Hit a Wall!!

Opening your diary might help to get you more specific advice. Otherwise, here are my really general tips. Maybe something will get you headed in the right direction.

1. If it's been less than 3 weeks or so, don't sweat it! Normal fluctuations happen and unfortunately sometimes we stall for a week or two even when we're doing everything right. Every time you make changes to your diet and exercise routine it can take your body a couple of weeks to catch up. Pick a routine and stick it out for a few weeks before you decide whether or not it's working.

2. If you aren't already, be sure that you're logging everything. Sometimes people forget about things like veggies, drinks, cooking oils, and condiments. For some people these can add up to enough to halt your weight loss progress.

3. Consider buying a food scale if you don't already have one. They're about $10-$20 dollars in the US and easily found at places like Amazon, Target, and Walmart. Measuring cups and spoons are great, but they do come with some degree of inaccuracy. A food scale will be more accurate, and for some people it makes a big difference.

4. Logging accurately also means choosing accurate entries in the database. There are a lot of user-entered entries that are off. Double-check that you're using good entries and/or using the recipe builder instead of someone else's homemade entries.

5. Recalculate your goals if you haven't lately. As you lose weight your body requires fewer calories to run. Be sure you update your goals every ten pounds or so.

6. If you're eating back your exercise calories and you're relying on gym machine readouts or MFP's estimates, it might be best to eat back just 50-75% of those. Certain activities tend to be overestimated. If you're using an HRM or activity tracker, it might be a good idea to look into their accuracy and be sure that yours is calibrated properly.

7. If you're taking any cheat days that go over your calorie limits, it might be best to cut them out for a few weeks and see what happens. Some people go way over their calorie needs without realizing it when they don't track.

8. As you get closer to your goal, the weight loss tends to slow down and normal fluctuations hide the weight loss more often. If you weigh yourself frequently, consider using a program like trendweight to even out the fluctuations. You could be losing weight but just don't see it because of the daily ups and downs.

9. Some people just burn fewer calories than the calculators predict. If you continue to have problems after 4-6 weeks, then it might be worth a trip to the doctor or a registered dietitian who can give you more specific advice.

You've lost 85 lbs in 26 weeks? That's WONDERFUL progress!! I suggest changing your settings to "lose 1 lb per week" or 1.5 lbs. Things are going to SLOOOOOW DOOOWWWWN as you lose more and more. And accuracy becomes even more important as you progress.

As you keep losing, you might start getting hungrier (you have less fat to live on now). That's ok. That's normal. Make sure to adjust your goals and calorie intake to account for your new weight.

GOOD JOB!!!

caseyshelton911 wrote: »

Thanks WBB55!! It's been a long road!! I will def recalculate my log!! I have def noticed I am hungrier!! Moyer566 I think I said that wrong, if I eat 1200 calories in a day, I burn 1300 calories, so I don't eat what I worked off sorry for the mess up. Thanks for the encouragement!! I guess I will just keep truckin along and hopefully this ends soon!!

Just to be sure, you aren't trying to work off every calorie you eat through exercise, are you? That's a sure way to hunger and burn out of you have your numbers right.

caseyshelton911 wrote: »

OMG!! No I have been in the negative, now this is something I have been doing over the last few weeks because I thought you had to burn whatever you eat! Thank you guys so much!! I was researching how much I needed to work out and so the last few weeks thats how I have been doing it, I prob should go back to the way I was doing things before because it was working, But of course the weight lose slowed,which it is going too. Thanks so much!!

Did you say that you just started exercising a few weeks ago? (I was asking because I was going to explain about water retention with new/increased exercise, but Dianne got to it before I could edit my post. Take her advice -- it's spot-on).