Hit A Massive Plateau

I've been at it diligently since the beginning of April and have lost 30+ lbs...however I've only lost 1 lb since the end of May. I'm very strict and take in only 1200 calories a day. I also have increased my workouts from 20 minutes a day to almost 120 minutes a day and I'm burning 2000 calories during my workout -- still nothing.

I can't seem to shake this plateau.

Thoughts, ideas, suggestions? I still have 60 lbs that I need to lose!

Congrats on your weight loss!

How are you burning 2000 calories in one workout? You have to be a mean lean burning machine to do that. :bigsmile:

Seriously, 2000 calorie for two hours (or 1000 calories an hour, 500 calories for a half hour) seem overestimated. Are you using MFP to calculate calories burned, or are you using a heart rate monitor or some other source?

Do you weigh your food and log everything you eat?

Plateau is just another word for eating at maintenance.

Oh, one last question- have you allowed MFP to recalculate your calories for each ten pounds lost? As we gt smaller

I can only go by own experience im smaller than you and have less than you to lose yet I eat more than you and im a woman 1200 calories is my opinion why this isn't working and if you really are exercising that much your running on empty feel free to add me, my advice is calculate BMR and TDEE and start eating calories halfway between these numbers and tweak if needed

When you have excessive, non-essential body fat, especially in large quantities, there is no such thing as "running on empty".

If you, and half the people in this thread talking about starvation mode, or claiming his eating too little is causing the "plateau" were correct, there would be no such thing as the millions of emaciated people currently starving to death all over the world. If not eating, and running on "empty", led to weight loss "plateaus" then where do all those pictures come from of concentration camp victims and African children looking like flesh colored skeletons? Shouldn't all these bodies have gone into starvation mode and protected them from losing body fat?

I don't know if you are referring to me or not but to be clear - there is a difference between outright starvation. I never said it would prevent weight loss, I said temporary plateau. I do agree that overall calories in, calories out rules, but there are other factors. Hormones do play a role as well. Obviously continuing over long periods with too little food will result in weight loss regardless.
As I said, many have benefited from taking a temporary break from dieting or slightly upping calories.

FTR - I am also in the "I don't think you are burning as much as you think" crowd.

I can only go by own experience im smaller than you and have less than you to lose yet I eat more than you and im a woman 1200 calories is my opinion why this isn't working and if you really are exercising that much your running on empty feel free to add me, my advice is calculate BMR and TDEE and start eating calories halfway between these numbers and tweak if needed

When you have excessive, non-essential body fat, especially in large quantities, there is no such thing as "running on empty".

If you, and half the people in this thread talking about starvation mode, or claiming his eating too little is causing the "plateau" were correct, there would be no such thing as the millions of emaciated people currently starving to death all over the world. If not eating, and running on "empty", led to weight loss "plateaus" then where do all those pictures come from of concentration camp victims and African children looking like flesh colored skeletons? Shouldn't all these bodies have gone into starvation mode and protected them from losing body fat?

I don't know if you are referring to me or not but to be clear - there is a difference between outright starvation. I never said it would prevent weight loss, I said temporary plateau. I do agree that overall calories in, calories out rules, but there are other factors. Hormones do play a role as well. Obviously continuing over long periods with too little food will result in weight loss regardless.
As I said, many have benefited from taking a temporary break from dieting or slightly upping calories.

FTR - I am also in the "I don't think you are burning as much as you think" crowd.

The men in the infamous Minnesota Starvation Experiment became emaciated and skeletal thin on approximately 1,500 calories a day.

And most of them were nowhere near overweight, much less obese, at the start of the experiment.

There was no plateau.

These long plateaus where people are apparently stall for months on end, while apparently still eating at a deficit, never seem to happen in clinical settings, with controlled caloric intake, only in the dieting world. Why is that?

Did some research on that and it appears they were also being forced to move 22 miles per week, expending about 2500 calories per day (while only eating 1500-1800).


