Stubborn fat, weight loss stalled, I've tried everything. Anyone got any more advice?

shambamm1994
shambamm1994 Posts: 9 Member
edited November 13 in Health and Weight Loss
I guys, this is my first discussion post! I guess I need some background first?

I started losing weight in May 2015, and started at I think, 14 stone 13 lbs and at first the weight melted off me, with just reducing my calorie intake to 1200 and exercising maybe once or twice a week at home. At some points I was loosing up to 6 lbs a week (Which I know isn't recommended but hey ho it happened). Fast forward to November 2015 and I'd lost 2 stone, YIPPEE!

Fast forward again to April 2016, and well, I've lost 2 stone (Yippee?). I've hit the mother of all weight loss plateaus and cannot get past it. I've upped my calorie intake to 1500 to try kick start it all, then reduced to 1200, I go to the gym twice a week and walk anywhere from 9k to 20k a day, with my average at 11k steps a day. I'm actually eating quite well, with the odd treat, and even started eating breakfast which I've never been able to do. I drink at least 2 litres of water a day. I'm not a vegetarian, however I eat a mostly veggie diet. I've done everything suggested online and been stuck like this since November.

I have an autoimmune condition, so in constant agony with my back and other joints, making exercise difficult but I need to loose more, because the more weight I carry the more stress on my already horrific joints.

I weight in every week and my weight varied between 13 stone 3lbs and 12 stone 12lbs, never below and interestingly never higher these weights. I would really like to loose at least another stone, if not 2 to take me to a more healthy 10 stone something.

My weight settles on my tummy and on my lower back, it's kinda like a shelf? If that makes sense, but I look a lot slimmer than my weight suggests, although I'm 35% fat. The only thing I haven't tried is reducing cardio and increasing weight training, as currently I do about 40 minutes cardio and 20 of weight training in an hour gym session.

I've got my first summer holiday in 10 years in June and would really like to be a bit slimmer even a few pounds slimmer for this holiday, as my confidence is rock bottom with my body image and can barely look at myself. It got to the point I was looking at liposuction, tummy tuck etc. which is utterly silly and I know I can do it, my body just doesn't want to. I'm at the end of my tether and feel miserable.

Does anyone have any advice of what more I can do to help this plateau? I'm willing try anything, bar supplements, fad diets, shakes etc.

Look forward to hearing your suggestions, as I need some motivation to continue on this journey.

Thanks in advance!!

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Replies

  • KorvapuustiPossu
    KorvapuustiPossu Posts: 434 Member
    edited April 2016
    If I understood correctly you've been loosing fine until last 2 weeks or so? Weight loss isn't linear and sometimes it can stall for a couple of weeks... That's not unusual. If it was working so far I'd just stick to it and give it a bit of time. Good luck :)

    Edit to say: Make sure your logging is correct...use kitchen scale and weigh all your solids and be precise...the less you have to loose the margin of error gets tighter... That is why people have problems loosing 'that last couple of pounds' - it just requires accuracy and patience.
  • doodleswithpencils
    doodleswithpencils Posts: 74 Member
    Just a suggestion, because it may or may not be relevant to you, but do you have any food intolerances? I cannot lose weight if I eat foods my body doesn't like. It's no magic bullet for a supermodel body but it can halt your progress if it's an issue.
  • shambamm1994
    shambamm1994 Posts: 9 Member
    No, I've not lost weight since November 2015 :( I'm currently just fluctuating between 13st 3 and 12st 12. One week I'll be up and the next week I would be down and repeat. I've always managed to get past plateaus before, even when they've lasted a month, but one that's lasted 5 months? :( I can't really push my body to do much more.
  • shambamm1994
    shambamm1994 Posts: 9 Member
    doodleswithpencils wrote: »
    Just a suggestion, because it may or may not be relevant to you, but do you have any food intolerances? I cannot lose weight if I eat foods my body doesn't like. It's no magic bullet for a supermodel body but it can halt your progress if it's an issue.

