Plateauing - What should I do?

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hollyherrin
hollyherrin Posts: 5 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I have been exercising just as much, pushing myself each time. I haven't changed my diet. If anything, I'm improving it. Yet now, I gained a few of my pounds back and I'm stuck. What should I do from here? I always get frustrated in this phase and I'm really hoping to keep progressing and not just settle with where I am/maintain. Suggestions?

Replies

  • concordancia
    concordancia Posts: 5,320 Member
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    What do you mean by "improving' your diet?
    How is your logging?
  • hollyherrin
    hollyherrin Posts: 5 Member
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    When I lost most of my weight, I wasn't logging my calories. However, since plateauing, I've started logging my calories and really paying attention to what I eat. That's why I would say my diet has even improved.
  • Go_Deskercise
    Go_Deskercise Posts: 1,630 Member
    edited April 2018
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    Weight fluctuates for a number of different reasons...

    Things to look at would be:

    Are you accurately logging your food?
    - It might help to open your diary up and ask people to look at it. It's sometimes hard for us to critique ourselves as we have a tendency to go easy or think we are doing everything we are supposed to do and get frustrated.

    Are you over estimating workout calories?
    - If you are saying you burned 400 calories and them eating them back, but you only burned say 200 calories .... that's a recipe for disaster

    *** Most of the time "plateau's" are caused by inaccurate logging or overestimate of calories burned. The closer you get to your goal weight the more strict you have to be in order to see progress. I've been on my last 8-10 lbs for quite some time now to reach my goal weight. I finally analyzed my food/workout diary honestly and realized I've been lying to myself about how much I actually eat/burn and am striving to do better this time around.

    I wish you lots of luck!
  • hollyherrin
    hollyherrin Posts: 5 Member
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    I started losing weight in October 2017. I had gotten up to 33lbs lost. Now I'm at 28lbs lost. I've been pretty consistent. I'm in a pretty transitional period in my personal life right now (moving multiple times) so I haven't been AS consistent (meaning instead of working out 6/7 days a week, I only work out 5/6 days a week). But I haven't stopped dieting/exercising since I started this journey again in October. I'm starting to do intermittent fasting today, but I'm not totally sold on the validity of it yet. And I'm trying to do better about not eating my exercise calories. I don't know... any helpful suggestions are welcomed!
  • cathipa
    cathipa Posts: 2,991 Member
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    There is nothing magical about IF. You still have to be in a calorie deficit to lose weight. If you are gaining you aren't in a deficit. How are you accounting for the food you are logging (weigh, measure, eyeball)? Are you logging everything and are you using correct entries (i.e. no homemade or generic)?
  • Go_Deskercise
    Go_Deskercise Posts: 1,630 Member
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    hollyherrin wrote: »
    I started losing weight in October 2017. I had gotten up to 33lbs lost. Now I'm at 28lbs lost. I've been pretty consistent. I'm in a pretty transitional period in my personal life right now (moving multiple times) so I haven't been AS consistent (meaning instead of working out 6/7 days a week, I only work out 5/6 days a week). But I haven't stopped dieting/exercising since I started this journey again in October. I'm starting to do intermittent fasting today, but I'm not totally sold on the validity of it yet. And I'm trying to do better about not eating my exercise calories. I don't know... any helpful suggestions are welcomed!

    You should in fact be eating your exercise calories back, so don't stop that! Most people just don't eat all of their exercise calories back. Eat maybe 50-70% of them back.
  • quiksylver296
    quiksylver296 Posts: 28,442 Member
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    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10634517/you-dont-use-a-food-scale/p1
  • Silentpadna
    Silentpadna Posts: 1,306 Member
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    diannethegeek wrote: »
    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.

    OP this ^^^^^ is your gold right here.

    Food Scale

    Logging

    Patience

    Understanding fluctuations - those will happen even if you are doing everything right. They happen when you aren't . They happen when you are paying attention to your weight. They happen when you aren't.

    Good luck!

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