Stuck on a plateau........

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davemetcalfe39
davemetcalfe39 Posts: 1
in Health and Weight Loss
Can anyone help with some advice, I have lost 12lbs at about a rate of about 1.5lbs a week but now I’m stuck in a plateau and haven’t lost any weight in 5 weeks.

I am 59years old, male, 6ft and weigh 16st 2lbs. MFP has my calories at 2090 daily and my fitness routine adds about 1200cals to that each day. Of which I eat back about 50%.

My training routine is cycle to the gym (10mins), then warm up on the recumbent bike for 35mins on a fat burning programme. Next is a 30min weight training routine which changes each day, back, shoulders, arms, legs, abs etc.
Then I do 65 mins on a cross trainer on an improvement routine of 1:2 interval training to get the heart going. I then cycle home (10mins)

I do this 5 times a week, on the 6th day I swim a mile breastroke. The 7th day I swim teaching my grandson, but that’s quite an easy day.

I NEVER cheat on my calories and am consistently 700-900cals below my allowance (after adding my exercise cals)

I have a FitBit tracker and do a minimum of 12,000 steps a day, frequently exceeding 18,000.

Anyone got any ideas on what I may be doing wrong, or what I can try next….?

Replies

  • my_2_cents
    my_2_cents Posts: 109 Member
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    I had plateaued for 5 weeks or so through June and early July. What got me over it was a bit of a shock to my system. First, look at your weighing and measuring of your food. Make sure what you put in your mouth is exactly what you're logging. That could be one issue.

    After I had that sorted, I dropped my calories to 1400 per day for about 5 days and immediately started losing. I then raised my calories back up to just 30 calories below where it had been set before and I have continued losing slowly. When I did this little shock to my system, I lost over 6 lbs in one week, which tells me that it wasn't all fat, it was water etc that I lost.
  • RHachicho
    RHachicho Posts: 1,115 Member
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    Honestly plateau's are a bit of a myth. You just aren't in a deficit anymore. Either you are less active, are eating more. Or your weight loss has lowered your bmr to the extend that you are no longer in a deficit. Or all of the above. The solution to any plateau is simple. Push harder.
  • DeguelloTex
    DeguelloTex Posts: 6,652 Member
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    Honestly plateau's are a bit of a myth. You just aren't in a deficit anymore. Either you are less active, are eating more. Or your weight loss has lowered your bmr to the extend that you are no longer in a deficit. Or all of the above. The solution to any plateau is simple. Push harder.
    My weight loss chart may disagree with that, depending on how one wants to define "plateau."

    I don't have a plateau/stall/slow-down that's gone on for five weeks, but I'll drop a lot of weight, level out for a matter of weeks, drop a lot of weight, level out for a while, drop a lot of weight, etc.
  • love8383
    love8383 Posts: 169
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    eat 1500 for a week and see how much you lose..you should vary your calories every week so your body doesn't get used to that amount and plateau.
  • chris2183
    chris2183 Posts: 6 Member
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    I hit a plateau not too long ago. What got me moving again was not adding in the calories burned from exercising and eating my allotted calories from MFP. I unlinked my Fitbit from MFP as it was adding some really high numbers of calories to my daily allotment (I walk 5-7 miles a day at work and the Fitbit would sync and add 1200-1500 calories daily).

    The biggest thing I have just done is buy a Polar heart rate monitor. I use Endomondo to track my exercise and found that it was over estimating my calorie burn by hundreds of calories. I have since unlinked Endomondo from syncing and I am manually entering calories burned and duration that the Polar gives me. I didnt really trust these apps to accurately count my calories to begin with but I was shocked by how far they were off compared to the heart rate monitor
  • weavernv
    weavernv Posts: 1,555 Member
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    I have found that redoing my goals in MFP to my new weight is usually a shock to what my BMR actually is. That may be what part of the issue. What someone said above about your plateau being that you aren't eating at a deficit may be just that. If you redo your goals, you may find that to be that the case. Along with the HRM that may help.

    (edit for the HRM and spelling)

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