Weight loss Plateau

BlackBeltInTraining
BlackBeltInTraining Posts: 30 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hello, everyone!
I joined my fitness pal quite recently in order to try and get over a weight loss plateau. For the past week and a half I've been stuck at 165-166, depending on the day I will be either 165.2 or 166.0. I eat decently, but I admit to allowing myself to splurge perhaps a bit too much, I also probably do not drink enough water. Would either of these two things be the cause of this plateau that I am on? Working out is no problem for me at all, five days a week I spend an hour doing martial arts, two days a week I spend instructing it for an extra four hours. Besides this I do at least 50 crunches, 50 sit ups, and 50 jumping jacks whenever I get a chance throughout the day. I also run three miles on the days when I am not doing martial arts.

To be honest, I'm not completely sure what I'm doing wrong at this point. I have lost 10 pounds within the past month and a half, now I'm struggling once again. Any advice on what could be wrong or what you did to get over a weight loss plateau would be very, very helpful. :)

Replies

  • mokinaga
    mokinaga Posts: 2 Member
    I'm no expert. I do notice that calories don't lie. When I stay below the alotted amount, I lose. If I go above then, I gain. I also get seem to lose weight more easily with two a day exercising - running and swimming/cycling.
  • ParkerH47
    ParkerH47 Posts: 463 Member
    I have read that in order to break a plateau it can be helpful to alternate high and low calorie days so maybe you do a day of 1200 and a day of 1600 that still averages around 1400. But now your metabolism doesn't have time to adjust to the consistent calories. I haven't tried it but it might be worth a shot, it would also allow you to indulge on alternating days.

    Another thing to keep in mind is accuracy in your logging, it is really important. For example the other day I guessed the amount of walnuts I put in my salad. put it in my diary and saw it was 60 calories. I thought maybe I should double check so I weighed it with my little digital scale and re-entered it.... 310 calories!! with calorie dense foods like nuts and oil it is extra important to measure/weigh.

    Also I'm not sure if you eat back your calories but maybe give that a rest for a while and only do so if you feel hungry. The MFP exercise calories are notoriously wrong.

    hope that helps!
  • JustPeachy044
    JustPeachy044 Posts: 770 Member
    My fitness coach told me once, "The body you have today is the one you earned last week." Give your body time to catch up. You could very well be retaining water in your muscles due to the exercise you are doing. Keep it up!
  • ereck44
    ereck44 Posts: 1,170 Member
    Wow! I think that I am the queen of plateaus. About a year ago i plateaued for about 6 months after losing 12 pounds.(This was before I found out about mfp). I sought advice from a personal trainer who told me that I should eat every 2 or 3 hours but that didn't work for me. I increased the number of times that I strength trained and lost 10 pounds that month.

    I agree that you probably need to change something, an exercise or change something that you are eating. Actually a couple of weeks of a plateau isn't that bad. You need to lose weight slowly in order to keep it off. Anyway since joining mfp last November, I lost another 26 pounds. I plateaued recently again x another month, and now am back in weigh loss mode. As active as you are, you will get back to goal weight. just give it some time.

    Good luck! Your profession sounds fun.
  • BlackBeltInTraining
    BlackBeltInTraining Posts: 30 Member
    Thank you guys so much for all of your advice and kind words! :)
  • nboks
    nboks Posts: 41
    i have the same problem. people are saying that i look thinner but the weighing scale doesn't lie :(

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