Here's a question :)

Also, know that as you are getting closer to your goal, your rate of loss will slow down.

Was there a reason to drop to 1200? Have you started moving less? Did you change your weight loss rate? If you started moving less, and it isn't because of an injury or illness, why did you start moving less? Did you arbitrarily drop yourself down to 1200 calories because you wanted to see even faster progress?

If you are eating fewer calories because you started moving less, and it's not because of injury or illness, I would ask yourself why. Moving more doesn't contribute to weight loss directly but it does have a correlation to health to a certain extent.

If you changed your weight loss rate, maybe ask yourself if that's an appropriate rate for you. Is there rate more than 1% of your body weight? That may not be the healthiest option and losing that quickly over a longer period of time can do more harm to your body than good.

The other thing to think about is that a portion of the first 12 pounds was water weight. Make sure to put your information into MFP accurately and choose a rate of loss that is healthy for you which is usually recommended to be at or below 1% of your body weight or 2 pounds per week. If you have less than 75 pounds to lose, it's recommended to be between 1 and 1.5 pounds per week. The last 20 or so pounds should be closer to .5 a pound the closer you get to goal.

Make sure your activity level is set at the right level and, if you have one, connect an activity tracker. With ALL of that information, MFP will calculate how many calories to eat per day. It's usually pretty good at figuring it out. Then stick to those calories. Don't think of it as something you have to be rigid about. You're creating a lifestyle for yourself and sometimes life happens. Stick to your calories 95% of the time and for the other 5% of the time, do your best but also forgive yourself.

The other price of this is making sure you are logging correctly. Are you logging EVERYTHING? You should be. Are you weighing it all? You should be. The caveat to that is liquids which, unless you have a scale that will measure fluid ounces, you can usually get away with using measuring cups and spoons. Also, make sure you are picking entries that are correct. For things that you can scan the barcode of, make sure to still weigh and then make sure that weight maybe the started weight per serving on the package. It might not and you may have to do some math to enter your serving size. Also, for the things you can't scan, make sure you actually look and are honest with yourself about whether the enter you are using is valid. You can compare the entry to the USDA website for nutritional value.

If you are doing that, you will lose. So either you are eating more calories than you think, which can happen if you aren't logging everything or aren't logging accurately. Or you changed something, like eating less and moving more, and your body reacted which takes patience to let your body normalize into the new routine. Three weeks isn't really a plateau and it can happen because of those changes or water weight, or because it's your TOM.

I don't know your stats (height, weight, age) so I don't know if 1200 is too low for you but if you entered everything correctly, I would go with what MFP gave you as far as calories and trust the process. I know this is long but I really hope you succeed. Part of that is filling your body so it has the energy to do everything you do in a day. And there will be times when it's frustrating and not linear. It's a struggle at first to find the balance and we all go through it to some extent at the beginning. I hope this helps.

kymm196 wrote: »

Because I was cycling a lot and then had a back injury and could barely move. So figured I'll drop them lower.
I'm pretty rigid about the recording etc. I go back to work tomorrow so will be moving more...thank Heavens!!

If your body is trying to heal from an injury you will possibly be retaining more water which can mask fat loss. Once you get up and about again you might see a sudden difference in the scale.

Apart from that though, when you're trying to heal the last thing your body needs is a more aggressive deficit and 1200 is pretty aggressive. I would be doing the opposite and switching to sedentary maintenance if I was injured. We're all here generally trying to lose weight for a healthier body and a healthy body needs food and energy to properly repair itself.

Maybe check how you're logging food. Are you logging everything? Are you weighing? Weighting is more accurate than using measuring cups. Example: 14 chips is the serving size but they're all broken. A slice of cheese is 70 calories but if its thicker, it could weigh more and be 140.

I think it’s natural to expect extra losses from extra misery. But weight loss doesn’t work that way. I think you will see better results from your old routine.