3 Month long plateau.

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  • matthewsism
    matthewsism Posts: 35
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    I think the starvation mode warning on mfp might be misleading. Might be just something to cover their *kitten* if someone were to get an eating disorder or someone using the app that already has one. I don't know. But I do know that I get that warning sometimes and it is just bull****. I am no where close to going into starvation mode. I quite like the suggestion of not even logging burn calories. I will try that if I get to feeling stuck.
  • loveshoe
    loveshoe Posts: 365 Member
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    Maria -

    I'm also doing MRC and started only a few pounds away from your initial weight. I don't stick with the plan every day because it doesn't always fit my day, however I do kick off the day with the MRC breakfast. The breakfast foods are relatively inexpensive, eggs and bread. I might also do the MRC lunch, tuna with some veggies. My suggestion would be to build a day using MFP and look at the protein, carb, and fat grams and try to duplicate it with different foods. Don't forget to add in the protein drinks. I've purchased protein drinks from GNC, Whole Foods, and Wal-Mart that meet the same protein grams. Since you're on a budget strive to meet the protein requirements according to what your food budget is that week.

    Watch for liquid calories that can be grabbed on the go. It's easy to go over your calorie needs if you're drinking them.

    Remember to lose 1 pound of weight per week you need a calorie deficit of 3500 calories per week. My goal even doing MRC is 1 pound per week because that is 52 pounds for the year. The people at MRC wanted my goal to be higher and most weeks it is but if I lost 1 pound I happy with that small success. It's slow but easy to do by just exercising and counting my calories. I use a pedometer and try to get in at least 6000 steps per day.

    Just remember it's one meal at a time and if you mess up on one meal just get it back under control on the next meal.

    Good Luck.
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,704 Member
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    So, Hi there, Im Maria and I am 19 years old.

    Im 5'6"
    200 Pounds (fluctuating between 200-203 every other week)
    and I've been this way for over 2 months now.

    I started out at 225 and when I started to lose weight I was just on the MRC diet (Its a diet center that is low calorie, low carb, high protein and it uses ketosis to help you lose weight) you also had to buy their nutrition drinks. WHICH WERE SO EXPENSIVE.

    so after dropping about 20 pounds with them I had to leave, I got a gym membership and I started working out and counting calories. With my activity level (working out 3-4 days a week) several online calculators told me to maintain my weight at about 2600 calories. so I removed 500 from that for my deficit.

    so that put me at around 2100 calories, and I would eat back most of my exercise calories for the day.

    Yet, after switching off the MRC diet, I've seen no results and it's getting very frustrating. I know physically I have gotten /stronger/ I can lift more weight than when I first started and I have also built up my endurance (try only being able to run for 30 seconds and then kicking that up to 2 minutes)

    I figured "maybe im losing body fat, and gaining muscle?" so when I got my BF% checked out at my gym again, I had only lost 1% of fat.

    I know I havent been eaitng 100% clean and healthy foods, Im a broke college student and I do what I can. even if Its nasty food I still count within my goal.

    Another thing, I havent been drinking "pure water" as much as I should, orange juice and lite lemonade has been my primary source of liquids. could that have something to do with it?

    Please I need honest advice please! I just want to drop down to my goal weight :(
    Unless you've been consistent 100% at least 6 weeks or more with diet and exercise, it's not a plateau. You're more stalled than plateaued it sounds.
    As Tigersword stated, it sounds like you're eating too much. Scale back a little and see what happens.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness industry for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
  • B1NK
    B1NK Posts: 2
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    Are you saying you eat 2100 calories a day? if so that is waaaaayyy too much! that is the amount of calories a grown active man should eat a day.
    To lose weight it is recommended to have only 1200 calories a day. I have lost 40lbs so far I started at 200lbs and have around 1000 to 1200 calories a day and Work out 8 times a week doing 1hour sessions. Lower your calorie in-take :)

    My diet for breakfast is either one of these:
    - Lipo-Fyre Protein shake
    - 4 egg whites mixed with vegetables
    - Spinach mixed with one boiled egg
    -Rolled Oats mixed with water or Almond milk