I do not know about the validity of plateaus though. I feel as though you should always lose weight if you keep a big enough deficit, but fluid balance etc is dynamic so it might strike someone as a "plateau." You won't suddenly be able to thrive on 1500 calories without needing to tap into your fat stores. That's just logic.

I can only go by own experience im smaller than you and have less than you to lose yet I eat more than you and im a woman 1200 calories is my opinion why this isn't working and if you really are exercising that much your running on empty feel free to add me, my advice is calculate BMR and TDEE and start eating calories halfway between these numbers and tweak if needed

When you have excessive, non-essential body fat, especially in large quantities, there is no such thing as "running on empty".

If you, and half the people in this thread talking about starvation mode, or claiming his eating too little is causing the "plateau" were correct, there would be no such thing as the millions of emaciated people currently starving to death all over the world. If not eating, and running on "empty", led to weight loss "plateaus" then where do all those pictures come from of concentration camp victims and African children looking like flesh colored skeletons? Shouldn't all these bodies have gone into starvation mode and protected them from losing body fat?

I don't know if you are referring to me or not but to be clear - there is a difference between outright starvation. I never said it would prevent weight loss, I said temporary plateau. I do agree that overall calories in, calories out rules, but there are other factors. Hormones do play a role as well. Obviously continuing over long periods with too little food will result in weight loss regardless.
As I said, many have benefited from taking a temporary break from dieting or slightly upping calories.

FTR - I am also in the "I don't think you are burning as much as you think" crowd.

The men in the infamous Minnesota Starvation Experiment became emaciated and skeletal thin on approximately 1,500 calories a day.

And most of them were nowhere near overweight, much less obese, at the start of the experiment.

There was no plateau.

These long plateaus where people are apparently stall for months on end, while apparently still eating at a deficit, never seem to happen in clinical settings, with controlled caloric intake, only in the dieting world. Why is that?

One experiment. They had extreme calorie deficits, not exactly the same situation I am talking about.
Most clinical studies I have seen don't seem to try to replicate the average weight loss experience.

And I never said months on end.

How did a doctor verify your calorie burn?

you are not burning 2000 calories per work out. You just aren't. Stop that.

Yes, I really am. Verified by an MD.

I agree with a lot of the "move your calorie intake up" crowd above, but mostly just wanted to say:

1. Plateaus do end. Change up what you're doing - I moved to lifting weights differently and less cardio, and kept eating about the same, and after a 2+ month plateau my body is shifting the weight off again. I also changed my breakfast from mostly healthy carbs like oatmeal & fruit back to a protein shake a few days a week. Who knows what made it change, but it did.

2. This isn't about one solid way to do everything. This is about doing all of the fiddly work to figure out what makes *your* body work. Up the calories. Fast one day a week. Eat only protein. Eat very little protein. Drink two gallons of water. Whatever. Try different stuff out - experiment. See what works for you. Logging food & exercise here can give you a way to look back over time at what you've done. Try it, if it works apply it, if it doesn't drop it and move on.

This is what worked for me. I started at 298. When I hit 180 in Dec, it stayed there until 90 days ago. I work out as a fitness instructor and trainer so I am always moviing a few hours a day. I eat 1200 - 1400 calories a day depending on how much cardio I am doing.

90 days ago, I dropped my cardio to 4 days a week instead of 7. I eat 7 meals but still maintaining 1200 to 1400 a day. I eat meals at 7 times a day. Never hungry and in 90 days, I have lost 20 lbs and gained muscle which in turn makes me look leaner.

If you are eating the right foods, it is 70% nutrition and 30 % about cardio.. Keep that in mind...

you are not burning 2000 calories per work out. You just aren't. Stop that.

Yes, I really am. Verified by an MD.

So you spent an entire workout with a breathing mask on? That's the only way to know 100% for sure, and it's not an MD who would do that. I've never found a place that offered it. VO2 MAX testing, yes. BMR testing, yes. Validating your calorie burn for an exercise session, no.

Unless you're in a study, in which case you should be discussing that with the people running the study, not us.

So today I went for my weekly weigh-in: lost 3 lbs from last week.

