success since eating according to the info in this topic, check it out: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/937712-in-place-of-a-road-map-ver-3-0

I could've written your post today. In fact, I wrote something similar on my feed on here. I keep toying with 5-8 lbs (lose some days, gain others).

I switched last week to eating more and really started following it this week. Everyone keeps telling me to give it longer, but I am soooooooo impatient!

I have decided to give it until the end of this month and if I don't get over this hurdle, I'm doing what M4ttcheek suggests and eat at maintenance to try and shock my system into gear.

Hang in there, you're not alone!

You need to eat more. 1200 calories is not enough especially with you exercising. Whatever your profile says you need to eat after exercise you Need to eat it or right at it. If you do the scales will move. Trust me, I just went thru this, I know.

If you really want to know if you are gaining muscle or not, just start measuring yourself and taking pictures. If you are not losing on the scale, but your measurments are going down and you look slimmer in your pictures, you are gaining muscle and losing fat. If NOTHING it changing, then you are not losing fat OR gaining muscle. From the description of your workouts and eating habits i would say your two biggest problems are

1) you have been eating too little for too long, your body has adjusted
2) you are not incorporating any weight lifting into your work out regimine (pilates does not count)
3) I am very familiar with the Paleo diet, and it could be that you are eating too much dietary fat. If you are getting more than enough dietary fat your body will be running off of that instead of the fat stored on your body.


I am going to copy and paste an answer i just wrote to someone else a few minutes ago, because I feel it could help you tremendously as well. Though i will also add the following...

1) Paleo diet is great in a lot of ways, however you could not be getting enough carbs. From your workout description you seem to be doing a lot of running. Running is fine but it also burns a lot of muscle, esp if you are aren't eating carbs before hand. Paleo diet allows up to 150g of carbohydrates a day (this is max...you'd probably do better at around 100g). I suggest adding in more "paleo friendly" carb sources (Sweet potatoes...some paleo people even eat quinoa since it is technically a seed and not a grain/wheat). Preferabbly 1-2 hours before you go on your runs, and if you choose to incoporate weight lifting (which i HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend) carbs + protein after you lift weights. If you go too long eating too little carbs, your bodies production of leptin dramatically decreases, and leptin is the king of all fat burning hormones. If you consume carbs post workout, this will initiate the release of leptin in your body. As well as promote muscle growth. Please do not confuse paleo diet with a "low carb" diet (if you know already know this then sorry!).

Ok...so here is what i posted for someone else who is having the same problem as you (lost weight as first, now has stopped)


Hi,

Weight loss pretty much comes down to calories in VS calories out. The problem might be that you are not actually getting an accurate calorie reading. Most people way under/over estimate serving sizes. The BEST way to get an accurate reading of how many calories you consume is to buy a food scale (you can get one for $25 or under on amazon) and weigh your food by the G or OZ. You can look up the calorie/macronutrient (or "macros" aka protein, fat, carbs) for your food on nutritiondata.self.com. This is the best way.

Another problem is that people way OVER estimate how many calories they are burning when they exercise. The machines at the gym are COMPLETELY off. Do you own a heart rate monitor? If not, I suggest buying one. The good (aka most accurate) ones get be a bit pricey (from $100-$150) but they are TOTALLY worth it. They show you what you are REALLY burning in your workouts, which will help tremendously in figuring out how much you should be eating. "Polar" makes the best brand of heart rate monitors, i own one myself. They also have some in pink . Just to give you an idea of how much machines overestimate your calorie burn, after doing 40 minutes of cardio the machine showed i burned almost 500 calories, when in reality the number was between 375-400. If you cannot afford a heart rate monitor, I'd say a safe bet to get a more accurate estimate of how many calories you are burning is to take off 100-150 calories from what the machine is telling you.

Also, are you only doing cardio or are you lifting weights as well? You NEED to lift weights. This is vital for FAT loss and not just "weight" loss. Have you ever looked at someone who has lost maybe only 5 lbs of FAT, but gained 2-3 lbs of muscle? It LOOKS like they've lost 10-15lbs! On the other hand, someone who has lost 10lbs of both fat and muscle, doesn't look THAT different. You don't want to be "skinny fat". And not only do you need to lift weights, you need to lift HEAVY weights. None of that 5lbs dumbbells. You need to lift weights that challenge you and make you sweat. I sweat as much lifting weights as I do doing cardio. And you will not get "big". The female body lacks the amount of testosterone to get too muscular. The women that you see who look "manish" and "buff" take testosterone supplements and work out at the gym for YEARS to get this way. If you lift heavy weights and eat right, you will just be toned and tight.


Are you eating back your work out calories? If so, this could be the problem. If you're eating back everything you burn your weight loss will either stop or be tremendously low. Make sure you're still at a ~500-800 defecit .

Now, if you've done ALL of this and you are positive your calorie intake is accurate and you are not eating back all of your workout calories, there are tricks to get you back to losing weight....

1) For 1 week eat at your maintenance calories. (ex: if your maintenance calories are 1600 cal/day and you workout and burn 400 calories a day, eat 2,000 calories a day). After a week of eating at maintenance, start dieting again to be at a caloric defecit. This helps a lot of people.

2) If you don't like the above option, incorporate 1 or 2 relaxed meals a week. By relaxed i mean basically eat whatever you like, but do not BINGE. Go out to your favorite restaurant and order your favorite dish, and eat until you are satisfied. Even better if you do this after a hard workout. Relaxed meals are important because they can help, for lack of a better word, "boost" your metabolism

3) Incorporate HIIT into your workouts. No more than 1-2 times a week, because if you do HIIT correctly, anymore can lead to injury. If you don't know what HIIT is you can google it or message me.


Hope this helped. ***also*** the best way to get an accruate estimate of what your BMR and TDEE is to first get a DEXA scan (you can call your doctor and ask about this). It gives you accurate info as to how much LEAN body mass you have, and how much of your body weight is fat. With this information you can find calculators online that ask you for your lean body mass and body fat % (note that body fat % is different from BMI. Body Fat % is more important than BMI. The BMI scale is actually VERY inaccurate and out-dated. You will see it on the printout of your DEXA scan if you choose to get one). Choose several different "calculators" and use the average from all of them. This will probably give you the best result. But honestly all of these calculators are flawed, and the best way to truly figure our your maintenance calories is through trial and error. I know, it sucks. We all want to find the exact number right off the bat, but it never works that way.

Eating 1200 calories and "exercising like crazy" is not a good combination.

You've lost 5 pounds in 4 weeks? How in the world is that a plateau? Sounds like you're doing fine to me.

This ^