    LUNCH:
    -Salad (onion, tomato, cucumber, spinach, lettuce) No Cheese and a light balsamic dressing
    -Chicken or beef with vegetables / salad

    DINNER:
    - Steak, Chicken Or Fish with either Vegetables or Salad (the same salad as I would have for lunch)

    Healthy SNACKS:
    1-2 serves of fruit a day
    - 10 almonds mixed with some pumpkin and kennel seeds
    - small can of Tuna
    - vegetables

    Try and Drink 3 liters of Water a day!
    Also your servings of meat (beef, Chicken, fish) should be the size of the palm of your Hand :)

    Make sure you stay away from
    - Bread
    - cheese
    - Potato
    - fast foods
    - processed foods

    Basically just eat Fresh foods and plenty of water :)
    Hopefully this will help you!

    And yes Orange juice and any other kinds of juices are FULL of sugar yes its mostly natural sugar but its still Sugar!
    Too see the results you need to eat healthy its 80% Diet and 20% Exercise!

    Good Luck! :)
  • FlaxMilk
    FlaxMilk Posts: 3,452 Member
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    so that put me at around 2100 calories, and I would eat back most of my exercise calories for the day.

    You are double counting your activity. Since you are including your workouts in the activity setting to get 2100, you don't eat back your exercise calories. Or, if you do MFP, you eat the 1700 and then eat back exercise calories, which would probably take you to around 2100 calories. On days you don't exercise, you eat the 1700. 1700 calories is not starvation; you don't have to worry about starvation mode.
  • sugarkane1234
    sugarkane1234 Posts: 51 Member
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    First post = epic fail

    No...just no.

    You can lose weight eating more than 1200 calories a day and you certainly don't need to exercise 8 hours a week.

    *Sorry, meant to quote B1NK
  • init2fitit
    init2fitit Posts: 168 Member
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    Are you saying you eat 2100 calories a day? if so that is waaaaayyy too much! that is the amount of calories a grown active man should eat a day.
    To lose weight it is recommended to have only 1200 calories a day. I have lost 40lbs so far I started at 200lbs and have around 1000 to 1200 calories a day and Work out 8 times a week doing 1hour sessions. Lower your calorie in-take :)

    Um, please shut up. My maintanence calories are 2200 and I'm a 5'1 22 year old woman, not some active dude.
    This whole myth that woman are delicate creatures and can only lose weight by eating like exercise bulimics needs to stop. By only eating 1200 calories and working 8 hours a week, you're damaging your body. Will you lose weight? Probably, if you don't either binge or start fainting from exhaustion, but you'd also lose weight by cutting of your leg.
  • pavrg
    pavrg Posts: 277 Member
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    so after dropping about 20 pounds with them I had to leave, I got a gym membership and I started working out and counting calories. With my activity level (working out 3-4 days a week) several online calculators told me to maintain my weight at about 2600 calories. so I removed 500 from that for my deficit.

    so that put me at around 2100 calories, and I would eat back most of my exercise calories for the day

    I ran your numbers into here:

    http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

    I put in "1-3 hours of exercise/week" and it came back with TDEE of 2392, with a weight loss goal of 1794 calories. I used 1-3 hours because even at 4 days, you're on the cusp, you're just starting a workout program so you aren't able to produce max effort consistently yet, your body hasn't yet fully adjusted to using more energy for exercise recovery, and it's generally better to start out a little more conservative. You could just round it to 1800 to make it a round number.

    You can always adjust it based on results and how you feel. Lost 12 lbs in the first month and feel hungry? Okay, you can up it. Lost 12 lbs in the first month and you feel great? Keep trucking. Lost 6 lbs in the first month? Probably where you ought to be, and if you feel okay maybe even lower it. Better than the alternative of losing a month to no progress whatsoever and feeling frustrated about the whole process.

    The other important factor is that is how much you eat per day, period. You don't eat back exercise calories using this method.

    I'd recommend using this method over MFP's because figuring out your exact exercise calories can be wonky for a beginner (the machines aren't accurate), and there's a mental trap of wanting to log every little activity as exercise to justify eating more. So set your goal calories and protein/carbs/fats according to the scooby site into MFP, and when you log exercise just make sure it's 0 (or 1 if 0 is unavailable) calories.

