Cannot Break through Plateau!
Options
Replies
-
midwesterner85 wrote: »I am guessing only eating 1500 (I doubt you are eating that little though) while doing jiujitsu a large % of your loss was probably from lean muscle, so now your BMR is lower than it would normally be had you retained your muscle.
best way to retain muscle while in a deficit is to get adequate protein (at your size a min of 130 grams minimum) a small deficit (aim to lose 0.5-1 lbs/week) and partake in a progressive overloading strength training routine.
If you did all that and are not losing on 1500 you may want to have your thyroid checked
This is my guess as well. I am wondering if you would be well-served by trying to reverse diet a bit, in order to help up your metabolism. If you've cut your activity level and maintained, that was similar to reverse dieting, which is usually done by upping your calories. You could continue to add 100 calories per week until you discover the tipping point at which you start gaining weight/fat. Then stay at maintenance for awhile before cutting your calories once again.
I've asked this before and it still doesn't make sense. (And yes I'm asking this because the situation to mine is similar, though I do use a scale.) Let's say he is eating 1500 and not losing. Going to the default response, "You're not in a deficit. You're in maintenance." OK, so next step that gets repeated a ton is, "You should add 100 calories a week back until you start gaining. That's your maintenance." Let's say he does this for 3 weeks and the number ends up being 1800. Wait. Pause. Sooooooo why didn't he lose at 1500 (you know, the number everyone claimed was his maintenance)? Because that's a 300 calorie a day (2100 a week) difference from 1800. One might even us the word, deficit. OK, so not a whole pound but surely more than .5 pounds a week.
Your metabolism isn't set in stone. It changes as your diet changes. Read up on metabolism. Here is a primer.
So that must be why no matter what I do, my weight doesn't ever seem to change... my metabolism is following my diet perfectly. If I cut down to 500 calories a day, my metabolism drops and I won't lose. If I start eating 9,000 calories a day, my metabolism increases and my weight doesn't change. Right?!
I'm struggling with the same thing... haven't changed weight since October. By that, I mean that my weight fluctuates from day to day so I lose the same few lbs. over and over and over and over again, but my weight doesn't really change. It just hovers around the same amount, give or take a few lbs. And I tried all kinds of things (including a 6 week modified IF plan to reduce hunger, during which I didn't intend to lose weight... in fact, I expected to gain based on calorie intake, but that didn't happen either).
So I agree with @BFDeal - sometimes the response that is given to every thread asking for help just doesn't fit the circumstances. And it can be really annoying when you are the OP asking for help and you just get a bunch of useless answers. Maybe it is more complicated than that... then again, maybe I'm wrong and he is eating more than he thinks. The same forum users would tell me that I'm eating more than I think I am also, even though I use a scale, measuring cups, spoons, and intentionally overestimate whenever there is an estimate to be made.
To OP: I agree with those who have suggested using a food scale; but beyond that, I have no idea why you are not losing. If you find out and are able to shed some weight again, please come back and let us know what worked.
We should all strive to take responsibility for understanding how our bodies work. I try very hard to be helpful but you and BFDeal post a lot of "whoa me, the scale won't move" types of things. Repeatedly. In BFD's case, ad nauseum. Spend some time researching and you'll be much farther ahead than you'd be if you spent most of your time asking an internet forum for answers. Forums like these tend to repeat the same trite advice over and over and while it can be useful, not everybody gets stuck due to inaccurate measuring of food. But it is your responsibility alone to suss that out and figure out what to do.0 -
jenncornelsen wrote: »were u keeping your weekends strict or were they often 'breaks'. have u done a great deal of weight lifting now or in the past? also what is your height?
0 -
midwesterner85 wrote: »I am guessing only eating 1500 (I doubt you are eating that little though) while doing jiujitsu a large % of your loss was probably from lean muscle, so now your BMR is lower than it would normally be had you retained your muscle.
best way to retain muscle while in a deficit is to get adequate protein (at your size a min of 130 grams minimum) a small deficit (aim to lose 0.5-1 lbs/week) and partake in a progressive overloading strength training routine.
