Already plateaued?

If you are not losing then is eating more common sense to you? It is not to me. Eating less on the other hand makes sense to me.

You are not at a plateau and as said, you weight will fluctuate. You also just started or increased your exercise which can cause you to retain water. Just keep on keeping on and give the process time to work.

breesu wrote: »

I'm a 21yr old girl, 5'9, and 221lbs.

About three months ago I started my diet, and I plateaued at 218 a month into it. So I started eating more... but I didn't stop for about three weeks, in which put me back to 230.

So I started again two and a half weeks ago, and I'm going strong -- going to the gym for an hour a day 3x a week, eating anywhere from 1200-1300 calories, and started Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred five days ago. Before I started the shred, I weighed in at 221. I weighed myself this morning out of eagerness and excitement of me working out so hard lately and expecting results, and I'm still 221. Extremely discouraging.

What do you do when you plateau? I've read that I'm supposed to increase my intake, or just leave it alone and keep working and wait until I break it?

I think you should see this, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Scu3OzE2NXk

I think you are falling into a dieting and exercise trap. Keep eating the 1200 calories and make sure you do the 30 day shred five or six days a week. Dont skip taking at least one or two recovery days a week, but no more than that. You really don't need to go to the gym in addition to the shred for the weight to fall off with this. If you will put all your energy and intensity into it, you will be too tired to go to the gym at 230 lbs. especially in the third level. If you must do extra cardio, don't do more than 45 min of it at a time or you will start to break down muscle for energy which defeats the point of working muscles in the shred. I speak from experience. Last October I did the shred for 60 days after a month of JM standing abs workouts and over 90 days on MFP. I started at 203 dropping 38 lbs. I really never hit a true plateau. The weight loss just slowed down. It rakes women a long time to build muscle. Maybe as little as a half pound a month. It is also logical that it takes time to build a healthy metabolism. I don't think someone can raise their metabolism in only a couple weeks from eating more calories. Eating a few hundred more calories a day is something you do when you start working out more intensely or building muscle. You can be 200 lbs with fat, or 200 lbs with less fat and more muscle. You will look better with the muscle. Focus on increasing weights in the shred and in a few months, your muscles will start growing more muscle cells which really will increase your metabolism because you will have more new functioning cells. You won't get bulky either. That's just an excuse women use because the bulky wen train and target thoseuscles for years to achieve that level of fitness. Retrain your mind to think you will do the shred for three months, and you will be successful at losing weight if you stick to 1200-1400 unprocessed whole food calories. Good luck!

OP: we are all pretty impatient when it comes to weight loss.
Since you have recently started, try tracking your daily burn (in total) alongside your daily calories intake on a sheet (like Google Sheets). If you are able to use a meter to track your total burn, like a fitbit or similar, that is helpful. It's a good way to figure out your TDEE. There are internet calculators to help you figure out as well. Goodle "TDEE calculator"
Sometimes we are more or less active than we think. I will give example for me. I sit at a desk ALL DAY LONG. the only exercise I get is if I go workout. I hardly make 3k steps a day. I Still burn about 1750/cals a day. So weight loss with no exercise comes by eating about 1400/cals a day. If I workout I need to eat more.

Sure 1200 a day will drop you some weight, but it's not sustainable. figure yourself out over some time by paying attention to your body and what you're doing. Eventually patterns will arise and you'll figure it out.

Feel free to add me! It is a pretty interesting thing this weight loss..

You can't exercise out a bad diet. With that being said, you are not in a plateau. A plateau is six weeks or more of consistency on your part and not seeing any results. Give it time. Log and weigh all your food accurately. A diet is for weight loss. Exercise is for fitness. Good luck.