    Once you have a month or so worth of data you'll be able to adjust it accordingly. Also, make sure you recalculate every 5 lbs or so.
    I know physically I have gotten /stronger/ I can lift more weight than when I first started and I have also built up my endurance (try only being able to run for 30 seconds and then kicking that up to 2 minutes)

    I figured "maybe im losing body fat, and gaining muscle?" so when I got my BF% checked out at my gym again, I had only lost 1% of fat.
    It's completely normal that you don't see a change in body composition yet.

    Early strength gains come from increased muscle activation by learning how to do the motions, It takes time for your body to actually undergo hypertrophy (repairing and growing muscle fibers), just like it takes time for your body to breakdown bodyfat cells. This is a major reason why strength gains slow down after a few months -- your body fully learned how to activate your existing muscle fibers, so your strength gains now come almost solely from muscular hypertrophy. And as your muscles grow from exercise, they grow at a slower and slower rate.
  • pavrg
    pavrg Posts: 277 Member
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    Um, please shut up. My maintanence calories are 2200 and I'm a 5'1 22 year old woman, not some active dude.
    This whole myth that woman are delicate creatures and can only lose weight by eating like exercise bulimics needs to stop. By only eating 1200 calories and working 8 hours a week, you're damaging your body. Will you lose weight? Probably, if you don't either binge or start fainting from exhaustion, but you'd also lose weight by cutting of your leg.
    Settle down.

    TDEE is highly dependant on body composition (the Mifflin-St. Jeor model uses an assumption and gets less accurate as you increase bodyfat percentage); it's highly unlikely that a person just beginning a workout program has a high percentage of lean body mass and eating 2100 calories as a weight loss goal for a woman fitting that profile is a lot.
  • gigglesinthesun
    gigglesinthesun Posts: 860 Member
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    To lose weight it is recommended to have only 1200 calories a day.

    Dear poster of the above statement: nononononononono you are wrong, it's not recommended at all.

    also OP,
    if you use MFP calories you eat your exercise calories, but if you use TDEE, you don't.

    the following might be a nice read and it also gives you a run down about starvation mode (or not as the case is)
    http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/starvation-mode
  • hedgiie
    hedgiie Posts: 1,245 Member
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    mine is in plateau for 6 months.... just don't give up
  • Ophidion
    Ophidion Posts: 2,065 Member
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    I could reiterate what most are saying but here are links written by people much smarter and informed than me...

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1069278-acronyms-and-terms-for-new-mfp-members-v-6

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/872212-you-re-probably-eating-more-than-you-think

    http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/why-big-caloric-deficits-and-lots-of-activity-can-hurt-fat-loss.html
  • init2fitit
    init2fitit Posts: 168 Member
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    Um, please shut up. My maintanence calories are 2200 and I'm a 5'1 22 year old woman, not some active dude.
    This whole myth that woman are delicate creatures and can only lose weight by eating like exercise bulimics needs to stop. By only eating 1200 calories and working 8 hours a week, you're damaging your body. Will you lose weight? Probably, if you don't either binge or start fainting from exhaustion, but you'd also lose weight by cutting of your leg.
    Settle down.

    TDEE is highly dependant on body composition (the Mifflin-St. Jeor model uses an assumption and gets less accurate as you increase bodyfat percentage); it's highly unlikely that a person just beginning a workout program has a high percentage of lean body mass and eating 2100 calories as a weight loss goal for a woman fitting that profile is a lot.

    Who's not settled? 1200 is highly unrealistic for a lot of people. Do people achieve weight loss by eating 1200, sure but that doesn't mean it works for and should be advised to everyone who has a plateau, assuming it's actually a plateau.

    I'm not saying that OP should maintain eating 2100 calories, I'm telling the other person that just eating 1200 calories AND working out 8 hours a week is not a blanket answer for everyone, as it's mostly unsustainable, highly unrealistic, and quite frankly worthless advice. Not to mention pretty common for ED individuals.

