The struggle is real....
kschramm7
Posts: 72 Member
I was on Weight Watchers for a year, lost 80 lbs., hit my goal weight in October 2015, and am "lifetime", which means I have to weigh in at a meeting once a month and as long as I don't go more than 2 lbs over my goal weight, I don't have to pay for meetings or their online tools. The plan changed dramatically in December 2015.
More "clean eating". You were rewarded for eating protein, punished for eating anything with sugar or fat, and they took away eating back your exercise "points", yet dictated how many you should earn a week (mine started at 27 and worked their way up to 120, which was the equivalent of 10,000 steps + 45 minutes of rigorous cardio every single day).
I stopped losing weight and struggled to maintain for 6 months. I started tracking how many calories I was eating a day, and some days it was 1600, some days it was under 1000, depending on how "clean" I ate...and I met my 120 "fit points" per week goal.
So I'm hating the new WW plan, I'm barely maintaining, so I still weigh in monthly but in June I start using MFP, I join a gym, I'm taking 3 spin classes a week and in July I start working out with a personal trainer, just once a week. MFP puts me at 1420 calories a day (I'm a programmer so I'm sedentary) to lose 1/2 pound a week (5'6", 50 yr old woman who is sedentary..and yes, I put in 1/2 lb a week).
I'm eating between 1200-1400 calories a day, and still working out 3 x week at the gym + twice a week at home + personal trainer once a week. Once in a while I dip into my exercise calories but not regularly, and I'm still not losing anything and struggling to maintain. I have a kitchen scale and weigh and measure everything (well, I don't measure things like plain broccoli or green beans, or how much romaine lettuce or baby spinach I put in a salad. Those I eyeball, as I figure they're pretty insignificant), but I DO track it (no more 0 point fruits and veggies).
Come last week. We have a litter of puppies last Monday, things don't go well, mama dog's milk didn't come in as quickly as it should have, then gets REALLY sick on Friday, vet, 4 different antibiotics, no more nursing, so I'm up around the clock bottle feeding 9 one week old puppies. No gym, no exercise at home. Heck there were days I didn't even get 10k steps in! Pizza Friday night. A friend was coming to help with puppies Saturday morning, so on my whirlwind trip to the grocery store, I grab a cheese danish thing...he doesn't eat it. We do. Baked chicken parm with spaghetti (and nothing green) Saturday night. My son's birthday was this weekend. Filet Mignon, corn on the cob with real butter, broccoli, ice cream cake and a cocktail....and then left over ice cream cake for lunch yesterday!
Today I was absolutely DREADING stepping on the scale. I have to weigh in at Weight Watchers this week. I'm down 2.8 lbs. since 8/28. 2.8 lbs! WTF?
I've been struggling to lose an ounce for 8 months! I've gone from 154-157 for months! This morning? 153.0.
If I can lose 2.8 lbs a week eating pizza and ice cream cake and NOT working out, I'm all for it!
How does that happen? Seriously, I don't want to mess it up. So any opinions on the plateau or why, with a week like I had, the scale moved in the right direction would be appreciated.
And yes, feeding around the clock is definitely worth it. We still have 9 beautiful, fat, healthy pups AND my Jenny (mama dog) is on the mend.
More "clean eating". You were rewarded for eating protein, punished for eating anything with sugar or fat, and they took away eating back your exercise "points", yet dictated how many you should earn a week (mine started at 27 and worked their way up to 120, which was the equivalent of 10,000 steps + 45 minutes of rigorous cardio every single day).
I stopped losing weight and struggled to maintain for 6 months. I started tracking how many calories I was eating a day, and some days it was 1600, some days it was under 1000, depending on how "clean" I ate...and I met my 120 "fit points" per week goal.
So I'm hating the new WW plan, I'm barely maintaining, so I still weigh in monthly but in June I start using MFP, I join a gym, I'm taking 3 spin classes a week and in July I start working out with a personal trainer, just once a week. MFP puts me at 1420 calories a day (I'm a programmer so I'm sedentary) to lose 1/2 pound a week (5'6", 50 yr old woman who is sedentary..and yes, I put in 1/2 lb a week).
