how to beat the plateau

Just wondering if any of you lovely people have any tips for beating the plateau. Been training hard, eating well and being healthy in general. I map my meals and watching my diet really well but i am loosing the inches but not the pounds.I know i should be pleased but just want any tips on how to keep slowly dropping the weight.
I have lost 1 stone since 4th January from 18 stone to 17, my fitness levels and health are good but need to drop to 15 stone. thanks in advance you lovely people out there !!!!!!

Replies

  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
    These are my really general tips. Opening your diary or sharing some more details might help if you're looking for more specific advice.

    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. Give your body some time to catch up with the changes you're making.

    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. 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.
  • barney1970
    barney1970 Posts: 12 Member
    Your a star thank you
  • rgbmore
    rgbmore Posts: 85 Member
    Dianne pretty much covered every aspect. I'd cut 100 calories, see if that makes things move, then cut more if still no progress (within reason, of course, don't go below your body's necessary calorie requirements).
    Good luck!
  • blues4miles
    blues4miles Posts: 1,481 Member
    Dianne's points 1,2, 3 have to do with using food scale and accurate logging. That's my first go-to. Make sure I'm picking good entries (for a while I had some weird potato entry that was lower calories than all the other info out there, so I picked a different one).

    My second go-to is her point #6, make sure I'm not overestimating exercise calories. I'll actually manually change mine as I'm logging to be lower rather than do the mental math on it.
  • barney1970
    barney1970 Posts: 12 Member
    Thank you so much
  • barney1970
    barney1970 Posts: 12 Member


    Cheers guys will give it a go