    For example, say that I took their advice and I did 8 hours on an elliptical. I'd be netting 700 kcals a day and my deficit would be 1500kcals daily. That's 3 lbs a week. If you think that's solid, healthy advice, I wonder which direction this fitness site is going towards. :grumble:
  • MrsFowler1069
    MrsFowler1069 Posts: 657 Member
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    The TDEE calculators include exercise in your activity already. So by adding your exercise calories, you're pretty much eating your deficit away.

    MFP doesn't, that's why if you use MFP goals you're supposed to eat your exercise calories back.

    MFP has me eating at 1700 calories at the moment. I assumed that was too low. Maybe I should just go back to using MFP strictly, even though Ive had several people tell me it was incorrect with a lot of information.

    Well you can do 1700 plus exercise calories, or TDEE-20%, but IMO 2600 is too high a TDEE for you, unless you burn 1000 calories in your workouts or something. Either way you should probably eat an average of 1900 daily, I'd think.


    Right - on MFP you can eat back exercise if you choose too. TDEE accounts for this in, so if you use that, don't. Make sure you're logging all of your food correctly - it's okay to drink juice, but be sure you're noting those calories. "Starvation mode" is not an issue for you, although you do want to eat enough to fuel your body and your workouts.

    Congratulations on your progress so far! Sounds like your body is liking the workouts! :)
  • MrsFowler1069
    MrsFowler1069 Posts: 657 Member
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    Are you saying you eat 2100 calories a day? if so that is waaaaayyy too much! that is the amount of calories a grown active man should eat a day.
    To lose weight it is recommended to have only 1200 calories a day. I have lost 40lbs so far I started at 200lbs and have around 1000 to 1200 calories a day and Work out 8 times a week doing 1hour sessions. Lower your calorie in-take :)

    lol My maintenance calories are over 2600 and I am eating at 1000 calorie deficit (I have a lot to lose, so am currently set for 2 pounds/week loss), leaving me over 1600 calories per day. I am losing quite nicely (46 pounds since mid-June). If I log exercise, I also sometimes eat a portion of that back, meaning I could definitely eat 2000+ calories if I chose to.

    I'm glad this is working for you, but I don't agree that "it is recommended." At least not appropriately so and for everyone.
  • B1NK
    B1NK Posts: 2
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    Are you saying you eat 2100 calories a day? if so that is waaaaayyy too much! that is the amount of calories a grown active man should eat a day.
    To lose weight it is recommended to have only 1200 calories a day. I have lost 40lbs so far I started at 200lbs and have around 1000 to 1200 calories a day and Work out 8 times a week doing 1hour sessions. Lower your calorie in-take :)

    Um, please shut up. My maintanence calories are 2200 and I'm a 5'1 22 year old woman, not some active dude.
    This whole myth that woman are delicate creatures and can only lose weight by eating like exercise bulimics needs to stop. By only eating 1200 calories and working 8 hours a week, you're damaging your body. Will you lose weight? Probably, if you don't either binge or start fainting from exhaustion, but you'd also lose weight by cutting of your leg.

    1200 calories a day is definitely not unrealistic plus the fact that I eat non stop! I have around 6 meals a day its all Clean eating - Fresh foods and natural fats and sugars meaning no fast foods, sugar drinks ect. I Also workout 8times a week because I enjoy being active. I can easily have up to 2,000 calories a day If I choose to but I would be over eating for myself personally but that's just my body. Also the fact that pre-made Meal plan Diet clinics such as "Lite n Easy" offer diet plans ranging from 1,200 -2,000 calories a day for people who want to lose weight - which I did use for a few months and stopped because my boss complained that I ate too much through out the day....... I'm sharing the advice on how I lose weight and how my work-out partners have lost weight. So maybe you should Shut up?
  • Cntrygrl07
    Cntrygrl07 Posts: 7 Member
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    For MOST its unrealistic. Im doing mrc but I dont use their protein stuff I found my own thats half the price and just as good as if not better than theirs. Maybe do their plan on your own or add a protein shake if u need an extra boost? I totally get the money thing. Im a college student too :/ eat wgat you can and adjust as you can. Try cals arount 17-1900 and dont eat back exercise or only eat back half if you are hungry and see what happens, if nothing then lower and try again. While fresh meat fruits and veg are ideal they arent always accessable for everyone. Good luck!!

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