I'm eating between 1200-1400 calories a day, and still working out 3 x week at the gym + twice a week at home + personal trainer once a week. Once in a while I dip into my exercise calories but not regularly, and I'm still not losing anything and struggling to maintain. I have a kitchen scale and weigh and measure everything (well, I don't measure things like plain broccoli or green beans, or how much romaine lettuce or baby spinach I put in a salad. Those I eyeball, as I figure they're pretty insignificant), but I DO track it (no more 0 point fruits and veggies).
Come last week. We have a litter of puppies last Monday, things don't go well, mama dog's milk didn't come in as quickly as it should have, then gets REALLY sick on Friday, vet, 4 different antibiotics, no more nursing, so I'm up around the clock bottle feeding 9 one week old puppies. No gym, no exercise at home. Heck there were days I didn't even get 10k steps in! Pizza Friday night. A friend was coming to help with puppies Saturday morning, so on my whirlwind trip to the grocery store, I grab a cheese danish thing...he doesn't eat it. We do. Baked chicken parm with spaghetti (and nothing green) Saturday night. My son's birthday was this weekend. Filet Mignon, corn on the cob with real butter, broccoli, ice cream cake and a cocktail....and then left over ice cream cake for lunch yesterday!
Today I was absolutely DREADING stepping on the scale. I have to weigh in at Weight Watchers this week. I'm down 2.8 lbs. since 8/28. 2.8 lbs! WTF?
I've been struggling to lose an ounce for 8 months! I've gone from 154-157 for months! This morning? 153.0.
If I can lose 2.8 lbs a week eating pizza and ice cream cake and NOT working out, I'm all for it!
How does that happen? Seriously, I don't want to mess it up. So any opinions on the plateau or why, with a week like I had, the scale moved in the right direction would be appreciated.
And yes, feeding around the clock is definitely worth it. We still have 9 beautiful, fat, healthy pups AND my Jenny (mama dog) is on the mend.
17
Replies
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Cute puppies!
Perhaps the rest and the extra calories let your body relax a bit and not try to hang on to every calorie. Some people call this a "diet break" and believe it helps alleviate metabolic adaptation or resistance. I started losing steadily when I started weight training 4x week, cut cardio down to low intensity steady-state 35-45 minutes 5x week, and eating back half or more exercise calories on weight training days. It's called "refeeding" if you want to research. I normally eat high protein, but once in a while I have a high complex carb day, and that seems to help with loss too. Basically, if what you're doing is logical but not working, don't do more of the same, try adjusting a single variable at a time.1 -
PUPPIES.
Weight loss isn't linear though. It can take weeks for the scale to catch up.. but as long as you're eating at a deficit, you ARE burning fat. It's just sometimes hidden by water weight. Then you drop the water weight, and that's when it shows on the scale. It usually really doesn't have much to do with what you ate the day before.3 -
Aaaaaaah love puppies!
It looks like you have your hands full and the eating has been a bit off while doing all of this. You are still down in weight.. that's a loss and that counts. And too when really busy, a bit stressed, not eating like you should come this past week, no exercise, not sticking to your foods in your diet and perhaps up and down in the number of calories eaten per day, all show on the scale. This might be what I call, stressed out to the nines!
Diet breaks are more than good for the mind and body. I recommend it, you can work on getting things situated and organized in your life and start with a fresh goal.
I hope you post puppy growing pictures.. they are adorable!
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Trying to make a joke out of breastfeeding calories but it isn't making sense no matter which way I put it. Oh well. PUPPIES!8
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PUPPIES!0
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I don't have an explanation for the sudden weight loss, but man those puppies are absolutely adorable.3
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And the plot thickens! This morning the scale read 152.2...that's down another 0.8 lbs. Not complaining at all. I ate all the right things yesterday. Tonight is WW monthly weigh in, so they'll let me stay another month for free :-)
The puppies...they're AKC registered Brittanys. They've been my passion for 15+ years. We compete in the show ring and the field (they're bird dogs), and have a VERY occasional litter. This one was our 4th ever, our biggest one, and of course, our biggest disaster.
Pups had a good "gaining day" yesterday though, so what we're doing is working. Here are some pictures from their breakfast this morning.
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I remember reading a post once that explained this phenomenon of losing weight by eating more but I can't remember the explanation given. I think it had something to do with carbs and the water retaining properties of fat cells...not sure. That's probably not helpful. LOL!