    I have severe IBS D (Need to go up to 3 or 4 times a day) and cannot have dairy, but other than that, no other food intolerances. I admit, I eat ALOT of gluten as I have a lot of pasta :# so that's something I wanna attempt to reduce.
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,980 Member
    edited April 2016
    Are you using a food scale and really weighing everything you eat, including the individual cooking components of your food? Your plateau isn't very long yet thus I would not worry too much about it, but if you're not weighing your food then you only estimate your calorie intake and might be eating more. Most portion sizes printed on packages are wrong; usually a product weighs a bit more and hence you consume more calories. And what about a banana: is it a big, medium or small size? You don't know what the person who entered this information into the data base had in mind. What I'm getting at: you've lost some weight which is great. but the calories your body needs to stay at a given weight goes down once you lose weight. Thus it is possible that if you don't weigh your food and overestimate like most people you might have come closer to your maintenance calories and thus weight loss slows down.
  • KorvapuustiPossu
    KorvapuustiPossu Posts: 434 Member
    If you are not loosing weight means you are eating at a maintenance level. Which would suggest that your food intake is bigger than you think...Do you keep diary? Do you weigh absolutely everything you eat? Do you make sure to choose right entries from the MFP database?
    Weight loss comes down to basic math...calories in, calories out...it really is as simple as that.
  • shambamm1994
    shambamm1994 Posts: 9 Member
    yirara wrote: »
    Are you using a food scale and really weighing everything you eat, including the individual cooking components of your food? Your plateau isn't very long yet thus I would not worry too much about it, but if you're not weighing your food then you only estimate your calorie intake and might be eating more. Most portion sizes printed on packages are wrong; usually a product weighs a bit more and hence you consume more calories. And what about a banana: is it a big, medium or small size? You don't know what the person who entered this information into the data base had in mind. What I'm getting at: you've lost some weight which is great. but the calories your body needs to stay at a given weight goes down once you lose weight. Thus it is possible that if you don't weigh your food and overestimate like most people you might have come closer to your maintenance calories.

    I always over estimate my food calorie amounts and scan all my food items. Yeah, say if I was making a meal from scratch, then I'd weight in all the different amounts and even add stuff like salt and pepper etc.

    I personally feel a 5 month plateau is quite long :'( I thought it was perfectly normal to stall for a couple of months, but not 5? :(
  • KorvapuustiPossu
    KorvapuustiPossu Posts: 434 Member
    Can you open your diary? If you say you weigh food how can you also say you overestimate? Those 2 don't go together...
  • shambamm1994
    shambamm1994 Posts: 9 Member
    AJ_G wrote: »
    Surprised it hasn't been posted yet, but here you go. The chart doesn't lie, be honest with yourself and find out what you're doing wrong:

    297ed6d1829fbe5bf22e8d97be46a847.jpg

    Yeah saw this on other posts about weight loss stalling, and I go straight to the "Have you been to a Doctor..." one and admittedly, I haven't been but I think I had a thyroid test last year or so and it was fine :(

    I am on medication for my pain, but I wouldn't think they account for such a large stall.
  • LKArgh
    LKArgh Posts: 5,178 Member
    shambamm1994 wrote: »
    yirara wrote: »
    Are you using a food scale and really weighing everything you eat, including the individual cooking components of your food? Your plateau isn't very long yet thus I would not worry too much about it, but if you're not weighing your food then you only estimate your calorie intake and might be eating more. Most portion sizes printed on packages are wrong; usually a product weighs a bit more and hence you consume more calories. And what about a banana: is it a big, medium or small size? You don't know what the person who entered this information into the data base had in mind. What I'm getting at: you've lost some weight which is great. but the calories your body needs to stay at a given weight goes down once you lose weight. Thus it is possible that if you don't weigh your food and overestimate like most people you might have come closer to your maintenance calories.

    I always over estimate my food calorie amounts and scan all my food items. Yeah, say if I was making a meal from scratch, then I'd weight in all the different amounts and even add stuff like salt and pepper etc.

