Hit a plateau....

wnrobert
wnrobert Posts: 20 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I lost 4 lbs when I started tracking my calories. I have a 40 hour a week desk job, so myfitnesspal gave me a 1200 calorie goal. Now I've been stuck around 168 for the past several weeks. I use around 30 minutes of my lunch break to walk outside. I usually do between 1.3-2 miles. I still wasn't losing. So now I've added a workout routine where I weight lift on MWF and do 20-30 min cardio after weight lifting. I've been doing that for two weeks now and I'm still not seeing weight drop. I'm only 5'3"-5'4" so I am overweight and have a higher % body fat than I should so I know I'm not near my ideal weight. I track my calories burned doing cardio and I usually am right at my calorie limit or a little bit over for the day. Any ideas? Or am I just being impatient?

Replies

  • 4legsRbetterthan2
    4legsRbetterthan2 Posts: 19,590 MFP Moderator
    1. How accurately are you logging? You should be using a food scale to weight solids (pre cooked unless otherwise specified), measuring liquids, and trackinig every single thing every single day, even if you have a cheat meal/day you have to log or else you don't know how you are impacting your progress with it.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1234699-logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide

    2. How are you measuring your exercise calories?
  • wnrobert
    wnrobert Posts: 20 Member
    I measure my foods out, but not usually by weight unless it's meat. (If it says I can have a 1/2 cup of rice, I measure it in a a measuring cup, etc)

    For lunches I bring lean cuisines every day so I just add those in.

    I measure my exercise calories by using the mapmyrun app. I use it to track my walks at lunch to get (what I assume) is an accurate assessment. I simply enter the distance and time in when I use a treadmill or another machine at the gym for cardio.
  • _Zardoz_
    _Zardoz_ Posts: 3,987 Member
    Your eating more than you think. If you were eating 1200 you'd be losing. Have a look at the link above it's got some really sound advice

    You need to be weighing all solid foods. Cups are a measure of volume and are therefore not accurate for non liquids
  • 4legsRbetterthan2
    4legsRbetterthan2 Posts: 19,590 MFP Moderator
    yes plenty of MFPers have done the experiments themselves and found significant differences in portions when weighing food vs. measuring it (even when they are listed the same on the package), so opt for measuring if its feasable (especially if you like calorie dense food, who doesn't love peanut butter!)

    As for calories burned, gym machines and MFP database both tend to overestimate. You can account for that by either just counting 50-75% of the exercise, or most people prefer to use a HRM for steady state cardio for more accuracy.

    I guess I should have been smart and asked you what your calorie goal was in the first response and your stats (age, height, weight, activity level without workouts included). If you don't have the right calorie goal set that could be tripping you up as well.
  • wnrobert
    wnrobert Posts: 20 Member
    You would think, even if I'm slightly over eating 1200 by measuring in a cup instead of weight, that I'd still see some loss. Other websites like http://scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/ have put me around 1600 calories a day.

    Regardless, thanks for the advice, and I'll try to be even more diligent in my tracking.
  • wnrobert
    wnrobert Posts: 20 Member
    yes plenty of MFPers have done the experiments themselves and found significant differences in portions when weighing food vs. measuring it (even when they are listed the same on the package), so opt for measuring if its feasable (especially if you like calorie dense food, who doesn't love peanut butter!)

    As for calories burned, gym machines and MFP database both tend to overestimate. You can account for that by either just counting 50-75% of the exercise, or most people prefer to use a HRM for steady state cardio for more accuracy.

    I guess I should have been smart and asked you what your calorie goal was in the first response and your stats (age, height, weight, activity level without workouts included). If you don't have the right calorie goal set that could be tripping you up as well.

    MFP gave me a goal of 1200 calories/day
    I'm 28 y/o Female
    approx. 5'3.5"
    168.2 lbs
    I work a desk job 40 hours a week - so sedentary if I don't add in workouts
  • 4legsRbetterthan2
    4legsRbetterthan2 Posts: 19,590 MFP Moderator
    http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

    I like this calculator online for a good place to start
    BMR - what you burn being alive
    TDEE - what you burn being alive and actually doing something besides laying in bed

    So running your numbers through their calculator I got that your TDEE is about 1853 (without exercise). This would mean that at 1200 calories a day you are making about 600 calorie deficit a day x 7 = 4200 calories a week. It is important to realize that MFP bottums out at 1200 calorie because most health professionals would not recommend eating below that. So even if you have 2lbs/week selected for your rate loss, you are actually only creating a deficit for 4200/3500= 1.2 lbs. So make sure your expectations are accurate.

    As we discussed before I think the first step is to tighten up your logging, I know its an annoying answer but it truely is usually the problem. Once you get that really good if you are still not meeting expectations it might be worth seeing a health professional to see if there are abnormalities causing you to lose that much slower. One more side note, not sure how long several weeks is but weight loss is not always linear, and sometimes people do see stalls followed by large drops. Usually 6-8 weeks is when you can tell things are just really not working the way they should.
  • Snip8241
    Snip8241 Posts: 767 Member
    1. How accurately are you logging? You should be using a food scale to weight solids (pre cooked unless otherwise specified), measuring liquids, and trackinig every single thing every single day, even if you have a cheat meal/day you have to log or else you don't know how you are impacting your progress with it.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1234699-logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide

    2. How are you measuring your exercise calories?

    This is true. I have been stuck, but losing inches. I have tightened up my weighing and the scale is starting to move. Measuring will make you eat more than you think you are. Believe me. Get a food scale and weigh everything but liquid. It makes a big difference.
  • wnrobert
    wnrobert Posts: 20 Member
    Thank you.

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