The point is that it's not unusual to see an initial loss on the scale in this situation, but it will not continue if you are not eating in a deficit.0 -
No one told me there would be puppies in this thread. OMG!
Perhaps something you were doing was causing you to retain water and masking your weight loss. New type of exercise, change in medication?
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According to MFP I'm still eating at a deficit, it's just not such a steep deficit. An example. Yesterday between Fitbit & MFP, it said I earned 586 exercise calories. I got in 12000+ steps yesterday which included a 3 mile hike at lunch. I didn't eat back any of those calories, but I did eat 1300 of my 1420 daily calories...still a deficit, but I didn't do an hour-long spin class on top of the 3 mile hike.0
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http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/why-big-caloric-deficits-and-lots-of-activity-can-hurt-fat-loss.html/
Low calories + high activity = water retention
Taking a break from the high activity and low cals often helps you whoosh off the water retention.7 -
jemhh....thank you. My husband has suspected this is what was going on, but I couldn't find anything to back it up, and a whole lot of "eat at a deficit and you'll lose, and there's no such thing as starvation mode" posts to go along with that.
I swore that when Weight Watchers changed their program and kept upping my "fit points", my metabolism crashed. I changed the way I exercise and how I tracked calories, and where I exercised, but actually exercised with greater intensity. But after all that programming/conditioning, couldn't bring myself to eat back many exercise calories for fear of gaining and not being lifetime anymore.
Now to figure out what moderation in exercise is. It's never been a strong point for me.0 -
Looks like everyone has you covered on advice but I had to stop in and say PUPPIES
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All the SQUEEEE.
So cute.
I have had the same thing happen after I've been too long on a deficit. I'll eat 3000 calories a couple days in a week and then lose. I like it, but it's a mind game to not think that's a good thing and start doing that on the regular.
The WW thing about two pounds sounds pretty extreme. How do you feel about that kind of pressure, and how expensive is it to just pay the membership fee and not worry about the two pound thing? That's a tight margin. Congrats on your weight loss and on those bebbies. 0 -
I have been doing Garmin (steps) and keeping my food diary under 1200 calories a day since last March with consistent weight loss until a month ago. I have been stuck on the same weight even though nothing has changed. Any ideas for solving this problem will be appreciated.0
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jemhh....thank you. My husband has suspected this is what was going on, but I couldn't find anything to back it up, and a whole lot of "eat at a deficit and you'll lose, and there's no such thing as starvation mode" posts to go along with that.
I swore that when Weight Watchers changed their program and kept upping my "fit points", my metabolism crashed. I changed the way I exercise and how I tracked calories, and where I exercised, but actually exercised with greater intensity. But after all that programming/conditioning, couldn't bring myself to eat back many exercise calories for fear of gaining and not being lifetime anymore.
Now to figure out what moderation in exercise is. It's never been a strong point for me.
Here are some more articles to back up your whoosh:
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/of-whooshes-and-squishy-fat.html/
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/another-look-at-metabolic-damage.html#more-9313
Now keep those puppy pictures coming!1 -
cmriverside, WW goes by the BMI calculator. I'm 5'6" so my goal weight had to be 155 or less, and if I go over 157 I have to pay per week until I'm back at 155 or less (they set the lower limited at 124 I believe). I got down to 149, which left me a nice margin, and then they changed the plan and everything went to he!!. There have been days recently that I would have been over 157....so I'd exercise more, and eat less. Vicious cycle I guess.
I like the accountability of WW. I KNOW I have to weigh in once a month, at the first meeting I attend every month, and since my husband is doing WW, we go to meetings every week (he's lost over 70 lbs and is 11 lbs from his goal).1 -
wsuerushing wrote: »I have been doing Garmin (steps) and keeping my food diary under 1200 calories a day since last March with consistent weight loss until a month ago. I have been stuck on the same weight even though nothing has changed. Any ideas for solving this problem will be appreciated.
My suggestion is to start a thread asking this, and change your Diary Sharing settings to Public: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings0 -
cmriverside, WW goes by the BMI calculator. I'm 5'6" so my goal weight had to be 155 or less, and if I go over 157 I have to pay per week until I'm back at 155 or less (they set the lower limited at 124 I believe). I got down to 149, which left me a nice margin, and then they changed the plan and everything went to he!!. There have been days recently that I would have been over 157....so I'd exercise more, and eat less. Vicious cycle I guess.
