What has worked for your last twenty lbs?

I would like to know the secrets to this, too! I have lost 13 and have 18 left. It's not easy!!!!! I have cut out all carbs and that seems to be helping slowly.

Eating my exercise calories, but setting myself at "lose 1.5 lbs per week" helped me lose the first five of my final ten pounds pretty quickly. I plateaued again with only 5 pounds left so I am now trying upping my calories to "lose 1 lb per week", intensifying my workouts, and seeing how that goes.

I feel your pain. Have 15 to go and can't get there. It is a slow process. :sad:

I never understood this whole last few pounds thing....like how does your body know that you want to lose 5, 10, 15, or more pounds?

I think the problem is just plateauing and your body getting used to the fitness/eating regime you've been on to lose the weight you've lost so far. My advice would be is to try to switch up your workouts. Add something new into replace something. Same with your calories. Try eating a little more actually, or zig zagging to throw off your body. Sometimes it takes taking a few days off from exercising and calorie counting to shock your body back into losing.

If this helps to give you hope....I lost 60lbs. No one pound was harder to lose than the next. I never really found myself stuck for more than 2 weeks. What did I do? Nothing magical, I just made sure I switched up my workout every 3-4 weeks. I zig zagged my calories. I upped them some weeks, lowered back other weeks. I allow myself to have free days where I go over (not a ton but enough) usually just a few hundred over my maintenance amount. This shocked my body and usually within one to two days, with drinking plenty of water to flush away bloat, I was down another pound or two.

There is hope. Just quit thinking of it as your last few pounds. Your body doesn't know the difference

well, I only had 20 to lose, and it was slow going, took 5 months. I did a ton of research and this is what it boiled down to for me.

ACCURACY - you have no wiggle room anymore!

Retweak your goals to 1/2 pound per week. (or a 15% deficit from your maintanace cals) And, be mindful to really choose the appropriate lifestyle setting here.

In everything.....weigh your food, don't use cups, spoons or eye ball it.......use a food scale and weigh it like it is rocket science. (got to be fun!)

Eat back all exercise calories (minus the adjustment for what you would have burned just sitting around on the couch.) Speaking of that use a HRM. databases and machines use very generic calculators.....you need something more personal to your body.

Don't become a cardio maniac....add in strength training.

Try to breathe because it won't happen fast, there will be plateaus....just know it will happen!

Do's:
1. figure out your approximate TDEE
2. subtract a reasonable deficit, say 500 calories per day
3. eat those calories as cleanly as possible 6 days/week (1 day can be a splurge day)
4. exercise 6 days a week

Don'ts:
1. worry *too* much about macros. find a reasonable balance. 40/30/30 or 50/30/20 or 35/35/30... are all "close enough"
2. worry much about meal timing. (you can eat late at night; don't obsess over whether to drink a shake before or after your workout, etc)
3. cut out whole food groups - e.g., carbs are your friend, unless you're one of the small percentage of people who are insulin resistant
4. chronically under-eat
5. let one bad decision ruin your whole day

What is TDEE? I think I do chronically undereat because I am vegan and with all the veggies, it's really easy to undereat while still being full, I do think that might be something to work on.

And I was not exercising during law school, just walking my dog, so I can't change a routine that I didn't have! (If you've been through your first year of law school - you understand; I was grateful not to gain weight while chronically sleep deprived and stressed - unlike some of my classmates). I am exercising now and determined to continue a workable exercise routine when I start school.

Taso is 100% correct.

And TDEE is your Total Daily Energy Expenditure. The amount of calories your body normally burns throughout the course of a typical day just living your life. Do NOT confuse with BMR.
Your TDEE is otherwise known as "maintenance" calories, or what you would need to eat in order to stay exactly the same. Make a SMALL deficit off of that and stick to it daily.
Basically you can just set your MFP goal to HALF a pound a week, which will be a small deficit off your TDEE, like you need.

Undereating can be as bad as overeating. I eat 2000 a day at 5'2" 110 lbs. No need to ever feel hungry. And make sure you get all your protein and fats, most people get way too little protein (aim for about 100g) and they also fear fats. Fats don't make you fat. ALL the macros are important to your body and it's not safe to cut ANY of them down to almost nothing.
Like Taso said, don't obsess over whether to use 40/30/30 or 50/30/20 or whatever, as long as you aren't cutting anything down to like 10% or anything, that could be bad.

I never understood this whole last few pounds thing....like how does your body know that you want to lose 5, 10, 15, or more pounds?

I think the problem is just plateauing and your body getting used to the fitness/eating regime you've been on to lose the weight you've lost so far. My advice would be is to try to switch up your workouts. Add something new into replace something. Same with your calories. Try eating a little more actually, or zig zagging to throw off your body. Sometimes it takes taking a few days off from exercising and calorie counting to shock your body back into losing.

If this helps to give you hope....I lost 60lbs. No one pound was harder to lose than the next. I never really found myself stuck for more than 2 weeks. What did I do? Nothing magical, I just made sure I switched up my workout every 3-4 weeks. I zig zagged my calories. I upped them some weeks, lowered back other weeks. I allow myself to have free days where I go over (not a ton but enough) usually just a few hundred over my maintenance amount. This shocked my body and usually within one to two days, with drinking plenty of water to flush away bloat, I was down another pound or two.

There is hope. Just quit thinking of it as your last few pounds. Your body doesn't know the difference

But your body DOES know. It knows that it doesn't have very much fat left. Evolution has programed it to hold on to fat to survive! Therefore it starts adjusting, trying to figure out how to live without letting go of that fat. It'll either lower your metabolism OR start eating your muscles instead. This is why it needs lot of food (SMALL calorie deficit so it doesn't notice), and exercise to force the metabolism to stay high, and make it recognize that you need your muscles.

I never understood this whole last few pounds thing....like how does your body know that you want to lose 5, 10, 15, or more pounds?

There is hope. Just quit thinking of it as your last few pounds. Your body doesn't know the difference

But your body DOES know. It knows that it doesn't have very much fat left. Evolution has programed it to hold on to fat to survive! Therefore it starts adjusting, trying to figure out how to live without letting go of that fat. It'll either lower your metabolism OR start eating your muscles instead. This is why it needs lot of food (SMALL calorie deficit so it doesn't notice), and exercise to force the metabolism to stay high, and make it recognize that you need your muscles.

exactly. It knows, all right. It knows WELL. And this explanation was perfect.

Bump! Thanks for all the info, folks!