How to beat a plateau? I need help
HealthyStartsHere
Posts: 126 Member
I have lost about 60 lbs now and I'm genuinely happy about this. However, I have been at this weight for a year now and although I am happy I haven't gained anything back I also would like to lose more. I know that I have to workout more and due to school and work and an internship I haven't been able to. Is there anyway to beat a plateau without working out but still eating less? Or do you need to workout to beat a plateau? I'm not lazy and looking for a quick fix I honestly don't have time to workout and would like to if I could. I am still eating less hence why I kept my weight the same but I really want to lose more.
Any advice?
Any advice?
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Well simple answer, you are probably now eating at maintenance. Lower your calories to continue losing weight.
You are no longer eating at a deficit, hence no weight loss. Eat less than you eat now and you will lose weight. Exercise is optional for weight loss - it simply allows you to eat more food, and of course helps with fitness. It should not be viewed primarily as a means to an end for weight loss because it is much harder to control calorie burn to ensure you are at a consistent deficit every day.
also looking through your diary... You are not logging consistently, or you are not eating consistently. You're also eating too little, assuming you still have a fair bit to lose. And you are not weighing your food. Also, on October 5th you logged 1580 calories... but all of your macros are above the limit. So going by macros, you actually ate 2400 calories. So overall it is possible that there are errors in entries, as well as not being accurate with logging how much you are eating, and not eating a consistent net intake will all make it difficult for you to know how to adjust your calories and can easily result in you eating way more than you think you are eating. THe less you weigh the less energy you burn, so you need to keep lowering until you reach your goals. This is why it's advised that people eat as much as they can to lose weight, so that you aren't 20lbs from your goal eating 1100 calories.0 -
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I was having the same problem, so I researched ways to boost my metabolism, in addition to eating a calorie deficit and continuing to exercise.
- Temporary Calorie Increase - by 200-400 calories for 2-4 days - tricks your body into believing food is abundant, sheds weight.
Also, it's important to make sure you're getting enough:
- Omega-3s (Flax Seed Oil, Salmon, Tuna, Sardines, fish oil supplements) - increase the activity of your fat-burning enzymes
- CALCIUM - helps your body metabolize fat more efficiently by
increasing the rate at which it gets rid of fat as waste
- IRON - Women lose iron during their period every month. (iron helps carry oxygen to your muscles. If your levels run low, muscles don't get enough O2, your energy tanks, and your metabolism sputters)
-OTHER TIPS-
STAND UP rather than sit all day
Spicy Food - boosts your body's production of heat and
the activity of your sympathetic nervous system
Iced Green Tea/Oolong - 8ozx5/day can also boost metabolism
In fact, just hydrating in general will ensure your body doesn't hold onto water weight, but I'm sure you knew that.
Anyways, it's just some stuff I found, but it's worth taking a look at.
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You are no longer eating at a deficit, hence no weight loss. Eat less than you eat now and you will lose weight. Exercise is optional for weight loss - it simply allows you to eat more food, and of course helps with fitness. It should not be viewed primarily as a means to an end for weight loss because it is much harder to control calorie burn to ensure you are at a consistent deficit every day.
Not a bad answer at all.
I totally edited this out of my OP... lol. Glad you quoted it, gonna edit it back in
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Wow! I have actually never thought of this! This is great advice thank you. I also never knew what macros were lol. I know sometimes I'm not consistent with logging but I will try to lower my intake now and hope that that will help. I also have a problem with drinking more water which I am sure would help me if I were to do it.0
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Definitely get and use a food scale and log accurately. Ideally you'd find a couple hundred calories you either didn't know you were consuming, or don't mind sacrificing at all. Also more physical activity, either through traditional exercise or not
Read this: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1296011/calorie-counting-101/p10 -
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Depending what you're daily calories are, you may be able to cut a couple of hundred daily to start the scale moving, and if you can't do that, well then it's time to burn them thru exercise. Even walking burns calories.0
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How long has this plateau lasted?0
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You don't necessarily need to lower your intake right away, you just need to be consistent with how much you are eating and make sure the entries you are using are correct. It looks like it was just that one day, the last entry in your diary was completely off. Once you get some consistency going, then you can see how your weight changes (or lacks change) and how to change your calories. I'd also recommend calculating your caloric needs from a different website, such as the ones listed on my profile. I don't think I mentioned that before, not sure why I didn't. BUt you are logging exercise, so I recommend that you calculate calorie needs without including exercise so that you can still log and eat back calories (if you were to include exercise into your average activity then you'd be including the exercise calories into your total intake, but you don't appear to be super consistent with exercise, which is fine, neither am I!). Once you calculate the estimation, subtract 20% for a ~4lb/month loss, which is a fairly sustainable rate for the majority of people with a substantal amount of weight to lose. If you aim too high right away then you run into problems such as you are now, where you have to eat very little to keep losing weight.HealthyStartsHere wrote: »Wow! I have actually never thought of this! This is great advice thank you. I also never knew what macros were lol. I know sometimes I'm not consistent with logging but I will try to lower my intake now and hope that that will help. I also have a problem with drinking more water which I am sure would help me if I were to do it.
I'm not consistent with water intake, it just helps with scale weight because it helps reduce water retention and can help keep you regular. But it doesn't increase fat loss.
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please answer my discussion
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maxmax12345678 wrote: »please answer my discussion
?????0 -
Fasting one day a week is supposed to help. If you have a meal at say 6PM on Sunday night, then don't eat again until 6PM monday night, that should be sufficient. For more info check out the second half of this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8FRuXJuImM
I also think KiwiGirl was right when she suggested upping your calories a little bit - I had a short 'plateau' a little while ago, and this is what 'broke' the camel's back and started off my weight loss again.0 -
Liftng4Lis wrote: »How long has this plateau lasted?
A year.
says so in OP.
OP I do not agree with the up your calories posts - how on earth do people think increasing calories will work????
Obviously you need to decrease your net calories - either by eating less or exercising more.
I wonder if you adjusted your calorie goal after losing weight - you are suppossed to do that every 20 lb or so - as you get smaller, your body needs less calories.
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Well each gram of carbs and protien has 4 calories, fat 9 calories...
You do the math
319 grams of carbs @ 4 calories=1276
90 grams of protien @ 4 calories = 360
93 grams of fat @ 9 calories = 837
Total 2473
But that would come from inaccurate information in the entries...ie the popcorn
7 cups of air popped pop corn does not have 126 grams of carbs...it's got about 47
Hence the reason check entries and their accuracy is important.
ETA: and this is why the OP is probably at a standstill with weight loss...not logging accurately...checking entries etc.
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Thanks @SezxyStef, that was very clear and interesting. I now need to go check on my 'real' numbers
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paperpudding wrote: »Liftng4Lis wrote: »How long has this plateau lasted?
A year.
says so in OP.
OP I do not agree with the up your calories posts - how on earth do people think increasing calories will work????
Obviously you need to decrease your net calories - either by eating less or exercising more.
I wonder if you adjusted your calorie goal after losing weight - you are suppossed to do that every 20 lb or so - as you get smaller, your body needs less calories.
Yep missed that, thanks.
OP, in addition to listening to sexzy, looking back over the course of a month, you consistently have a day every week where you're not logging. What are you eating on that day?
You don't need to exercise to lose weight, you need to be at a deficit.0
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