Be more patient or cut more calories? Plateaus
joowelz
Posts: 172 Member
Please help me figure this out. I am a pretty patient person. My goal for weight loss has been 0.5lbs per week and I want to lose 20lbs. When I started using a food scale, my weight went from 177lbs to 170lbs in approximately five months. However, I have lost NO weight in the month of February. I even gained/lost a pound or two due to water, but if I compare my weight on Feb 1 to my weight on Feb 28, I maintained at 170lbs. What's going on?
I have been logging and weighing my foods daily and still jogging 4 times a week. That hasn't changed.
I tallied up my total calories in the month of Feb (yes, I'm that obsessive!) and they came to 49,716. I went over by 267 calories that month, which is only 9 calories over per day. It seems to me that I should be 168lbs today but I am not. Why??????
I have been logging and weighing my foods daily and still jogging 4 times a week. That hasn't changed.
I tallied up my total calories in the month of Feb (yes, I'm that obsessive!) and they came to 49,716. I went over by 267 calories that month, which is only 9 calories over per day. It seems to me that I should be 168lbs today but I am not. Why??????
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Replies
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I would say stay patient, it could be that you are losing fat weight and gaining muscle weight at the same time!0
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I've just gone through a period of scales not moving. Was really hard for 5 weeks but I carried on and reasoned with myself that I it would come off because I'd stuck to my cals. Got on this week and lost 6.5lb! Hang in there6
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Have you re calculated your goals after your 7 lb loss?7
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I'm being patient too. The scales have not moved for me since February 4th. It's been a bit of a pain in the motivation department, but I tell myself I am still closer to my goal than I was in December/January.
Also, I find myself with bad little habits creeping in, like grabbing a few fries off my SO's plate or eating that peppermint candy someone left on my desk to be nice. <sigh> Dedicated logging and accountability need tightened up for me.
You are not alone! Plateaus STINK!2 -
Three weeks seems to be the magic number. If your goal is 0.5 lbs per week and after three weeks you aren't 1.5 lbs lighter then it is likely that you are eating too much. 1% of your weight is 1.7 lbs, so I would suggest aiming for a 1.5 lbs loss, which would mean increasing your deficit by 500 calories per day. Given you aren't losing weight now, I suspect doing so will result in a 1 lb per week or less loss instead of 1.5 lbs. But if after three weeks you find you are losing weight more quickly than you would like, you can always start eating more. It is more pleasant to start adjusting your loss rate when you are actually losing weight than when nothing is happening.2
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I'm going to cry. I already eat just barely satisfying my stomach. Reducing more means taking away flavour (oil, sugar, cheese) or reducing more volume, and at this point, I feel like I am living on the basics. This is verr bad news indeed...
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I'm going to cry. I already eat just barely satisfying my stomach. Reducing more means taking away flavour (oil, sugar, cheese) or reducing more volume, and at this point, I feel like I am living on the basics. This is verr bad news indeed...
How long/far are your jogs...maybe up the mileage a little on a run or two and do a higher intensity interval run on one of your days...maybe throw in a day or two of resistance training with a higher intensity circuit or something.
I usually break through plateaus when I up my intensity of one or two of my training bouts or switch things up a bit and make my body work a little differently.
ETA: you may want to also incorporate refeeds.1 -
I would suggest that you try cutting 100-200 per day. 1/2 lbs per week is a sensible goal, but you don't have much margin for error. All calorie counts are estimates, so just try tweaking a bit. It's kind of like being in maintenance in terms of the margin for estimating. Keep going!3
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Personally I'd just keep going and give it more time. Stalls due to water weight can last for as much as 6 weeks, especially when the deficit is small.3
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I would tell you to keep doing what you're doing I lost 22 pounds in about six weeks then the scales stalled for three weeks. I went off plan for a couple of days due to stress and ate more than normal. I weighed today 1.2 pounds less. It was a huge motivation to continue. The scale doesn't show everything and my clothes fit much looser. So don't give up!3
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If you are already pushing yourself to stay on diet, I would up the exercise side and see what happens. Maybe a little cross training, since you are already running? Or try changing up your runs, adding a variety of speeds, changing to a more varied terrain, etc.
And be patient. It's okay to plateau sometimes. You are making progress in other ways and weight is not what matters most. If your endurance is increasing, your clothes are feeling different, if you have more energy... that's real progress and you should be proud of yourself.1 -
I agree with trimming 100-200 off your daily calories. Even if you're meticulous errors can creep into your food logging, or your body may be a little less than average at burning calories. Or increase activity while keeping your intake steady.2
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Can you open your journal please?4
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I'm going to throw up the chart for fun, and for your future reference. In all honesty, when I start getting annoyed at lack of loss, I go back over it myself as a reminder. This happens, it happens to many of us for a varying time (5 days, 4 weeks, etc).
As long as you're doing everything the chart suggests, then give it a bit more time. Frustrating as banana, but that's loss for you. Also start measuring along with or instead of weighing, seeing how your clothes fit, etc. It can be a more accurate way to see if you're losing.1 -
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I would suggest that you try cutting 100-200 per day. 1/2 lbs per week is a sensible goal, but you don't have much margin for error. All calorie counts are estimates, so just try tweaking a bit. It's kind of like being in maintenance in terms of the margin for estimating. Keep going!
@lorrpb You are absolutely right. I haven't allowed much of a margin for error and all calorie counts are estimates. This is so wise! Thank you.1 -
your diary still isn't open0 -
7 lbs in 5 months is very slow. Definitely less than a 250 calorie deficit... so with 7 less lbs, I'd definitely cut 100 calories a day at least.
Or move more. It's what I had to do because there's no way I'm eating less either.. but I don't mind an extra hour of walking a day.1 -
Could it be as simple as it being a shorter month and hormone cycles being different? Have you lost anything in March or do you only weigh once a month?1
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Seriously I don't know how anyone can follow all the advices given here.
Keep being patient, increase deficit, refeed, change goal post.
How does a person decide what to follow?3 -
Who was that who said cut 500 calories more? cmon.. No.. just shake up your routine.. i have no idea what it is.. i you exercise a lot..try backing off. if you don't exercise ..try walking 30 minutes a day.. eat more one day ..less the next.. drink more water.. stuff like that. Chances are with a .5 deficit you're just a fraction off on something.. maybe cut your calories by 50 calories a day.. that could be keeping you stalled.
but1 -
I found that any sugar at all, even from a glass of wine, would make my weight stall or go up. I recommend that you cut back or eliminate sugar.1
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Why dont you try taking your measurements once a month instead of using the scale since your body composition could be changing from the jogging? I find measurements much more accurate and have pretty much stopped using the scale... too much margin of error1
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Any chance that your non-exercise activity is down a little? I find my NEAT drops a bit in Winter as compared with summer, and that this makes a small difference in my gain/loss rate as one would expect. On 0.5lb/week loss rate, it doesn't take much NEAT change to unbalance the equation.
There are lots of things - not just seasons - that could have an effect: Changing job, changing what you do on lunch hour, moving your office location within a building, moving to a house with fewer stairs you have to take frequently, putting a child in day care or taking them out, change in hobby activities from something movement-oriented to something less so - just some potential examples.2
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