If you did all that and are not losing on 1500 you may want to have your thyroid checked
This is my guess as well. I am wondering if you would be well-served by trying to reverse diet a bit, in order to help up your metabolism. If you've cut your activity level and maintained, that was similar to reverse dieting, which is usually done by upping your calories. You could continue to add 100 calories per week until you discover the tipping point at which you start gaining weight/fat. Then stay at maintenance for awhile before cutting your calories once again.
I've asked this before and it still doesn't make sense. (And yes I'm asking this because the situation to mine is similar, though I do use a scale.) Let's say he is eating 1500 and not losing. Going to the default response, "You're not in a deficit. You're in maintenance." OK, so next step that gets repeated a ton is, "You should add 100 calories a week back until you start gaining. That's your maintenance." Let's say he does this for 3 weeks and the number ends up being 1800. Wait. Pause. Sooooooo why didn't he lose at 1500 (you know, the number everyone claimed was his maintenance)? Because that's a 300 calorie a day (2100 a week) difference from 1800. One might even us the word, deficit. OK, so not a whole pound but surely more than .5 pounds a week.
Your metabolism isn't set in stone. It changes as your diet changes. Read up on metabolism. Here is a primer.
So that must be why no matter what I do, my weight doesn't ever seem to change... my metabolism is following my diet perfectly. If I cut down to 500 calories a day, my metabolism drops and I won't lose. If I start eating 9,000 calories a day, my metabolism increases and my weight doesn't change. Right?!
I'm struggling with the same thing... haven't changed weight since October. By that, I mean that my weight fluctuates from day to day so I lose the same few lbs. over and over and over and over again, but my weight doesn't really change. It just hovers around the same amount, give or take a few lbs. And I tried all kinds of things (including a 6 week modified IF plan to reduce hunger, during which I didn't intend to lose weight... in fact, I expected to gain based on calorie intake, but that didn't happen either).
So I agree with @BFDeal - sometimes the response that is given to every thread asking for help just doesn't fit the circumstances. And it can be really annoying when you are the OP asking for help and you just get a bunch of useless answers. Maybe it is more complicated than that... then again, maybe I'm wrong and he is eating more than he thinks. The same forum users would tell me that I'm eating more than I think I am also, even though I use a scale, measuring cups, spoons, and intentionally overestimate whenever there is an estimate to be made.
To OP: I agree with those who have suggested using a food scale; but beyond that, I have no idea why you are not losing. If you find out and are able to shed some weight again, please come back and let us know what worked.
Adaptation happens, but not that fast.
For someone eating at a calorie goal for a year, yes. For two weeks, no.
If you've been dieting for a long time (year or more) a reverse diet helps to reset the metabolism as mentioned above.
But most people on here have only been going for 2 weeks to a month when they start asking, so the answer is most certainly "you're eating too much". It's the case for 99% of folks who aren't losing, so its the correct go to answer.0 -
toasterburn wrote: »No, I don't have a food scale. I count calories on packages, use measuring cups, google, myfitnespal, ect. But I have been very calculating.
I usually allow for one cheat meal per week, which usually means pasta or pizza or a restaurant that has roles. After 6+ months of strictly following a diet and seeing no weight loss, I usually give up for a bit and eat whatever sounds good. I gain a few pounds, and then start a new diet. For the most part, I hover between 193 and 197 now.
It sounds like these are your problems. There is significant error in serving size when you're measuring using cups, seriously. I found out when I got a food scale that I was actually giving myself smaller servings of things like spinach/leafy greens because I wasn't able to be accurate with a measuring cup. I was getting hungrier than I needed to get.
The one cheat meal per week could be wiping out the rest of your deficit. I recommend getting a food scale, upping your daily calories to whatever myfitnesspal says for 1 lb/week loss, and ditching the cheat meal, at least until you start seeing results.
0 -
SingRunTing wrote: »This may help:
When people say "you were eating more than you think", they're not insulting you. It's really easy to underestimate calories. This is why people recommend using a food scale.
