Need an explanation

Are you weighing/measuring the food that you put on your plate? If not you could be underestimating the calories you're consuming.

How long have you been at this?

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.

Someone will post a flowchart soon enough that will eventually tell you that you're not eating what you think you are eating. Get a food scale, measure things in grams if possible, oz if not, you'll be surprised at how inaccurate measurements like cups or servings are. Look for entries in the database that are measured in grams or scan the barcode to make sure you have the correct entry. I stalled out mid-way through my journey until I purchased a decent scale. I was eating much more than I thought, and sometimes not taking into account things like oils (very high calories) that I was using to cook with.

Spliner1969 wrote: »

Someone will post a flowchart soon enough that will eventually tell you that you're not eating what you think you are eating. Get a food scale, measure things in grams if possible, oz if not, you'll be surprised at how inaccurate measurements like cups or servings are. Look for entries in the database that are measured in grams or scan the barcode to make sure you have the correct entry. I stalled out mid-way through my journey until I purchased a decent scale. I was eating much more than I thought, and sometimes not taking into account things like oils (very high calories) that I was using to cook with.

I weight all my food in grams, so I'm hoping that's accurate.

You're at a healthy weight. I would suggest you start a progressive resistance routine. The scale weight is not all that matters. Set other more attainable goals at this point. Are you doing mostly cardio right now?

Pardon- I see that you started in March. Have you said how long you have been stuck? If it's just 2-3 weeks, I would keep doing what you're doing for another 2 weeks and see if you lose anything.

becca410berry wrote: »

Yeah, I've been feeling stuck for maybe a couple weeks.

I know I need to be patient and give my body the time it needs to adjust or what have you, but I feel as though I've been doing very well and I just feel discouraged when I see the scale creep back up.

Your weight loss is going to be super slow at this point because you're already in a health range. If you're trying lots of new exercises, those could cause you to retain water as well.