I made several significant changes: I upped my caloric intake to 1800 lbs of lean (meat) protein, better glycemic index foods, and cut my routine back to 90 minutes & 1100 calories.

It seems as though the higher calories helped move me off my plateau, luckily.

Thanks to everyone for their help!

I'm glad you upped your calories. You previously quoted that you don't eat back exercise cals, so you were netting a dangerously low amount. I'm glad that eating more and reducing your workout load has helped you to feel back on track.

I'd also recommend not getting worked up about the number. They fluctuate due to water and other factors. Measurements have been a far better gauge of progress for me.

I generally burn about 950 - 1000 calories in an hour at the gym - 750 calories in 40 minutes just by power walking on incline (I wear a HRM). 2000 calories in two hours is certainly not impossible. I kind of don't understand why everyone's accusing the OP of lying? Just because YOU don't burn that many calories doesn't mean someone else can.

I generally burn about 950 - 1000 calories in an hour at the gym - 750 calories in 40 minutes just by power walking on incline (I wear a HRM). 2000 calories in two hours is certainly not impossible. I kind of don't understand why everyone's accusing the OP of lying? Just because YOU don't burn that many calories doesn't mean someone else can.

Because just about every device out there to give you calories overestimates calorie burn. Even with a heart rate monitor. So, how do YOU know that you're burning 1000 calories an hour?

I've had both Digifit tell me that I burned 2000 calories in a 90 minute ride. My power meter didn't show nearly that much work done, so I know the HRM estimate was high.

Yep. I know apps aren't accurate at all, but sometimes my app will log my calories burned even while entirely stationary. Definitely know I didn't burn 7 calories standing in a parking garage looking for my keys, then walking 10 seconds to the stairs.

Honestly sounds like a case of sour grapes by some people. Remember carrying extra weight on your body, regardless of wether it is muscle or fat increases the calorie burn of many activities, especially ones where you support your body weight dramatically.

I've been fluctuating between 265 and 270 for a while. I'm still obese. And it's not sour grapes - it's trying to help people who seem to think the laws of thermodynamics don't apply to them. They're either underestimating input, or overestimating output, or both.

This is because often enough when someone who is very fat decides to get their life in order their weight simply does not keep up with the improvements in their cardiovascular fitness. They become able to exercise for long periods with their fat bodies and that gives them the ability to burn INANE amounts of calories. It's somewhat of a special situation. And it's one I am leaving behind more and more each day as I drop weight. It's not a sign of being healthy. But it is, I believe a sign of becoming healthy.

Actually, your body adapts to such changes. Search for training effect. You actually burn less calories as time goes on.

And again, let me give you some REAL DATA. Not estimations based on online calculators. But REAL DATA.

Some cyclists use a device called a power meter. These are very expensive tools that may be build in to the crank arms, pedals, or even the wheel hub on a bicycle. It tells you how much power you're outputting in watts at a specific moment. Also from this you can get the total number of kilojoules (kJs) of work done (in the physics sense) during a ride. This is a very exact (within 2% or so, depending on the hardware) measurement of the amount of energy output by your legs into the bicycle as a machine. 1 kCal = 4.186 kJ. However, the human body is pretty inefficient. So only about 20 - 25% of the food you eat for energy ends up going into the bicycle. Because of this cyclists often use a 1:1 estimation of kJ to kCal. But either way, there's only a 5% swing in efficiency, so it's still one of the most accurate ways to measure calories burned via exercise, short of having to wear a breathing mask.

So taking this example:

http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/article/how-accurate-is-that-calorie-reading

For a given ride:

HRM: 1938 kCal
PM: 2678 kJ
Calc: 3648 kCal

The calculated method, with time and distance, is CRAZY high. The highest by 1000 kCal. The HRM data is low, he said, because he was getting sick that day. Possible, I suppose. But I'm pretty sure that the power meter data is accurate because it's measuring the force put on the bike.

So my experience with that makes me VERY skeptical when someone says they burned X calories at the gym, especially if it's high.