At a standstill~~help:

Susanne5 · February 2016

I have been at a standstill with my weight for 4-5 weeks right now. I have met my goals every month with losing on a average of 2-3 pounds for the past 9-10 months. I don't want to stop now. I am in a bootcamp 3 days a week and been doing cardio 2 days a week. On top of this, I started 3 days ago for another goal of 10,000 + steps a day. I am looking for any advice you can give me. Thanks! Sk

diannethegeek · February 2016

Opening your diary or sharing a little more information about your diet might help people to spot what could be wrong. Otherwise, these are my really general tips:

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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. This is especially important as you get closer to your goal weight and your loss tends to slow down.

8. 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.

bruhaha007 · February 2016

Have you thought of incorporating a 1 or 2 day intermittent fasting routine? I am currently doing a two day cleanse to shred some lbs prior to completing a fitness challenge.

Susanne5 · February 2016

What are you doing/using for a two-day cleanse?

Susanne5 · February 2016

I have one cheat day and usually put a couple of treats that I can't have the other six days of the week.

diannethegeek · February 2016

Susanne5 wrote: »

I have one cheat day and usually put a couple of treats that I can't have the other six days of the week.

Is that all you took from my post? I'd love to help, but with a private diary and almost no details we're all just tossing out shots in the dark.

msozcan · February 2016

Consider relaxing your diet for 1-2 weeks. I don't mean that you should eat 8000 calories everyday for 2 weeks, but perhaps aim for an even or slightly positive calorie balance. Make sure you eat protein and some "good fats" (i.e. nuts, olive oil, almond butter, fish oil, etc) to account for the extra calories you are taking. Your body has probably adjusted for a calorie deficit at this point, and your lack of weight loss is a testimony to that. What I mean is, as long as you are accounting for everything you are eating, your body is not burning those as before. Increasing your caloric intake may turn off that signal and you may get to losing as expected again.
Think of it like a "cheat week"...Clearly, 1 cheat day is not enough to turn off the "hold on to fat" signal in your body.

zoeysasha37 · February 2016

diannethegeek wrote: »

Opening your diary or sharing a little more information about your diet might help people to spot what could be wrong. Otherwise, these are my really general tips:

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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. This is especially important as you get closer to your goal weight and your loss tends to slow down.

8. 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.

This

Op - the key to weight loss is a calorie deficit. If your not losing ,it is because you are no longer at a deficit.
Cleanses, fasting, relaxing cheat days are all irrelevant. Weight loss comes from a calorie deficit. There's a lot of misinformation in this thread so please do your research .

zoeysasha37 · February 2016

msozcan wrote: »

Consider relaxing your diet for 1-2 weeks. I don't mean that you should eat 8000 calories everyday for 2 weeks, but perhaps aim for an even or slightly positive calorie balance. Make sure you eat protein and some "good fats" (i.e. nuts, olive oil, almond butter, fish oil, etc) to account for the extra calories you are taking. Your body has probably adjusted for a calorie deficit at this point, and your lack of weight loss is a testimony to that. What I mean is, as long as you are accounting for everything you are eating, your body is not burning those as before. Increasing your caloric intake may turn off that signal and you may get to losing as expected again.
Think of it like a "cheat week"...Clearly, 1 cheat day is not enough to turn off the "hold on to fat" signal in your body.

Sorry but that isn't how it works .

If this op is no longer losing, it is because the op is no longer at a deficit.
As we lose weight, our calorie needs will change.

zoeysasha37 · February 2016

bruhaha007 wrote: »

Have you thought of incorporating a 1 or 2 day intermittent fasting routine? I am currently doing a two day cleanse to shred some lbs prior to completing a fitness challenge.

How would this help ? If I was doing intermittent fasting and still eating at a caloric surplus, I would not lose weight.
Weight loss comes down to a calorie deficit. If you are able to create a deficit using I.F. then that's fine but please explain to others that the calorie deficit caused the weight loss not I.F alone.
Also what exactly are you cleansing? Most of the weight lost during cleanses and detoxes is just water weight. It would come back when the person went back to eating as normal so again, for real weight loss a calorie deficit is all that's needed . your liver and kidneys cleanse your body for you, there's no need to do any cleanses or detoxes.

blues4miles · February 2016

diannethegeek wrote: »

Opening your diary or sharing a little more information about your diet might help people to spot what could be wrong. Otherwise, these are my really general tips:

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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. This is especially important as you get closer to your goal weight and your loss tends to slow down.

8. 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.

This is the only post here that's actually accurate/helpful to your cause of weight loss. However, I suspect because it means you'd have to knuckle down, work harder at your food logging, that that's why you're not paying enough attention to it.

If you've been losing weight and are no longer...you are either a) retaining water and not giving yourself enough time to see the next bit of weight drop or b) eating more than you think, eating at maintenance.

Doing intermittent fasting or a 'cleanse' is not what got you losing weight consistently for the last 10 months, is it? Eating more is not what got you losing weight for the last 10 months. You either need to be patient, or eat less.

At a standstill~~help:

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