Scale hasn't budged for almost six weeks!

I strongly suggest eating back only half of your exercise calories if you are going by the calories burned according to exercise machines. Investing in a heart rate monitor with chest strap is a great idea if you want a more accurate idea of your actual burn. Until then, eat back half and try to be as accurate as possible when weighing and logging your food. Don't rely on cups for food that isn't liquid or eyeballing fruit like "medium banana". Don't get discouraged. The weight will eventually come off!

Ok, I'm really confused now. So I shouldn't eat my calories back that I burned while exercising? Or is it because I eat out, and eat popcorn at the movie theatre? Because I do cheat sometimes by doing that, but I work the amount of calories into my diet. Also, I posted a topic about why I wasn't losing weight around two weeks ago, and the response was I was burning too many calories (900 calories (walking to the gym burned 300, walking my dog burned around 150, and the activities I did at the gym burned the rest) and thus I was in starvation mode. About four people said this was the reason, so I believed their advice. But even toning down my exercise hasn't worked, so I'm just really getting frustrated. I do see a change in the mirror, but maybe it's just me wanting to believe something's changed....

How far is the gym? And the dog walk? And did MFP give you the calorie estimates?

Forget starvation mode.

I plateaued for months when I started lifting weights but my body changed. Hang in there. The scale will catch up eventually if you don't overeat. Changes in the mirror and in your strength are way more important than what the scale says.

Without opening your diary everyone is just guessing.

^^This

It would also be helpful to know a few more things as well.

-How are you measuring your portions?
-What kind of entries are you choosing? Are you using generic food entries that are in the database?
-Do you have any missing entries?

Ok, I'm really confused now. So I shouldn't eat my calories back that I burned while exercising? Or is it because I eat out, and eat popcorn at the movie theatre? Because I do cheat sometimes by doing that, but I work the amount of calories into my diet. Also, I posted a topic about why I wasn't losing weight around two weeks ago, and the response was I was burning too many calories (900 calories (walking to the gym burned 300, walking my dog burned around 150, and the activities I did at the gym burned the rest) and thus I was in starvation mode. About four people said this was the reason, so I believed their advice. But even toning down my exercise hasn't worked, so I'm just really getting frustrated. I do see a change in the mirror, but maybe it's just me wanting to believe something's changed....

First off, relax a bit, if you are losing inches, that is still progress. Next both of what you say above are things to improve: you should probably not eat back ALL the calories the estimators say you burn because they are very likely telling you you burnt more than you actually did (this is extremely common). This could be enough to start to lose right there. Then, eating out and eating popcorn from the movie theater could erase the ENTIRE week's work if you are not paying attention to the calories.

Since you are losing inches, which is progress, if you make rather small adjustments of eating back say 60% of your caloric burn from exercise, and strictly counting the calories of your meals out and popcorn (and reducing them slightly) you should be on your way to losing weight.

Thats pretty much all anyone can give you with the information you provided, since nobody can see any details about your size, weight, how much you eat, what you are eating, exercising, from your diary. Don't listen to any specific calorie numbers/solutions from anyone who gives them without seeing your information...

According to my nutritionist, if you follow the same routine every day your body kind of gets used to what you are doing to it, both food wise and with exercise. Her suggestion for getting off a plateau is to mix it up. Work out at different times of the day from what you had been doing. Do a different kind of exercise. If you run, bike. If you walk, swim.

The one ting she said that you should not do is start eating less if you are already at a deficit. Mix up your macros. If you are at 40 protein, 40 carb, 20 fat, maybe go 50, 20, 30 or whatever. You just need to do something your body is not expecting for a little while, then go back to your routine.

Your nutritionist is wrong. You do not have to mix up your routine to keep your body guessing. Consistency and progressive overload is more than enough.

You also do not need to mix up your macros. That makes no sense. If you need to adjust your total caloric intake therefore adjusting macros slightly then that's one thing but simply mixing up macros alone is unnecessary.

And where did you get your Masters Degree in Nutritional Science from?

When you starve your body of calories you lose weight. That's called dieting (or starvation mode).

No it isn't.

This content has been removed.

I lost three inches around my waist, and I notice a difference in the mirror, and every week the weights I can lift go up - but the problem is the scale hasn't changed.

Inches lost and visible difference in the mirror - why are you letting a scale number bother you or tell you you're not making progress???

