how to beat plateau

You were making changes to your diet however and would have dropped water weight initially. You can do that with pretty small changes. Consistent and accurate logging is needed for the rest of the journey

Weigh and measure all of your food. Change you exercise. Add in small things like taking the stairs instead of the elevator, work standing up , etc.

Big picture, OP has no control over how much she's eating and needs to start tracking. However, berating her for not weighing every banana is fetshism. It makes no difference if today's banana is 95 or 115 calories. Tomorrow's banana will even it out, and if it doesn't, it's still immaterial. If weighing bananas gives you a sense of comfort and control, knock yourself out, but recognize it for what it is.

Do you exercise? If so, are you eating back exercise calories? If not, maybe you should try some cardio AND strength training, if that's feasible for you. Most of your weight loss will come from caloric deficit but I have had and seen great results from a balance of all three (caloric deficit, cardio/HIIT and strenth training). I agree with the posters about weighing your food.

If you try all those things and the scale is still not moving then maybe change up the food you are eating or do different activities. Also, are your measurements changing even if the scale isn't? I apologize if this was already answered, I didn't read all of the comments.

sheldonklein wrote: »

Big picture, OP has no control over how much she's eating and needs to start tracking. However, berating her for not weighing every banana is fetshism. It makes no difference if today's banana is 95 or 115 calories. Tomorrow's banana will even it out, and if it doesn't, it's still immaterial. If weighing bananas gives you a sense of comfort and control, knock yourself out, but recognize it for what it is.

That's not what we're challenging. We're challenging recording 1 serving today, tomorrow and every day, when in fact 3 servings' worth of calories are being eaten daily. If this weren't the case, she'd be losing weight.

missiontofitness wrote: »

sheldonklein wrote: »

Big picture, OP has no control over how much she's eating and needs to start tracking. However, berating her for not weighing every banana is fetshism. It makes no difference if today's banana is 95 or 115 calories. Tomorrow's banana will even it out, and if it doesn't, it's still immaterial. If weighing bananas gives you a sense of comfort and control, knock yourself out, but recognize it for what it is.

20 calories here and there can add up to a huge overage over the week. And that's just one item that could be mislogged.

If the OP eats 20 calories more per banana every day for a week, that's an extra 140 calories more than expected. Couple that with the fact that the OP's logging is spotty, and most measurements look off, it's likely that the OP is eating more than expected.

OP has stated they are getting a food scale, and is taking the advice in the thread to heart.

I think the problem is that there's a very low chance of every banana being 20 calories more than logged. The very probable thing is that a banan is approximately 95-115 calories, so let's say you log everyone for 105 calories. Then you are most likely to eat +-0 calories too much over the long run from those bananas. Probability speaking you'd be very unlucky if you manage to hit every banana on the larger side, assuming you truly opt for random bananas and don't search out the biggest ones.

That's what I do with most of my food to be honest, and it's more than enough. Example: I put 2 teaspoons of sugar in my tea every day, no I don't measure/weigh them every time. I even it out, sometimes they're slightly larger (error/spoon size) and sometimes they're slightly smaller, I take an average and log the average every time and things will even out automatically.

I think that's what Sheldon meant, -ish. Also using "generic" isn't too bad if you're aware of the fluctuations and make sure not to always opt for bigger sizes than generic would cover.

Wondertje wrote: »

missiontofitness wrote: »

sheldonklein wrote: »

Big picture, OP has no control over how much she's eating and needs to start tracking. However, berating her for not weighing every banana is fetshism. It makes no difference if today's banana is 95 or 115 calories. Tomorrow's banana will even it out, and if it doesn't, it's still immaterial. If weighing bananas gives you a sense of comfort and control, knock yourself out, but recognize it for what it is.

20 calories here and there can add up to a huge overage over the week. And that's just one item that could be mislogged.

If the OP eats 20 calories more per banana every day for a week, that's an extra 140 calories more than expected. Couple that with the fact that the OP's logging is spotty, and most measurements look off, it's likely that the OP is eating more than expected.

OP has stated they are getting a food scale, and is taking the advice in the thread to heart.

I think the problem is that there's a very low chance of every banana being 20 calories more than logged. The very probable thing is that a banan is approximately 95-115 calories, so let's say you log everyone for 105 calories. Then you are most likely to eat +-0 calories too much over the long run from those bananas. Probability speaking you'd be very unlucky if you manage to hit every banana on the larger side, assuming you truly opt for random bananas and don't search out the biggest ones.

That's what I do with most of my food to be honest, and it's more than enough. Example: I put 2 teaspoons of sugar in my tea every day, no I don't measure/weigh them every time. I even it out, sometimes they're slightly larger (error/spoon size) and sometimes they're slightly smaller, I take an average and log the average every time and things will even out automatically.

