Stuck in a Plateau

if you just made a change last week, give it more time. However, I know there are tons of people here that are believers, but I still don't get how people go into a "plateau" and try to break it by upping calories but still staying at a deficit. That just doesn't have any scientific support.

The idea of raising calories is to fix your crashed hormones due to long term dieting. You aren't going to fix them by raising calories to "less of a deficit" conditions. If you think you need to reverse the hormonal changes due to long term dieting, you need to take 1-2 weeks of eating at maintenance calories then just go back on your diet. It probably would do you a lot of good both physically and mentally.

If all you're doing for exercise is the elliptical then maybe you should switch it up a little bit. When you do the same routine, your body becomes adjusted and does it more efficiently so you're not burning as many calories as you think. Strength training is also very important to burn extra calories and build muscle. Have you tried interval training? Doing a mix of high intensity cardio and strength training may help as well. I would make those changes and see if your weight starts to go down again after a few weeks.

So, let me get this straight- you were losing 2 lbs/week on 1600-1700 cal/day with cardio and weight training, so you stopped weight training and upped your calories? I think you just told yourself what's going on.

1. Don't stop weight training. You may stop losing weight, but you're working on toning yourself up. Which would you rather have: a low number on the scales and still flabby, or a higher number on the scales (which only you see) but be toned?

2. Looking at your diary: holy bread and sodium!! I only looked back a few days, but to have a sodium intake anywhere near 5000mg is not at all healthy and is probably causing you to retain water to dilute the salts in your blood, hence, extra weight. Bread isn't great for weight loss either- I've reserved bread for weekends and during the week I tend to eat more beans or oatmeal for carbs. Both of those have protein so they help keep you fuller for longer.

3. You may have been right to up your calories, but it's WHAT you eat that really matters. I admit, my weekends are pretty horrible if you look through my diary and my one splurge is my after-work drink or two, but I try to reserve junk food for weekends- or at least Friday through Sunday. Looking back through your diary, I see fries, burgers, pizza, sausage, fast food breakfast sandwiches, chicken wings, chips, mozzarella sticks, etc. Your body needs good fuel to burn fat. You wouldn't put low-octane fuel into a Ferrari, would you?

20 lbs by September is absolutely achievable, but you can burst through your plateau by eating healthy, lifting, and doing cardio. Pretty simple formula

Totally understandable. And I'm sorry- I was just reading through what I posted again and it sounded a bit harsh.

With the sodium thing, though- try to focus on that first, since that can have some serious impacts on your health (high blood pressure, etc). Also, I know when I have high sodium days, I retain water like crazy, feel sluggish and bloated, and put on crazy amounts of water weight. Case in point: look at my most recent weekend. Fri-Sun I went over my sodium, and my weight on those days went: 131, 132.1, 133.1. That's even after 65 mins of cardio on both Saturday and Sunday! I'm hoping I lose that water weight again in the next few days.

If you are just starting out cooking for yourself, there are plenty of canned items- soup, veggies, etc that have "no salt added" or "low sodium" options that you can season yourself. Garlic powder is a favorite of mine, as well as cumin. A really easy option would be to maybe get a plain rotisserie chicken from your supermarket, season it with no sodium spices (garlic powder, cumin, Mrs. Dash- whatever) and get a side of canned, low sodium veggies. Plate them up together, microwave, and voila! If your local supermarkets are anything like mine (I Wegmans), that'll work out cheaper too. Losing weight+saving money= win-win!

if you're not losing, you're not in a deficit.

you're either eating more than you think, burning less than you think, or a combination of both.