This video was great. Thank you for posting it.0 -
Great video, SingRunTing! That really drives home how easy it is to overeat!
0 -
This may sound strange, but what used to help me was adding something spicy to my daily intake. Something like jalapeno peppers, they get your metabolism going. When I was going to WW, they used to tell us to try something different other than what we normally eat, or what exercises we normally do.0
-
Yeah, but a good way to do that is to ask people who have done it. If someone is posting success threads and headless ab pictures it's not exactly a stretch to ask them for help to try to duplicate what they did. My problem is the advice just doesn't add up. "Eat a small deficit, lift, no cardio." OK. Well I did that and stalled. Should I cut my calories? "No, no, no. Count up to find your maintenance...because you're eating too much. The scale isn't moving because you're at maintenance." Huh? Someone told me to take a YEAR off the other day. A year. OK. So eat, train, progress...eventually. A year from now. OK.midwesterner85 wrote: »I am guessing only eating 1500 (I doubt you are eating that little though) while doing jiujitsu a large % of your loss was probably from lean muscle, so now your BMR is lower than it would normally be had you retained your muscle.
best way to retain muscle while in a deficit is to get adequate protein (at your size a min of 130 grams minimum) a small deficit (aim to lose 0.5-1 lbs/week) and partake in a progressive overloading strength training routine.
If you did all that and are not losing on 1500 you may want to have your thyroid checked
This is my guess as well. I am wondering if you would be well-served by trying to reverse diet a bit, in order to help up your metabolism. If you've cut your activity level and maintained, that was similar to reverse dieting, which is usually done by upping your calories. You could continue to add 100 calories per week until you discover the tipping point at which you start gaining weight/fat. Then stay at maintenance for awhile before cutting your calories once again.
I've asked this before and it still doesn't make sense. (And yes I'm asking this because the situation to mine is similar, though I do use a scale.) Let's say he is eating 1500 and not losing. Going to the default response, "You're not in a deficit. You're in maintenance." OK, so next step that gets repeated a ton is, "You should add 100 calories a week back until you start gaining. That's your maintenance." Let's say he does this for 3 weeks and the number ends up being 1800. Wait. Pause. Sooooooo why didn't he lose at 1500 (you know, the number everyone claimed was his maintenance)? Because that's a 300 calorie a day (2100 a week) difference from 1800. One might even us the word, deficit. OK, so not a whole pound but surely more than .5 pounds a week.
Your metabolism isn't set in stone. It changes as your diet changes. Read up on metabolism. Here is a primer.
So that must be why no matter what I do, my weight doesn't ever seem to change... my metabolism is following my diet perfectly. If I cut down to 500 calories a day, my metabolism drops and I won't lose. If I start eating 9,000 calories a day, my metabolism increases and my weight doesn't change. Right?!
I'm struggling with the same thing... haven't changed weight since October. By that, I mean that my weight fluctuates from day to day so I lose the same few lbs. over and over and over and over again, but my weight doesn't really change. It just hovers around the same amount, give or take a few lbs. And I tried all kinds of things (including a 6 week modified IF plan to reduce hunger, during which I didn't intend to lose weight... in fact, I expected to gain based on calorie intake, but that didn't happen either).
So I agree with @BFDeal - sometimes the response that is given to every thread asking for help just doesn't fit the circumstances. And it can be really annoying when you are the OP asking for help and you just get a bunch of useless answers. Maybe it is more complicated than that... then again, maybe I'm wrong and he is eating more than he thinks. The same forum users would tell me that I'm eating more than I think I am also, even though I use a scale, measuring cups, spoons, and intentionally overestimate whenever there is an estimate to be made.
To OP: I agree with those who have suggested using a food scale; but beyond that, I have no idea why you are not losing. If you find out and are able to shed some weight again, please come back and let us know what worked.
We should all strive to take responsibility for understanding how our bodies work. I try very hard to be helpful but you and BFDeal post a lot of "whoa me, the scale won't move" types of things. Repeatedly. In BFD's case, ad nauseum. Spend some time researching and you'll be much farther ahead than you'd be if you spent most of your time asking an internet forum for answers. Forums like these tend to repeat the same trite advice over and over and while it can be useful, not everybody gets stuck due to inaccurate measuring of food. But it is your responsibility alone to suss that out and figure out what to do.
