Plateau Question
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MikeNamez
Posts: 77 Member
I've just hit a weight loss Plateau and not sure whats next. I only eat about 600-1000 Calories a day so cutting there is almost impossible. I have an elliptical at home that I've been using 7 days a week between 40-60 minutes as well as walking 2 miles M-F. Basketball for an hour once or twice a week as well.
I REFUSE to go to a gym. Thinking about buying a home gym and adding strength training, but all i want to do is drop weight at this point so that is not ideal. I want to drop another 40 lbs and really don't have much interest in adding muscle yet but seems like this is my only option. Any suggestions on how to break through?
I REFUSE to go to a gym. Thinking about buying a home gym and adding strength training, but all i want to do is drop weight at this point so that is not ideal. I want to drop another 40 lbs and really don't have much interest in adding muscle yet but seems like this is my only option. Any suggestions on how to break through?
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Replies
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Get a food scale. Weigh and log all your food. No skipping, cheating or forgetting.
Check out this thread, and especially @Sarahlucindac's comment on page 13.
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10634517/you-dont-use-a-food-scale/p16 -
600-1000 calories per day + exericse and still no change in weight... something doesn't make sense.
Either you're not tracking your intake correctly, or you're not tracking scale weight changes over long enough periods of time to see what is really happening, or there is some bigger health issue at play that we can't diagnose.
80% of the time, it's the first one.
19 % of the time it's the second one.
1% of the time it's the third.3 -
quiksylver296 wrote: »Get a food scale. Weigh and log all your food. No skipping, cheating or forgetting.
Check out this thread, and especially @Sarahlucindac's comment on page 13.
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10634517/you-dont-use-a-food-scale/p1
Here. I went and got Sarah's comment for you.sarahlucindac wrote: »Hey everyone, just wanted to share my experience with the food scale - my best friend and worst enemy.
I’ve lost 40 lbs so far and for the first 25-30, I used measuring cups and “eyeballing”, and it worked fine - until it didn’t. The scale refused to budge for almost a month and I had no idea that I had been sabotaging myself. I posted in the forums here for help and this thread’s OP - quiksylver, chimed in about food scales. I was sure that I was logging accurately and my thought process was “well I’ve lost weight so far, so my logging must be accurate”. Wrong!! I had lost a significant amount of weight so far, my calorie needs had changed and that meant that a “few extra” calories not logged accurately added up even more since I needed a larger deficit now in order to maintain my rate of loss (set to 1.5 lbs/week). A smaller person needs fewer calories.
So I purchased a food scale. The very first day, I realized that there were several hundred extra calories sneaking their way into my day. Several hundred!! On some days, as many as 400-500 calories that would have been unaccounted for.
The main culprits for me were things like ice cream, mayo, coffee creamer, salad dressings, etc. I had been measuring my ice cream in a measuring cup and learned that I was getting almost 33% more in each “serving”. It was a sad day that I realized I did not know what a portion of ice cream looks like, lol 😢 😂
There were also some foods that I was shorting myself on like cereal, Mac and cheese (wooohooo!!), and deli meat. But in the end, I was eating way more than I thought.
Since picking up the food scale and becoming more accurate about what I’m consuming, I’ve had massive success. The scale has been going down consistently every week.
Another bonus to the food scale is it keeps me from randomly grazing and snacking because I don’t want to have to bother pulling out the food scale for just 2 or 3 grapes, for example. When I eat, it’s deliberate and everything is weighed.
Getting a food scale was some of the best advice I’ve received - thank you quiksylver!3 -
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.4 -
600-1000 calories per day + exericse and still no change in weight... something doesn't make sense.
Either you're not tracking your intake correctly, or you're not tracking scale weight changes over long enough periods of time to see what is really happening, or there is some bigger health issue at play that we can't diagnose.
80% of the time, it's the first one.
19 % of the time it's the second one.
1% of the time it's the third.
Can you speak to me like an idiot please. What are scale weight changes?
This might help explain what they mean in simple language: http://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations/3 -
First of all if you really are eating 600 - 1000 calories per day that's not enough for a male. You should be at a minimum of 1500. Second how log have you been stalled? It appears you have only been on MFP for a couple weeks. A plateau is usually considered at least 6 weeks of weighing exactly the same amount while dieting in a deficit. Third most people when they drastically change their diet will see a big loss in the first week or so and most of it is water. Then as the body adjusts and puts the water back fat is lost but the scale does not record a change. Give it time, get a food scale and log everything you eat. If you are still stalled and absolutely sure you aren't eating more calories than recorded then you should see your doc. But I can tell you as someone who is hypothyroid that there isn't an easy fix even then. Once I was diagnosed I still didn't lose weight from the medication. Chances are you are either not waiting long enough to see a loss or you are eating more than you think. Good luck.5
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600-1000 calories per day + exericse and still no change in weight... something doesn't make sense.
