Am I too late? Weight plateau and heavy lifting

Many of your entries are a bit suspect, i.e the pizza, meatloaf, oatmeal. The calorie counts are extremely low.

Also, I would change your macros to get more protein and healthy fats and less carbs. Get away from the lowfat cookies, etc. They aren't any lower in calories, as they usually add more sugar and other carbs to make up for the lack of fat. Fat and protein will keep you feeling more satisfied and you won't be starving as much.
A 30P/30F/40C is a good starting point for most people. Especially if you are going to start lifting, you will need more protein to feed your muscles.

I know the pizza looks suspect, but it is all homemade and recipes I have built in the system. For example the meatloaf is a recipe from skinnytaste.com that I altered and built in the recipe area. It's the meatloaf cupcakes without mashed potatoes but with extra zucchini. They are muffin size and actually even lower in calories usually, but my husband bought the wrong ground turkey last time(he bought Jennie-O lean instead of extra lean), so the recipe had to be adjusted accordingly until the next time I make them. Also the pizza is all homemade. BBQ pizza for example is a Mama Mias whole wheat crust with 5 TBS of BBQ sauce, half an onion, 1 cup 2% mozzarella, shredded chicken and spices divided 6 ways. It's not Papa Johns or NY Pizza, but it does the trick. Just about every meal is homemade and built in my recipe builder. Snacks are usually store bought but always portioned out. I spend usually every other Sunday cooking, baking, portioning, and freezing. You will see 3 or 4 portions for one meal, but one portion may be muffin size or only 1/4 to 1/2 a cup. The portion sizes are small out of convenience for my kids more than anything. Whatever I cook for the week on Sunday's is also what my family eats during the week. So one muffin size meatloaf is more realistic for a 4 and 10 year old to eat. Also, makes it easy to grab and go during the week since I'm not home until late. You are definitely right about the cookies. I am trying to move away from the idea of "reduced fat" or low fat because of all of the chemicals alone, but then trying to stay in such a low calorie range makes it difficult to do so. That's why I became more interested in heavy lifting. I'm so jealous when I read other women having awesome results AND they get to eat 1700, 1800, 1900, some even 2000+ calories a day without spending hours on end in the gym every single day. I'm literally starving every single day, and I just don't realistically have the time to put into cardio. An hour heavy lifting 3 days a week is doable. I don't want to do anything to lose weight that I can't continue when I've reached my goal since this is a lifestyle change. Protein I know I need to work on as well. I will work on adjusting my protein, fat, carbs. I've been reading about macros and such, so I know I'm going to need to eat more protein. Thanks for replying

If you eat below your TDEE you will not gain weight. It's simple math provided that you are accurate with your tracking. Also, cardio DOES NOT make you gain fat. Ever. Maybe you eat more because you're hungrier when you do it or maybe your glycogen stores increase causing a temporary water weight gain but cardio in and of itself contributes to a calorie deficit which leads to weight loss.

The TDEE is what scares me. If I eat even a few hundred calories over 1200, I gain. Yesterday I had close to 1500, I gained 1.6lbs, so today I'm going to go under so I can hopefully balance out to 178 again. I measure everything and log everything even my binges. My daughter was in the hospital on and for the past two months. I struggled to stay at 1200 since I stayed with her (hospital and fast food were my options) so it balanced out to about 1500-1600 calories a day ( I would be up with her 18-20 hours a day)...I gained about 5 lbs in that time. It came off when I came home and reduced to 1200, but 1500-1600 calories isn't a lot, yet the weight came back. So when I think TDEE-20% being 1700 range...I just picture the weight packing on and gaining everything I've lost back.

My TDEE scared me, too. I was exactly where you were, doing the exact same thing, so I'm not going to say you messed up your metabolism, but you may be experiencing some of the same hormonal issues I had on a VLCD. Once I got over this fear and started resistance training and increased my calories, it was like my body finally figured out I was going to feed it and strengthen it, and I dropped almost 10% body fat in six months and have been maintaining on 2600/day. Check out this thread:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/931670-bmr-and-tdee-explained-for-those-needing-a-guide

Start now, and best of luck!

That link was awesome. THANK YOU!!! And congrats on your 100lb loss!!! Truly awesome!!!

Thanks for clarifying the recipes. They actually sound good. I may have to check out that site myself. You have lost 80 lbs, so you are definitely doing things right.
After losing 50 lbs, I plateaued for awhile, but actually I was just eating at my new maintenance level. I didn't stress too much about it, as I figured my body could use a diet break, but when I started trying to lose again, I found it very difficult to do so. I didn't want to lower my cals too much more, and couldn't increase my exercise, so I tried Intermittent Fasting/5:2. I was able to finally break thru the plateau and lose another 5 lbs over a couple of months. You might want to do some research on it and see if it is something that might help you as well.
Best wishes!

No problem. I knew the diary would seem misleading since so much is coming from the recipe builder. Thank you for taking the time to look at it!I love skinnytaste.com. Lots of excellent ideas that are easy to tweak if needed. I have picky eaters and they love the recipes too! Congrats on your weight loss as well! I will check out the fasting 5:2. Thanks!