    I personally feel a 5 month plateau is quite long :'( I thought it was perfectly normal to stall for a couple of months, but not 5? :(

    You have not been eating 1200 calories. You were eating whatever the maintenance for your current weight is. It was ok for weight loss when you were much heavier, now you are maintaining where you are. Get a food scale, use it at least for a few weeks to figure out portion sizes.
  • shambamm1994
    shambamm1994 Posts: 9 Member
    Thank you guys for your suggestions, I'll try weight out my food more. For example I cant weight out my breakfast any more than i can as it was a set amount of porridge, with a certain amount of water and a large banana. My lunch is all scanned and a set amount. But my tea is my downfall and I'll go with an approximation of calories, say I had one large baked potato and a handful of cheese, but I should weight put the cheese and butter, stuff like that? Thank you, hope it helps, I'm just not sure if it'll be enough to get things going again
  • shambamm1994
    shambamm1994 Posts: 9 Member
    Is there a way to figure out maintainable calorie intake BTW?
  • shambamm1994
    shambamm1994 Posts: 9 Member
    I found a calculator and it says 2100, which isn't possible, there is no way I'm eating near that
  • laurenm0304
    laurenm0304 Posts: 10 Member
    I understand your frustration but please try to remember how well you've done so far and not just feel down about the last few pounds you cant shift.

    You say you eat alot of pasta and the serving size/calorie information can be confusing for this. Do you weigh the pasta when it's dry or once it's cooked?

    Also, if you're comfortable, opening your diary to public might help us understand your diet a little better.

    All the best
  • shed77f
    shed77f Posts: 41 Member
    Maybe take a week or so and weigh everything (even pre-packaged items -it was amazing to me how much these vary!)

    For example with your porridge;
    Weigh the oats / porridge mix in grams
    Measure the liquid in ml (measuring jug / cups)
    Weigh the banana / any other additions

    Promise it doesn't take any more time & can be really eye opening.

    Only other thing, as suggested above I think, make sure you're using accurate entries. There are a lot of generic / homemade / user generated entries on the database that are really wildly off!

    Congrats on the weight loss so far though, hope something on this thread helps.
  • rachmac1970
    rachmac1970 Posts: 1 Member
    If you've plataued and know u aren't cheating or overeating it could be yr metabolism has down regulated. Low resting pulse and temperature will confirm this.
  • KorvapuustiPossu
    KorvapuustiPossu Posts: 434 Member
    shambamm1994 wrote: »
    Thank you guys for your suggestions, I'll try weight out my food more. For example I cant weight out my breakfast any more than i can as it was a set amount of porridge, with a certain amount of water and a large banana. My lunch is all scanned and a set amount. But my tea is my downfall and I'll go with an approximation of calories, say I had one large baked potato and a handful of cheese, but I should weight put the cheese and butter, stuff like that? Thank you, hope it helps, I'm just not sure if it'll be enough to get things going again

    Those things can add up really really fast. Weighing it will be an eye opener... Handful of cheese can mean different things to different people and one of the things people tend to underestimate... 3 slices of cheese with my cheese slicer are 30 grams... and its about 120 kcal... I assume more then that I could make fit in my handful...also potatoes kind of tend to weigh more then you'd think...big potato can easily be over 200 grams.. butter calories are really fast to add up. Packed stuff can differ 25% from weight listed on the product (ex. my fajita/taco tubs that are supposedly 24 g each are sometimes 28 g... with 30-40 kcal difference - not that much but it does add up). Also 'large banana' is so easy to underestimate. What was in the database as a large bananas was what I'd consider medium...even some of my medium bananas had more weight/calories than that. And some really big ones could probably have up to 50% more then that entry. Buy kitchen scale, weigh everything to a gram and use correct entries. And weigh will come off.
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,980 Member
    rachmac1970 wrote: »
    If you've plataued and know u aren't cheating or overeating it could be yr metabolism has down regulated. Low resting pulse and temperature will confirm this.

    Whut?
    The more weight you lose the lower your BMI is. But a reducting in resting pulse is mainly achieved by becoming fitter: if you do cardio regularly and train at becoming fitter than your heart becomes stronger and pumps blood more efficiently such that it doesn't need to beat as often anymore.
  • KorvapuustiPossu
    KorvapuustiPossu Posts: 434 Member
    rachmac1970 wrote: »
    If you've plataued and know u aren't cheating or overeating it could be yr metabolism has down regulated. Low resting pulse and temperature will confirm this.

