Losing the last ten pounds...tips anyone?

I am taking about 1200 calories a day...and I work out about an hour each day. Some time more. Depending on how exerted I feel. Like these days I am winding up the Butt Bible so that's about 40 minutes. And I start with a brisk walk on treadmill to just kind of warm up for 15-20 minutes. And usually end with muscle toning for about 10 - 15 minutes. Lesser intensive but repetitive stuff. Like for abs and arms.

I am by no means an expert but only 1200 calories a day and an hours workout? I don't think you are getting enough calories to be honest. Try upping your calorie intake at least to 1400 if not to 1600-1700 a day...healthy calories though, not all junk food. Maybe more proteins etc...and a mix of other calories, hey its ok to have an ice cream occasionally. I think your body may need more calories to convert to muscle and shed those last pounds. Also you will lose them a lot slower because hey its the last 10.

I for example do about a 200 calorie burn workout every day (25 minutes circuit training), am lightly active and have a drop goal of 1/2 lb a week to lose my 10 pounds (although I care less about pounds at this point and more about building muscle, toning, and losing inches) And my calorie intake daily if I'm eating those exercise calories, which I am, is 1800.

^^This^^

Really, 1200 cals is tooooo few, with that much of exercising. You need to up your calorie, what MeClaire2000 says, between 1400-1700 a day. And you need to eat your exercise cals.

It would take a seriously low deficit for your body to go into starvation mode. The last few lbs are always the hardest to knock off and weight loss slows down when you reach that.

How many calories a day are you eating at the moment and how much exercise are you doing?

Seriously?

EDIT: OMG I read that wrong haha. Soweeee.

change workout! do swimming if you are not doing it.

I am taking about 1200 calories a day...and I work out about an hour each day. Some time more. Depending on how exerted I feel. Like these days I am winding up the Butt Bible so that's about 40 minutes. And I start with a brisk walk on treadmill to just kind of warm up for 15-20 minutes. And usually end with muscle toning for about 10 - 15 minutes. Lesser intensive but repetitive stuff. Like for abs and arms.

I am by no means an expert but only 1200 calories a day and an hours workout? I don't think you are getting enough calories to be honest. Try upping your calorie intake at least to 1400 if not to 1600-1700 a day...healthy calories though, not all junk food. Maybe more proteins etc...and a mix of other calories, hey its ok to have an ice cream occasionally. I think your body may need more calories to convert to muscle and shed those last pounds. Also you will lose them a lot slower because hey its the last 10.

I for example do about a 200 calorie burn workout every day (25 minutes circuit training), am lightly active and have a drop goal of 1/2 lb a week to lose my 10 pounds (although I care less about pounds at this point and more about building muscle, toning, and losing inches) And my calorie intake daily if I'm eating those exercise calories, which I am, is 1800.

Yeah your calories are most likely too low but a weight height/activity level would give us a better idead of where you need to be.

If you are in fact too low the best thing you could do, IF your not losing anything right now would be to increase your calories back up to maintenance, I would recommend doing this by adding 100kcal a day not shooting back up 600-700kcal straight away, by increasing 100kcal a day you will have very minimal fat gain if any.

once you find your maintenance stay there a month or so, start doing more resistance training and make sure you have the right macros and try get your lbm up, that will aid in fat loss, cut the cardio back to a max of 35 mins at a time. Your aim is to get your metabolism fired up again, again this is if your defecit is too low atm and your doing hour long cardio dropping no weight.

When you have that done, return to your cut and cut out as few calories as possible at a time to induce weight loss.

I got scared by the huge calories of TDEE -20% so I reset to 1400 + exercise calories. Nothing moved for the first few weeks but the last three I've lost 2lb a week. That was unexpected!

I'm now unsire wheter I should up my calories a litle (only 7lb to go :drinker: ) to slow to 1lb a week, or keep at the same level and maybe reach my target early (allowing me a few weeks before my holiday to adjust my maintenance calories).

I am just about at my goal weight now and everyone is telling me I don't need to lose more weight. But I am more concerned with toning. By the sounds of things, you have been doing enough strength training etc that you must be lean and toned. I can only advise you to be less strict with the calories and be really concerned with macros- perhaps try to keep protein high and carbs and fat medium to get the last few pounds off. All of the research I have done online about getting lean seems to show that higher protein and less carbs and saturated fat is what gets the job done. But I would never suggest atkins diet to people because it just does not work for me- if I completely cut out bread, pasta etc I binge later. And I have read that all the weight comes back on when someone goes back to eating carbs.

Have you read Jillian Michaels book "Making the Cut"? It sets out a plan to lose the last few pounds. I haven't followed it but I bought the book and have been taking tips from it. I can't follow the diet properly as I'm in Ireland and half of the foods are American and I can't get them. The only thing is she suggests that you eat at your Basal Metabolic Rate while on it and if I am working out a lot I have to up cals or I just get too skinny-plus I'm starving. Maybe have a look at it.

Best of luck. x

I am taking about 1200 calories a day...and I work out about an hour each day. Some time more. Depending on how exerted I feel. Like these days I am winding up the Butt Bible so that's about 40 minutes. And I start with a brisk walk on treadmill to just kind of warm up for 15-20 minutes. And usually end with muscle toning for about 10 - 15 minutes. Lesser intensive but repetitive stuff. Like for abs and arms.

You should be eating AT LEAST 1400 calories a day if you are working out 40-60 minutes every day. You're most likely slowing your metabolism down because you aren't eating enough. I say this only because my nutritionist told me so.

I don't know if the jiggling ever really stops......:sad: Or maybe I'm just impatient