Exercise causing stall? I have a sneaking suspicion...

Are you eating back your exercise calories? If not, you might be eating too few calories?

A 'real' stall is longer than 4 weeks. Water weight fluctuations cause by changes in macros, exercise and our monthly cycle can mask 'real' weight gains/losses. You should look at your trends over at least 4 weekly periods of time.

I've researched this and found many agree that you need 150 minutes of cardio a week - studies have shown exercise in excess of that turns on cortisol in the body which prevents loss and sometimes causes a gain...............the message I understood was moderate exercise as too much can work against you with the cortisol levels.

Agreed, I am 5'3 and my tdee- 20 is 1632.

I also have a hard time believing that 1200-1400 = TDEE - 15%.
I'd also wonder how accurately and honestly you are logging.

Hmmm, maybe you're on to something. Katch-McCardle TDEE calculator says 1598 so -15% would be 1358. Should I calculate differently? 61.5 inches, 136lbs., 27-28% body fat (possibly). Any help is appreciated!
I definitely log every little bite and correct portion size- I once thought that was an issue, too so I make sure I'm meticulous. \
Thanks!

what activity level are you using?

I would read this:

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/why-big-caloric-deficits-and-lots-of-activity-can-hurt-fat-loss.html

Fat2Fit, Scoobys, MFP, I think I've tried them all.

MFP doesn't calculate TDEE. Scooby can depending on the settings you choose. Fat2Fit I don't like because it's WAY under IME (though may very well work for other people).

So I guess the first thing is to know what you're calculating, which in your case certainly doesn't seem to be TDEE. That means that you are eating less than the recommended amount. The good news is that eating less should result in faster weight loss. The problem is that eating less can have other negative side effects (especially long term), and doesn't always lead to weight loss as expected. This is probably why you are stuck and confused... because you think you are doing 1 thing but actually doing something else, then that something else doesn't lead to the results you expect.

Read the article Sara posted above and go from there... it's a good read.

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I've researched this and found many agree that you need 150 minutes of cardio a week - studies have shown exercise in excess of that turns on cortisol in the body which prevents loss and sometimes causes a gain...............the message I understood was moderate exercise as too much can work against you with the cortisol levels.

That's odd. I began on Jan. 4th of this year and *always* get far more than 150 minutes of cardio exercise in each week, and have lost 33 pounds.
I *did* have a month long plateau, from late Feb. to late March, but what seemed to break it was bumping up my protein and fat daily intake percentages to 35% and 35% and upping my net calorie goal from 1,200 to 1,390 and hovering somewhere around that most days. Pounds have been coming off pretty steadily since then and I'm firming and getting stronger as well.
NOTE: Upping the fat intake was at Sara's suggestion and I really feel that it was great advice. Seems to have helped a lot.
Thanks, Sara!

I do mix the cardio up a bit though...vigorous hooping, run/dancing, spinning, etc...
My personal trainer makes sure that I get a huge variety of different types of resistance training exercise too.

I would read this:

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/why-big-caloric-deficits-and-lots-of-activity-can-hurt-fat-loss.html

Hi Sara!
That link is returning an error. Is the URL wrong, or is their site just down, do ya think?

It must be down. I tried the link, same thing, then I googled the article myself (its from Lyle McDonald) and got same error.

Bump to check the article link to read later. Thanks for posting!

I find that I don't lose scale weight when I'm hard at the exercise nearly as fast as when I'm not..

At the beginning, I dropped pounds fast, then I picked up an amazing routine, and the numbers slowed (I hit 40lbs lost in Feb, now we're getting into May, and I've lost 6lbs). BUT my inches have been flying off, and to me, that number is far more important!

If you want to know your ACTUAL TDEE (vs. an estimate), you can use your MFP data to calculate it. It requires some math.

TDEE (average over # DAYS)

[(TOTAL CALORIES EATEN + (LBS OF WEIGHT LOST X 3500)] / # DAYS = ACTUAL AVG TDEE

For example, over the last 81 days, I have consumed 170,283 calories. I have lost 18.6 lbs. This is all data from MFP. My math would look like this:

[(170,283) + (18.6*3,500) / 81 = 2,906 <<< This is my average ACTUAL TDEE over the past 81 days

Pretty powerful data to have, right? You can poo poo the accuracy of tracking calories in, but as long as I track consistently, the data is the data. I have 81 days of AVG TDEE data and it has not varied much.

An even more powerful bit of information you can glean from MFP data is your daily non-exercise burn. This gives you BMR+TEF+NEAT

BMR: Basal Metabolic Rate
TEF: Thermic effect of food.
NEAT: Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis

This is a very powerful number as well. It gives you a good indication of how much you might need to eat to maintain your weight while not exercising.

More math:

[(TOTAL CALORIES EATEN - EXERCISE CALORIES) + (LBS WEIGHT LOSS * 3,500)] / # DAYS = AVG BMR+TEF+NEAT

For example, I ate 170,283 calories over the last 81 days. I have lost 18.6 lbs. I exercised for 30,787 calories. Again, all this data is in my MFP database (although I track it in a spreadsheet as well for easy analysis).

[(170,283 - 30,787) +(18.6*3,500)] / 81 = 2,448 cal / day AVG BMR+TEF+NEAT

This tells me that if I want to maintain my weight without exercising, I should eat 2,448 cal / day. But I need to be careful because if I stop exercising, this might change my metabolism. But because I track this daily, I would notice a change and be able to adjust accordingly.

To those naysayers that think the tracking of the calories themselves has inherent errors and thus, my calculations are wrong, I agree. But as long as I track consistently (if I am biased, I remain biased), then the resulting analysis will always reflect that bias.

I hope this was comprehendible. I find it amazingly powerful. We have ALL the data we need right here in MFP to determine our ACTUAL TDEE.

BTW, scooby says my TDEE is 2,827 cal / day. Pretty darn accurate.

I am 5'2 154lbs exercise 4/5 days a week and my TDEE -20 is about 1700. I too have broken stalls through stopping exercise for 1 week. I dont know why it happens, I am guessing I dont eat enough.

I am 5'2 154lbs exercise 4/5 days a week and my TDEE -20 is about 1700. I too have broken stalls through stopping exercise for 1 week. I dont know why it happens, I am guessing I dont eat enough.

Lyle also wrote an article on this (or is it in the same one) but the whole site isn't working. It has to do with the hormones produced. Basically you are stressing your body and the break allows for relief of that. Many people experience the same thing.