    Nope... for instance people doing pro level sport tend to have lower pulse... and their metabolism is fine. OP does not weigh her food...hence the problem.
  • RoxieDawn
    RoxieDawn Posts: 15,488 Member
    edited April 2016
    Use this calcululator as well to double check MFP with this one. It will or should be very close to MFP http://scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/ (this will give you an estimated TDEE based on activity level you give it)

    If you are not weighing and measuring food at this point it will be a good a idea to start. I do predict the logging is keeping you at maintenance calories as no change in no weight loss for a long time. Use accurate entries and you have to, enter your own entries using the food labels you have (they do not have to be public in the MFP database)

    The exercise is NOT necessary for weight loss, so you need to adhere to a proper deficit, so reassessing that at this point and starting a new goal is needed here.
  • laurenm0304
    laurenm0304 Posts: 10 Member
    It's really important to weigh things even if you think they're just a 'large banana' or 'large potato' because that can really vary. Your idea of a large banana and mine could be 50% different which obviously equals 50% more calories for the larger one. You need to be really accurate with your weighing - it'll give you a better idea exactly how many calories you've eaten but I would definitely think you must be eating your maintenance calories at the moment and not realising.
  • shambamm1994
    shambamm1994 Posts: 9 Member
    You're all super stars! Now I'm past the point of it kinda falling off I can't expect it to stay the same. I'll Deffo try weighing out food, it's a lot harder I have breakfast at work and lunch so don't have scales nor the energy after work to meal prep (plus I'm living at home saving for a house so bit awks with parents). I know I can start weight breakfast and lunch so I'll do that and work up to dinner which is the hardest. Snacks I weight out anyway and put in my lunch box so that's sorted. Ahhh I'm excited to try this all ☺ thank you for all the suggestions, I hope this'll be the start of things picking up again
  • nicole_j
    nicole_j Posts: 13 Member
    How much protein are you eating? I would recommend eating 40% carbs, 40% protein and 20% fat each day to start. You should be eating lean protein with every meal. If your belly is your trouble area then your diet is likely to blame. Are you eating processed foods? You only really talk about calories but not all calories are created equal. Macronutrients is what you should be tracking, not calories.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    nicole_j wrote: »
    How much protein are you eating? I would recommend eating 40% carbs, 40% protein and 20% fat each day to start. You should be eating lean protein with every meal. If your belly is your trouble area then your diet is likely to blame. Are you eating processed foods? You only really talk about calories but not all calories are created equal. Macronutrients is what you should be tracking, not calories.

    Calories, as a way to measure energy, are inherently created equally. We obviously have macronutrient needs that must be met, but if OP isn't losing weight this is still going to be due to not reaching a calorie deficit.
  • KorvapuustiPossu
    KorvapuustiPossu Posts: 434 Member
    shambamm1994 wrote: »
    You're all super stars! Now I'm past the point of it kinda falling off I can't expect it to stay the same. I'll Deffo try weighing out food, it's a lot harder I have breakfast at work and lunch so don't have scales nor the energy after work to meal prep (plus I'm living at home saving for a house so bit awks with parents). I know I can start weight breakfast and lunch so I'll do that and work up to dinner which is the hardest. Snacks I weight out anyway and put in my lunch box so that's sorted. Ahhh I'm excited to try this all ☺ thank you for all the suggestions, I hope this'll be the start of things picking up again

    That's a good attitude to have! I wish you all the best.

    *Also if you are not comfortable weighing stuff in front of parents when you get a chance weigh some of the stuff you usually eat..like a 'big potato' or a 'big banana'...that will help when you have to estimate. But that being said, weighing food is nothing to be embarrassed about. You are improving your life and your health! People that love you will understand and support you I'm sure.
  • 88meli88
    88meli88 Posts: 238 Member
    Weight correctly, especially the big ticket items like pasta. Then, you may want to change things up to jump start your next round of weight loss including types of food and type of exercise. Good luck!
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