Plateau help?

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breemarie87
breemarie87 Posts: 16
in Health and Weight Loss
I've been on a 1200 calories diet (thanks to my doctor) since 8/4 and recently I just stopped losing weight. It's been 2 weeks. I cannot yet do cardio (need to lose a bit more weight d/t my knees), but I have been doing crunches, leg lifts and push ups almost every day. What's going on? Thoughts??

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  • DemoraFairy
    DemoraFairy Posts: 1,806 Member
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    People stall for a week or two sometimes, it happens. If it carries on for another 2 weeks you should consider doing something about it, but for now just keep on with what you're doing. I didn't lose anything for 3 weeks recently, then it started coming off again with no changes to my lifestyle.

    If it does carry on, maybe try some different exercises that you're able to do. If you open your dairy (settings -> diary settings) people might be able to give more specific advice. But as I said, for now, don't worry. 2 weeks is not a plateau.
  • logicalmaniac
    logicalmaniac Posts: 15
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    Plateaus can happen for many reasons. When we lose weight we become lighter and we no longer burn as many calories as we do when we are heavier. It has nothing to do with metabolism slowing. The heavier you are the more calories you burn just walking around. You may need to recalculate your calories based on your new weight.

    Also, when a person has dieted for a long period of time, the body will sometimes fill fat cells with water. It will give the illusion of no fat loss on the scale, but you are in fact losing weight. It is commonly refered to as DIETER's EDEMA. It is basic water retention. You are still losing fat, but it may not show on the scale. A week of maintanance eating will cause a WHOOSH effect to happen, which should start the scale moving in the right direction when you restart your deficit eating.

    Also, you need to look at your current body fat. Fat can only be utilized at a fixed rate. The less you have the slower weight loss becomes. When you are really overweight you can safely lose 5+ pounds of fat a week, but as you get leaner this number goes down. People at really low body fat sometimes have to work their butts off to lose .25lbs a week. They just don't have the a lot of fat on them to be utilized.

    If your weight has not gone down for more than two weeks, and your measurements have not changed (if you are not measuring yourself then I suggest doing so), then you will need to try some of the aforementioned things.

    I am assuming that you are logging EVERYTHING that enters your mouth. Sometimes we neglect a bite here or a bite there, and those bites can really add up and quickly throw you out of a caloric defecit. Make sure you log everything.
  • breemarie87
    breemarie87 Posts: 16
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    Thanks for all of the advice guys!! Much appreciated! :smile:
  • breemarie87
    breemarie87 Posts: 16
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    I'm losing the weight again!! Almost 3 weeks to the day i couldn't lose anything and I'm finally dropping it again. Thanks again guys!! :D
  • deedzzz
    deedzzz Posts: 220 Member
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    A weightloss stagnation isn't a plateau after only 2 weeks. WAit another month or so before you can call it a plateau! At a certain point your weight loss will become slower!
    Eventually you will need to start increasing your calories. The closer you get to goal, the more you should eat, and aim at losing less lbs/week.
    I was on a plateau for 5 months.. same weight, for 5 months! Stick to it, the weight will come off, just be patient and look for NSVs. The number on the scale is just a number, hopefully your body will still be changing if you are eating at a deficit and working out.
    Sometimes if you work out excessively, water will build up in your muscles and cause some weight gain or at least stall weight loss. After 5 months of no weight loss on the scale (although i went down 2 pants sizes), i took a 3 week break from working out and dropped 6 lbs although i didn't change a thing in my diet!

    Best of luck
  • cdahl383
    cdahl383 Posts: 726 Member
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    Whenever I've plateaued for more than a couple weeks its generally been myself eating more than I thought I was. I started using a digital food scale and that helped me tremendously in determining proper portion sizes and how many calories I was taking in. Well worth the $10-15 they cost.

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