Stuck!!!

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grenachegirl
grenachegirl Posts: 19 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
My weight loss was ticking along nicely, I was consistently losing 2 maybe 3lbs a week, in 15 weeks I dropped from 212lbs to 168lbs (12stone) but for 5 weeks I haven't shifted any weight!
I'm still logging and weighing, I walk 5k 6 days a week but the scales just won't budge. The whole way along I've been sticking to 1210 cals per day, I'm a 43 year old female, I'm 5ft 1, any ideas how to get things moving again? This is so frustrating and demoralising!!

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  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
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    Refocus on the accuracy of your logging, the meticulousness of double checking every entry on MFP

    Weigh all your food

    Your calories, if accurate which I doubt, are far too low IMO

    Your rate of loss has been too rapid

    Take up some progressive exercise, walk faster or more uphill each week, do some bodyweight or weight bearing exercise

  • dykask
    dykask Posts: 800 Member
    edited September 2016
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    So you aren't gaining ... that is a good thing. You probably have to give it time, you dropped a lot of weight very quickly. You body may need time to adjust.

    Are you losing fat? (Your measurements improving?) If so you are just improving your body composition. I went 2 years and gained 2 kg but I lost fat. I was working out harder and harder and my weight loss just stalled until I cut way back on refined sugar. So I don't think 5 weeks is very long.

    I'm sure someone will post a flowchart or you can find it on other threads, but basically your problem is very common. Others will question how well you are weighing and logging your food.

    My recommendations:
    * Keep up the exercise, it is good for you even if it doesn't always help with lower weight you are building a better foundation for good health.
    * Make sure you are drinking enough water. While water adds weight it doesn't stay and it helps you lose weight in the long run.
    * Make sure you are getting enough sleep. For me, much under six hours a night and it becomes harder to lose weight.
    * Try small changes in the diet always going for healthier food. If I had changed everything at once to how I'm eating now I would have giving up. You might figure out what works for you. For example I cut ice cream deserts and replaced the calories with some complex carbs and omega 3 type fats which I was lacking. Two or three times a month I'll have a desert and when I do I try to really enjoy it because it is no longer common in my diet. Anyway going through the process will slowly teach you what works for your body.
    * You might try eating a little more and going for a slower weight loss. If you up your calories to 1500 and start gaining weight than you know something else is going on like your metabolism is low or your logging is wrong. For me, changing my eating patterns seems to help a lot.

    Mainly just keep working at it. 4 years ago I was at 103 kg, now I'm 86 kg. My waist was 109 cm and now it is 88 cm. Blood work mostly improving every year, I do sometimes have slightly elevated fasting blood glucose. I had borderline high blood pressure, typically around 135/90 and now for two years 120/80 or lower. That was with a 2 year pause in weight loss. My goal weight is 80 kg.
  • RoxieDawn
    RoxieDawn Posts: 15,488 Member
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    This is where the handy flow chart comes in.. I will let someone else post that. But what this boils down to is:

    1) You are not in an official stall if you are 100% on point with your logging and the accuracy of the logging.
    2) IF you exercise, have increased the volume or intensity? There is perhaps masking the scale by water retention
    3) If you exercise are you eating back those calories? If so need to reassess the calories out part of your weight loss.
    4) Water retention in the form of possible changes in your diet like more carb intake, sodium, hydration and lack of hydration
    5) Water retention for females (hormones)
    6) Reconsider decreasing your calorie deficit from an aggressive one, you body is now smaller now and the calories in and calories out equation changes the smaller you get. At 168 and each 10 pounds you lose, it will get a bit harder.
    7) Weight loss is simply not linear. There is gonna be weeks of steady and consistent losses and with losing each week these losses at this rate, will simply slow down and even slow down to the point the scale shows that you are are not losing anything, hense why you are here.

    Decrease your deficit from this 2-3 pounds loss to a smaller rate of loss, tighten up or improving logging and accuracy on your diary, if exercising and eating back these calories that you are not overestimating calories burns therefore derailing your daily/weekly deficit, and more over be patient.

    In my opinion you need to reconsider changing the 1210 calories to lose weight to a higher calorie allotment and actually slow the rate of lose you want to continue to losing at.
  • ouryve
    ouryve Posts: 572 Member
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    You've had good advice, here.

    I'm just here to admire your avatar.
  • Vegplotter
    Vegplotter Posts: 265 Member
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    Sued0nim wrote: »
    Refocus on the accuracy of your logging, the meticulousness of double checking every entry on MFP

    Weigh all your food

    Your calories, if accurate which I doubt, are far too low IMO

    Your rate of loss has been too rapid

    Take up some progressive exercise, walk faster or more uphill each week, do some bodyweight or weight bearing exercise

    Don't despair - you haven't done anything wrong. In relation to the comment above, I would say that you have not been losing weight too rapidly. I personally think it's good to start on a lower calorie diet and then increase up to your maintenance level as you go along. Far less demoralising than reducing calories as you get nearer your goal.
    But five weeks and no loss means that you are either suffering from a dodgy pair of scales, miscalculating your food, or your metabolism has just taken a nose-dive (unlikely with all that walking).
    There are loads of reasons why you might stall for a week or so, even start putting back on a little weight. But 5 weeks means you are going to need to make some changes.
    You have the added problem of being rather petite (5'1" you say) so you may find that your maintenance calorie intake is lower than you'd imagined (or hoped) that it might be. (It goes down as you lose weight.)
    If you don't continue to lose weight after checking everything people have mentioned, you will just have to reduce your calorie intake by 100 cals a day each week. Eventually you will start to lose again.
    The good news is that now you know what maintenance is going to look like and you can start planning for that.
    Good luck - you've done really well so far.
  • dykask
    dykask Posts: 800 Member
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    Actually if her intake is only 1200 kc / day, the last thing she should do is reduce her intake. To lose 44 lbs in 15 weeks starting from 212 lbs kind of implies that not even that much was eaten everyday. 20% of your body weight in less than 4 months? That is a huge weight loss.

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