My scale didn't move for SIX MONTHS. But I dropped a full size during that time, so who cares? I laughed at my scale and went out to buy new jeans. :drinker:

If you just adjusted your calories (as in eating back exercise cals) two weeks ago, give it time. You're losing inches, so you're on the right track. The silly scale will catch up, but stick with the tape measure for true progress.

This content has been removed.

Don't reduce calories to less than 1200 or your body will go into starvation mode! You're seeing a difference in inches because your body is replacing fat with lean muscle. That's a great thing!. Even though you're not trying to bulk up, it's a natural result to your exercise and you will soon see the scale moving again, you've just hit a plateau. When this happens to me I change up my workout routine (try a new exercise) and the pounds start to melt off rapidly! Don't get discouraged! Good luck!

You haven't challenged it. You have just said that it is wrong with nothing to back up your claims.

You haven't challenged it. You have just said that it is wrong with nothing to back up your claims.

The burden of proof falls on the person making the claim (you so-called "nutritionist" -- a title that is not subject to any professional regulation, btw).

I call her a nutritionist but she officially is a Registered Dietician with a Masters Degree in Nutritional Science from the University of Wisconsin

I can't stand when people are so closed minded to new information. If you see someone with results, why not take their advice? Who cares if they don't have a degree/education in that particular field; they have evidence. :huh:

And what is wrong with a degree/education? Spending 2 years studying scientific data using hundreds of subjects does tend to give you a little broader range of experiences to draw on than a couple of people's personal experience.

Having said that, I am not closed minded, I just haven't been presented with anything other than a few personal experiences to contradict what a trained nutritionist has learned from those hundreds of experiences. The OP hasn't had success doing what he/she is doing so why not try something different if mixing it up has worked for numerous other people? As always, YMMV

There is an idea that there is a "starvation mode" where your body stops losing weight because you are eating too few calories. This doesn't happen, as demonstrated by the locked ward research where people on very low calorie diets continue to lose weight.

There is a very real phenomenon called adaptative thermogenesis or metabolic damage. When you are on a low calorie diet for a long time, your body adapts to it. Your BMR goes down, your NEAT (non-exercise movement) goes down, and you burn fewer calories than you used to. Adaptative thermogenesis isn't usually significant -- 100 calories a day or less. Interestingly, a goodly percentage of healthy young men who eat way too many calories also get adaptative thermogenesis where they burn off more of those calories than would be purely expected by the numbers.

Adaptative thermogenesis has another partner, which is that as you lose weight, your calorie requirements go down. At the beginning of your weight loss journey, you might lose a lot of weight easily eating substantial meals. As you get smaller, the portions you can lose with get smaller too.

People who are working out can lose fat and gain muscle on a calorie-restricted diet, particularly if they are mesomorphs. I've done that myself in bodybuilding contests. It's hard work, though, and requires careful attention to macros as well as intensive training.

So, the first thing to look at when you hit a plateau is your numbers. Have your portions been growing? Have you been shrinking yourself but not your portions? Are you overestimating your calorie burns? Try moving a little more and eating a little less. If that pushes you out of the plateau, chances were that your numbers were wrong.

You can also try the One-Percenters. These aren't things that will make you lose weight all by themselves, but they can be tiny parts of the equation that might help you be more successful. Getting enough sleep, eating earlier in the day (and not in the evening), timing your meals around your workouts, getting plenty of water, cycling calories, and swapping out workouts are all in this category.

Bodybuilders often do calorie cycling to avoid adaptative thermogenesis. They toss in carefully calibrated high and low days to keep their metabolisms at their peaks. If you are close to normal body weight and have been on a calorie-restricted diet for months, you might want to look into some form of re-feed day or week. A re-feed does not mean that you take away all restrictions. It simply means that you eat either at or slightly above your TDEE for a period of time, minding your macros all the while.

There is solid research on the need to mix things up in the gym. When we start a new physical activity, we expend a lot of calories doing it. Over time, as we learn how to do it, we expend fewer calories. Starting new forms of exercise gives us the beginner's burn again.

Most serious bodybuilders also change their workout routines every 3 months. They work hard for 12 weeks, take a week off (no weight workouts and eat at TDEE), and then switch to a different strength routine and go back to their (usually very complicated) training diet.