EDIT: Also, on MFP it's is sacrilege to claim your body works at all differently from someone elses. You will be branded with the Special Snowflake branding iron and forced to wear a shirt with a Snowflake on it.
Yes, ask people what they've done. But also do your own research. In the time that it has taken you to lose what you've lost so far, which is a significant amount from what I remember, you could have been spending time reading up on diet and nutrition, reading Lyle McDonald, Alan Aragon, etc. And, when you get advice, actually follow it. Don't claim that you have when I can, in about 2 minutes, find threads where you admit that you didn't reverse diet properly and, when people finally threw up their hands and told you just to cut to 1500 calories, you didn't do that. You are picking and choosing and then complaining when you don't get results in days. Be realistic. It may very well take you a year or more to progress to even "average" and then longer to get to better than average.
As for being branded a special snowflake--if you have researched a subject and have sorted through info enough to know what is commonly-spouted and yet wrong rhetoric vs. what is actual fact, who cares?0 -
i'm on team food scale too - at least for a few weeks. You might be surprised to see how different your calories are than what you think - by trying it out for a few weeks, you'll be able to see how good your 'eye' is, and whether you're really eating what you think you are.
What is more striking in what you wrote IMHO, is that you say you're not that great at logging, because you keep changing what you do. I would suggest, without tracking each and every thing you're eating, it may be adding up in unexpected ways, in a much more problematic way. Doesn't matter what diet you're doing - you can still log all of it - homecooked foods, frozen diet foods, protein powders, paleo - whatever you are doing LOG IT. As an example for myself, I have been really consistent and on top of my calorie count, but hadn't lost any weight for a while. When I went back to look at my totals week over week, I discovered that somewhere along the way I had gotten my macros screwed up. I was eating too little protein, and typically too much fat. Technically, all that should matter is my calories - I know that, but for me it seems that the composition of those calories matters too. When I corrected this imbalance, I started losing weight again within 1 week.0 -
Your metabolism isn't set in stone. It changes as your diet changes. Read up on metabolism. Here is a primer.
That is a wonderful primer. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
0 -
Can you open your diary?0
-
No such thing as a weight loss plateau. This is a make-believe term used for people who think they should be losing weight when they are actually not eating at a calorie deficit.0
-
On the advice given, I will get a scale and start measuring using that.
I still don't understand this though: I started at around 215-218, and my diet was terrible (multiple sodas a day, fast food, weekly doughnuts, daily ice cream, ect.) and zero exercising of any kind. Then I made drastic lifestyle changes, replaced all the junk with smaller portions of healthy foods, and exercised intensely. I quickly lost over 10 pounds, and then the weight-loss just stopped. Why? Did my metabolism change as I lost weight?0 -
toasterburn wrote: »On the advice given, I will get a scale and start measuring using that.
I still don't understand this though: I started at around 215-218, and my diet was terrible (multiple sodas a day, fast food, weekly doughnuts, daily ice cream, ect.) and zero exercising of any kind. Then I made drastic lifestyle changes, replaced all the junk with smaller portions of healthy foods, and exercised intensely. I quickly lost over 10 pounds, and then the weight-loss just stopped. Why? Did my metabolism change as I lost weight?
It's likely that a large part of your initial loss was a drop in water weight. It's very common to lose water weight when you cut out fast and processed foods because they have a lot more sodium. Once your body dumped that extra water that it was holding your weight loss stabilized
0 -
Ah, that makes sense.0
-
toasterburn wrote: »On the advice given, I will get a scale and start measuring using that.
I still don't understand this though: I started at around 215-218, and my diet was terrible (multiple sodas a day, fast food, weekly doughnuts, daily ice cream, ect.) and zero exercising of any kind. Then I made drastic lifestyle changes, replaced all the junk with smaller portions of healthy foods, and exercised intensely. I quickly lost over 10 pounds, and then the weight-loss just stopped. Why? Did my metabolism change as I lost weight?
