Plateu

Stalls can be frustrating! Some more details might help or opening your diary if you're comfortable with it. Otherwise these are my generic ideas:

1. If it's been less than 3 weeks or so, don't sweat it! Normal fluctuations happen and unfortunately sometimes we stall for a week or two even when we're doing everything right. Give your body some time to catch up with the changes you're making.

2. If you aren't already, be sure that you're logging everything. Sometimes people forget about things like veggies, drinks, cooking oils, and condiments. For some people these can add up to enough to halt your weight loss progress.

3. Consider buying a food scale if you don't already have one. They're about $10-$20 dollars in the US and easily found at places like Amazon, Target, and Walmart. Measuring cups and spoons are great, but they do come with some degree of inaccuracy. A food scale will be more accurate, and for some people it makes a big difference.

4. Logging accurately also means choosing accurate entries in the database. There are a lot of user-entered entries that are off. Double-check that you're using good entries and/or using the recipe builder instead of someone else's homemade entries.

5. Recalculate your goals if you haven't lately. As you lose weight your body requires fewer calories to run. Be sure you update your goals every ten pounds or so.

6. If you're eating back your exercise calories and you're relying on gym machine readouts or MFP's estimates, it might be best to eat back just 50-75% of those. Certain activities tend to be overestimated. If you're using an HRM or activity tracker, it might be a good idea to look into their accuracy and be sure that yours is calibrated properly.

7. If you're taking any cheat days that go over your calorie limits, it might be best to cut them out for a few weeks and see what happens. Some people go way over their calorie needs without realizing it when they don't track.

8. If you weigh yourself frequently, consider using a program like trendweight to even out the fluctuations. You could be losing weight but just don't see it because of the daily ups and downs.

9. Some people just burn fewer calories than the calculators predict. If you continue to have problems after 4-6 weeks, then it might be worth a trip to the doctor or a registered dietitian who can give you more specific advice.

Not eating enough will not cause a plateau.

How long has it been since you lost weight? How are you measuring your calorie intake?

fitplundy wrote: »

malibu927 wrote: »

Not eating enough will not cause a plateau.

How long has it been since you lost weight? How are you measuring your calorie intake?

I feel like it may be this as MFP has had me at 1200 for a while and I feel like that is too little as I do tend to exercise a lot strength and cardio yet I’m not sure and scared that if I bump my calories up too high I’ll just gain it all back

No. Unless you're extremely small, you're burning well over 1200 calories a day before exercise.

Can you answer the questions I asked? This will help us assist you with figuring out what's wrong.

fitplundy wrote: »

malibu927 wrote: »

Not eating enough will not cause a plateau.

How long has it been since you lost weight? How are you measuring your calorie intake?

I feel like it may be this as MFP has had me at 1200 for a while and I feel like that is too little as I do tend to exercise a lot strength and cardio yet I’m not sure and scared that if I bump my calories up too high I’ll just gain it all back

MFP giving you calories is not always accurate for most people. I know initially it had me at some ridiculous amount of calories not taking into account my activity level. Sadly, eating too little can cause stalling as well while 1200 cals is the standard minimum most of us need more than that. i'd say recal or get you some macros and go from there. you can use the one online or do it manually . hope that helps :-)