Plateau Problems

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Alysonsblog
Alysonsblog Posts: 4 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi there, I've made a significant loss (8 stones+) over a sustained period (5 years), and in the last 20 months have been exercising around 3/4 times a week. I have been religiously following the macros of 40% protein, 30/30 carbs and fat (1500 calories), and I have been stuck at the same weight now for over 6 months - Im finding it really demoralising, Im now considering a LCHF approach as I have previously lost weight with that method but I'm concerned I might deplete muscle or worse still gain weight. Can anyone advise, I am gluten free anyway but willing to look at anything I can fit around this requirement. If LCHF sounds like a god idea what macros should I be using?

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  • glassyo
    glassyo Posts: 7,651 Member
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    Have you recalculated your goal calories after the weight loss? Are you weighing your food? You could be eating more than you think. What about exercise calories? Are you eating some, if not, all of then back and how are you calculating them?
  • Alysonsblog
    Alysonsblog Posts: 4 Member
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    Thanks for replying, yes thats the recalculation that was done around august last year, since October times Ive just maintained or bounced around the same weight. I over estimate not under estimate food thats not already packaged with weights etc, but its a good point and prob time to bring out the food scales again. I dont eat my exercise calories, just the 1500 assigned daily calories - is that bad? Its so frustrating I'm sinking around 4 litres of water a day and feel Im doing the right things but can your body just get wise to what you are doing?
  • Mojo_34
    Mojo_34 Posts: 5 Member
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    Try Paleo meals
  • Alysonsblog
    Alysonsblog Posts: 4 Member
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    I feel like thats how I eat now aside from dairy, maybe if I took dairy out and went full on paleo principles again that might do the trick?
  • giovanna8830
    giovanna8830 Posts: 80 Member
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    50 carbs...30 proteine...20 fat
  • SymbolismNZ
    SymbolismNZ Posts: 190 Member
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    Your body won't lose muscle mass due to going onto a LCHF diet so long as you keep your protein intake high and don't have too much of a calorie deficit day to day. You also won't gain weight unless you have a calorie surplus on a daily basis regardless of what fats you consume.

    Some thoughts...

    1. Not sure about what exercise you're doing, but keep in mind your body is a pretty efficient thing and will get used to what you've been doing - five years is a long time for a sustained calorie deficit and if you've been doing similar exercise for that time, chances are your body consumes less calories than the calculators are telling you.

    Answering that point - try some new things in your exercise regime - bring some HIIT into your cardio training, do some more strength work ( body resistance is great, push ups, burpees, chin ups (or assisted chin ups) and consume protein within twenty to thirty minutes post your workouts.

    2. On the protein - a lot of people eat too much protein at the tail end of the day. Your body can only synthesize between 30g of protein every three hours; what you usually find is most people have the bulk of the protein in their lunch/dinner meals, and they're not getting the benefits of converting all of it into BCAA.

    3. The advantage potentially of an LCHF diet is that if you are retaining water ( excuse my bluntness, but being a female of your age indicates you probably are ) - is that it could help you shift that water weight reasonably rapidly, as carbohydrates tend to increase inflammation within your body, at the same time being in your mid thirties to late forties, your body is holding onto more water also.

    4. If you're drinking four litres of water a day, chances are you're flushing a lot of electrolytes out of your system which again will cause water retention, but also recent research indicates could impact your metabolic rate again.

  • Alysonsblog
    Alysonsblog Posts: 4 Member
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    Really interesting stuff SymbolismNZ, Ive only been exercising for around 20 months prior to that I was purely dieting, did a selection of atkins and Dukan to lose the majority before finding exercise - had a trainer until August last year and it was them who set me up.

    I do around 10 mins of cardio then a rotating selection of body weight stuff, strength and machine resistance stuff, but could in all truth add in some HIIT but think Im a bit afraid of it - hate cardio!

    I do eat protein within 30 mins of workout.

    Such a really interesting point about eating too much protein too late - that is defo something I am guilty of, I am tending to consume half my daily calories/macros in the last 5 hours of the day - that sounds like a mistake based on what I am reading from you?

    Water retention, I think you are spot on re age, I have endometriosis and think that maybe doesnt help with water retention, did wonder if i was just hitting pre menopause early too and that might be putting the halter on it.

    So 4 litres is too much? 3 better?

    Thanks again - really appreciate the insights
  • DEBOO7
    DEBOO7 Posts: 245 Member
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    LCHF... I'm 5' 2", have dropped 83lbs over close to 3 years. I get in 10k or more steps a day and swim 2-3 times a week 1km each time. My macro's are: 1251 cals, 20g net carb, 80g protein, 95g fat. I've got about 7lb still to go and am loosing about 1-2lb a month... it varies!
  • SymbolismNZ
    SymbolismNZ Posts: 190 Member
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    Protein Wise

    Yeah; a lot of people make the same mistake with protein - where they have hardly any at breakfast, sometimes have hardly any at lunch (as most people love to do those healthy vegetable salads at lunch) and then have the big ole 200G-300G piece of beef at dinner; what essentially happens to that excess protein is that it gets broken down by gluconeogenesis into glucose rather than being synthesised into BCAA ( what effectively helps repair and restore your muscles after hypertrophy)

    That big ole weightlifter myth of those massive protein shakes containing 60-100g of protein in them, they might as well be drinking a third of it and eating a chocolate bar, because it'd give them the same result. If you can spread it throughout the day ( 20 at breakfast, 10 in a snack between breakfast and lunch, 20 at lunch, 10 in a snack between lunch and dinner, then 30 at dinner ) then you'll get more value from the protein in terms of muscle development and restoration, but also protein is a proven thermogenic which should help top up your metabolism (especially if you're moving about during the day.

    Water Wise

    I'd say two litres is perfectly fine with the caveat that if you drink anything like coffee, tea or soda, drink an equal amount of water in addition to those two litres. The other caveat is that once you've been sweating for a while, replace those fluids ( ideally with a salt water mix to get the sodium back up if you're flushing too much of it out )

    Exercise Wise

    It may be time to look at heavier lifting or more intensity within your sets when doing strength work to build a bit more lean muscle mass, you won't bulk up (unless you're also eating a crap tonne of food to do so) and it will be a little different to what you have been doing.

    Cardio wise; basically most research indicates you need at least twenty minutes of keeping your heart rate high and stressing your body in order to get the benefits from it; if you could increase to 25 minutes and do say 15 minutes of good quality cardio that gets your heart rate north of 135 and keeps it there, then add in ten minutes of interval/HIIT work that spikes you up towards the 145-150 range then brings you back to 135 then back up to 145-150 - that could have a pretty positive impact on your metabolism.

    The reality is sitting on a treadmill for an hour and never going above say a 120-125 heart rate isn't actually that beneficial for you, unless you just want to get better at sitting on a treadmill for over an hour.

    The other thing to look into is something along the lines of Crossfit, although personally too busy and travel too much for that, so I do a lot of Kettlebell work which combines aerobic and anaerobic exercises pretty well, is very functional and hits muscle groups that are usually pretty hard to find with most machine lifts.
  • giovanna8830
    giovanna8830 Posts: 80 Member
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    BMR,TDEE...from september -april body reset diet. + Hiit, female fitness with weights

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