As you lose weight, your body requires less energy to run. In order to continue to lose, you have to continue to reduce your calories. Also, sometimes, when people cut out too many things that they enjoyed, they inadvertently replace those calories with others. I'm guilty of this. When I get bored with eating things I tend to not be satisfied and want to eat more. It's one of the reasons I like to keep a lot of variety in my diet.
I also whole-heartedly recommend a food scale. Especially for calorie dense foods like nuts, nut butters, cheese, I find volume measurements are insufficient. A tablespoon of Jif peanut butter, or 16 grams, is 95 calories. That is, of course, if it's a level tablespoon, which it rarely is. If you accidently serve yourself 1.5 tbsp, you've eaten almost 50 calories extra. Do that a few times per day with various foods and you will quickly lose your deficit. I find it's easy to "squeeze" extra cheese into a measuring cup, where the cup is only holding 1/4 cup, but the scale is over 28 grams. Food scales are a great addition to the kitchen.0 -
Are you sure your weight loss has stopped? It sounds to me like you're hitting a normal plateau in weight loss, then giving up and trying something different before the losses have a chance to start again. IF you're on a plan that caused you to lose, and IF you are still doing the same thing but your losses appear to stall, then you should keep doing the same thing for 6 to 8 weeks and keep measuring. If you were losing fat before, you're probably still losing fat.
Keep in mind that our measured weight on a given day is a single data point. If you weigh perfectly (always naked, before breakfast/water/coffee, first thing in the morning), you can still see a 2-3 lb variance day to day which is 100% meaningless. If you weigh at different times of day, you can see variance of more like 5-7 lbs.
The way we usually think about our weight is that we celebrate local minima.
Day 1: 210 ("that's my starting weight")
Day 2: 209 ("yay, I'm losing!")
Day 3: 208 ("wow, this diet is fantastic!")
Day 4: 210 ("OMG, I WAS 208 BEFORE! WHY DID I GAIN 2 POUNDS? DIETS DON'T WORK!") And then you go eat a cookie.
The reality is that if you had a caloric deficit of 500 calories, and your "true" weight was 210.0 on Day 1, it's actually about 209.5 on Day 4. Not enough of a difference to measure, but over time, it adds up.
Use an app like HappyScale. Track your weight daily, but only pay attention to the "predicted weight", which is a moving average of your recent weights - it smooths out the variance.
If you're sure that your net intake is around 1500, you should be losing. It might be slow. That's my net, I weigh about the same as you, and I lose 1 lb per week. The math says it should be more like 2, but oh well. Maybe I have a slow metabolism, or maybe my logging is wrong. Whatever. I've found what works FOR ME, which is eating about 2000 calories a day, and burning about 500 a day through deliberate exercise. It's a formula that works for my lifestyle, my preferences, and my levels of hunger. More importantly, it's something I can stick with.
Some weeks I lose nothing. Some weeks I lose 3 lbs. Some weeks (rarely), I gain. But I know the losses are real, and I can measure the rate of loss, because I've lost 32 lbs in the 32 weeks I've been logging. The knowledge that it is working even on the weeks I don't see the measurements change is what keeps me away from the cookies
I didn't lose a single pound in January. But I kept at it, and now I'm losing again. It really does work.
0 -
SingRunTing wrote: »This may help:
When people say "you were eating more than you think", they're not insulting you. It's really easy to underestimate calories. This is why people recommend using a food scale.
This video was great. Thank you for posting it.
Ditto, thank you so much. I've been using my scale but not for everything. I've now been scared straight.0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjKPIcI51lU
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 392K Introduce Yourself
- 43.5K Getting Started
- 259.8K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.7K Food and Nutrition
- 47.4K Recipes
- 232.3K Fitness and Exercise
- 400 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.4K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.8K Motivation and Support
- 7.9K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.3K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.4K MyFitnessPal Information
- 23 News and Announcements
- 989 Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.4K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions