Plateau - No reason for it?!
rhibee73
Posts: 1 Member
I’m looking for a reasonable answer as to why I am plateauing as I’m so incredibly frustrated.
I’ve been stuck at 15 stone 4 for a month now, every day I weigh somewhere between 15st 4.5lbs to 15st 3.8lbs. I started calories in calories out this January when I was 22 stone 7lbs so I admit I’ve gotten used to seeing the scale change literally every day.
I’m aware it’s not healthy but I haven’t eaten over 1000 calories in a day for weeks now because my weight stalled. I tried removing all carbohydrates, I tried adding in more vegetables, I drink at least 3 litres of water a day. I joined the gym two weeks ago and I’ve been burning (according to my Fitbit) anywhere between 3000-4000 calories per day.
My thyroid is fine and My period doesn’t normally affect my weight.
I’m so fed up and it makes me want to give up everyday and go back to eating 40 cookies because what’s the point.
Please please does anyone have any other ideas I could try?
Help me Obi Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.
I’ve been stuck at 15 stone 4 for a month now, every day I weigh somewhere between 15st 4.5lbs to 15st 3.8lbs. I started calories in calories out this January when I was 22 stone 7lbs so I admit I’ve gotten used to seeing the scale change literally every day.
I’m aware it’s not healthy but I haven’t eaten over 1000 calories in a day for weeks now because my weight stalled. I tried removing all carbohydrates, I tried adding in more vegetables, I drink at least 3 litres of water a day. I joined the gym two weeks ago and I’ve been burning (according to my Fitbit) anywhere between 3000-4000 calories per day.
My thyroid is fine and My period doesn’t normally affect my weight.
I’m so fed up and it makes me want to give up everyday and go back to eating 40 cookies because what’s the point.
Please please does anyone have any other ideas I could try?
Help me Obi Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.
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Replies
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There is no plateau, it's just you eating at maintenance.
You have to eat the amount of food you're supposed to, but you're also supposed to log correctly, and you're allowed to eat anything you want. When you try to undereat, and cut out perfectly good food you like, gush down water, and exercise like a maniac, you're creating resentment and self pity, and that turns into entitlement and cheating and - you guessed it - no weightloss.22 -
Would you be willing to temporarily make your diary public? It would make it much easier to make suggestions.5
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Last night I looked at the BMR and TDEE calculations with a suggested 20 % calorie deficit on the TDEE figures. So far I have lost 20 kg - about 3 stones - and there is a difference between my daily calories already. It is worth checking up on that - without re - calculating it is possible to end up eating maintenance calories, which leads to a plateau.3
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There is a huge (and sensible) middle ground between under eating and eating 40 cookies a day....
"I’m aware it’s not healthy" - have a serious think about that statement, isn't the major point about losing excess weight to improve your health now and in the future?
Opening your diary would help.
Your Fitbit estimates seem very high - you aren't playing the violin with your Fitbit on your wrist are you?
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It's normal to see a weight drop every day for the first six months or so of your diet, then see drops at irregular intervals thereafter. It has to do with the way the body processes water when losing fat. Tighten up your logging, reset your goals to reflect your current weight, and if you are confident that you are still eating at a deficit, carry on and expect to see a "whoosh" of weight dropping all at once in the future.
By the way, drinking a ton of water and exercising in a new way can easily mask several pounds of weight loss, as your muscles retain water to repair themselves.6 -
I had the same, I knew, however, that with my weight shedding every following kilogram would be harder as I am in a healthy weight, but I did not expect to be stuck after just 2 kilos lost... (I am 61 kilos, something like 140 pounds I guess?).
So being frustrated like you are I started using a kitchen scale to measure everything I eat, and it turns out my estimations were way off. Somehow sometimes I ate like 50 g of hummus and logging it in as 15 or 20, then I ate dried fruit and simply fruit with only approximate estimations which were so off I feel ashamed rn. I was petrified when after months of diligently logging things in I realized that the approximations I made were off by 400-500 kcal daily. And that is exactly the deficit I tried to create to lose approx. 1 pound/week.
What concerns devices that track your calorie expenditure, my garmin watch estimates 1700 kcal to be my BMR. That is ridiculous, because even with roughly 80% of muscle and 17% of body fat there is no way I burn this much (61 kilos is a low weight for this much BMR). I would guess I am somewhere at 1500 kcal. I've also heard that fitbits and other devices sometimes get as inaccurate as measuring 1 step as one calorie burnt, which is super inaccurate.
Anyways, currently I don't have scales, so I just did measurements of my hips and waist (because the scales also made me obsessed) and I made a goal of dropping an inch in my waist and hips in 2 weeks having 1700 calories intake daily.
Only after 2 weeks I will be able to tell if 1700 is really a deficit for me, or I need to lower this number. Weight loss is not as much about formulas (you need to count calories tho) but about how process go in your body individually.
Try bringing your calories back to at least 1500 because I am guessing you're not getting enough protein (make sure you receive at least 1,5 g of protein per kilo of weight) and don't forget that the muscle tissue, the one that makes you healthy and beautiful, is being destroyed first thing when you enter the starvation mode consuming only 1000 kcal a day.
Don't despair, I have been there just a few days ago, and also, don't forget to live while striving for weight loss! Maybe get distracted, swap your long gym sessions for a walk in the park. Chances are that you are also not having enough rest, which is super underestimated yet very important for losing weight!
Cheers5 -
Stop doing all this and trying to force the issue.
Eat what MFP gives you to attain a 25% deficit at most, so in your case probably over 2k ACCURATELY MEASURED Calories.
Exercise and move to a reasonable degree. A degree you have a reasonable expectation to be able to keep to long term.
The whoosh will happen...5 -
If you are doing everything you used to do and the exercise is new it could be that. When I first started at the gym doing weights it took 7 weeks for the whoosh to happen. That was 7 weeks of frustration and tears and thinking why am I doing this for zero return. Then wow woke up to a huge drop on the scales. Trust the process. If you know your logging is on point and you are not over estimating exercise burns then just keep positive1
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Food scale? I didn't see it mentioned so I didn't know if you've been weighing your food. If not, you may not be eating 1,000 calories6
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If you are doing everything you used to do and the exercise is new it could be that. When I first started at the gym doing weights it took 7 weeks for the whoosh to happen. That was 7 weeks of frustration and tears and thinking why am I doing this for zero return. Then wow woke up to a huge drop on the scales. Trust the process. If you know your logging is on point and you are not over estimating exercise burns then just keep positive
Yep.
If you joined a gym 2 weeks ago and have a new workout routine, likely your muscles are retaining water for muscle repair, masking your ongoing fat loss. It will level out in time. However, all the other suggestions about accurate logging still stand and while you want to eat back a portion of your exercise calories, I would probably be conservative about those Fitbit numbers.0 -
I had the same, I knew, however, that with my weight shedding every following kilogram would be harder as I am in a healthy weight, but I did not expect to be stuck after just 2 kilos lost... (I am 61 kilos, something like 140 pounds I guess?).
So being frustrated like you are I started using a kitchen scale to measure everything I eat, and it turns out my estimations were way off. Somehow sometimes I ate like 50 g of hummus and logging it in as 15 or 20, then I ate dried fruit and simply fruit with only approximate estimations which were so off I feel ashamed rn. I was petrified when after months of diligently logging things in I realized that the approximations I made were off by 400-500 kcal daily. And that is exactly the deficit I tried to create to lose approx. 1 pound/week.
What concerns devices that track your calorie expenditure, my garmin watch estimates 1700 kcal to be my BMR. That is ridiculous, because even with roughly 80% of muscle and 17% of body fat there is no way I burn this much (61 kilos is a low weight for this much BMR). I would guess I am somewhere at 1500 kcal. I've also heard that fitbits and other devices sometimes get as inaccurate as measuring 1 step as one calorie burnt, which is super inaccurate.
Anyways, currently I don't have scales, so I just did measurements of my hips and waist (because the scales also made me obsessed) and I made a goal of dropping an inch in my waist and hips in 2 weeks having 1700 calories intake daily.
Only after 2 weeks I will be able to tell if 1700 is really a deficit for me, or I need to lower this number. Weight loss is not as much about formulas (you need to count calories tho) but about how process go in your body individually.
Try bringing your calories back to at least 1500 because I am guessing you're not getting enough protein (make sure you receive at least 1,5 g of protein per kilo of weight) and don't forget that the muscle tissue, the one that makes you healthy and beautiful, is being destroyed first thing when you enter the starvation mode consuming only 1000 kcal a day.
Don't despair, I have been there just a few days ago, and also, don't forget to live while striving for weight loss! Maybe get distracted, swap your long gym sessions for a walk in the park. Chances are that you are also not having enough rest, which is super underestimated yet very important for losing weight!
Cheers
While I applaud your attitude, one inch in my waist equals about 20 lbs for me, which is not a realistic goal in two weeks. Someone else once asked others how much weight they lose to lose an inch and most were at about this number. While you can lose inches in the waist and GAIN weight overall through gaining muscle, this takes even longer.1 -
Have you changed the battery on your body-weight scale?
When mine reads the same number for many days in a row I know it's time to change the battery.2 -
Have you taken a diet break at all during this time?
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10604863/of-refeeds-and-diet-breaks/p11 -
I also think you are way over estimating your calorie burns. You aren't going to burn that many calories. I would only eat back half those calories, if that. Also, you have to use a food scale as others upthread have said- you can easily be eating 500 calories more than you think if you aren't.5
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I'm a runner, and I lift. A 4-5 mile morning run, 1 hour strength training session midday and an evening 2 mile run or 30 min walk - that's less than 1000 calories from exercise. I'm 5'7" and 160lbs (for reference)
3000-4000 calories from a workout is called a marathon. You are probably way overestimating calories burned.6 -
I'm a runner, and I lift. A 4-5 mile morning run, 1 hour strength training session midday and an evening 2 mile run or 30 min walk - that's less than 1000 calories from exercise. I'm 5'7" and 160lbs (for reference)
3000-4000 calories from a workout is called a marathon. You are probably way overestimating calories burned.
@VUA21 - That’s what Fitbit is estimating her TDEE to be. It’s for the whole day (BMR + daily activity + exercise). Not just workouts.5 -
I do also think that you're eating more than you think, but you don't go from losing 12 lbs a month to not losing anything if you're eating the same way, so I'm 100% sure that you're just retaining water (just because your period didn't affect your weight when you started doesn't mean that it's not going to change). It's very common for muscles to retain water when you start exercising.
Either way, if you lost so much weight in such a short time, what you're doing is working... but that was a VERY FAST loss and I really think that you should start eating more, because losing 3 lbs a week isn't healthy, and yes, you probably need a diet break.
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nutmegoreo wrote: »Have you taken a diet break at all during this time?
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10604863/of-refeeds-and-diet-breaks/p1
This is what I did when I hit a plateau for 6 weeks. I ate at Maintenance for a week (should have done 2). I gained a couple of pounds which came right back off then I started losing again. If you are certain you are eating within your correct calorie allowance (make sure you have updated it since any weight loss) then this might just be what you need.
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shadow2soul wrote: »I'm a runner, and I lift. A 4-5 mile morning run, 1 hour strength training session midday and an evening 2 mile run or 30 min walk - that's less than 1000 calories from exercise. I'm 5'7" and 160lbs (for reference)
3000-4000 calories from a workout is called a marathon. You are probably way overestimating calories burned.
@VUA21 - That’s what Fitbit is estimating her TDEE to be. It’s for the whole day (BMR + daily activity + exercise). Not just workouts.
Ahhh.... That makes more sense.0 -
Plateaus can be very frustrating, especially when you feel like there's so much effort going in, but you just aren't seeing the scale budge!
A few suggestions, some of which are repeats, but worth reiterating:- Buy a food scale, and start weighing all your foods. When I picked one up, I was sadly surprised at how off some of my previous measurements/estimations were.
- If you need volume, add more veggies - they can help fill you up without killing your calorie allotment.
- 3-5K kcal/day is a LOT - I was barely burning that when I was in the police academy and during my black belt testing - I'm going to hazard a guess that estimation is WAY off. And I mean WAY off. Even an active job on your feet all day, and a workout at the gym is unlikely to come to those kinds of numbers. Have you looked at your TDEE in other ways other than your FitBit?
- New workouts can have a few effects - they can increase your appetite, increase water retention, and most activity trackers overestimate the calories burned.
- Are you ONLY going off the scale? Measurements and progress photos can be pretty helpful when you're increasing your workouts and not seeing the numbers change.
- Finally, have you adjusted all of your settings to reflect your current weight?
- And finally - TRUST THE PROCESS. It does and it will work.
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When I joined a gym and started doing weights 2-3x a week the scale stalled for 6 weeks. New exercise causes muscles to retain water. Eat at a reasonable deficit, and trust the science. Give yourself another 4-6 weeks before panic. Look up common causes for water weight.2
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I think you need to step away from the scale for a second. Weighing in too often creates a poor picture in your mind of your over all health and fitness. The scale can change from day to day because of a variety of factors. Maybe only weigh in once per week or every two weeks. Focus on other measures for awhile (like measurements, the fit of your clothes, your cardio endurance, etc) and keep at your program. It will take time and I know how frustrating it can be to feel like you are giving it your all and nothing is happening. Your body is a work in progress, at any stage, and you need to honor it. Also I agree that you need to re-evaluate your food tracking and exercise level/duration. You might be consuming more than you think and burning less that what your monitor is telling you. Hang in there!3
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I'm in a plateau now and have no clue what to do so i just stopped eating. Hopefully that will help.
Did you read any of the answers in this thread?!? :noway:
By stopping eating, you are setting yourself up for a binge which will definitely NOT get you to your goal.
Buy a food scale. Weigh all your food. Log it all into your food diary. Make whatever changes to your current eating that brings you within your calorie goal. That's all you need to do.4 -
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nutmegoreo wrote: »
I dont know squat about weight loss. I started in the middle of July, i lost weight steady for 7 weeks and hit stopped which no change in diet or exercise. Just because I wasn't on here doesn't mean i wasn't trying to lose weight.quiksylver296 wrote: »I'm in a plateau now and have no clue what to do so i just stopped eating. Hopefully that will help.
Did you read any of the answers in this thread?!? :noway:
By stopping eating, you are setting yourself up for a binge which will definitely NOT get you to your goal.
Buy a food scale. Weigh all your food. Log it all into your food diary. Make whatever changes to your current eating that brings you within your calorie goal. That's all you need to do.
No, its not at all. Food scale isn't a helpful recommendation. It's all good, ill keep searching for help. Thanks though.
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nutmegoreo wrote: »
I dont know squat about weight loss. I started in the middle of July, i lost weight steady for 7 weeks and hit stopped which no change in diet or exercise. Just because I wasn't on here doesn't mean i wasn't trying to lose weight.quiksylver296 wrote: »I'm in a plateau now and have no clue what to do so i just stopped eating. Hopefully that will help.
Did you read any of the answers in this thread?!? :noway:
By stopping eating, you are setting yourself up for a binge which will definitely NOT get you to your goal.
Buy a food scale. Weigh all your food. Log it all into your food diary. Make whatever changes to your current eating that brings you within your calorie goal. That's all you need to do.
No, its not at all. Food scale isn't a helpful recommendation. It's all good, ill keep searching for help. Thanks though.
I was asking for clarification. A more complete picture is better for more targeted advice. Glad you got it figured out though.3
This discussion has been closed.
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