I like the accountability of WW. I KNOW I have to weigh in once a month, at the first meeting I attend every month, and since my husband is doing WW, we go to meetings every week (he's lost over 70 lbs and is 11 lbs from his goal).
Cool. At least you only have to pay when you go "over." I sometimes find a $$$ incentive to be a really good incentive.
Maintenance is tricky. I've been at maintenance for nine years, and going too low on food never ends well for me - it's a tightrope/Rubiks Cube/delicate balance. It's good that you have a margin of a few extra pounds there. I try to stay within five pounds - but that is more difficult for me to do in the winter.
puppies.0 -
I'm here for the puppies.
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I have to admit the first puppy picture turned me off a bit. It looks to me like a skillet full of puppies with a dish towel lying across it. (Nothing against dogs--I have 3--that's just the first thing I thought when I saw the photo.)1
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Scenarios like this are one reason I track body fat and LBM readings from my scale. For example, I might see little to no weight drop but a rise in LBM. Since I'm not weight training I can likely attribute that to water weight. Later I see a drop in weight and LBM that confirms it.0
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OMG. PUPPIES!!!!! Squeeeee indeed!
I quit WW after the program came out in December. I was so successful on the PP program, when they went to SP's I just could NOT deal. I didn't want to be on a low fat - low carb diet... I don't handle that well emotionally or anything. I am a cranky, depressed, angry person who is NOT fun to be around. So I did not want to continue to give them money so I could be a *kitten*.
I don't have any answers for you. Mostly just stayed for the puppies and to *kitten* about WW. Totally awesome that you've lost a few more! 1 -
Jemhh, it's a whelping nest...but it DOES look like a frying pan :-) It's heated and helps keep the pups warm, until they maintain their own body temp at around a month old, without baking the mommy dog. We used heat lamps in the past since the pups need to be kept at around 90 degrees, but it really stressed the Mommy.
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Jemhh, it's a whelping nest...but it DOES look like a frying pan :-) It's heated and helps keep the pups warm, until they maintain their own body temp at around a month old, without baking the mommy dog. We used heat lamps in the past since the pups need to be kept at around 90 degrees, but it really stressed the Mommy.
Aw, poor girl. Is she a first time mom? We have retired greyhounds so no puppies for us but one of ours was a brood mama before we got her. We got her right after she weaned her last litter and she went into heat before her spay appointment and then had an infection. It was quite an ordeal. Hope your girl gets better soon.0 -
Aw, poor girl. Is she a first time mom? We have retired greyhounds so no puppies for us but one of ours was a brood mama before we got her. We got her right after she weaned her last litter and she went into heat before her spay appointment and then had an infection. It was quite an ordeal. Hope your girl gets better soon.
Yes, she's a 1st time mom. She's feeling better, but we have vet appt. on Friday to see if the antibiotics are curing the infection or just keeping it at bay. We may still have to spay her, but at least she's not so darned sick going into that.
My vet felt that she just had too many darned puppies for her size! Her sister had 2 litters of 10 so we expected a lot of puppies, but she had a lot of BIG puppies.
This is Mama dog below. CH Woodlands Spirit of Big Oaks
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And the plot thickens! This morning the scale read 152.2...that's down another 0.8 lbs. Not complaining at all. I ate all the right things yesterday. Tonight is WW monthly weigh in, so they'll let me stay another month for free :-)
The puppies...they're AKC registered Brittanys. They've been my passion for 15+ years. We compete in the show ring and the field (they're bird dogs), and have a VERY occasional litter. This one was our 4th ever, our biggest one, and of course, our biggest disaster.
Pups had a good "gaining day" yesterday though, so what we're doing is working. Here are some pictures from their breakfast this morning.
awwww! milk wasted!!!0 -
I have to admit the first puppy picture turned me off a bit. It looks to me like a skillet full of puppies with a dish towel lying across it. (Nothing against dogs--I have 3--that's just the first thing I thought when I saw the photo.)
I saw puppies in a skillet too. Glad to learn about whelping pans 0 -
Okay, nothing substantial to say, but such cute puppies!1
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The puppies are adorable, but the mama is gorgeous!!1
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