Either you're not tracking your intake correctly, or you're not tracking scale weight changes over long enough periods of time to see what is really happening, or there is some bigger health issue at play that we can't diagnose.
80% of the time, it's the first one.
19 % of the time it's the second one.
1% of the time it's the third.
Can you speak to me like an idiot please. What are scale weight changes?
LOL. Sure.
Your daily weigh-in numbers. Do you use a weight-tracking app like Happy Scale or Libra? They even out your weight fluctuations, like this... The blue dots are my daily weigh-ins and they're all over the place. But see the solid blue line and how it's tracking downward? That's my actual weight loss.
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600-1000 calories per day + exericse and still no change in weight... something doesn't make sense.
Either you're not tracking your intake correctly, or you're not tracking scale weight changes over long enough periods of time to see what is really happening, or there is some bigger health issue at play that we can't diagnose.
80% of the time, it's the first one.
19 % of the time it's the second one.
1% of the time it's the third.
Can you speak to me like an idiot please. What are scale weight changes?
You say you aren't losing weight, right? How do you know that? I assume it's because you step on a scale to measure your weight. The scale measures body weight, that's true... but there are a lot of factors that can impact body weight at any given time. I can step on the scale in the morning and weight 175lbs, then again that night and weight 179. I didn't really gain 4lbs in that 12 hours, but my body is retaining more water, I probably have more food in my system, my hormones are different at night than they are in the morning, etc etc.
So it's important to track scale weight over long periods of time to see what's really happening. You can be doing everything right and still have it take 2-3 weeks before you see that reflected in the scale. Just because you go a few days or a week with no change on the scale doesn't mean you aren't losing weight.
Does that help?0 -
Would you be willing to set your food diary to public for a bit so we can see more of what might be going on?2
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Did you enter in all of your information into MFP and your goal to lose x lbs a week? It will give you a calorie target and you should be eating that, not 600-1000. Plus you are supposed to log your exercise and then eat those additional calories earned as well. Second, from what it sounds like, you weigh yourself once a week, and this past weigh-in, your weight was not down from the prior week? Did I get that right? If so- that's nothing to be concerned about. Weight loss doesnt always go down in neat increments and can often hide behind water retention, and other factors. Don't starve yourself. If you track your calories correctly and eat at MFP's suggested calorie target, you will lose weight, it just might not show on the scale every single time you weigh yourself.2
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diannethegeek wrote: »Would you be willing to set your food diary to public for a bit so we can see more of what might be going on?
Not sure how to share the diary as i dont like the MFP app. But here is what i eat EVERY SINGLE DAY. Im a creature of habbit and i have no issues eating the same things over and over again. I can usually go like this for up to a year before i start to get fed up.
Up until this week it has been...
Breakfast 9am - Nutrigrain bar and Black Coffee
Morning Snack 10am - Banana or Grapes
Lunch - Sabra hummas single with either carrots or cut up peppers
Dinner 630pm - Arugula or Salad with Chicken. Once in a while I'll have some ground turkey burgers with no bun or anything just salad.
Work out 630-730
Nothing after 8PM except water.
How long have you been eating exactly this? You never have off days or "cheats?" Are you accounting for everything, including stuff like drinks, cooking oil, etc?
What has your weight done while eating this? Can you show us your last few months of weigh-ins?
What are your stats? (age, weight, height, activity level, etc)
Have you had bloodwork and been checked out by a doc in the last year or so to rule out anything medical?3 -
In another thread you mention that you've lost 46 pounds in 7 weeks. Is that accurate? How long exactly have you been stalled (I haven't seen an answer to that yet, so point me towards it if I've missed it).
You've been averaging 6 and a half pounds of loss per week when a healthy rate of weight loss is 2 pounds max per week. If that's all accurate, I'm not surprised your body has stalled for a little while. Your cortisol levels have to be sky high at that rate and your body weight will start to do weird things.
So, one last question and then I promise I'll stop posting and wait for responses. Have you done a refeed or taken a diet break at all since you started? If you're not sure what that is, you can read about it here: https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10604863/of-refeeds-and-diet-breaks/p15 -
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