wt loss has stalled

sjb5577
sjb5577 Posts: 29 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I've recently lost about 15lbs but my weight loss has stopped (for little over a month) even though I've continued to exercise and keep to 1200. Very frustrated. Need to lose 20lbs by Oct for sons wedding. HELP! Any suggestions for this 5'2 137lb 50yo??

Replies

  • psykins
    psykins Posts: 76
    It's possible you're eating too little. Do you eat 1200 net, or 1200 total? If you don't fuel yourself through your workouts, your body will rebel and hold on to all that weight!

    You might also want to consider upping your calories - a lot of people here who stalled out at 1200 bumped up to1300 or 1400 and started losing weight again.
  • Tony_Brewski
    Tony_Brewski Posts: 1,376 Member
    Eat more. Don't be stupid. You are starving your body therefor it's not burning. Toss on about 300-500 calories a day you'll have more fuel to do harder more intense workouts to burn more off and the weight loss will start up again.

    Other wise if you want to sit at 1200 and starve yourself have fun with prolonged health issues down the road.
  • crippledvirgin
    crippledvirgin Posts: 15
    When you start your diet at the bottom, you have no room to move when you need to drop calories. It works at first, but stalling at nearly a thousand calories, that is not good. I agree, reintroduce more calories and maybe more cardio, or whatever you're doing.
  • ChangingAmanda
    ChangingAmanda Posts: 486 Member
    According to fat2fitradio.com, your BMR (minimum number of calories needed for your body to function in a coma) is 1300. Sedentary TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) is 1568.

    In short, at 1200 you're not eating enough whether that number is net or gross.

    At 137lbs you're a touch over weight according to BMI calculator. You'll lose more slowly the closer to a normal weight you get.

    This is a good post explaining how to calculate your calorie needs and then take a cut from that number to achieve weight loss: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/974888-in-place-of-a-road-map-2k13.

    Additionally, don't focus fully on the scale. No one but you will know what that number is unless you tell them. Focus on body composition and losing body fat/lowering your body fat %, especially since you're near a normal weight. There are numerous examples on the forums where folks have posted pics on how they've either stayed the same weight or gained weight, but because they lowered their body fat %, they're in smaller clothes and look better.
  • sjb5577
    sjb5577 Posts: 29 Member
    Thanks guys! I will definitely add more calories and keep at this :)
  • sjb5577
    sjb5577 Posts: 29 Member
    Thanks for the much needed info and the Link! Definitely need to change my ways
  • 55in13
    55in13 Posts: 1,091 Member
    No study has ever found a point at which reducing consumption did not increase the deficit. Increasing the deficit causes more weight loss. There are numerous posts and anecdotes claiming this has happened and it has - to rare individuals with a medical cause. Again - no study has EVER found it to be true that adding calories will increase rate of loss for people in general.

    "Net" is when you take the estimate of how many calories you burned and subtract it from the estimated number of calories you consumed. One line of thinking is that this rough estimate is what you should be trying to adjust by eating and/or working out to hit the number of calories for the day as your diet goal. It does work for a lot of people, but it is not the only way and the other methods are not doomed to failure.

    1200 calories is the minimum amount recommended by dietitians because it is not difficult to get the proper mix of nutrients in a carefully constructed diet at that level. It has nothing to do with "net" calories. What you burn in day minus what you eat is your deficit. Your body fat can provide 31.4 calories per pound per day toward the deficit. Take your weight and your BF% to compute how much you have, multiply by 31.4 and you will get the maximum deficit your fat stores can support. After that it will come from lean body mass and you don't want that. Some will come from LBM even before that, but that can't be helped.

    Some people refer to diets at or below 1200 as Very Low Calorie, VLC or VLCD. That is not correct. Dietitians use numbers in the 500-700 range as VLCD and they do sometimes recommend that for short periods for the very obese, but not without medical supervision.

    Anyway, whatever is easiest for you to understand and implement to make sure you get a reasonable deficit will cause you to lose weight.
  • sjb5577
    sjb5577 Posts: 29 Member
    Sometimes I worry about adding extra calories because of being short I've always felt I have to be so careful in doing that. On the other hand....I've been doing a lot of exercising and it seems to make sense to add more fuel. Exercise consists of one of these a day 4-5 xweek .Run of 3-4 miles, bike of 6-10 miles, elliptical 30-45 min, 30 min walk, off days is strength with lunges, crunches, curls, etc.... I guess I'll have to think about it and go from there.

    Thanks for the advice!
  • mrslynah
    mrslynah Posts: 39 Member
    This piqued my interest. When I put in a goal of just over a pound of weight loss a week, MFP puts me at 1200 calories. Since that is really a small amount of food, I have a hard time sticking with it.. and when I do stick to it, I hardly have the energy to work out. SO I am not losing- just maintaining. I believe once you get to a certain weight (140 for me), MFP decides that you are done.
  • mrslynah
    mrslynah Posts: 39 Member
    OK my question is WHY does My Fitness Pal provide 1200 as a goal for some of us, if what you are saying is true???
  • Gatus98
    Gatus98 Posts: 93 Member
    MFP suggests 1200 net calories, assuming one will be eating back excercise calories. Otherwise, you can opt to go with the TDEE and eat at a 20% deficit, and not log your excercise calories. It usually ends up being around the same.

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