I think that's what Sheldon meant, -ish. Also using "generic" isn't too bad if you're aware of the fluctuations and make sure not to always opt for bigger sizes than generic would cover.

That's great if it's working for you. Some people are better at evening everything out than others. But if that is how you are logging, and you stop losing weight, no one can give you any additional advice until you tighten up your logging. Only then can someone like the OP who has stopped losing weight, figure out where the extra calories are coming from.

It's the advice everyone is giving because it's the first thing you need to do if you think you are eating the right calories but you stop losing.

Yeah, close logging when you start is one of the best ways to figure out what you're dealing with. Doing so let me see just how much I was eating over the course of the day, and made me look and start making adjustments. That was almost two years ago, and now it's a lot easier. I do estimate a lot more now than I used to, but then, most foods I eat I've eaten many times before and can now judge how big a serving is compared to how it's logged (if that makes any sense).

For a few weeks I couldn't lose weight while doing nothing differently then I found out I wasn't eating enough, after actually eating my recommended calories instead of under eating by 300 - 400 every day I started losing weight again.

vismal wrote: »

marie_leverton wrote: »

That's not too many calories, it is plausibly not quite enough so your body maybe trying to save fat. The alternative is that perhaps you're not eating the right foods? Quite often a change to breakfast can help reinvigorate weightloss. For example, egg white scramble egg with cherry tomatoes and spinach or a small amount of porridge made with soya milk. If you're up for cold food, bananas. Try not too eat something with lots of sugar in first thing, or too much bread. If that doesn't work, try ensuring you space your calories out, if you're active during the day best to eat more calories early and less late on. Do you exercise? What are your 1400 calories made up of (do you eat sweets or something you think may be causing a plateau)?

I don't understand any of this. Why would changing the foods you eat for breakfast make any difference at all? Your body doesn't store or save fat when you restrict calories, it burns fat. That's what the body uses for fuel when you do not eat enough calories to meet your daily needs. Why suggest bananas then warn against sugar? Bananas are almost pure sugar. For that matter, why would sugar or bread stop weight loss? Why would the time of day you eat make any difference? The types of foods you eat do not cause a plateau.

The extreme likelihood is that the OP is eating much more then they think. This is a VERY common occurrence. Just in the one reply she says she "usually" eats "like" 1400 calories. That's way different from "I consistently eat 1400 calories daily." Also, even if your calorie count is consistent, what about your tracking methods? You may think you are eating 1400 calories consistently but if you estimate portion sizes or use measuring cups and spoons on solid foods, you are VERY likely miscounting your calories. Food should be weighed on a scale and estimation should be as little as possible. Even then people are prone to forget to log things, have cheat days where they don't track calories, etc. Also how long has the OP be stuck at her current weight? Some people call it a plateau this first week they don't lose weight. I don't consider myself in a plateau until I don't lose for 3-4 weeks.

This is a perfect answer. You will hear all kind of feel good myths like "you are gaining muscle and it weighs more than fat so you are probably still losing, starvation mode is causing your body to cling to the calories so eat more, food eaten after dark stores as fat etc etc" and all these answers do is keep you further from goal. You cannot take something much more complex than that and generalize it to justify eating more.

If you have a calorie deficit you will lose weight. The stalls can be from stored water and glycogen (when released the whoosh of weight drop shows on scale) but there is nothing happening, unless you have a medical condition, that would keep you from steadily losing weight each month if truly creating a deficit. Actual plateaus are trickier. They come at a time when you need to reevualate calories to suit your new size/calorie expenditure.

Also remember weight loss can be quite slow. Creating a deficit of 3500 cal for average of a pound loss weekly is harder than you think. One binge day and you could already have changed you average to .5 lbs loss per week for example. This is where there is some issue with cheat days. I stagger calories to keep body guessing (and keep my sanity) but my weekly number still needs to remain in deficit or I wont lose.

Remember to measure. Eyeballing can be quite deceiving.

Finally, if exercising...remember these calories tend to be overestimated. You burn x calories just breathing. Adding exercise calories on top of that doesn't work. It is safer to subtract the calories you would have burned just sitting on couch from the workout calories. If you do not, you could be eating more than burned.
Ex. MFP states 100 cal burned in exercise. 30 would have been burned just sitting. MFP doesn't track that way. It credits you the full exercise calories. I personally would track it as 70 (not getting into metabolism boost, gained muscle and all that, just crude example.)

I guess what I am saying is if you aren't losing weight, you are not calculating calories in/out correctly. The only answer is you are not consuming less than you burn.

I hope everything works out for you. There is some great advice on here
If I may ask, what is your weekly loss amount set to?

999tigger wrote: »

Theres a big chance you are eating more and moving less than you think.